Sixthly, The two contradictories which have been explained break down the system of Parmenides.
24. The philosophy of Parmenides, meagre as its principle, and unsatisfactory as its issues may seem, is a genuine product of the speculative spirit of the world straining towards the light. It is a true philosophy; it has its roots in the necessities of thought. It goes forth in pursuit of the universal, the truth for all intellect. It finds this in the conception of Being; but it mistakes a half conception for a whole one, so that, instead of establishing a whole, it only establishes the half of a necessary thought: in other words, it issues in a contradiction. Nevertheless, this philosophy is great, great in itself, greater in its effects on succeeding thinkers. It is no arbitrary excogitation of an individual mind. It is a product of the universal reason grappling with the universal truth. It represents a speculative movement common to the understandings of all thinking men, a movement through which every mind that reflects must inevitably pass, a catholic crisis in the development of thought itself. It is indeed their broad catholicity, their unindividual thinking, their speculating for the race, or rather, I may say, for all intelligence, and not for themselves, which gives to these old philosophers their interest and value. In this respect Parmenides must be ranked among the highest of those wide and essential souls through which the universal reason has expressed, although not adequately, its everlast-
