[242a]
Stranger
And so we must take courage and attack our father's theory here and now, or else, if any scruples prevent us from doing this, we must give the whole thing up.Theaetetus
But nothing in the world must prevent us.Stranger
Then I have a third little request to make of you.Theaetetus
You have only to utter it.Stranger
I said a while ago that I always have been too faint-hearted for the refutation of this theory, and so I am now.Theaetetus
Yes, so you did.Stranger
I am afraid that on account of what I have said you will think I am mad because I have at once [242b] reversed my position. You see it is for your sake that I am going to undertake the refutation, if I succeed in it.Theaetetus
I certainly shall not think you are doing anything improper if you proceed to your refutation and proof; so go ahead boldly, so far as that is concerned.Stranger
Well, what would be a good beginning of a perilous argument? Ah, my boy, I believe the way we certainly must take is this.Theaetetus
What way?Stranger
We must first examine the points which now seem clear, [242c] lest we may have fallen into some confusion about them and may therefore carelessly agree with one another, thinking that we are judging correctly.Theaetetus
Express your meaning more clearly.Stranger
It seems to me that Parmenides and all who ever undertook a critical definition of the number and nature of realities have talked to us rather carelessly.Theaetetus
How so?Stranger
Every one of them seems to tell us a story, as if we were children. One says there are three principles, that some of them are sometimes waging a sort of war with each other, and sometimes [242d] become friends and marry and have children and bring them up; and another says there are two, wet and dry or hot and cold, which he settles together and unites in marriage.1 And the Eleatic sect in our region, beginning with Xenophanes and even earlier, have their story that all things, as they are called, are really one. Then some Ionian2 and later some Sicilian3 Muses reflected [242e] that it was safest to combine the two tales and to say that being is many and one, and is (or are) held together by enmity and friendship. For the more strenuous Muses say it is always simultaneously coming together and separating; but the gentler ones relaxed the strictness of the doctrine of perpetual strife; they say that the all is sometimes one and friendly, under the influence of Aphrodite,
And so we must take courage and attack our father's theory here and now, or else, if any scruples prevent us from doing this, we must give the whole thing up.Theaetetus
But nothing in the world must prevent us.Stranger
Then I have a third little request to make of you.Theaetetus
You have only to utter it.Stranger
I said a while ago that I always have been too faint-hearted for the refutation of this theory, and so I am now.Theaetetus
Yes, so you did.Stranger
I am afraid that on account of what I have said you will think I am mad because I have at once [242b] reversed my position. You see it is for your sake that I am going to undertake the refutation, if I succeed in it.Theaetetus
I certainly shall not think you are doing anything improper if you proceed to your refutation and proof; so go ahead boldly, so far as that is concerned.Stranger
Well, what would be a good beginning of a perilous argument? Ah, my boy, I believe the way we certainly must take is this.Theaetetus
What way?Stranger
We must first examine the points which now seem clear, [242c] lest we may have fallen into some confusion about them and may therefore carelessly agree with one another, thinking that we are judging correctly.Theaetetus
Express your meaning more clearly.Stranger
It seems to me that Parmenides and all who ever undertook a critical definition of the number and nature of realities have talked to us rather carelessly.Theaetetus
How so?Stranger
Every one of them seems to tell us a story, as if we were children. One says there are three principles, that some of them are sometimes waging a sort of war with each other, and sometimes [242d] become friends and marry and have children and bring them up; and another says there are two, wet and dry or hot and cold, which he settles together and unites in marriage.1 And the Eleatic sect in our region, beginning with Xenophanes and even earlier, have their story that all things, as they are called, are really one. Then some Ionian2 and later some Sicilian3 Muses reflected [242e] that it was safest to combine the two tales and to say that being is many and one, and is (or are) held together by enmity and friendship. For the more strenuous Muses say it is always simultaneously coming together and separating; but the gentler ones relaxed the strictness of the doctrine of perpetual strife; they say that the all is sometimes one and friendly, under the influence of Aphrodite,
