Metaphysics

​But of all things, one might be most puzzled as to what on earth the Forms contribute either to the eternal of sensible things or to those that come to be and perish; for they are causes of neither movement nor of any change to them. Further, they help in no way towards the knowledge of other things (for those are not the substance of these; for if they were, they would be in them), nor towards their being, since they do not exist in the participating things; for in this way they might perhaps seem to be causes, as white mixed with a white thing, but this theory is very easily upset, which Anaxagoras first and Eudoxus later asserted in their difficulty, and certain others (for it is easy to collect many impossible consequences against such an opinion). Moreover, other things are not from the Forms in any of the ways that are customarily said. And to say that they are patterns and that other things participate in them is to speak empty words and to use poetical metaphors. For what is it that works looking towards the Ideas? And it is possible for anything both to be and to come to be without being modeled on them; so that, whether Socrates exists or does not exist, a man like Socrates might come to be; and likewise, it is clear that even if Socrates were eternal, the same would hold. And there will be several patterns of the same thing, so also several Forms; for example, of ‘man’, ‘animal’ and ‘two-footed’, and at the same time also ‘man-himself’. Furthermore, the Forms are patterns not only of sensible things but also of themselves, for example, the genus of the species-as-genus; so that the same thing will be both pattern and image. Furthermore, it would seem impossible for the substance and that of which it is the substance to exist separately; so how could the Ideas, being the substances of things, exist separately? But in the Phaedo it is stated in this way, that the Forms are causes both of being and of coming to be; and yet, though the Forms exist, still things do not come to be unless there is something to move them; and many other things come to be, such as a house and a ring, of which they say there are no Forms; so that it is clear that those things also, of which they say there are Ideas, can both be and come to be through such causes as the things just mentioned, but not through the Forms. But concerning the Ideas, both in this way and through more logical and precise arguments, it is possible to collect many things similar to those we have considered.