SOURCE: B. A. G. Fuller, "The Eleatic School," in History of Greek Philosophy: Thales to Democritus, Henry Holt and Company, 1923, pp. 143-79.

In the following excerpt, Fuller considers the difficulties and ramifications of Parmenides's logical assertions, explaining how Parmenides's work was rein-forced by Zeno through his paradoxical motion scenarios and modified by the skeptic Me lis sus.

The flight of philosophy from the coasts of Asia Minor to the southern shores of Italy is full of ro mance and adventure. Before the Lydian Empire and all the wealth of Crœsus had fallen into the hands of the victorious Persians, the philosopher Thales, it will be remembered, advocated in vain the union of the Ionian cities in a single league, the better to withstand the advancing hosts of Cyrus. A Pan-Ionian Congress which was finally convened to consider the emergency turned a deaf ear also to the suggestion...