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Some people have acquired this opinion as other paradoxical
opinions have been acquired; when men cannot refute eristical
arguments, they give in to the argument and agree that the
conclusion is true. This, then, is why some express this view;
others do so because they demand a reason for everything. And the
starting-point in dealing with all such people is definition. Now
the definition rests on the necessity of their meaning something;
for the form of words of which the word is a sign will be its
definition.-While the doctrine of Heraclitus, that all things are
and are not, seems to make everything true, that of Anaxagoras, that
there is an intermediate between the terms of a contradiction, seems
to make everything false; for when things are mixed, the mixture is
neither good nor not-good, so that one cannot say anything that is
true.
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In view of these distinctions it is obvious that the one-sided
theories which some people express about all things cannot be valid-on
the one hand the theory that nothing is true (for, say they, there
is nothing to prevent every statement from being like the statement
'the diagonal of a square is commensurate with the side'), on the
other hand the theory that everything is true. These views are
practically the same as that of Heraclitus; for he who says that all
things are true and all are false also makes each of these
statements separately, so that since they are impossible, the double
statement must be impossible too
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