Since the beginning, in which we are told whose reasoning it is, is wanting, conjecture only applies it to Xenophanes. The writing begins with the words “He says,” without any name being given. It thus depends on the superscription alone whether Aristotle speaks of the philosophy of Xenophanes or not, and it must be noticed that different hands have put different superscriptions. Indeed, there is in this work (c. 2) an opinion of Xenophanes mentioned in such a way that it appears as though had what was previously quoted by Aristotle been by him ascribed to Xenophanes, the expression would have been different. It is possible that Zeno is meant, as the internal evidence abundantly shows. There is in it a dialectic more developed in form, more real reflexion, than from the verses could be expected, not from Xenophanes alone, but even from Parmenides. For Aristotle expressly says that Xenophanes does not yet determine with precision; thus the cultured reasoning contained in Aristotle must certainly be denied to Xenophanes; at least, it is so far certain that Xenophanes himself did not know how to express his thoughts in a manner so orderly and precise as that found here. We find it said:— “If anything is, it is eternal (_ἀΐδιον_).” Eternity is an awkward word, for it immediately makes us think of time and mingle past and future as an infinite length of time; but what is meant is that _ἀΐδιον_ is the self-identical, supersensuous, unchangeable, pure present, which is without any time-conception. It is, origination and change are shut out; if it commences, it does so out of nothing or out of Being. “It is impossible that anything should arise from the nothing. If everything could have arisen, or could it merely not have been everything eternally, it would equally have arisen out of nothing. For, if everything had arisen, nothing would once have existed. If some were alone the existent out of which the rest sprang, the one would be more and greater. But the more and greater would thus have arisen out of the nothing of itself, for in the less there is not its more, nor in the smaller its greater.” Simplicius makes this note to the Physics of Aristotle (p. 22 b): “No more can anything arise out of the existent, for the existent already is, and thus does not first arise from the existent.”