contradictions, is no real refutation, but is clearly the new-born babe

of some one who is only beginning to approach the problem of being.

THEAETETUS: To be sure.

STRANGER: For certainly, my friend, the attempt to separate all

existences from one another is a barbarism and utterly unworthy of an

educated or philosophical mind.

THEAETETUS: Why so?

STRANGER: The attempt at universal separation is the final annihilation

of all reasoning; for only by the union of conceptions with one another

do we attain to discourse of reason.

THEAETETUS: True.

STRANGER: And, observe that we were only just in time in making a

resistance to such separatists, and compelling them to admit that one

thing mingles with another.

THEAETETUS: Why so?

STRANGER: Why, that we might be able to assert discourse to be a kind of

being; for if we could not, the worst of all consequences would follow;

we should have no philosophy. Moreover, the necessity for determining

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Sophist