Such is the privilege which you have assumed of talking nonsense with impunity.

But there is, you say, a transition of images flowing on in great crowds in such a way that out of many some one at least must be perceived! I should be ashamed of my incapacity to understand this if you, who assert it, could comprehend it yourselves; for how do you prove that these images are continued in uninterrupted motion?
Or, if uninterrupted, still how do you prove them to be eternal?
There is a constant supply, you say, of innumerable atoms.

But must they, for that reason, be all eternal?
To elude this, you have recourse to equilibration (for so, with your leave, I will call your [Greek: Isonomia]),[100] and say that as there is a sort of nature mortal, so there must also be a sort which is immortal.

By the same rule, as there are men mortal, there are men immortal; and as some arise from the earth, some must arise from the water also; and as there are causes which destroy, there must likewise be causes which preserve.

Be it as you say; but let those causes preserve which have existence themselves.