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 combination of rest and motion, but something different from them.
Theaetetus: So it would appear.
Stranger: Being, then, according to its own nature, is neither in motion nor at rest.
Theaetetus: That is very much the truth.
Stranger: Where, then, is a man to look for help who would have any clear or fixed notion of being in his mind?
Theaetetus: Where, indeed?
Stranger: I scarcely think that he can look anywhere; for that which is not in motion must be at rest, and again, that which is not at rest must be in motion; but being is placed outside of both these classes. Is this possible?
Theaetetus: Utterly impossible.
Stranger: Here, then, is another thing which we ought to bear in mind.
Theaetetus: What?
Stranger: When we were asked to what we were to assign the appellation of not-being, we were in the greatest difficulty:—do you remember?