Part 141

Socr. We must examine it, since you are so anxious to do so. It appears to me then, that the first thing to be done in an enquiry about motion, is to find out what they mean by saying that all things are in motion. I mean this: whether they say that there is one species of motion, or, as it appears to me, two. Nor should it appear to me only, but do you also join with me, that we may both fall into the same error, if we must err. Tell me, therefore, do you call it being in motion, when a thing passes from one place to another, or is turned round in the same place?

Theo. I do.

96. Socr. Let this, therefore, be one species. But when it remains in the same place, and grows old, and either becomes black from white or hard from soft, or undergoes any other change, is it not right to say that this is another species of motion?

Theo. It appears so to me.

Socr. It must be so: I say, then, that there are these two species of motion, change and removal.

Theo. You say right.

Socr. Having, therefore, made this distinction, let us now address ourselves to those who say that all things are in motion, and ask them: Whether do you say that every thing undergoes both kinds of motion, and is both removed and changed, or that one thing is moved both ways, and another only in one way?

Theo. By Jupiter, I know not what to answer; but I think they would say, both ways.

Socr. Otherwise, my friend, the same things would appear to them to be both in motion and at rest, and it would not be at all more correct to say that all things are in motion, than that they are at rest.

Theo. You speak most truly.

Socr. Since, therefore, it is necessary that every thing should be in motion, and that the absence of motion should be in nothing, all things must always be moved with every kind of motion.

97. Theo. Necessarily so.

Socr. Consider this, then, I beg: did we not say that they explain the generation of heat, or whiteness, or any thing else pretty much in this manner, that each of them is impelled, together with perception, between the agent and the patient, and that the patient becomes affected by perception, but is not yet perception itself, and that the agent becomes affected by a certain quality, but is not quality itself? Perhaps, however, quality may appear to you to be a strange word, and you may not understand it when used in this collective sense. Hear me, then, explain it in detail. For the agent becomes neither heat nor whiteness, but hot and white, and so with respect to other things. For you surely remember that we said before, that no one thing exists of itself, neither that which is an agent nor that which is a patient, but that, from the meeting together of each with the other, perceptions and objects of perception being produced cause the one to be of a certain quality, and the other percipient.

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Footnote 161:

§ 28.

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98. Theo. I recollect. How should I not.

Socr. Let us then dismiss the rest of their system, whether they speak this way or that way; and let us keep to that point alone which concerns our discussion and ask, Are all things in motion and in a state of flux, as you say? Is it not so?

Theo. Yes.

Socr. And by both those kinds of motion which we have distinguished, removal and change?

Theo. Undoubtedly; if they are to be perfectly moved.

Socr. If, therefore, they were only removed, but not changed, we should surely be able to say what kind of things are removed. Must we not say so?

Theo. Just so.

Socr. But since not even this continues in the same state, namely that that which flows continues to flow white, but it changes so that there is also a flux of this very thing, whiteness, and a transition into another colour, in order that it may not be found continuing in the same state, will it ever be possible to call any thing a colour, so as to designate it correctly?

Theo. How is it possible, Socrates? or any thing else of the kind, since, while we are speaking about it, it is constantly escaping, as being in a state of flux?

Socr. But what shall we say of any kind of perception, for instance of seeing or hearing? Does it ever continue in the state of seeing or hearing?

Theo. It ought not, since all things are in motion.