Theaetetus: How is that possible?
Stranger: Or shall we say that both inhere in perfect being, but that it has no soul which contains them?
Theaetetus: And in what other way can it contain them?
Stranger: Or that being has mind and life and soul, but although endowed with soul remains absolutely unmoved?
Theaetetus: All three suppositions appear to me to be irrational.
Stranger: Under being, then, we must include motion, and that which is moved.
Theaetetus: Certainly.
Stranger: Then, Theaetetus, our inference is, that if there is no motion, neither is there any mind anywhere, or about anything or belonging to anyone.
Theaetetus: Quite true.
Stranger: And yet this equally follows, if we grant that all things are in motion—upon this view too mind has no existence.
Theaetetus: How so?
Stranger: Do you think that sameness of condition and mode and subject could ever exist without a principle of rest?
Theaetetus: Certainly not.
Stranger: Can you see how without them mind could exist, or come into existence anywhere?
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.