Note 374 — Chapter IX · SOUL-IMAGE AND LIFE-FEELING

That is, discussion of the doctrines of the Eleatic school regarding unity and plurality, the Ent and Nonent, focussed themselves, in Zeno, down to the famous paradoxes concerning the nature of motion (such as “Achilles and the Tortoise”) which within the Greek discipline were unanswerable. Their general effect was to show that motion depended upon the existence of an indefinitely great plurality, that is, of infinitely small subdivisions as well as infinitely great quantities, and, the denial of this plurality being the essential feature of the Eleatic philosophy, its application to motion was bound to produce “paradoxes.”

The enunciations, with a brief but close critique, will be found in the Ency. Brit., XI ed., Article Zeno of Elea. Here it suffices to draw attention to the difficulties that are caused by the absence (or unwelcome presence) of time and direction elements, not only in the treatment of plurality itself (which is conceived of indifferently as an augmentation or as a subdivision of the finite magnitude) but especially in the conclusion of the “arrow” paradox and in the very obscure enunciation of Paradox 8.—Tr.