[162a]
we necessarily assert that we say that which is.” “Necessarily.” “Then, as it appears, the non-existent one exists. For if it is not non-existent, but gives up something of being to not-being,1 then it will be existent.” “Certainly.” “Then if it does not exist and is to continue to be non-existent, it must have the existence of not-being as a bond, just as being has the non-existence of not-being, in order to attain its perfect existence. For in this way the existence of the existent and the non-existence of the non-existent would be best assured, when the existent partakes of the existence of being existent and of the non-existence of not being non-existent,
1 i.e. if it ceases to be non-existent, gives up something of being (as applied to non-existence) to not-being, so that it no longer is non-existent, but is not non-existent.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9 translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1925.
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