Cephalos Ceph.You understand what I mean, do you not?

Certainly, said Socrates, I understand.

Then knowledge also, if abstract or absolute, would be knowledge of abstract or absolute truth?

Certainly.

And likewise each kind of absolute knowledge would be knowledge of each kind of absolute being, would it not?

Yes.

And would not the knowledge that exists among us be the knowledge of the truth that exists among us, and each kind of our knowledge 134b be the knowledge of each kind of truth that exists among us?

Yes, that is inevitable.

But the ideas themselves, as you, agree, we have not, neither can they be among us.

No, they cannot.

And the various classes of ideas are known by the absolute idea of knowledge?

Yes.

Which we do not possess.

No, we do not.

Then none of the ideas is known by us, since we do not partake of absolute knowledge.

Apparently not.

Then the absolute good and the beautiful and all 134c which we conceive to be absolute ideas are unknown to us.

I am afraid they are.

Now we come to a still more fearful consequence.

What is it?

You would say, no doubt, that if there is an absolute kind of knowledge, it is far more accurate than our knowledge, and the same of beauty and all the rest?

Yes.

And if anything partakes of absolute knowledge, you would say that there is no one more likely than God to possess this most accurate knowledge?

Of course. 134d

Then will it be possible for God to know human things, if he has absolute knowledge?

Why not?

Because, said Parmenides, we have agreed that those ideas are not relative to our world, nor our world to them, but each only to themselves.

Yes, we have agreed to that.

Then if this most perfect mastership and this most accurate knowledge are with God, his mastership can never rule us, 134e nor his knowledge know us or anything of our world; we do not rule the gods with our authority, nor do we know anything of the divine with our knowledge, and by the same reasoning, they likewise, being gods, are not our masters and have no knowledge of human affairs.

But surely this, said he, is a most amazing argument, if it makes us deprive God of knowledge.

Ceph. And yet, Socrates, said Parmenides, 135athese difficulties and many more besides are inseparable from the ideas, if these ideas of things exist and we declare that each of them is an absolute idea. Therefore he who hears such assertions is confused in his mind and argues that the ideas do not exist, and even if they do exist cannot by any possibility be known by man; and he thinks that what he says is reasonable, and, as I was saying just now, he is amazingly hard to convince. Only a man of very great natural gifts will be able to understand that everything has a class and absolute essence, 135b and only a still more wonderful man can find out all these facts and teach anyone else to analyze them properly and understand them.

I agree with you, Parmenides, said Socrates, for what you say is very much to my mind.

But on the other hand, said Parmenides, if anyone, with his mind fixed on all these objections and others like them, denies the existence of ideas of things, and does not assume an idea under which each individual thing is classed, he will be quite at a loss, 135c since he denies that the idea of each thing is always the same, and in this way he will utterly destroy the power of carrying on discussion. You seem to have been well aware of this.

Quite true, he said.

Then what will become of philosophy? To what can you turn, if these things are unknown?

I do not see at all, at least not at present.

No, Socrates, he said, for you try too soon, before you are properly trained, to define the beautiful, the just, the good, and all the other ideas. 135d You see I noticed it when I heard you talking yesterday with Aristoteles here. Your impulse towards dialectic is noble and divine, you may be assured of that; but exercise and train yourself while you are still young in an art which seems to be useless and is called by most people mere loquacity; otherwise the truth will escape you.

What, then, Parmenides, he said, is the method of training?

That which you heard Zeno practising, said he. 135e However, even when you were speaking to him I was pleased with you, because you would not discuss the doubtful question in terms of visible objects or in relation to them, but only with reference to what we conceive most entirely by the intellect and may call ideas.

Yes, he said, that is because I think that in that way it is quite easy to show that things experience likeness or unlikeness or anything else.

Ceph. Quite right, said he, but if you wish to get better training, you must do something more than that; 136ayou must consider not only what happens if a particular hypothesis is true, but also what happens if it is not true.

What do you mean? he said.

Take, for instance, he replied, that hypothesis of Zeno’s if the many exist, you should inquire what will happen to the many themselves in relation to themselves and to the one, and to the one in relation to itself and to the many, and also what will happen to the one and the many in relation to themselves and to each other, if the many do not exist. 136b And likewise if you suppose the existence or non-existence of likeness, what will happen to the things supposed and to other things in relation to themselves and to each other under each of the two hypotheses. The same applies to unlikeness and to motion and rest, creation and destruction, and even to being and not being. In brief, whatever the subject of your hypothesis, if you suppose that it is or is not, or that it experiences any other affection, you must consider what happens to it and to any other particular things you may choose, and to a greater number and to all in the same way; 136c and you must consider other things in relation to themselves and to anything else you may choose in any instance, whether you suppose that the subject of your hypothesis exists or does not exist, if you are to train yourself completely to see the truth perfectly.

Parmenides, he said, it is a stupendous amount of study which you propose, and I do not understand very well. Why do you not yourself frame an hypothesis and discuss it, to make me understand better? 136d That is a great task, Socrates, he said, to impose upon a man of my age.

But you, Zeno, said Socrates, why do not you do it for us?

Pythodorus said that Zeno answered with a smile: Let us ask it of Parmenides himself, Socrates; for there is a great deal in what he says, and perhaps you do not see how heavy a task you are imposing upon him. If there were more of us, it would not be fair to ask it of him; for it is not suitable for him to speak on such subjects before many, especially at his age; 136e for the many do not know that except by this devious passage through all things the mind cannot attain to the truth. So I, Parmenides, join Socrates in his request, that I myself may hear the method, which I have not heard for a long time.

Antiphon said that Pythodorus told him that when Zeno said this he himself and Antisthenes and the rest begged Parmenides to show his meaning by an example and not to refuse. And Parmenides said: I must perforce do as you ask.

Ceph. And yet I feel very much like the horse in the poem of Ibycus ¹—an old race-horse who was entered for a chariot race and was trembling with fear of what was before him, because he knew it by experience. Ibycus says he is compelled to fall in love against his will in his old age, and compares himself to the horse. So I am filled with terror when I remember through what a fearful ocean of words I must swim, old man that I am. However, I will do it, for I must be obliging, especially since we are, as Zeno says, alone. 137bWell, how shall we begin? What shall be our first hypothesis? Or, since you are determined that I must engage in a laborious pastime, shall I begin with myself, taking my own hypothesis and discussing the consequences of the supposition that the one exists or that it does not exist?

By all means, said Zeno.

Who then, said he, to answer my questions? Shall we say the youngest? He would be least likely to be over-curious and most likely to say what he thinks and moreover his replies would give me a chance to rest. 137c I am ready, Parmenides, to do that, said Aristoteles, for I am the youngest, so you mean me. Ask your questions and I will answer.

Well then, said he, if the one exists, the one cannot be many, can it? No, of course not. Then there can be no parts of it, nor can it be a whole. How is that? The part surely is part of a whole. Yes. And what is the whole? Is not a whole that of which no part is wanting? 137d Certainly. Then in both cases the one would consist of parts, being a whole and having parts. Inevitably. Then in both cases the one would be many, not one. True. Yet it must be not many, but one. Yes. Then the one, if it is to be one, will not be a whole and will not have parts. No.

And if it has no parts, it can have no beginning, or middle, or end, for those would be parts of it? Quite right. Beginning and end are, however, the limits of everything. Of course. Then the one, if it has neither beginning nor end, is unlimited. Yes, it is unlimited. And it is without form, 137e for it partakes neither of the round nor of the straight. How so? The round, of course, is that of which the extremes are everywhere equally distant from the center. Yes. And the straight, again, is that of which the middle is in the nearest line between the two extremes. It is. Then the one would have parts and would be many, whether it partook of straight or of round form. Certainly. Then it is neither straight nor round, since it has no parts. 138a Right.