In short, we may truly say, if unity do not exist nothing exists (166 C). So, summing up into one enigmatic phrase the results of all the hypotheses, Parmenides concludes: "We may say it seems, that whether the One exist or not, both it and the Manifold in every way, in relation both to themselves and to each other, are and are not, appear and do not appear". To which the perplexed interlocutor can only reply, "Just so".
We may now properly subjoin to the detailed examination of the foregoing arguments such a tabulated statement of their inner relation to one another as we declined to supply at the opening of the discussion. And first we may say that, if our reading of the individual hypotheses has been correct in its main features, the purpose aimed at and attained by Parmenides has been the tracing out to their logical conclusions two opposite and mutually exclusive views of the nature of the world's unity. One of these views is that which treats that unity as the one and only reality, and proceeds in reliance on the principle of Identity to stigmatise whatever is other than it as non-existent. The other view, starting not from the formal principle of Identity, but from the more practical axiom that the unity of the world must at least be real, leads on the other hand to the recognition of plurality, diversity, motion, and change as essential to its existence and inseparable from it. And the final outcome of our lengthy inquiry has been that on the first view, just as much as on that opposite theory which treats all unity as a fiction, affirmation, negation, knowledge, opinion, and discourse itself are all impossible, while on the second all are possible, and all, in their varying degrees, reflect the nature of the real. Or, to set the results of the individual hypotheses out in tabular form:—
Hypotheses 1 and 5 investigate the consequences of the first theory, and 7 and 9 those of the corresponding negation. Hypotheses 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, examine from all points of view the implications of the second theory.
In particular:—
1 and 5 show that if the reality of (
Greek characters) be taken as
meaning that everything else is unreal, predication is
impossible, whether the subject be (Greek characters) (1) or anything else (5). 7 and 9 show that similarly if (Greek characters) have no reality at all, predication, whether about (Greek characters) (7) or anything else (9), is impossible.
2 and its corollary 3 show for (Greek characters) and 4 for (Greek characters) that predication is possible, and that conflicting pre-
