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Str. Then let us question them further; for if they are willing to admit that any existence, no matter how small, is incorporeal, that is enough. They will then have to tell what is which is inherent in the incorporeal and the corporeal alike, and which they have in mind when they say that both exit. Perhaps they would be at a loss for an answer; and if they are in that condition, consider whether they might not accept a suggestion if we offered it, and might not agree that the nature of being is as follows.
247
Theaet. What is it? Speak, and we shall soon know.
247
Str. I suggest that everything which possesses any power of any kind, either to produce a change in anything of any nature or to be affected even in the least degree by the slightest cause, though it be only on one occasion, has real existence. For I set up as a definition which defines being, that it is nothing else but power.
247
Theaet. Well, since they have at the moment nothing better of their own to offer, they accept this.
248
Str. Good; for perhaps later something else may occur to them and to us. As between them and us, then, let us asume that this is for the present agreed upon and settled.
248
Theaet. It is settled.
248
Str. Then let us go to the others, the friends of ideas; and do you interpret for us their doctrines also.
248
Theaet. I will.
248
Str. You distinguish in your speech between generation and being, do you not? i.e., between the process of coming into existence and existence itself. It is difficult to determine exactly who the idealists are whose doctrines are here discussed. Possibly Plato is restating or amending some of his own earlier beliefs.
248
Theaet. Yes, we do.
248
Str. And you say that with the body, by means of perception, we participate in generation, and with the soul, by means of thought, we participate in real being, which last is always unchanged and the same, whereas generation is different at different times.
248
Theaet. Yes, that is what we say.
