afterwards. Something that they found in them, or brought to them--some
echo or anticipation of a great truth or error, exercised a wonderful
influence over their minds. To do the Parmenides justice, we should
imagine similar aporiai raised on themes as sacred to us, as the notions of
One or Being were to an ancient Eleatic. 'If God is, what follows? If God
is not, what follows?' Or again: If God is or is not the world; or if God
is or is not many, or has or has not parts, or is or is not in the world,
or in time; or is or is not finite or infinite. Or if the world is or is
not; or has or has not a beginning or end; or is or is not infinite, or
infinitely divisible. Or again: if God is or is not identical with his
laws; or if man is or is not identical with the laws of nature. We can
easily see that here are many subjects for thought, and that from these and
similar hypotheses questions of great interest might arise. And we also
remark, that the conclusions derived from either of the two alternative
propositions might be equally impossible and contradictory.

When we ask what is the object of these paradoxes, some have answered that
they are a mere logical puzzle, while others have seen in them an Hegelian
propaedeutic of the doctrine of Ideas. The first of these views derives
support from the manner in which Parmenides speaks of a similar method
being applied to all Ideas. Yet it is hard to suppose that Plato would
have furnished so elaborate an example, not of his own but of the Eleatic
dialectic, had he intended only to give an illustration of method. The
second view has been often overstated by those who, like Hegel himself,
have tended to confuse ancient with modern philosophy. We need not deny
that Plato, trained in the school of Cratylus and Heracleitus, may have
seen that a contradiction in terms is sometimes the best expression of a
truth higher than either (compare Soph.). But his ideal theory is not
based on antinomies. The correlation of Ideas was the metaphysical
difficulty of the age in which he lived; and the Megarian and Cynic