ly
deprived of it, we could no more hold discourse; and deprived of it we
should be if we admitted that there was no admixture of natures at all.

THEAETETUS: Very true. But I do not understand why at this moment we
must determine the nature of discourse.

STRANGER: Perhaps you will see more clearly by the help of the following
explanation.

THEAETETUS: What explanation?

STRANGER: Not-being has been acknowledged by us to be one among many
classes diffused over all being.

THEAETETUS: True.

STRANGER: And thence arises the question, whether not-being mingles with
opinion and language.

THEAETETUS: How so?

STRANGER: If not-being has no part in the proposition, then all things
must be true; but if not-being has a part, then false opinion and false
speech are possible, for to think or to say what is not--is falsehood,
which thus arises in the region of thought and in speech.

THEAETETUS: That is quite true.

STRANGER: And where there is falsehood surely there must be deceit.

THEAETETUS: Yes.

STRANGER: And if there is deceit, then all things must be full of idols
and images and fancies.

THEAETETUS: To be sure.

STRANGER: Into that region the Sophist, as we said, made his escape,
and, when he had got there, denied the very possibility of falsehood;
no one, he argued, either conceived or uttered falsehood, inasmuch as
not-being did not in any way partake of being.

THEAETETUS: True.

STRANGER: And now, not-being has been shown to partake of being, and
therefore he will not continue fighting in this direction, but he will
probably say that some ideas partake of not-being, and some not, and
that language and opinion are of the non-partaking class; and he will
still fight to the death against the existence of the image-making and
phantastic art, in which we have placed him, because, as he will say,
opinion and language do not partake of not-being, and unless this
participation exists, there can be no such thing as falsehood. And, with
the view of meeting this evasion, we must begin by enquiring into the
nature of language, opinion, and imagination, in order that when we
find them we may find also that they have communion with not-being, and,
having made out the connexion of them, may thus prove that falsehood
exists; and therein we will imprison the Sophist, if he deserves it, or,
if not, we will let him go again and look for him in another class.

THEAETETUS: Certainly, Stranger, there appears to be t