not true to apply the predicates separately, our opponent is not really applying them, and nothing at all exists; but how could non-existent things speak or walk, as he does? Also all things will on this view be one, as has been already said, and man and God and trireme and their contradictories will be the same. For if contradictories can be predicated alike of each subject, one thing will in no wise differ from another; for if it differ, this difference will be something true and peculiar to it. And (b) if one may with truth apply the predicates separately, the above-mentioned result follows none the less.
Further, it follows that all would then be right and all would be in error, and our opponent himself confesses himself to be in error.—And at the same time our discussion with him is evidently about nothing at all; for he says nothing. For he says neither 'yes' nor 'no', but both 'yes' and 'no'; and again he denies both of these and says 'neither yes nor no'; for otherwise there would already be something definite.—Again, if when the assertion is true, the negation is false, and when this is true, the affirmation is false, it will not be possible to assert and deny the same thing truly at the same time. But perhaps they might say we had assumed 1008bthe very question at issue.
Again, is he in error who judges either that the thing is so or that it is not so, and is he right who judges both? If he is not right, what can they mean by saying that the nature of existing things is of this kind? And if he is not right, but more right than he who judges in the other way, being will already be of a definite nature, and this will be true, and not at the same time also not true. But if all are alike both right and wrong, one who believes this can neither speak nor say anything intelligible; for he says at the same time both 'yes' and 'no'. And if he makes no judgement but 'thinks' and 'does not think', indifferently, what difference will there be between him and the plants?—Thus, then, it is in the highest degree evident that neither any one of those who maintain this view nor any one else is really in this position. For why does a man walk to Megara and not stay at home thinking he is walking? Why does he not walk early some morning into a well or