Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/39

OX THE INTERPRETATION OF PLATO'S PARMENIDES. 23 that is real has some quantitative determinations, we have treated a mere '"infinite" negative, whose only meaning is the absence of a " Form," as though it were itself a " Form" with a definite and ascertainable character of its own. The mistake is beyond palliation, but its repeated occurrence in the hypotheses is enough to show that, at the time of writing the Parmenides at least, Plato had none of that dislike of " negative Ideas " which is so properly felt by Aristotle and Mr. Archer-Hind. The culmination of the argument of Parmenides, as far as its logical and metaphysical value is concerned, is reached at 162 A, where he formally draws the inference to which he has throughout been leading up, " the non-existent One must even in some sense have reality, and must exist ". For we hold that the propositions we have hitherto made about it are true ; that is they are statements of reality. Thus we may say, attaching the fullest sense to our words, " the One is non-existent ". If we deny this, we must be prepared to assert " the One is not non-existent," and to say this is to affirm its existence even more unreservedly than we have now done. 1 "So," continues Parmenides, "it must have being-non-existent as a bond of not-being, just as being must have not-being-non-existent (as a bond of being) if it is to be perfectly real. For thus that which is would most truly be, and that which is not most truly not be, if that which is has the positive property of being existent and the negative property of not being non-existent, while that which is not has the positive property of being non-existent and the negative property of not being existent." If we bear in mind that the non-existence of which we are speaking is the relative unreality of being negatively determined, not the absolute non-existence which, as we have seen, has no meaning, we may, I think, venture to paraphrase this some- what cryptic sentence thus. Logically, of a subject with a positive predicate you can assert, positively, its possession of that predicate, negatively, the absence of any determination which would be incompatible with it ; of a subject negatively determined you can always deny any proposed attribute which involves the removal of the previous negation, and positively, you can always affirm the presence of a real ground for the negation. Thus every affirmation affords 1 The Greek is f i yap ^r] tcrrai fj.f) oi>, aXXn rt rov fivai avrfffft irpbs TO fj.ll flfiu (i.e., if it exchanges such qualified existence for non-existence) fi-ftvy fa-rai ov. My paraphrase of this difficult sentence is virtually a translation of Proclus in loc.