......The one which is not, then, is both in motion and at rest, is altered and
unaltered, and becomes and is destroyed, and does not become and is not destroyed.
Once more, let us ask the question, If one is not, what happens in regard
to one? The expression ‘is not’ implies negation of being:—do we mean by this
to say that a thing, which is not, in a certain sense is? or do we mean absolutely
to deny being of it? The latter. Then the one which is not can neither be nor
become nor perish nor experience change of substance or place. Neither can
rest, or motion, or greatness, or smallness, or equality, or unlikeness, or likeness
either to itself or other, or attribute or relation, or now or hereafter or formerly,
or knowledge or opinion or perception or name or anything else be asserted of
that which is not.
Once more, if one is not, what becomes of the others? If we speak
of them they must be, and their very name implies difference, and difference
implies relation, not to the one, which is not, but to one another. And they
are others of each other not as units but as infinities, the least of which is also
infinity, and capable of infinitesimal division. And they will have no unity or
number, but only a semblance of unity and number; and the least of them will
appear large and manifold in comparison with the infinitesimal fractions into
which it may be divided. Further, each particle will have the appearance of
being equal with the fractions. For in passing from the greater to the less it
must reach an intermediate point, which is equality. Moreover, each particle
although having a limit in relation to itself and to other particles, yet it has
neither beginning, middle, nor end; for there is always a beginning before the
beginning, and a middle within the middle, and an end beyond the end, because
the infinitesimal division is never arrested by the one. Thus all being is one at
a distance, and broken up when near, and like at a distance and unlike when
near; and also the particles which compose being seem to be like and unlike, in
rest and motion, in generation and corruption, in contact and separation, if one
is not.
Once more, let us inquire, If the one is not, and the others of the one
are, what follows? In the first place, the others will not be the one, nor the
many, for in that case the one would be contained in them; neither will they
appear to be one or many; because they have no communion or participation
in that which is not, nor semblance of that which is not. If one is not, the
others neither are, nor appear to be one or many, like or unlike, in contact or
separation. In short, if one is not, nothing is.
The result of all which is, that whether one is or is not, one and the others,
in relation to themselves and to one another, are and are not, and appear to be
and appear not to be, in all manner of ways.
I. On the first hypothesis we may remark: first, That one is one is an identical
proposition, from which we might expect that no further consequences could be
deduced. The train of consequences which follows, is inferred by altering the
predicate into ‘not many.’ Yet, perhaps, if a strict Eristic had been present,
he might have affirmed that the not many presented a different aspect of the
conception from the one, and was therefore not identical with it.
Such a subtlety would be very much in character with the Zenonian
dialectic. Secondly, We may note, that the conclusion is really involved in the
premises. For one is conceived as one, in a sense which excludes all predicates.
When the meaning of one has been reduced to a point, there is no use in saying
that it has neither parts nor magnitude. Thirdly, The conception of the same is,
first of all, identified with the one; and then by a further analysis distinguished
from, and even opposed to it. Fourthly, We may detect notions, which have
reappeared in modern philosophy, e.g. the bare abstraction of undefined unity,
answering to the Hegelian ‘Seyn,’ or the identity of contradictions ‘that which is
older is also younger,’ etc., or the Kantian conception of an a priori synthetical
proposition ‘one is.’
II. In the first series of propositions the word ‘is’ is really the copula; in the
second, the verb of existence. As in the first series, the negative consequence
followed from one being affirmed to be equivalent to the not many; so here the
affirmative consequence is deduced from one being equivalent to the many.
In the former case, nothing could be predicated of the one, but now
everything—multitude, relation, place, time, transition. One is regarded in
all the aspects of one, and with a reference to all the consequences which flow,
either from the combination or the separation of them. The notion of transition
involves the singular extra-temporal conception of ‘suddenness.’ This idea
of ‘suddenness’ is based upon the contradiction which is involved in supposing
that anything can be in two places at once. It is a mere fiction; and we may observe
that similar antinomies have led modern philosophers to deny the reality
of time and space. It is not the infinitesimal of time, but the negative of time.
By the help of this invention the conception of change, which sorely exercised
the minds of early thinkers, seems to be, but is not really at all explained. The
difficulty arises out of the imperfection of language, and should therefore be no
longer regarded as a difficulty at all. The only way of meeting it, if it exists,
is to acknowledge that this rather puzzling double conception is necessary to
the expression of the phenomena of motion or change, and that this and similar
double notions, instead of being anomalies, are among the higher and more
potent instruments of human thought...........
