not to falsehood, which is the image or expression of Not-being. Falsehood
is wholly false; and to speak of true falsehood, as Theaetetus does
(Theaet.), is a contradiction in terms. The fallacy to us is ridiculous
and transparent,--no better than those which Plato satirizes in the
Euthydemus. It is a confusion of falsehood and negation, from which Plato
himself is not entirely free. Instead of saying, 'This is not in
accordance with facts,' 'This is proved by experience to be false,' and
from such examples forming a general notion of falsehood, the mind of the
Greek thinker was lost in the mazes of the Eleatic philosophy. And the
greater importance which Plato attributes to this fallacy, compared with
others, is due to the influence which the Eleatic philosophy exerted over
him. He sees clearly to a certain extent; but he has not yet attained a
complete mastery over the ideas of his predecessors--they are still ends to
him, and not mere instruments of thought. They are too rough-hewn to be
harmonized in a single structure, and may be compared to rocks which
project or overhang in some ancient city's walls. There are many such
imperfect syncretisms or eclecticisms in the history of philosophy. A
modern philosopher, though emancipated from scholastic notions of essence
or substance, might still be seriously affected by the abstract idea of
necessity; or though accustomed, like Bacon, to criticize abstract notions,
might not extend his criticism to the syllogism.

The saying or thinking the thing that is not, would be the popular
definition of falsehood or error. If we were met by the Sophist's
objection, the reply would probably be an appeal to experience. Ten
thousands, as Homer would say (mala murioi), tell falsehoods and fall into
errors. And this is Plato's reply, both in the Cratylus and Sophist.
'Theaetetus is flying,' is a sentence in form quite as grammatical as
'Theaetetus is sitting'; the difference between the two sentences is, that
the one is true and the other false. But, before making this appeal to