THEORY OF KNOWING.
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PROP. X.————
to be withdrawn; but it becomes more than nothing, yet less than anything;[1] what the logicians term "an excluded middle." The material world is not annihilated when the intelligible element is withdrawn—as some rash and short-sighted idealists seem inclined to suppose. Very far from that; but it is worse, or rather better, than annihilated: it is reduced to the predicament of a contradiction, and banished to the purgatory of nonsense.
Key to the Greek philosophy22. Understand by Plato's sensible world (τὸ αἰσθητόν, τὸ ἄλογον, τὸ ἀνόητον, τὸ γιγνόμενον) the absolutely incomprehensible and contradictory, and understand by his intelligible or real world (τὸ ὄντως ὄν) the sensible world as we now actually behold it, and his whole philosophy becomes luminous and plain. (This statement may require, as has been said, a slight qualification hereafter). But understand by his sensible world what we mean by the sensible world, and the case becomes altogether hopeless, confused beyond all extrication. Because, what then is his intelligible world? A thing not to be explained, either by himself, or by any man of woman born. There cannot be a doubt that his- ↑ This is precisely what is meant by the term γιγνόμενον. Γίγνομαι means to become—that is, to be becoming something—that is, to be in the transition between nothing and something—that is, to be more than nothing, but less than anything. (Compare what is said about the fluxional character of material things. Prop. VII. Obss. 14, et seq.)
