[60] Parm. Frag. v. 81.
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αὐτὰρ ἀκίνητον μεγάλων ἐν πείρασι δεσμῶν
ἐστὶν, ἄναρχον, ἄπαυστον, &c. |
[61] Zeller (Die Philosophie der Griech., i. p. 403, ed. 2) maintains, in my opinion justly, that the Ens Parmenideum is conceived by its author as extended. Strümpell (Geschichte der theor. Phil. der Griech., s. 44) represents it as unextended: but this view seems not reconcilable with the remaining fragments.
[62] Parm. Frag. v. 102.
He recognises a region of opinion, phenomenal and relative, apart from Ens.
In this subject Ens, with its few predicates, chiefly negative, consisted all that Parmenides called Truth. Everything else belonged to the region of Opinion, which embraced all that was phenomenal, relative, and transient: all that involved a reference to man’s senses, apprehension, and appreciation, all the indefinite diversity of observed facts and inferences. Plurality, succession, change, motion, generation, destruction, division of parts, &c., belonged to this category. Parmenides did not deny that he and other men had perceptions and beliefs corresponding to these terms, but he denied their application to the Ens or the self-existent. We are conscious of succession, but the self-existent has no succession: we perceive change of colour and other sensible qualities, and change of place or motion, but Ens neither changes nor moves. We talk of things generated or destroyed — things coming into being or going out of being — but this phrase can have no application to the self-existent Ens, which is always and cannot properly be called either past or future.[63] Nothing is really generated or destroyed, but only in appearance to us, or relatively to our apprehension.[64] In like manner we perceive plurality of objects, and divide objects into parts. But Ens is essentially One, and cannot be divided.[65] Though you may divide a piece of matter you cannot divide the extension of which that matter forms part: you cannot (to use the expression of Hobbes[66]) pull asunder the first mile from the second, or the first hour from the second. The milestone, or the striking of the clock, serve as marks to assist you in making a mental division, and in considering or describing one hour and one mile apart from the next. This, however, is your own act, relative to yourself: there is no real division of extension into miles, or of duration into hours. You may consider the same space or time as one or as many, according to your convenience: as one hour or as sixty minutes, as one mile or eight furlongs. But all this is a process of your own mind and thoughts; another man may divide the same total in a way different from you. Your division noway modifies the reality without you, whatever that may be — the Extended and Enduring Ens — which remains still a continuous one, undivided and unchanged.
[63] Parm. Frag. v. 96.
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—— ἐπεὶ τό γε
μοῖρ’ ἐπέδησεν Οἶον ἀκίνητον τελέθειν τῷ πάντ’ ὄνομ’ εἶναι, Ὄσσα βροτοὶ κατέθεντο, πεποιθότες εἶναι ἀληθῆ, γίγνεσθαί τε καὶ ὄλλυσθαι, εἶναί τε καὶ οὐκὶ, καὶ τόπον ἀλλάσσειν, διά τε χρόα φανὸν ἀμείβειν· v. 75:— εἴ γε γένοιτ’, οὐκ ἔστ’· οὐδ’ εἴ πότε μέλλει ἔσεσθαι· τῶς γένεσις μὲν ἀπέσβεσται, καὶ ἄπιστος ὄλεθρος |
[64] Aristotel. De Cœlo, iii. 1. Οἱ μὲν γὰρ αὐτῶν ὅλως ἀνεῖλον γένεσιν καὶ φθοράν· οὐθὲν γὰρ οὔτε γίγνεσθαί φασιν οὔτε φθείρεσθαι τῶν ὄντων, ἀλλὰ μόνον δοκεῖν ἡμῖν· οἶον οἱ περὶ Μέλισσον καὶ Παρμενίδην, &c.
[65] Parm. Frag. v. 77.