sophist   

Theaet. Certainly.
Str. Upon this view, again, being, having a defect of being, will
become not-being?
Theaet. True.
Str. And, again, the all becomes more than one, for being and the
whole will each have their separate nature.
Theaet. Yes.
Str. But if the whole does not exist at all, all the previous
difficulties remain the same, and there will be the further
difficulty, that besides having no being, being can never have come
into being.
Theaet. Why so?
Str. Because that which comes into being always comes into being
as a whole, so that he who does not give whole a place among beings,
cannot speak either of essence or generation as existing.
Theaet. Yes, that certainly appears to be true.
Str. Again; how can that which is not a whole have any
quantity? For
that which is of a certain quantity must necessarily be the whole of
that quantity.
Theaet. Exactly.
Str. And there will be innumerable other points, each of them
causing infinite trouble to him who says that being is either, one
or two.
Theaet. The difficulties which are dawning upon us prove this; for
one objection connects with another, and they are always involving
what has preceded in a greater and worse perplexity.
Str. We are far from having exhausted the more exact thinkers who
treat of being and not-being. But let us be content to leave
them, and
proceed to view those who speak less precisely; and we shall find as
the result of all, that the nature of being is quite as difficult to
comprehend as that of not-being.
Theaet. Then now we will go to the others.
Str. There appears to be a sort of war of Giants and Gods going on
amongst them; they are fighting with one another about the nature of
essence.
Theaet. How is that?
Str. Some of them are dragging down all things from heaven and
from the unseen to earth, and they literally grasp in their hands
rocks and oaks; of these they lay hold, and obstinately
maintain, that
the things only which can be touched or handled have being
or essence,
because they define being and body as one, and if any one else says
that what is not a body exists they altogether despise him, and will
hear of nothing but body.
Theaet. I have often met with such men, and terrible fellows they
are.
Str. And that is the reason why their opponents cautiously defend
themselves from above, out of an unseen world, mightily contending
that true essence consists of certain intelligible and incorporeal
ideas; the bodies of the materialists, which by them are
maintained to
be the very truth, they break up into little bits by their
arguments, and affirm them to be, not essence, but generation and
motion. Between the two armies, Theaetetus, there is always
an endless
conflict raging concerning these matters.
Theaet. True.
Str. Let us ask each party in turn, to give an account of
that which
they call essence.
Theaet. How shall we get it out of them?