THEAETETUS: Clearly, not-being; and this is the very nature for which

the Sophist compelled us to search.

STRANGER: And has not this, as you were saying, as real an existence

as any other class? May I not say with confidence that not-being has an

assured existence, and a nature of its own? Just as the great was found

to be great and the beautiful beautiful, and the not-great not-great,

and the not-beautiful not-beautiful, in the same manner not-being has

been found to be and is not-being, and is to be reckoned one among the

many classes of being. Do you, Theaetetus, still feel any doubt of this?

THEAETETUS: None whatever.

STRANGER: Do you observe that our scepticism has carried us beyond the

range of Parmenides' prohibition?

THEAETETUS: In what?

STRANGER: We have advanced to a further point, and shown him more than

he forbad us to investigate.

THEAETETUS: How is that?

STRANGER: Why, because he says--

112