246
Stranger
Str. Some of them The atomists (Leucippus, Democritus, and their followers), who taught that nothing exists except atoms and the void. Possibly there is a covert reference to Aristippus who was, like Plato, a pupil of Socrates. drag down everything from heaven and the invisible to earth, actually grasping rocks and trees with their hands; for they lay their hands on all such things and maintain stoutly that that alone exists which can be touched and handled; for they define existence and body, or matter, as identical, and if anyone says that anything else, which has no body, exists, they despise him utterly, and will not listen to any other theory than their own.
5
Theaetetus
Theaet. Terrible men they are of whom you speak. I myself have met with many of them.
Stranger
Str. Therefore those who contend against them defend themselves very cautiously with weapons derived from the invisible world above, maintaining forcibly that real existence consists of certain ideas which are only conceived by the mind and have no body. But the bodies of their opponents, and that which is called by them truth, they break up into small fragments in their arguments, calling them, not existence, but a kind of generation combined with motion. There is always, Theaetetus, a tremendous battle being fought about these questions between the two parties.
Stranger
Str. Let us, therefore, get from each party in turn a statement in defence of that which they regard as being.
Theaetetus
Theaet. How shall we get it?
10
