STRANGER: I was doubtful before in which of them I should place the Sophist, nor am I even now able to see clearly; verily he is a wonderful and inscrutable creature. And now in the cleverest manner he has got into an impossible place. THEAETETUS: Yes, he has. STRANGER: Do you speak advisedly, or are you carried away at the moment by the habit of assenting into giving a hasty answer? THEAETETUS: May I ask to what you are referring? STRANGER: My dear friend, we are engaged in a very difficult speculation--there can be no doubt of that; for how a thing can appear and seem, and not be, or how a man can say a thing which is not true, has always been and still remains a very perplexing question. Can any one say or think that falsehood really exists, and avoid being caught in a contradiction? Indeed, Theaetetus, the task is a difficult one. THEAETETUS: Why? STRANGER: He who says that falsehood exists has the audacity to assert the being of not-being; for this is implied in the possibility of falsehood. But, my boy, in the days when I was a boy, the great Parmenides protested against this doctrine, and to the end of his life he continued to inculcate the same lesson--always repeating both in verse and out of verse: 'Keep your mind from this way of enquiry, for never will you show that not-being is.' Such is his testimony, which is confirmed by the very expression when sifted a little. Would you object to begin with the consideration of the words themselves? THEAETETUS: Never mind about me; I am only desirous that you should carry on the argument in the best way, and that you should take me with you. STRANGER: Very good; and now say, do we venture to utter the forbidden word 'not-being'? THEAETETUS: Certainly we do. STRANGER: Let us be serious then, and consider the question neither in strife nor play: suppose that one of the hearers of Parmenides was asked, 'To what is the term "not-being" to be applied?'--do you know what sort of object he would single out in reply, and what answer he would make to the enquirer? THEAETETUS: That is a difficult question, and one not to be answered at all by a person like myself. STRANGER: There is at any rate no difficulty in seeing that the predicate 'not-being' is not applicable to any being. THEAETETUS: None, certainly. STRANGER: And if not to being, then not to something. THEAETETUS: Of course not. STRANGER: It is also plain, that in speaking of something we speak of being, for to speak of an abstract something naked and isolated from all being is impossible. THEAETETUS: Impossible. STRANGER: You mean by assenting to imply that he who says something must say some one thing? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: Some in the singular (ti) you would say is the sign of one, some in the dual (tine) of two, some in the plural (tines) of many? THEAETETUS: Exactly. STRANGER: Then he who says 'not something' must say absolutely nothing. THEAETETUS: Most assuredly.