And are not 'knowing' and 'being known' active and passive? That which is
known is affected by knowledge, and therefore is in motion. And, indeed,
how can we imagine that perfect being is a mere everlasting form, devoid of
motion and soul? for there can be no thought without soul, nor can soul be
devoid of motion. But neither can thought or mind be devoid of some
principle of rest or stability. And as children say entreatingly, 'Give us
both,' so the philosopher must include both the moveable and immoveable in
his idea of being. And yet, alas! he and we are in the same difficulty
with which we reproached the dualists; for motion and rest are
contradictions--how then can they both exist? Does he who affirms this
mean to say that motion is rest, or rest motion? 'No; he means to assert
the existence of some third thing, different from them both, which neither
rests nor moves.' But how can there be anything which neither rests nor
moves? Here is a second difficulty about being, quite as great as that
about not-being. And we may hope that any light which is thrown upon the
one may extend to the other.

Leaving them for the present, let us enquire what we mean by giving many
names to the same thing, e.g. white, good, tall, to man; out of which tyros
old and young derive such a feast of amusement. Their meagre minds refuse
to predicate anything of anything; they say that good is good, and man is
man; and that to affirm one of the other would be making the many one and
the one many. Let us place them in a class with our previous opponents,
and interrogate both of them at once. Shall we assume (1) that being and
rest and motion, and all other things, are incommunicable with one another?
or (2) that they all have indiscriminate communion? or (3) that there is
communion of some and not of others? And we will consider the first
hypothesis first of all.

(1) If we suppose the universal separation of kinds, all theories alike are