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8.1 There is still left a single story
8.2 of a way, that it is. On this way there are signs
8.3 exceedingly many - that being ungenerated it is also imperishable,
8.4 whole and of a single kind and unshaken and complete.
8.5 Nor was it ever nor will it be, since it is now, all together,
8.6 one, continuous. For what birth will you seek for it ?
8.7 How and from where did it grow? I will not permit you to say
8.8 or to think from what is not; for it is not to be said or thought
8.9 that is not. What necessity would have stirred up
8.10 to grow later than earlier, beginning from nothing ?
8.11 Thus it must either fully be or not.
8.12 Nor will the force of conviction ever permit anything to come to be from what is not,
8.13 besides it. For this reason, Justice permitted it neither to come to be
8.14 nor to perish, relaxing her shackles,
8.15 but holds fast. But the decision about these matters lies in this:
8.16 it is or it is not. But it has been decided, as is necessary,
8.17 to let go the one way as unthinkable and nameless (for it is not a true
8.18 way) and that the other is and is real.
8.19 How could what is be in the future ? How could it come to be ?
8.20 For if it came into being, it is not, not if it is ever going to be
8.26 But unchanging in the limits of great bonds,
8.27 it is, without start or finish, since coming to be and destruction
8.28 were banished far away and true conviction drove them off.
8.29 Remaining the same and by itself it lies
8.30 and so stays there fixed ; for mighty Necessity