ywhere?

THEAETETUS: No.

STRANGER: And surely contend we must in every possible way against him
who would annihilate knowledge and reason and mind, and yet ventures to
speak confidently about anything.

THEAETETUS: Yes, with all our might.

STRANGER: Then the philosopher, who has the truest reverence for these
qualities, cannot possibly accept the notion of those who say that
the whole is at rest, either as unity or in many forms: and he will
be utterly deaf to those who assert universal motion. As children say
entreatingly 'Give us both,' so he will include both the moveable and
immoveable in his definition of being and all.

THEAETETUS: Most true.

STRANGER: And now, do we seem to have gained a fair notion of being?

THEAETETUS: Yes truly.

STRANGER: Alas, Theaetetus, methinks that we are now only beginning to
see the real difficulty of the enquiry into the nature of it.

THEAETETUS: What do you mean?

STRANGER: O my friend, do you not see that nothing can exceed our
ignorance, and yet we fancy that we are saying something good?

THEAETETUS: I certainly thought that we were; and I do not at all
understand how we never found out our desperate case.

STRANGER: Reflect: after having made these admissions, may we not be
justly asked the same questions which we ourselves were asking of those
who said that all was hot and cold?

THEAETETUS: What were they? Will you recall them to my mind?

STRANGER: To be sure I will, and I will remind you of them, by putting
the same questions to you which I did to them, and then we shall get on.

THEAETETUS: True.

STRANGER: Would you not say that rest and motion are in the most entire
opposition to one another?

THEAETETUS: Of course.

STRANGER: And yet you would say that both and either of them equally
are?

THEAETETUS: I should.

STRANGER: And when you admit that both or either of them are, do you
mean to say that both or either of them are in motion?

THEAETETUS: Certainly not.

STRANGER: Or do you wish to imply that they are both at rest, when you
say that they are?

THEAETETUS: Of course not.

STRANGER: Then you conceive of being as some third and distinct nature,
under which rest and motion are alike included; and, observing that they
both participate in being, you declare that they are.

THEAETETUS: Truly we seem to have an intimation that being is some third
thing, when we say that rest and motion are.

STRANGER: Then being is not the combinati