I. On the first hypothesis we may remark: first, That one is one is an
identical proposition, from which we might expect that no further
consequences could be deduced. The train of consequences which follows, is
inferred by altering the predicate into 'not many.' Yet, perhaps, if a
strict Eristic had been present, oios aner ei kai nun paren, he might have
affirmed that the not many presented a different aspect of the conception
from the one, and was therefore not identical with it. Such a subtlety
would be very much in character with the Zenonian dialectic. Secondly, We
may note, that the conclusion is really involved in the premises. For one
is conceived as one, in a sense which excludes all predicates. When the
meaning of one has been reduced to a point, there is no use in saying that
it has neither parts nor magnitude. Thirdly, The conception of the same
is, first of all, identified with the one; and then by a further analysis
distinguished from, and even opposed to it. Fourthly, We may detect
notions, which have reappeared in modern philosophy, e.g. the bare
abstraction of undefined unity, answering to the Hegelian 'Seyn,' or the
identity of contradictions 'that which is older is also younger,' etc., or
the Kantian conception of an a priori synthetical proposition 'one is.'

II. In the first series of propositions the word 'is' is really the
copula; in the second, the verb of existence. As in the first series, the
negative consequence followed from one being affirmed to be equivalent to
the not many; so here the affirmative consequence is deduced from one being
equivalent to the many.

In the former case, nothing could be predicated of the one, but now
everything--multitude, relation, place, time, transition. One is regarded
in all the aspects of one, and with a reference to all the consequences
which flow, either from the combination or the separation of them. The
notion of transition involves the singular extra-temporal conception of