154 



PROFESSOR THOMPSON, ON THE GENUINENESS OF 



The oldest, and in the history of Speculation the most important, of these three schools was 

 the Eleatic, founded, as the Stranger from Elea tells us in this dialogue, by Xenophanes^, 

 though its doctrines underwent some modification, and received extensive development in the 

 hands of Parmenides and Zeno, his successors. When Plato wrote this dialogue, there is every 

 reason to suppose that the Eleatic school had ceased to exist. The latest known successor of 

 Parmenides, Melissus, flourished, as the phrase is, about the year b.c. 440, and Zeno is placed 

 a few years earlier. The earliest date which it is possible to assign to the Thecetetus, and a 

 fortiori to the Sophista, is about 393.^ There can therefore be no question of an Eleatic 

 author of this dialogue, an " opponent of Plato," resident in Athens, and writing in the Attic 

 dialect. Socrates may have had such opponents, though we read of none ; but the hypothesis 

 is inadmissible in the case of his disciple. 



The Eleatic Stranger however leaves us in no doubt of his intentions. In the course of his 

 investigation of the attributes of the Sophist, he is on the point of obtaining from Thesetetus 

 an admission that his, the Sophist's, art is a fantastic and unreal one : but he affects to 

 hesitate on the threshold of this conclusion, because, as he says, " The Phantastic Genus," to 

 which they are about to refer the Sophist, is one difficult to conceive ; and the fellow has 

 very cunningly taken refuge in a Species the investigation of which is beset with perplexity \ 

 Thesetetus assents to this mechanically, but the Stranger, doubting the sincerity of his 

 assent, explains his meaning more fully. The word (pavraa-TiKW implies that a thing 

 may be not that which it seems, and it is a question with certain schools whether there 

 is any meaning in the phrase, to say or think that which is false, in other words, that 

 which is not: for, say they, you imply by the phrase that that which is not, is — that 

 there exists such a thing as non-existence : and thus you involve yourself in a con- 

 tradiction*. But if we assert that 'Not-being is' (quod Non Ens est,) then, says the 

 speaker, "we fly in the face of my Master, the great Parmenides, who both in oral 

 prose and wi-itten metre adjured his disciples to beware of committing themselves to this 

 contradiction ^ To extricate ourselves then from the diropia in which the Sophist has con- 

 trived to plant us, it is necessary," proceeds the Stranger, " to put this dictum of our 

 Father Parmenides to the torture, and to extort from it the confession that the contra- 



^ Soph. 242 D ; to Sk irap' tj/iui/ 'EXeaTiKOv £0j/os diro 

 ^evotpdvov^ . . .dp^dfievov . 



^ Apuleius, de Dogm. Plat. 569, says that Plato took up the 

 study of Parmenides and Zeno (inventa Parmenidis et Zenonis 

 studiosius executus) after his second visit to the Pythagoreans 

 in Italy : having been compelled to give up his intention of 

 visiting Persia and India by the wars which broke out in Asia 

 at the time. Does this imply that he visited Elea instead ? 

 If so, and if he composed the Sophista and its sister-dialogues 

 on his return, we obtain a clue to the fiction of an Eleatic 

 Stranger. He was Plato, on his return from a sojourn at Elea, 

 laden, it may be, with Eleatic lore. 



The circumstance that the conduct of the dialogue devolves 

 upon this Stranger is pointed to as one proof that the Sophista 

 was not written by Plato, whose custom is to make Socrates 

 his Protagonist. The secondary part which Socrates plays in 



the Timceus and his entire absence from the colloquy in the 

 Laws seem fatal to the major premiss in this reasoning. It 

 should also be observed, that the author of the Sophista, if not 

 Plato, took pains to pass himself off as Plato : else why did he 

 tack on the Sophist to the Thecetetus? But if the author of 

 the Sophista wished to pass for Plato, why did he deviate from 

 Plato's ordinary practice, by putting a foreigner from Elea into 

 the place usually occupied by Socrates ? 



^ *E7rei Ka\ vvv /ua\' eu /cat Ko/juj/tii}^ eh diropov eldoi Siepev- 

 vt'iaaadai KaTa'jretpevyev. 236 D. 



* TeToXfjLrjKei/ 6 Xoyo^ outos uiro6eV6at to fxij on eli/at* 

 ^eu£oi ydp ouk dv aWws hylyveTo ov. 237 A. 



^ 'AirefiapTupaTO ire^^ Te caSe eKaVxcTe Xeytov Kai fieTa 

 fieTpwii' 



ov ydp p\]-iroTe touto ^aps, eJi/at ptj eovTa, 

 dXXd crv Tijard' d(p' odou dt^tjaiov eipye voijpa. lb. 



