plurality and unity, which were supposed to be joined and severed by love
and hate, some maintaining that this process was perpetually going on (e.g.
Heracleitus); others (e.g. Empedocles) that there was an alternation of
them. Of the Pythagoreans or of Anaxagoras he makes no distinct mention.
His chief opponents are, first, Eristics or Megarians; secondly, the
Materialists.

The picture which he gives of both these latter schools is indistinct; and
he appears reluctant to mention the names of their teachers. Nor can we
easily determine how much is to be assigned to the Cynics, how much to the
Megarians, or whether the 'repellent Materialists' (Theaet.) are Cynics or
Atomists, or represent some unknown phase of opinion at Athens. To the
Cynics and Antisthenes is commonly attributed, on the authority of
Aristotle, the denial of predication, while the Megarians are said to have
been Nominalists, asserting the One Good under many names to be the true
Being of Zeno and the Eleatics, and, like Zeno, employing their negative
dialectic in the refutation of opponents. But the later Megarians also
denied predication; and this tenet, which is attributed to all of them by
Simplicius, is certainly in accordance with their over-refining philosophy.
The 'tyros young and old,' of whom Plato speaks, probably include both. At
any rate, we shall be safer in accepting the general description of them
which he has given, and in not attempting to draw a precise line between
them.

Of these Eristics, whether Cynics or Megarians, several characteristics are
found in Plato:--

1. They pursue verbal oppositions; 2. they make reasoning impossible by
their over-accuracy in the use of language; 3. they deny predication; 4.
they go from unity to plurality, without passing through the intermediate