STRANGER: Because motion would be at rest and rest in motion, for either
of them, being predicated of both, will compel the other to change into
the opposite of its own nature, because partaking of its opposite.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: Yet they surely both partake of the same and of the other?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: Then we must not assert that motion, any more than rest, is
either the same or the other.
THEAETETUS: No; we must not.
STRANGER: But are we to conceive that being and the same are identical?
THEAETETUS: Possibly.
STRANGER: But if they are identical, then again in saying that motion
and rest have being, we should also be saying that they are the same.
THEAETETUS: Which surely cannot be.
STRANGER: Then being and the same cannot be one.
THEAETETUS: Scarcely.
STRANGER: Then we may suppose the same to be a fourth class, which is
now to be added to the three others.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: And shall we call the other a fifth class? Or should we
consider being and other to be two names of the same class?
THEAETETUS: Very likely.
STRANGER: But you would agree, if I am not mistaken, that existences are
relative as well as absolute?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And the other is always relative to other?
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: But this would not be the case unless being and the other
entirely differed; for, if the other, like being, were absolute as well
as relative, then there would have been a kind of other which was not
other than other. And now we find that what is other must of necessity
be what it is in relation to some other.
THEAETETUS: That is the true state of the case.
STRANGER: Then we must admit the other as the fifth of our selected
classes.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And the fifth class pervades all classes, for they all differ
from one another, not by reason of their own nature, but because they
partake of the idea of the other.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: Then let us now put the case with reference to each of the
five.
THEAETETUS: How?
STRANGER: First there is motion, which we affirm to be absolutely
'other' than rest: what else can we say?
THEAETETUS: It is so.
STRANGER: And therefore is not rest.
THEAETETUS: Certainly not.
STRANGER: And yet is, because partaking of being.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: Again, motion is other than the same?
THEAETETUS: Just so.
STRANGER: And is therefore not the same.
THEAETETUS: It is not.
STRANGER: Yet, surely, motion is the same, because all things partake of
the same.
THEAETETUS: Very true.