These Zenonian reasonings are memorable as the earliest known manifestations of Grecian dialectic, and are probably equal in acuteness and ingenuity to anything which it ever produced. Their bearing is not always accurately conceived. Most of them are _argumenta ad hominem_: consequences contradictory and inadmissible, but shown to follow legitimately from a given hypothesis, and therefore serving to disprove the hypothesis itself.[26] The hypothesis was one relating to the real, absolute, or ultra-phenomenal, which Parmenides maintained to be _Ens Unum Continuum_, while his opponents affirmed it to be essentially multiple and discontinuous. Upon the hypothesis of Parmenides, the Real and Absolute, being a continuous One, was obviously inconsistent with the movement and variety of the phenomenal world: Parmenides himself recognised the contradiction of the two, and his opponents made it a ground for deriding his doctrine.[27] The counter-hypothesis, of the discontinuous many, appeared at first sight not to be open to the same objection: it seemed to be more in harmony with the facts of the phenomenal and relative world, and to afford an absolute basis for them to rest upon. Against this delusive appearance the dialectic of Zeno was directed. He retorted upon the opponents, and showed that if the hypothesis of the _Unum Continuum_ led to absurd consequences, that of the discontinuous many was pregnant with deductions yet more absurd and contradictory. He exhibits in detail several of these contradictory deductions, with a view to refute the hypothesis from whence they flow; and to prove that, far from performing what it promises, it is worse than useless, as entangling us in contradictory conclusions. The result of his reasoning, implied rather than announced, is--That neither of the two hypotheses are of any avail to supply a real and absolute basis for the phenomenal and relative world: That the latter must rest upon its own evidence, and must be interpreted, in so far as it can be interpreted at all, by its own analogies. [Footnote 26: The scope of the Zenonian dialectic, as I have here described it, is set forth clearly by Plato, in his Parmenides, c. 3-6, p. 127, 128. [Greek: Pô=s ô)= Zê/nôn, tou=to le/geis? _ei) polla/ e)sti ta\ o)/nta,_ ô(s a)/ra dei= au)ta\ o(/moia/ te ei)=nai kai\ a)no/moia, tou=to de\ dê\ a)du/naton.--Ou)kou=n ei) a)du/naton ta/ te a)no/moia o(/moia ei)=nai kai\ ta\ o(/moia a)no/moia, _a)du/naton dê\ kai\ polla\ ei)=nai?_ ei) ga\r polla\ ei)/ê, pa/schoi a)\n ta\ a)du/nata. A)=ra _tou=to/ e)stin o(\ bou/lontai/ sou oi( lo/goi?_ ou)k _a)llo ti ê)\ diama/chesthai para\ pa/nta ta\ lego/mena, ô(s ou) polla/ e)stin?_] Again, p. 128 D. [Greek: A)ntile/gei ou)=n tou=to to\ gra/mma pro\s tou\s ta polla\ le/gontas, kai\ a)ntapodi/dôsi tau=ta kai\ plei/ô, tou=to boulo/menon dêlou=n, ô(s e)/ti geloio/tera pa/schoi a)\n _au)tô=n ê( u(po/thesis, ê( ei) polla/ e)stin--ê)\ ê( tou= e(\n ei)=nai--ei)/ tis i(kanô=s e)pexi/oi_].