(2)
For if it were added to any other thing it would not make it any
larger; for nothing can gain in magnitude by the addition of what has
no magnitude, and thus it follows at once that what was added was
nothing.[884] But if, when this is taken away from another thing, that
thing is no less; and again, if, when it is added to another thing,
that does not increase, it is plain that what was added was nothing,
and what was taken away was nothing. R. P. 132.
Footnote 884:
Zeller marks a lacuna here. Zeno must certainly have shown that the
subtraction of a point does not make a thing less; but he may have
done so before the beginning of our present fragment.
(3)
If things are a many, they must be just as many as they are, and
neither more nor less. Now, if they are as many as they are, they will
be finite in number.
If things are a many, they will be infinite in number; for there will
always be other things between them, and others again between these.
And so things are infinite in number. R. P. 133.[885]
Footnote 885:
This is what Aristotle calls “the argument from dichotomy” (_Phys._ Α,
3. 187 a 1; R. P. 134 b). If a line is made up of points, we ought to
be able to answer the question, “How many points are there in a given
line?” On the other hand, you can always divide a line or any part of
it into two halves; so that, if a line is made up of points, there
will always be more of them than any number you assign.
[Sidenote: The unit.]
161. If we hold that the unit has no magnitude—and this is required by
what Aristotle calls the argument from dichotomy,[886]—then everything
must be infinitely small. Nothing made up of units without magnitude can
itself have any magnitude. On the other hand, if we insist that the
units of which things are built up are something and not nothing, we
must hold that everything is infinitely great. The line is infinitely
divisible; and, according to this view, it will be made up of an
infinite number of units, each of which has some magnitude.
Footnote 886:
See last note.
That this argument refers to points is proved by an instructive passage
from Aristotle’s _Metaphysics_.[887] We read there—
If the unit is indivisible, it will, according to the proposition of
Zeno, be nothing. That which neither makes anything larger by its
addition to it, nor smaller by its subtraction from it, is not, he
says, a real thing at all; for clearly what is real must be a
magnitude. And, if it is a magnitude, it is corporeal; for that is
corporeal which is in every dimension. The other things, _i.e._ the
plane and the line, if added in one way will make things larger, added
in another they will produce no effect; but the point and the unit
cannot make things larger in any way.
Footnote 887:
Arist. _Met._ Β, 4. 1001 b 7.
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