Note 85 — LECTURE V. ON MYSTICISM.

The Sophist, p. 261, 262. The following little-known and decisive passage, which we have translated for the first time, must be cited:—"Stranger. But what, by Zeus! shall we be so easily persuaded that in reality, motion, life, soul, intelligence, do not belong to absolute being? that this being neither lives nor thinks, that this being remains immobile, immutable, without having part in august and holy intelligence?—Theatetus. That would be consenting, dear Eleatus, to a very strange assertion.—Stranger. Or, indeed, shall we accord to this being intelligence while we refuse him life?—Theatetus. That cannot be.—Stranger. Or, again, shall we say that there is in him intelligence and life, but that it is not in a soul that he possesses them?—Theatetus. And how could he possess them otherwise?—Stranger. In fine, that, endowed with intelligence, soul, and life, all animated as he is, he remains incomplete immobility.—Theatetus. All that seems to me unreasonable."