[Side-note: What sort of exercise? Parmenides describes: To assume provisionally both the affirmative and the negative of many hypotheses about the most general terms, and to trace the consequences of each.] What sort of exercise must I go through? asks Sokrates. Zeno (replies Parmenides) has already given you a good specimen of it in his treatise, when he followed out the consequences flowing from the assumption--"That the self-existent and absolute Ens is plural". When you are trying to find out the truth on any question, you must assume provisionally, first the affirmative and then the negative, and you must then follow out patiently the consequences deducible from one hypothesis as well as from the other. If you are enquiring about the Form of Likeness, whether it exists or does not exist, you must assume successively both one and the other;[43] marking the deductions which follow, both with reference to the thing directly assumed, and with reference to other things also. You must do the like if you are investigating other Forms--Unlikeness, Motion, and Rest, or even Existence and Non-Existence. But you must not be content with following out only one side of the hypothesis: you must examine both sides with equal care and impartiality. This is the only sort of preparatory exercise which will qualify you for completely seeing through the truth.[44] [Footnote 43: Plato, Parmenid. p. 136 A. [Greek: kai\ au)=this au)= e)a\n u(pothê=|, ei) e)/stin o(moio/tês ê)\ ei) mê/ e)sti, ti/ e)ph' e(kate/ras tê=s u(pothe/seôs sumbê/setai, kai\ au)toi=s toi=s u(potethei=si kai\ toi=s a)/llois kai\ pro\s au(ta\ kai\ pro\s a)/llêla.]] [Footnote 44: Plato, Parmenid. p. 136 B.] [Side-note: Impossible to do this before a numerous audience--Parmenides is entreated to give a specimen--After much solicitation he agrees.] You propose to me, Parmenides (remarks Sokrates), a work of awful magnitude. At any rate, show me an example of it yourself, that I may know better how to begin.--Parmenides at first declines, on the ground of his old age: but Zeno and the others urge him, so that he at length consents.--The process will be tedious (observes Zeno); and I would not ask it from Parmenides unless among an audience small and select as we are here. Before any numerous audience, it would be an unseemly performance for a veteran like him. For most people are not aware that, without such discursive survey and travelling over the whole field, we cannot possibly attain truth or acquire intelligence.[45]