[141e]
“And 'will be,' 'will become,' and 'will be made to become,' in future time?” “Yes.” “And 'is' and 'is becoming' in the present?” “Certainly.” “Then if the one has no participation in time whatsoever, it neither has become nor became nor was in the past, it has neither become nor is it becoming nor is it in the present, and it will neither become nor be made to become nor will it be in the future.” “Very true.” “Can it then partake of being in any other way than in the past, present, or future?” “It cannot.” “Then the one has no share in being at all.” “Apparently not.” “Then the one is not at all.” ” Evidently not.” ” Then it has no being even so as to be one, for if it were one, it would be and would partake of being; but apparently one neither is nor is one, if this argument is to be trusted.”
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9 translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1925.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.