This fragment is quoted by Simpl. _de Caelo_, p. 557, 16 (R. P. 144). The insertion of the word “infinite” is justified by the paraphrase (R. P. 144 a) and by _M.X.G._ 974 a 11, πᾶν δὲ ἄπειρον ὂν <ἓν> εἶναι· εἰ γὰρ δύο ἢ πλείω εἴη, πέρατ’ ἂν εἶναι ταῦτα πρὸς ἄλληλα. Footnote 902: I have ventured to insert this, though the actual words are nowhere quoted, and it is not in Diels. It is represented in the paraphrase (R. P. 145 a) and in _M.X.G._ 974 a 13 (R. P. 144 a). Footnote 903: Reading ὁμουρέων with Bergk. Diels keeps the MS. ὀμοῦ ῥέων; Zeller (p. 613, n. 1) conjectures ὑπ’ ἰοῦ ῥέων. Footnote 904: I read εἰ μὲν οὖν εἴη with E F for the εἰ μὲν ὂν εἴη of D. The ἐὸν which still stands in R. P. is a piece of local colour due to the editors. Diels also now reads οὖν (_Vors._ p. 149, 2). Footnote 905: Diels now reads ἀλλὰ with E for the ἅμα of F, and attaches the word to the next sentence. [Sidenote: Theory of reality.] 166. It has been pointed out that Melissos was perhaps not originally a member of the Eleatic school; but he certainly adopted all the views of Parmenides as to the true nature of reality with one remarkable exception. He appears to have opened his treatise with a reassertion of the Parmenidean “Nothing is not” (fr. 1 _a_), and the arguments by which he supported this view are those with which we are already familiar (fr. 1). Reality, as with Parmenides, is eternal, an attribute which Melissos expressed in a way of his own. He argued that since everything that has come into being has a beginning and an end, everything that has not come into being has no beginning or end. Aristotle is very severe upon him for this simple conversion of a universal affirmative proposition;[906] but, of course, his belief was not founded on that. His whole conception of reality made it necessary for him to regard it as eternal.[907] It would be a more serious matter if Aristotle were right in believing, as he seems to have done,[908] that Melissos inferred that what is must be infinite in space, because it had neither beginning nor end in time. This, however, seems quite incredible. As we have the fragment which Aristotle interprets in this way (fr. 2), we are quite entitled to understand it for ourselves, and I cannot see anything to justify Aristotle’s assumption that the expression “without limit” means without limit in space.[909] Footnote 906: Arist. _Phys._ Α, 3. 186 a 7 (R. P. 143 a). Aristotle finds two flaws in the Eleatic reasoning: (1) ψευδῆ λαμβάνουσιν; (2) ἀσυλλόγιστοί εἰσιν αὐτῶν οἱ λόγοι. This is the first of these flaws. It is also mentioned in _Soph. El._ 168 b 35 (R. P. _ib._). So Eudemos _ap._ Simpl. _Phys._ p. 105, 24, οὐ γὰρ, εἰ τὸ γενόμενον ἀρχὴν ἔχει, τὸ μὴ γενόμενον ἀρχὴν οὐκ ἔχει, μᾶλλον δὲ τὸ μὴ ἔχον ἀρχὴν οὐκ ἐγένετο. Footnote 907: