90. It is commonly said that, in the Second Part of his poem, Parmenides offered a dualistic theory of the origin of things as his own conjectural explanation of the sensible world, or that, as Gomperz says, “What he offered were the Opinions of Mortals; and this description did not merely cover other people’s opinions. It included his own as well, as far as they were not confined to the unassailable ground of an apparent philosophical necessity.”[454] Now it is true that in one place Aristotle appears to countenance a view of this sort, but nevertheless it is an anachronism.[455] Nor is it really Aristotle’s view. He was perfectly well aware that Parmenides did not admit the existence of “not-being” in any degree whatever; but it was a natural way speaking to call the cosmology of the Second Part of the poem that of Parmenides. His hearers would understand at once in what sense this was meant. At any rate, the Peripatetic tradition was that Parmenides, in the Second Part of the poem, meant to give the belief of “the many.” This is how Theophrastos put the matter, and Alexander seems to have spoken of the cosmology as something which Parmenides himself regarded as wholly false.[456] The other view comes from the Neoplatonists, and especially Simplicius, who very naturally regarded the Way of Truth as an account of the intelligible world, and the Way of Opinion as a description of the sensible. It need hardly be said that this is almost as great an anachronism as the Kantian parallelism suggested by Gomperz.[457] Parmenides himself tells us in the most unequivocal language that there is no truth at all in the theory which he expounds, and he gives it merely as the belief of “mortals.” It was this that led Theophrastos to speak of it as the opinion of “the many.” Footnote 454: _Greek Thinkers_, pp. 180 sqq. Footnote 455: _Met._ Α, 5. 986 b 31 (R. P. 121 a). Aristotle’s way of putting the matter is due to his interpretation of fr. 8, 54, which he took to mean that one of the two “forms” was to be identified with τὸ ὄν and the other with τὸ μὴ ὄν. Cf. _Gen. Corr._ Α, 3. 318 b 6, ὥσπερ Παρμενίδης λέγει δύο, τὸ ὂν καὶ τὸ μὴ ὂν εἶναι φάσκων. This last sentence shows clearly that when Aristotle says Παρμενίδης, he means what we should call “Parmenides.” He cannot have supposed that Parmenides admitted the being of τὸ μὴ ὄν in any sense whatever (cf. Plato, _Soph._ 241 d 5). Footnote 456: Theophr. _Phys. Op._ fr. 6 (_Dox._ p. 482; R. P. 121 a), κατὰ δόξαν δὲ τῶν πολλῶν εἰς τὸ γένεσιν ἀποδοῦναι τῶν φαινομένων δύο ποιῶν τὰς ἀρχάς. For Alexander cf. Simpl. _Phys._ p. 38, 24. Footnote 457: