[137] Plato, Sophist. pp. 246 B, 248 B. The same opinion is advanced by Sokrates in the Republic, v. p. 479 B-C. Phædon, pp. 78-79. Compare Sophist, p. 248 C with Symposion, p. 211 B. In the former passage, τὸ πάσχειν is affirmed of the Ideas: in the latter passage, τὸ πάσχειν μηδέν.
[138] Plato, Sophist. p. 245 E. Yet he afterwards talks of τὸ λαμπρὸν τοῦ ὄντος ἀεὶ as contrasted with τὸ σκοτεινὸν τοῦ μὴ ὄντος, p. 254 A, which seems not consistent.
[139] Plato, Sophist. p. 249 B. “Ipsæ ideæ per se simplices sunt et immutabiles: sunt æternæ, ac semper fuerunt ab omni liberæ mutatione,” says Stallbaum ad Platon. Republ. v. p. 476; see also his Prolegg. to the Parmenidês, pp. 39-40. This is the way in which the Platonic Ideas are presented in the Timæus, Republic, Phædon, &c., and the way in which they are conceived by the εἰδῶν φίλοι in the Sophistês, whom the Eleate seeks to confute.
Zeller’s chapter on Plato seems to me to represent not so much what we read in the separate dialogues, as the attempt of an able and ingenious man to bring out something like a consistent and intelligible doctrine which will do credit to Plato, and to soften down all the inconsistencies (see Philos. der Griech. vol. ii. pp. 394-415-429 ed. 2nd).
[140] See a striking passage about the unchangeableness of Forms or Ideas in the Kratylus, p. 439 D-E; also Philêbus, p. 15.
In the Parmenidês (p. 132 D) the supposition τὰ εἴδη ἐστάναι ἐν τῇ φύσει is one of those set up by Sokrates and impugned by Parmenides. Nevertheless in an earlier passage of that dialogue Sokrates is made to include κίνησις and στάσις among the εἴδη (p. 129 E). It will be found, however, that when Parmenides comes to question Sokrates, What εἴδη do you recognise? attributes and subjects only (the latter with hesitation) are included: no such thing as actions, processes, events — τὸ ποιεῖν καὶ πάσχειν (p. 130). In Republic vii. 529 D, we find mention made of τὸ ὂν τάχος and ἡ οὖσα βραδύτης, which implies κίνησις as among the εἴδη. In Theætêt. pp. 152 D, 156 A, κίνησις is noted as the constituent and characteristic of Fieri — τὸ γιγνόμενον — which belongs to the domain of sensible perception, as distinguished from permanent and unchangeable Ens.
The persons whom Plato here attacks as Friends of Forms are those who held the same doctrine as Plato himself espouses in Phædon, Republic, &c.
If we examine the reasoning of the Eleate, in the Sophistês, against the persons whom he calls the Friends of Forms, we shall see that these latter are not Parmenideans only, but also Plato himself in the Phædon, Republic, and elsewhere. We shall also see that the ground, taken up by the Eleate, is much the same as that which was afterwards taken up by Aristotle against the Platonic Ideas. Plato, in most of his dialogues, declares Ideas, Forms, Entia, to be eternal substances distinct and apart from the flux and movement of particulars: yet he also declares, nevertheless, that particulars have a certain communion or participation with the Ideas, and are discriminated and denominated according to such participation. Aristotle controverts both these doctrines: first, the essential separation of the two, which he declares to be untrue: next, the participation or coming together of the two separate elements — which he declares to be an unmeaning fiction or poetical metaphor, introduced in order to elude the consequences of the original fallacy.[141] He maintains that the two (Entia and Fientia — Universals and Particulars) have no reality except in conjunction and implication together; though they are separable by reason (λόγῳ χωριστὰ — τῷ εἰναι, χωριστά) or abstraction, and though we may reason about them apart, and must often reason about them apart.[142] Now it is this implication and conjunction of the Universal with its particulars, which is the doctrine of the Sophistês, and which distinguishes it from other Platonic dialogues, wherein the Universal is transcendentalized — lodged in a separate world from particulars. No science or intelligence is possible (says the Eleate in the Sophistês) either upon the theory of those who pronounce all Ens to be constant and unchangeable, or upon that of those who declare all Ens to be fluent and variable. We must recognise both together, the constant and the variable, as equally real and as making up the totality of Ens.[143] This result, though not stated in the language which Aristotle would have employed, coincides very nearly with the Aristotelian doctrine, in one of the main points on which Aristotle distinguishes his own teaching from that of his master.
[141] Aristot. Metaphys. A. 991-992.
[142] Aristot. Metaph. vi. 1038, a-b. The Scholion of Alexander here (p. 763, b. 36, Brandis) is clearer than Aristotle himself. Τὸ προκείμενόν ἐστι δεῖξαι ὡς οὐδὲν τῶν καθόλου οὐσία ἔστιν· οὔτε γὰρ ὁ καθόλου ἄνθρωπος ἢ ὁ καθόλου ἵππος, οὔτε ἄλλο οὐδέν· ἀλλ’ ἕκαστον αὐτων διανοίας ἀπόμαξίς ἐστιν ἀπὸ τῶν καθ’ ἕκαστα καὶ πρώτως καὶ μάλιστα λεγομένων οὐσιῶν καὶ ὁμοίωμα.