Note 22 — Chapter II · GENERAL REMARKS ON THE EARLIER PHILOSOPHERS — GROWTH OF DIALECTIC — ZENO AND GORGIAS.

It will be seen that Aristotle in explaining this ἀπορία, takes into consideration the difference of force in the vibrations of air, and the different impressibility of the ear. The explanation is pertinent and just, if applied to the fact of sense: but it is no reply to Zeno, who did not call in question the fact of sense. Zeno is impugning the doctrine of absolute substances and absolute divisibility. To say that ten thousand grains are sonorous, but that no one of them separately taken is so, appears to him a contradiction, similar to what is involved in saying that a real magnitude is made up of mathematical points. Aristotle does not meet this difficulty.