Rightly: he said. [44] Neither what is, then, nor what is not, is the object of opinion. No! Opinion therefore would be neither ignorance nor knowledge. It seems not. Is it, then, beyond these; going beyond knowledge in clearness, beyond ignorance in obscurity? Neither the one, nor the other. But, I asked, opinion seems to you (doesn't it?) to be a darker thing than knowledge, yet lighter than ignorance. Very much so; he answered. Does it lie within those two? Yes. Opinion, then, would be midway, between these two conditions? Undoubtedly so. Now didn't we say in what went before that if anything became apparent such that it is, and is not, at the same time, a thing of that kind would lie between that which is in unmixed clearness, and that which wholly is not; and that there would be, in regard to that, neither knowledge nor ignorance; but, again, a condition revealing itself between ignorance and knowledge? Rightly. And now, between these two, what we call 'opinion' has in fact revealed itself. Clearly so. It would remain for us therefore, as it seems, to find that which partakes of both--both of Being and Not-being, and which could rightly be called by neither term distinctly; in order that, if it appear, we may in justice determine it to be the object of opinion; assigning the extremes to the extremes, the intermediate to what comes between them. Or is it not thus? Thus it is. These points then being assumed, let him tell me! let him speak and give his answer--that excellent person, who on the one hand thinks there is no Beauty itself, nor any idea of Beauty itself, ever in the same condition in regard to the same things (aei kata tauta hôsautôs echousan)+ yet, on the other hand, holds [45] that there are the many beautiful objects:--that lover of sight (ho philotheamôn)+ who can by no means bear it if any one says that the beautiful is one; the just also; and the rest, after the same way. For good Sir! we shall say, pray tell us, is there any one of these many beautiful things which will not appear ugly (under certain conditions) of the many just or pious actions which will not seem unjust or impious? No! he answered. Rather it must be that they shall seem, in a manner, both beautiful and ugly; and all the rest you ask of. Well! The many double things:--Do they seem to be at all less half than double? Not at all. And great, in truth, and little, and light, and heavy--will they at all more truly be called by these names which we may give them, than by the opposite names? No! he said; but each of them will always hold of both.