by Aristotle
Being one he is similar in every part, seeing and hearing and possessing the other senses in every part of him. For otherwise the parts of God would be superior and inferior to one another; which is impossible.
Being similar in every part, he is spherical; for he is not of a certain nature in [977b1] one part and not in another, but in every part.
Being eternal and one and similar and spherical, he is neither unlimited nor limited. For what is not is unlimited; for it has neither middle nor beginning and end, nor any other parts, and such is the nature of the unlimited. But what is could [5] not be of the same nature as what is not. On the other hand, if things were several, mutual limitation would occur. But the One has no likeness either to what is not or to the many; for that which is one has nothing in which it can find a limit.
A One, then, of the kind which Xenophanes declares God to be can, he says, be neither moved nor unmoved; for immobility belongs to what is not (for nothing else [10] can go into it, nor can it go into anything else); while movement belongs to a plurality, for one body must move into another’s place. Now nothing can ever move into what is not, for what is not is nowhere. On the other hand, if it moved in the way [15] of things changing into one another, than the One would be more than one. For these reasons motion belongs to a pair of things, or any number more than one, while rest and immobility belong to that which is nothing. But the One is neither still nor is it moved; for it is similar neither to what is not nor to the many; but being [20] in every respect of this nature—eternal and one and similar and spherical—God is neither unlimited nor limited, neither at rest nor in motion.
4 · In the first place, then, Xenophanes also, like Melissus, assumes that what comes into being does so from that which already is. Yet why should not that which comes into being do so not from something either similar or dissimilar, but from what is not? Further, God is no more ungenerated than anything else, even if [25] we suppose that all things have come into being from something similar or dissimilar, which is impossible; so that either there is nothing except God or everything else is also eternal. Further, he assumes that God is supreme, meaning by this that he is most powerful and best. This does not seem to agree with the customary opinion, which holds that some gods are in many respects superior to [30] others. It was not, therefore, from accepted opinion that he took this admission about God. It is said that he understands the supremacy of God in the sense that his nature is superior, not in relation to anything else, but in his own disposition; since surely in relation to something else there would be nothing to prevent his excelling, [35] not by his own goodness and strength, but owing to the weakness of all others. But no one would wish to say that God is supreme in this latter sense, but rather that he is in himself as excellent as possible, and there is nothing lacking in him of what is good and noble; if this is so, his supremacy would perhaps follow. But even if there were more gods than one, nothing would prevent their being of this nature, all [978a1] possessing the greatest possible excellence and being superior to all else, but not to one another. Now there are, it seems, other things besides God; for he says that God is supreme, and he must necessarily be supreme over something.
But supposing that he is one, it does not follow that he sees and hears in every [5] part; for if he does not see in one part, he does not see worse in that part, but does not see at all. But perhaps perceiving in every part means that he would possess the highest excellence if he were similar in every part.
Further, if this were his nature, why should he be spherical, and why should he have that shape rather than any other, just because he hears in every part and is [10] supreme in every part? For just as when we say of white lead that it is white in all its parts, we merely mean that the colour whiteness is present in every portion of it, why should we not say similarly of God that sight and hearing and supremacy are present in every part, in the sense that whatsoever portion of him one takes will be [15] found to be possessed of these characteristics? But God is not necessarily spherical for this reason any more than white lead is.
Further, how is it possible that, being a body and having magnitude, God can be neither unlimited nor limited? For that is unlimited which, being capable of limitation, has no limit, and limit occurs in magnitude and multitude and any kind of quantity; and therefore any magnitude which has no limit is unlimited. Again, if [20] God is spherical, he must have a limit; for he has extremities, if he has a centre within himself from which they are at the greatest distance. But anything which is spherical has a centre; for that is spherical in which the extremities are equidistant from the centre. Now it is the same thing to say that a body has extremities, and that it has limits.…13 For if what is not is unlimited, why should not what is also be [25] unlimited? For why should not some identical attributes be assigned to what is and to what is not? For no one can perceive at this moment what does not exist, while something may exist at this moment without any one’s perceiving it;14 yet both can be the subject of speech and thought.…15 And what is not is not white; either, then, for this reason everything that is is white (this is in order that we may not assign an [30] identical quality to that which exists and to the non-existent), or else, I think, there is nothing to prevent anything which exists from being not white. And so what is would still more easily admit a negative predicate, namely, the unlimited, if, as was said just now, a thing is unlimited owing to its not having a limit; and so what is too either is unlimited or has a limit. But perhaps to attribute unlimitedness to what is [35] not is also absurd; for we do not call everything which has not a limit unlimited, just as we should not say that what is not equal is unequal. Again, why should not God, although he be one, yet be limited, though not by anything which is God. But if God is one only, then his parts also must be one only. Further, it is also absurd that if in [978b1] fact the many are limited in relation to one another, for this reason the One should not have a limit. For many of the same predicates belong to the many and to the One; being, for instance, is common to them both. It would therefore, perhaps, be [5] absurd if we were to declare that God does not exist for the reason that the Many exist, so that he may not be like16 them in this respect. Again, though God be One, why should he not be limited and have limits? Even as Parmenides says that, being One, he is
Like to the mass of a sphere on all sides carefully rounded [10]
Everywhere equally far from the midst.17
For the limit must be a limit of something, but not necessarily in relation to something else: that which has a limit does not necessarily have it in relation to something else (as when it is limited in relation to the unlimited which comes next to it), but being limited means the possession of extremities, and when a thing has extremities it need not necessarily have them in relation to something else. Some things, therefore, may happen both to be limited and to adjoin something else, while [15] others may be limited, but not in relation to something else.
Again, as regards what is and what is not being unmoved, we must say that to suppose that what is not is unmoved because what is is moved, is perhaps just as absurd as the cases given above. And further, surely one cannot suppose that not-moving and unmoved are the same thing, but the former is the negation of [20] moving (like not-equal, which can be correctly used even of the non-existent), while ‘unmoved’ is used of an actual state (as ‘unequal’ is used), and to express the contrary of moving (that is, being at rest), just as words with the negative prefix are generally used to express contraries. Not-moving is therefore true of the non-[25] existent, but being at rest cannot belong to the non-existent; similarly ‘unmoved’, which means the same thing,18 cannot belong to it. Yet Xenophanes uses ‘not moving’ in the sense of ‘being at rest’, and says that what is not is at rest because it undergoes no change of position. As we said above, it is perhaps absurd, if we attach some predicate to what is not, to assert that it does not apply to what is, especially if [30] the predicate used is a negation, such as ‘not moving’ and ‘not changing it
s position’. For, as has been said, it would preclude a number of predicates from being used of existing things: for it would not be true to say that many is not one, since the non-existent also is not one. Furthermore, in some cases the contrary predicates [35] seem to follow from the mere19 negations; for example, a thing must be either equal or unequal if it is a multitude or magnitude, and odd or even, if it is a number; similarly, perhaps, what is, if it be a body, must be either at rest or in motion. [979a1] Further, if God and the One do not move, just because the many move by passing into one another, why should not God also move into something else? For he nowhere states that God is one only, but what he says is that there is only one God. But even supposing God were one only, why should not the parts of God move into [5] one another and God himself thus revolve? For he will not, like Zeno, declare that such a One is many. For he himself asserts that God is a body, whether he calls it the universe or by some other name; for if he were incorporeal, how could he be spherical? Again, it would only be possible for him neither to move nor to be at rest if he were nowhere; but since he is a body, what would prevent this body from [10] moving, as has been said?
5 · Gorgias declares that nothing exists; and if anything exists it is unknowable; and if it exists and is knowable, yet it cannot be indicated to others. To prove that nothing exists he collects the statements of others, who in speaking about what [15] is seem to assert contrary opinions (some trying to prove that what is is one and not many, others that it is many and not one; and some that existents are ungenerated, others that they have come to be), and he argues against both sides. For he says that if anything exists, it must be either one or many, and either be ungenerated or have come to be. If therefore, it cannot be either one or many, ungenerated or having [20] come to be, it would be nothing at all. For if anything were, it would be one of these alternatives. That what is, then, is neither one nor many, neither ungenerated nor having come to be, he attempts to prove by following partly Melissus and partly Zeno, after first stating his own special proof that it is not possible either to be or not to be. For, he says, if not being is not being, then what is not would be no less than [25] what is. For what is not is what is not and what is is what is, so that things no more are than are not. But if not being is, then, he argues, being, its opposite, is not; for if not being is, it follows that being is not. So that on this showing, he says, nothing [30] could be, unless being and not being are the same thing. And if they are the same thing, even so nothing would be; for what is not is not, nor yet what is since it is the same as what is not. Such, then, is his first argument.
6 · Now it does not at all follow from what he has said that nothing is. For the proof which he and others attempt is thus refuted: if what is not is, it either is [35] simply, or else it is in a similar sense something that is not. But this is not self-evident, nor a necessary deduction; but if there are, as it were, two things of which one is and the other is not, you can truly say of the former that it is, but not of the latter, because that which is, is existent, but that which is not is non-existent. [979b1] Why, then, is it not possible either to be or not to be? And why should not both or either be possible? For, he says, not being, if not being were, as he thinks, something, would be just as much as being, while no-one allows that not being has any kind of existence. But even if what is not is not, yet it does not follow that what [5] is not is in a similar way to what is; for the former is something that is not, while the latter actually is as well. But even if he could say of it that it is simply (yet how strange it would be to say that what is not is), still granted that it were so, does it any more follow that everything is not rather than is? For the exact opposite seems then to become the consequent; since, if what is not is something that is and what is is something that is, all things are; for both the things which are, and the things which [10] are not, are. For it does not necessarily follow that if what is not is, what is is not. Even if one were to concede the point and allow that what is not is and what is is not, nevertheless, something would be; for the things which are not would be, according to his argument. But if being and not being are the same thing, even so it would not [15] follow that nothing is, rather than that something is. For just as he argues that if what is not and what is are the same thing, what is and what is not alike are not, therefore nothing is; so, reversing the position, it is equally possible to argue that everything is; for what is not is and what is is, therefore everything is.
After this argument Gorgias declares that if anything is, it must either be [20] ungenerated or else have come to be. If it is ungenerated, he assumes by the axioms of Melissus that it is unlimited, and declares that the unlimited cannot exist anywhere. It cannot, he argues, exist in itself, or in anything else (for, on the latter supposition, there would be two unlimiteds, that which is in something else and the something else in which it is); and, being nowhere, it is nothing, according to the argument of Zeno about space. It is not, therefore, ungenerated. Nor, again, has it [25] come to be; for, surely, he argues, nothing could come to be out of either what is or what is not. For if what is were to change, it would no longer be anything that is, just as also, if what is not were to come to be, it would no longer be a thing that is not. Nor, again, could it come to be, save from what is; for if what is not is not, nothing [30] could come to be out of nothing; while on the other hand, if what is not is, it could not come to be out of what is not for that reason. So if anything that is, necessarily either is ungenerated or else has come to be, and these are impossibilities, it is [35] impossible for anything to be.
Further, if anything is, either one or more things must be; if neither one nor more, nothing is. And there cannot be one thing because what is truly one, insofar as it has no magnitude, is incorporeal. (This he adopts from Zeno’s argument.) But if there is not one thing, there will be nothing at all; for if there is not one thing, there cannot be many things. But if there is neither one thing nor many things, he says, there is nothing.20
[980a1] Nor, he says, can anything move. For if it were to move it would no longer be in the same condition, but what is would not be and what is not would have come to be. And further, if it moves and is transferred to a different position, what is, being no [5] longer continuous, is divided, and, where it is divided, it no longer exists; and so, if it moves in all its parts, it is divided in all its parts, and if this is so, it ceases to exist in all its parts. For where it is divided, he argues, there it lacks being; he uses ‘divided’ to mean a void, as is written in the so-called ‘Arguments of Leucippus’.
These are the proofs which he employs to show that nothing exists.…21 For all [10] objects of cognition must exist, and what is not, if it really does not exist, could not be cognized either. But were this so, nothing could be false, not even (he says) though one should say that chariots are racing on the sea. For all things would be just the same. For the objects of sight and hearing are for the reason22 that they are [15] in each case cognized. But if this is not the reason—if just as what we see is not the more because we see it, so also what we think is not the more for that23 (and, were it otherwise, just as in the one case our objects of vision would often be just the same, so in the other our objects of thought would often be just the same) . . . ; but of which kind the true things are is uncertain. So that even if things are, they would be unknowable by us.
[20] But even if they are knowable by us, how, he-asks, could any one indicate them to another? For how, he says, could any one communicate by word of mouth that [980b1] which he has seen? And how could that which has been seen be indicated to a listener if he has not seen it? For just as the sight does not recognize sounds, so the hearing does not hear colours but sounds; and he who speaks, speaks, but does not speak a colour or a thing. When, therefore, one has not a thing in the mind, how will [5] he get it there from another person by word or any other token of the thing except by seeing it, if it is a colour, or hearing it, if it is a noise? For he who speaks does not speak a noise at all, or a colour,
but a word; and so it is not possible to think a colour, but only to see it, nor a noise, but only to hear it. But even if it is possible to know things, and to express whatever one knows in words, yet how can the hearer have in [10] his mind the same thing as the speaker? For the same thing cannot be present simultaneously in several separate people; for in that case the one would be two. But if, he argues, the same thing could be present in several persons, there is no reason why it should not appear dissimilar to them, if they are not themselves entirely similar and are not in the same place; for if they were24 in the same place they would be one and not two. But it appears that the objects which even one and the same [15] man perceives at the same moment are not all similar, but he perceives different things by hearing and by sight, and differently now and on some former occasion; and so a man can scarcely perceive the same thing as someone else.
Thus nothing exists; and even if anything were to exist, nothing is knowable; and even if anything were knowable, no one could indicate it to another, firstly because things are not words, and secondly because no one can have in his mind the same thing as someone else. This and all his other arguments are concerned with [20] difficulties raised by earlier philosophers, so that in examining their views these questions have to be discussed.