Soliloquies

³¹ A. Go on to what remains; for of this I am well convinced. R. Then I ask this, whether, besides the sciences in which we are instructed, and in which it is fitting that the study of wisdom itself should be included, we can find anything so true, that it is not, like that Achilles of the stage, false on one side, that it may be true on another? A. To me, indeed, many such things appear capable of being found. For no sciences contain this stone, nor yet, that it may be a true stone, does it imitate anything according to which it would be called false.

Which one thing being mentioned, you see there is opportunity to dwell upon things innumerable, which of themselves occur to the thought. R. I see, I see. But do they not seem to you to be included in the one name of Body? A. They might so seem, if either I had ascertained the inane to be nothing, or thought that the mind itself ought to be numbered among bodies, or believed that God also is a body. If all these things are, I see them not to be false and true in imitation of anything. R. You send us a long journey, but I will use all compendious speed.

For certainly what you call the Inane is one thing, what you call Truth another. A. Widely diverse, indeed. For what more inane than I, if I think Truth anything inane, or so greatly seek after anything inane? For what else than Truth do I desire to find? R. Therefore perchance you grant this too, that nothing is true which does not by Truth come to be true. A. This became manifest at an early stage. R. Do you doubt that nothing is inane except the Inane itself, or certainly that a body is not inane? A. I do not doubt it at all. R. I suppose therefore, you believe that Truth is some sort of body. A. In no wise. R. What is a body? A.

I know not; no matter: for I think you know that even that inane, if it is inane, is more completely so where there is no body. R. This assuredly is plain. A. Why then do we delay? R. Does it then seem to you either that Truth made the inane, or that there is anything true where Truth is not? A. Neither seems true. R. The inane therefore is not true, because neither could it become inane by that which is not inane: and it is manifest that what is void of truth is not true; and, in fine, that very thing which is called inane, is so called because it is nothing. How therefore can that be true which is not or how can that be which is absolutely nothing? A. Well then, let us desert the inane as being inane.