Heraclitus, who affirmed Becoming over Being, also argued for Matter over against Form. An important benefit of this view is that it "saved the appearances", that is, it recognized the complexity and variety that is directly observed in nature.
However, in saving the appearances, one loses rational intelligibility in a restless sea of change. With nothing fixed and definite, eventually words become meaningless and absurd. This was the beginning of sophism. The Sophists, such as Protagoras, led their followers in turn to a self-defeating philosophy of men such as Gorgias and his disciple Kratylus, who did not use words, but only waved his hands.