TIMAEUS

by Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS. 

Of all the writings of Plato the Timaeus is the most obscure andrepulsive to the modern reader, and has nevertheless had the greatestinfluence over the ancient and mediaeval world. The obscurity arises inthe infancy of physical science, out of the confusion of theological, mathematical, and physiological notions, out of the desire to conceivethe whole of nature without any adequate knowledge of the parts, andfrom a greater perception of similarities which lie on the surface thanof differences which are hidden from view. To bring sense under thecontrol of reason; to find some way through the mist or labyrinth ofappearances, either the highway of mathematics, or more devious pathssuggested by the analogy of man with the world, and of the world withman; to see that all things have a cause and are tending towards anend--this is the spirit of the ancient physical philosopher. He has nonotion of trying an experiment and is hardly capable of observingthe curiosities of nature which are 'tumbling out at his feet, ' or ofinterpreting even the most obvious of them. He is driven back from thenearer to the more distant, from particulars to generalities, from theearth to the stars. He lifts up his eyes to the heavens and seeks toguide by their motions his erring footsteps. But we neither appreciatethe conditions of knowledge to which he was subjected, nor have theideas which fastened upon his imagination the same hold upon us. For heis hanging between matter and mind; he is under the dominion at the sametime both of sense and of abstractions; his impressions are taken almostat random from the outside of nature; he sees the light, but notthe objects which are revealed by the light; and he brings intojuxtaposition things which to us appear wide as the poles asunder, because he finds nothing between them. He passes abruptly from personsto ideas and numbers, and from ideas and numbers to persons, --from theheavens to man, from astronomy to physiology; he confuses, or ratherdoes not distinguish, subject and object, first and final causes, andis dreaming of geometrical figures lost in a flux of sense. He contraststhe perfect movements of the heavenly bodies with the imperfectrepresentation of them (Rep. ), and he does not always require strictaccuracy even in applications of number and figure (Rep. ). His mindlingers around the forms of mythology, which he uses as symbols ortranslates into figures of speech. He has no implements of observation, such as the telescope or microscope; the great science of chemistry isa blank to him. It is only by an effort that the modern thinker canbreathe the atmosphere of the ancient philosopher, or understand how, under such unequal conditions, he seems in many instances, by a sort ofinspiration, to have anticipated the truth. 

The influence with the Timaeus has exercised upon posterity is duepartly to a misunderstanding. In the supposed depths of this dialoguethe Neo-Platonists found hidden meanings and connections with the Jewishand Christian Scriptures, and out of them they elicited doctrines quiteat variance with the spirit of Plato. Believing that he was inspired bythe Holy Ghost, or had received his wisdom from Moses, they seemed tofind in his writings the Christian Trinity, the Word, the Church, the creation of the world in a Jewish sense, as they really found thepersonality of God or of mind, and the immortality of the soul. Allreligions and philosophies met and mingled in the schools of Alexandria, and the Neo-Platonists had a method of interpretation which couldelicit any meaning out of any words. They were really incapable ofdistinguishing between the opinions of one philosopher and another--between Aristotle and Plato, or between the serious thoughts of Platoand his passing fancies. They were absorbed in his theology and wereunder the dominion of his name, while that which was truly greatand truly characteristic in him, his effort to realize and connectabstractions, was not understood by them at all. Yet the genius ofPlato and Greek philosophy reacted upon the East, and a Greek element ofthought and language overlaid and partly reduced to order the chaos ofOrientalism. And kindred spirits, like St. Augustine, even though theywere acquainted with his writings only through the medium of a Latintranslation, were profoundly affected by them, seeming to find 'God andhis word everywhere insinuated' in them (August. Confess. )

There is no danger of the modern commentators on the Timaeus fallinginto the absurdities of the Neo-Platonists. In the present day we arewell aware that an ancient philosopher is to be interpreted from himselfand by the contemporary history of thought. We know that mysticism isnot criticism. The fancies of the Neo-Platonists are only interesting tous because they exhibit a phase of the human mind which prevailed widelyin the first centuries of the Christian era, and is not wholly extinctin our own day. But they have nothing to do with the interpretationof Plato, and in spirit they are opposed to him. They are the feebleexpression of an age which has lost the power not only of creatinggreat works, but of understanding them. They are the spurious birth ofa marriage between philosophy and tradition, between Hellas and theEast--(Greek) (Rep. ). Whereas the so-called mysticism of Plato is purelyGreek, arising out of his imperfect knowledge and high aspirations, andis the growth of an age in which philosophy is not wholly separated frompoetry and mythology. 

A greater danger with modern interpreters of Plato is the tendency toregard the Timaeus as the centre of his system. We do not know howPlato would have arranged his own dialogues, or whether the thoughtof arranging any of them, besides the two 'Trilogies' which he hasexpressly connected; was ever present to his mind. But, if he hadarranged them, there are many indications that this is not the placewhich he would have assigned to the Timaeus. We observe, first of all, that the dialogue is put into the mouth of a Pythagorean philosopher, and not of Socrates. And this is required by dramatic propriety; forthe investigation of nature was expressly renounced by Socrates in thePhaedo. Nor does Plato himself attribute any importance to his guessesat science. He is not at all absorbed by them, as he is by the IDEA ofgood. He is modest and hesitating, and confesses that his words partakeof the uncertainty of the subject (Tim. ). The dialogue is primarilyconcerned with the animal creation, including under this term theheavenly bodies, and with man only as one among the animals. But we canhardly suppose that Plato would have preferred the study of nature toman, or that he would have deemed the formation of the world and thehuman frame to have the same interest which he ascribes to the mysteryof being and not-being, or to the great political problems which hediscusses in the Republic and the Laws. There are no speculations onphysics in the other dialogues of Plato, and he himself regards theconsideration of them as a rational pastime only. He is beginning tofeel the need of further divisions of knowledge; and is becoming awarethat besides dialectic, mathematics, and the arts, there is anotherfield which has been hitherto unexplored by him. But he has not asyet defined this intermediate territory which lies somewhere betweenmedicine and mathematics, and he would have felt that there was asgreat an impiety in ranking theories of physics first in the order ofknowledge, as in placing the body before the soul. 

It is true, however, that the Timaeus is by no means confined tospeculations on physics. The deeper foundations of the Platonicphilosophy, such as the nature of God, the distinction of the sensibleand intellectual, the great original conceptions of time and space, also appear in it. They are found principally in the first half of thedialogue. The construction of the heavens is for the most part ideal;the cyclic year serves as the connection between the world of absolutebeing and of generation, just as the number of population in theRepublic is the expression or symbol of the transition from the idealto the actual state. In some passages we are uncertain whether we arereading a description of astronomical facts or contemplating processesof the human mind, or of that divine mind (Phil. ) which in Plato ishardly separable from it. The characteristics of man are transferredto the world-animal, as for example when intelligence and knowledge aresaid to be perfected by the circle of the Same, and true opinion bythe circle of the Other; and conversely the motions of the world-animalreappear in man; its amorphous state continues in the child, and in bothdisorder and chaos are gradually succeeded by stability and order. Itis not however to passages like these that Plato is referring when hespeaks of the uncertainty of his subject, but rather to the compositionof bodies, to the relations of colours, the nature of diseases, and thelike, about which he truly feels the lamentable ignorance prevailing inhis own age. 

We are led by Plato himself to regard the Timaeus, not as the centre orinmost shrine of the edifice, but as a detached building in a differentstyle, framed, not after the Socratic, but after some Pythagorean model. As in the Cratylus and Parmenides, we are uncertain whether Plato isexpressing his own opinions, or appropriating and perhaps improvingthe philosophical speculations of others. In all three dialogues he isexerting his dramatic and imitative power; in the Cratylus mingling asatirical and humorous purpose with true principles of language; inthe Parmenides overthrowing Megarianism by a sort of ultra-Megarianism, which discovers contradictions in the one as great as those whichhave been previously shown to exist in the ideas. There is a similaruncertainty about the Timaeus; in the first part he scales the heightsof transcendentalism, in the latter part he treats in a bald andsuperficial manner of the functions and diseases of the human frame. Heuses the thoughts and almost the words of Parmenides when he discoursesof being and of essence, adopting from old religion into philosophy theconception of God, and from the Megarians the IDEA of good. He agreeswith Empedocles and the Atomists in attributing the greater differencesof kinds to the figures of the elements and their movements into and outof one another. With Heracleitus, he acknowledges the perpetual flux;like Anaxagoras, he asserts the predominance of mind, although admittingan element of necessity which reason is incapable of subduing; like thePythagoreans he supposes the mystery of the world to be contained innumber. Many, if not all the elements of the Pre-Socratic philosophyare included in the Timaeus. It is a composite or eclectic work ofimagination, in which Plato, without naming them, gathers up into a kindof system the various elements of philosophy which preceded him. 

If we allow for the difference of subject, and for some growth inPlato's own mind, the discrepancy between the Timaeus and the otherdialogues will not appear to be great. It is probable that the relationof the ideas to God or of God to the world was differently conceivedby him at different times of his life. In all his later dialogues weobserve a tendency in him to personify mind or God, and he thereforenaturally inclines to view creation as the work of design. The creatoris like a human artist who frames in his mind a plan which he executesby the help of his servants. Thus the language of philosophy whichspeaks of first and second causes is crossed by another sort ofphraseology: 'God made the world because he was good, and the demonsministered to him. ' The Timaeus is cast in a more theological and lessphilosophical mould than the other dialogues, but the same generalspirit is apparent; there is the same dualism or opposition between theideal and actual--the soul is prior to the body, the intelligible andunseen to the visible and corporeal. There is the same distinctionbetween knowledge and opinion which occurs in the Theaetetus andRepublic, the same enmity to the poets, the same combination of musicand gymnastics. The doctrine of transmigration is still held by him, asin the Phaedrus and Republic; and the soul has a view of the heavensin a prior state of being. The ideas also remain, but they havebecome types in nature, forms of men, animals, birds, fishes. And theattribution of evil to physical causes accords with the doctrine whichhe maintains in the Laws respecting the involuntariness of vice. 

The style and plan of the Timaeus differ greatly from that of any otherof the Platonic dialogues. The language is weighty, abrupt, and in somepassages sublime. But Plato has not the same mastery over his instrumentwhich he exhibits in the Phaedrus or Symposium. Nothing can exceed thebeauty or art of the introduction, in which he is using words after hisaccustomed manner. But in the rest of the work the power of languageseems to fail him, and the dramatic form is wholly given up. He couldwrite in one style, but not in another, and the Greek language had notas yet been fashioned by any poet or philosopher to describe physicalphenomena. The early physiologists had generally written in verse; theprose writers, like Democritus and Anaxagoras, as far as we can judgefrom their fragments, never attained to a periodic style. And hencewe find the same sort of clumsiness in the Timaeus of Plato whichcharacterizes the philosophical poem of Lucretius. There is a want offlow and often a defect of rhythm; the meaning is sometimes obscure, andthere is a greater use of apposition and more of repetition than occursin Plato's earlier writings. The sentences are less closely connectedand also more involved; the antecedents of demonstrative and relativepronouns are in some cases remote and perplexing. The greater frequencyof participles and of absolute constructions gives the effect ofheaviness. The descriptive portion of the Timaeus retains traces ofthe first Greek prose composition; for the great master of language wasspeaking on a theme with which he was imperfectly acquainted, and hadno words in which to express his meaning. The rugged grandeur of theopening discourse of Timaeus may be compared with the more harmoniousbeauty of a similar passage in the Phaedrus. 

To the same cause we may attribute the want of plan. Plato had notthe command of his materials which would have enabled him to producea perfect work of art. Hence there are several new beginnings andresumptions and formal or artificial connections; we miss the 'callidajunctura' of the earlier dialogues. His speculations about theEternal, his theories of creation, his mathematical anticipations, aresupplemented by desultory remarks on the one immortal and the twomortal souls of man, on the functions of the bodily organs in health anddisease, on sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. He soars intothe heavens, and then, as if his wings were suddenly clipped, he walksungracefully and with difficulty upon the earth. The greatest things inthe world, and the least things in man, are brought within the compassof a short treatise. But the intermediate links are missing, and wecannot be surprised that there should be a want of unity in a work whichembraces astronomy, theology, physiology, and natural philosophy in afew pages. 

It is not easy to determine how Plato's cosmos may be presented to thereader in a clearer and shorter form; or how we may supply a thread ofconnexion to his ideas without giving greater consistency to them thanthey possessed in his mind, or adding on consequences which wouldnever have occurred to him. For he has glimpses of the truth, but nocomprehensive or perfect vision. There are isolated expressions aboutthe nature of God which have a wonderful depth and power; but we arenot justified in assuming that these had any greater significance tothe mind of Plato than language of a neutral and impersonal character. . . With a view to the illustration of the Timaeus I propose to divide thisIntroduction into sections, of which the first will contain an outlineof the dialogue: (2) I shall consider the aspects of nature whichpresented themselves to Plato and his age, and the elements ofphilosophy which entered into the conception of them: (3) the theologyand physics of the Timaeus, including the soul of the world, theconception of time and space, and the composition of the elements: (4)in the fourth section I shall consider the Platonic astronomy, and theposition of the earth. There will remain, (5) the psychology, (6) thephysiology of Plato, and (7) his analysis of the senses to be brieflycommented upon: (8) lastly, we may examine in what points Platoapproaches or anticipates the discoveries of modern science. 

Section 1. 

Socrates begins the Timaeus with a summary of the Republic. He lightlytouches upon a few points, --the division of labour and distributionof the citizens into classes, the double nature and training of theguardians, the community of property and of women and children. Buthe makes no mention of the second education, or of the government ofphilosophers. 

And now he desires to see the ideal State set in motion; he would liketo know how she behaved in some great struggle. But he is unable toinvent such a narrative himself; and he is afraid that the poets areequally incapable; for, although he pretends to have nothing to sayagainst them, he remarks that they are a tribe of imitators, who canonly describe what they have seen. And he fears that the Sophists, whoare plentifully supplied with graces of speech, in their erratic way oflife having never had a city or house of their own, may through want ofexperience err in their conception of philosophers and statesmen. 'Andtherefore to you I turn, Timaeus, citizen of Locris, who are at oncea philosopher and a statesman, and to you, Critias, whom all Atheniansknow to be similarly accomplished, and to Hermocrates, who is alsofitted by nature and education to share in our discourse. '

HERMOCRATES: 'We will do our best, and have been already preparing; foron our way home, Critias told us of an ancient tradition, which Iwish, Critias, that you would repeat to Socrates. ' 'I will, if Timaeusapproves. ' 'I approve. ' Listen then, Socrates, to a tale of Solon's, who, being the friend of Dropidas my great-grandfather, told it to mygrandfather Critias, and he told me. The narrative related to ancientfamous actions of the Athenian people, and to one especially, which Iwill rehearse in honour of you and of the goddess. Critias when he toldthis tale of the olden time, was ninety years old, I being not more thanten. The occasion of the rehearsal was the day of the Apaturia calledthe Registration of Youth, at which our parents gave prizes forrecitation. Some poems of Solon were recited by the boys. They had notat that time gone out of fashion, and the recital of them led some oneto say, perhaps in compliment to Critias, that Solon was not only thewisest of men but also the best of poets. The old man brightened upat hearing this, and said: Had Solon only had the leisure which wasrequired to complete the famous legend which he brought with him fromEgypt he would have been as distinguished as Homer and Hesiod. 'And whatwas the subject of the poem?' said the person who made the remark. Thesubject was a very noble one; he described the most famous action inwhich the Athenian people were ever engaged. But the memory of theirexploits has passed away owing to the lapse of time and the extinctionof the actors. 'Tell us, ' said the other, 'the whole story, and whereSolon heard the story. ' He replied--There is at the head of the EgyptianDelta, where the river Nile divides, a city and district called Sais;the city was the birthplace of King Amasis, and is under the protectionof the goddess Neith or Athene. The citizens have a friendly feelingtowards the Athenians, believing themselves to be related to them. Hither came Solon, and was received with honour; and here he firstlearnt, by conversing with the Egyptian priests, how ignorant he andhis countrymen were of antiquity. Perceiving this, and with the view ofeliciting information from them, he told them the tales of Phoroneus andNiobe, and also of Deucalion and Pyrrha, and he endeavoured to countthe generations which had since passed. Thereupon an aged priest said tohim: 'O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are ever young, and there is no oldman who is a Hellene. ' 'What do you mean?' he asked. 'In mind, ' repliedthe priest, 'I mean to say that you are children; there is no opinionor tradition of knowledge among you which is white with age; and Iwill tell you why. Like the rest of mankind you have suffered fromconvulsions of nature, which are chiefly brought about by the two greatagencies of fire and water. The former is symbolized in the Hellenictale of young Phaethon who drove his father's horses the wrong way, andhaving burnt up the earth was himself burnt up by a thunderbolt. Forthere occurs at long intervals a derangement of the heavenly bodies, andthen the earth is destroyed by fire. At such times, and when fire is theagent, those who dwell by rivers or on the seashore are safer than thosewho dwell upon high and dry places, who in their turn are safer whenthe danger is from water. Now the Nile is our saviour from fire, and asthere is little rain in Egypt, we are not harmed by water; whereas inother countries, when a deluge comes, the inhabitants are swept by therivers into the sea. The memorials which your own and other nationshave once had of the famous actions of mankind perish in the waters atcertain periods; and the rude survivors in the mountains begin again, knowing nothing of the world before the flood. But in Egypt thetraditions of our own and other lands are by us registered for ever inour temples. The genealogies which you have recited to us out of yourown annals, Solon, are a mere children's story. For in the first place, you remember one deluge only, and there were many of them, and you knownothing of that fairest and noblest race of which you are a seed orremnant. The memory of them was lost, because there was no writtenvoice among you. For in the times before the great flood Athens was thegreatest and best of cities and did the noblest deeds and had the bestconstitution of any under the face of heaven. ' Solon marvelled, anddesired to be informed of the particulars. 'You are welcome to hearthem, ' said the priest, 'both for your own sake and for that of thecity, and above all for the sake of the goddess who is the commonfoundress of both our cities. Nine thousand years have elapsed since shefounded yours, and eight thousand since she founded ours, as our annalsrecord. Many laws exist among us which are the counterpart of yours asthey were in the olden time. I will briefly describe them to you, and you shall read the account of them at your leisure in the sacredregisters. In the first place, there was a caste of priests among theancient Athenians, and another of artisans; also castes of shepherds, hunters, and husbandmen, and lastly of warriors, who, like the warriorsof Egypt, were separated from the rest, and carried shields and spears, a custom which the goddess first taught you, and then the Asiatics, andwe among Asiatics first received from her. Observe again, what care thelaw took in the pursuit of wisdom, searching out the deep things of theworld, and applying them to the use of man. The spot of earth which thegoddess chose had the best of climates, and produced the wisest men; inno other was she herself, the philosopher and warrior goddess, so likelyto have votaries. And there you dwelt as became the children of thegods, excelling all men in virtue, and many famous actions are recordedof you. The most famous of them all was the overthrow of the island ofAtlantis. This great island lay over against the Pillars of Heracles, inextent greater than Libya and Asia put together, and was the passage toother islands and to a great ocean of which the Mediterranean sea wasonly the harbour; and within the Pillars the empire of Atlantis reachedin Europe to Tyrrhenia and in Libya to Egypt. This mighty power wasarrayed against Egypt and Hellas and all the countries bordering on theMediterranean. Then your city did bravely, and won renown over thewhole earth. For at the peril of her own existence, and when the otherHellenes had deserted her, she repelled the invader, and of her ownaccord gave liberty to all the nations within the Pillars. A littlewhile afterwards there were great earthquakes and floods, and yourwarrior race all sank into the earth; and the great island of Atlantisalso disappeared in the sea. This is the explanation of the shallowswhich are found in that part of the Atlantic ocean. '

Such was the tale, Socrates, which Critias heard from Solon; and Inoticed when listening to you yesterday, how close the resemblance wasbetween your city and citizens and the ancient Athenian State. But Iwould not speak at the time, because I wanted to refresh my memory. I had heard the old man when I was a child, and though I could notremember the whole of our yesterday's discourse, I was able to recallevery word of this, which is branded into my mind; and I am prepared, Socrates, to rehearse to you the entire narrative. The imaginary Statewhich you were describing may be identified with the reality of Solon, and our antediluvian ancestors may be your citizens. 'That is excellent, Critias, and very appropriate to a Panathenaic festival; the truth ofthe story is a great advantage. ' Then now let me explain to youthe order of our entertainment; first, Timaeus, who is a naturalphilosopher, will speak of the origin of the world, going down to thecreation of man, and then I shall receive the men whom he has created, and some of whom will have been educated by you, and introduce them toyou as the lost Athenian citizens of whom the Egyptian record spoke. As the law of Solon prescribes, we will bring them into court andacknowledge their claims to citizenship. 'I see, ' replied Socrates, 'that I shall be well entertained; and do you, Timaeus, offer up aprayer and begin. '

TIMAEUS: All men who have any right feeling, at the beginning of anyenterprise, call upon the Gods; and he who is about to speak of theorigin of the universe has a special need of their aid. May my wordsbe acceptable to them, and may I speak in the manner which will be mostintelligible to you and will best express my own meaning!

First, I must distinguish between that which always is and never becomesand which is apprehended by reason and reflection, and that which alwaysbecomes and never is and is conceived by opinion with the help of sense. All that becomes and is created is the work of a cause, and that isfair which the artificer makes after an eternal pattern, but whatever isfashioned after a created pattern is not fair. Is the world created oruncreated?--that is the first question. Created, I reply, being visibleand tangible and having a body, and therefore sensible; and if sensible, then created; and if created, made by a cause, and the cause is theineffable father of all things, who had before him an eternal archetype. For to imagine that the archetype was created would be blasphemy, seeingthat the world is the noblest of creations, and God is the best ofcauses. And the world being thus created according to the eternalpattern is the copy of something; and we may assume that words are akinto the matter of which they speak. What is spoken of the unchanging orintelligible must be certain and true; but what is spoken of the createdimage can only be probable; being is to becoming what truth is tobelief. And amid the variety of opinions which have arisen about God andthe nature of the world we must be content to take probability forour rule, considering that I, who am the speaker, and you, who are thejudges, are only men; to probability we may attain but no further. 

SOCRATES: Excellent, Timaeus, I like your manner of approaching thesubject--proceed. 

TIMAEUS: Why did the Creator make the world?. . . He was good, andtherefore not jealous, and being free from jealousy he desired that allthings should be like himself. Wherefore he set in order the visibleworld, which he found in disorder. Now he who is the best couldonly create the fairest; and reflecting that of visible things theintelligent is superior to the unintelligent, he put intelligencein soul and soul in body, and framed the universe to be the best andfairest work in the order of nature, and the world became a living soulthrough the providence of God. 

In the likeness of what animal was the world made?--that is the thirdquestion. . . The form of the perfect animal was a whole, and contained allintelligible beings, and the visible animal, made after the pattern ofthis, included all visible creatures. 

Are there many worlds or one only?--that is the fourth question. . . Oneonly. For if in the original there had been more than one they wouldhave been the parts of a third, which would have been the true patternof the world; and therefore there is, and will ever be, but one createdworld. Now that which is created is of necessity corporeal and visibleand tangible, --visible and therefore made of fire, --tangible andtherefore solid and made of earth. But two terms must be united by athird, which is a mean between them; and had the earth been a surfaceonly, one mean would have sufficed, but two means are required to unitesolid bodies. And as the world was composed of solids, between theelements of fire and earth God placed two other elements of air andwater, and arranged them in a continuous proportion--

fire:air::air:water, and air:water::water:earth, and so put together a visible and palpable heaven, having harmony andfriendship in the union of the four elements; and being at unity withitself it was indissoluble except by the hand of the framer. Each of theelements was taken into the universe whole and entire; for he consideredthat the animal should be perfect and one, leaving no remnants out ofwhich another animal could be created, and should also be free from oldage and disease, which are produced by the action of external forces. And as he was to contain all things, he was made in the all-containingform of a sphere, round as from a lathe and every way equidistant fromthe centre, as was natural and suitable to him. He was finished andsmooth, having neither eyes nor ears, for there was nothing withouthim which he could see or hear; and he had no need to carry food tohis mouth, nor was there air for him to breathe; and he did not requirehands, for there was nothing of which he could take hold, nor feet, withwhich to walk. All that he did was done rationally in and by himself, and he moved in a circle turning within himself, which is the mostintellectual of motions; but the other six motions were wanting to him;wherefore the universe had no feet or legs. 

And so the thought of God made a God in the image of a perfect body, having intercourse with himself and needing no other, but in every partharmonious and self-contained and truly blessed. The soul was first madeby him--the elder to rule the younger; not in the order in which ourwayward fancy has led us to describe them, but the soul first andafterwards the body. God took of the unchangeable and indivisible andalso of the divisible and corporeal, and out of the two he made a thirdnature, essence, which was in a mean between them, and partook of thesame and the other, the intractable nature of the other being compressedinto the same. Having made a compound of all the three, he proceededto divide the entire mass into portions related to one another in theratios of 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 8, 27, and proceeded to fill up the double andtriple intervals thus--

 - over 1, 4/3, 3/2, - over 2, 8/3, 3, - over 4, 16/3, 6, - over 8: - over 1, 3/2, 2, - over 3, 9/2, 6, - over 9, 27/2, 18, - over 27;

in which double series of numbers are two kinds of means; the oneexceeds and is exceeded by equal parts of the extremes, e. G. 1, 4/3, 2;the other kind of mean is one which is equidistant from the extremes--2, 4, 6. In this manner there were formed intervals of thirds, 3:2, offourths, 4:3, and of ninths, 9:8. And next he filled up the intervalsof a fourth with ninths, leaving a remnant which is in the ratio of256:243. The entire compound was divided by him lengthways into twoparts, which he united at the centre like the letter X, and bent into aninner and outer circle or sphere, cutting one another again at a pointover against the point at which they cross. The outer circle or spherewas named the sphere of the same--the inner, the sphere of the otheror diverse; and the one revolved horizontally to the right, the otherdiagonally to the left. To the sphere of the same which was undividedhe gave dominion, but the sphere of the other or diverse was distributedinto seven unequal orbits, having intervals in ratios of twos andthrees, three of either sort, and he bade the orbits move in oppositedirections to one another--three of them, the Sun, Mercury, Venus, with equal swiftness, and the remaining four--the Moon, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter, with unequal swiftness to the three and to one another, but allin due proportion. 

When the Creator had made the soul he made the body within her; andthe soul interfused everywhere from the centre to the circumference ofheaven, herself turning in herself, began a divine life of rationaland everlasting motion. The body of heaven is visible, but the soulis invisible, and partakes of reason and harmony, and is the best ofcreations, being the work of the best. And being composed of the same, the other, and the essence, these three, and also divided and boundin harmonical proportion, and revolving within herself--the soul whentouching anything which has essence, whether divided or undivided, isstirred to utter the sameness or diversity of that and some other thing, and to tell how and when and where individuals are affected or related, whether in the world of change or of essence. When reason is in theneighbourhood of sense, and the circle of the other or diverse is movingtruly, then arise true opinions and beliefs; when reason is in thesphere of thought, and the circle of the same runs smoothly, thenintelligence is perfected. 

When the Father who begat the world saw the image which he had madeof the Eternal Gods moving and living, he rejoiced; and in his joyresolved, since the archetype was eternal, to make the creature eternalas far as this was possible. Wherefore he made an image of eternitywhich is time, having an uniform motion according to number, parted intomonths and days and years, and also having greater divisions of past, present, and future. These all apply to becoming in time, and have nomeaning in relation to the eternal nature, which ever is and never wasor will be; for the unchangeable is never older or younger, and whenwe say that he 'was' or 'will be, ' we are mistaken, for these words areapplicable only to becoming, and not to true being; and equally wrongare we in saying that what has become IS become and that what becomesIS becoming, and that the non-existent IS non-existent. . . These are theforms of time which imitate eternity and move in a circle measured bynumber. 

Thus was time made in the image of the eternal nature; and it wascreated together with the heavens, in order that if they were dissolved, it might perish with them. And God made the sun and moon and five otherwanderers, as they are called, seven in all, and to each of them he gavea body moving in an orbit, being one of the seven orbits into which thecircle of the other was divided. He put the moon in the orbit which wasnearest to the earth, the sun in that next, the morning star andMercury in the orbits which move opposite to the sun but with equalswiftness--this being the reason why they overtake and are overtaken byone another. All these bodies became living creatures, and learnt theirappointed tasks, and began to move, the nearer more swiftly, the remotermore slowly, according to the diagonal movement of the other. And sincethis was controlled by the movement of the same, the seven planets intheir courses appeared to describe spirals; and that appeared fastestwhich was slowest, and that which overtook others appeared to beovertaken by them. And God lighted a fire in the second orbit from theearth which is called the sun, to give light over the whole heaven, andto teach intelligent beings that knowledge of number which is derivedfrom the revolution of the same. Thus arose day and night, which arethe periods of the most intelligent nature; a month is created by therevolution of the moon, a year by that of the sun. Other periods ofwonderful length and complexity are not observed by men in general;there is moreover a cycle or perfect year at the completion of whichthey all meet and coincide. . . To this end the stars came into being, thatthe created heaven might imitate the eternal nature. 

Thus far the universal animal was made in the divine image, but theother animals were not as yet included in him. And God created themaccording to the patterns or species of them which existed in the divineoriginal. There are four of them: one of gods, another of birds, a thirdof fishes, and a fourth of animals. The gods were made in the form of acircle, which is the most perfect figure and the figure of the universe. They were created chiefly of fire, that they might be bright, and weremade to know and follow the best, and to be scattered over the heavens, of which they were to be the glory. Two kinds of motion were assigned tothem--first, the revolution in the same and around the same, in peacefulunchanging thought of the same; and to this was added a forward motionwhich was under the control of the same. Thus then the fixed stars werecreated, being divine and eternal animals, revolving on the same spot, and the wandering stars, in their courses, were created in the manneralready described. The earth, which is our nurse, clinging around thepole extended through the universe, he made to be the guardian andartificer of night and day, first and eldest of gods that are in theinterior of heaven. Vain would be the labour of telling all thefigures of them, moving as in dance, and their juxta-positions andapproximations, and when and where and behind what other stars theyappear to disappear--to tell of all this without looking at a plan ofthem would be labour in vain. 

The knowledge of the other gods is beyond us, and we can only accept thetraditions of the ancients, who were the children of the gods, as theysaid; for surely they must have known their own ancestors. Although theygive no proof, we must believe them as is customary. They tell us thatOceanus and Tethys were the children of Earth and Heaven; that Phoreys, Cronos, and Rhea came in the next generation, and were followed by Zeusand Here, whose brothers and children are known to everybody. 

When all of them, both those who show themselves in the sky, and thosewho retire from view, had come into being, the Creator addressed themthus:--'Gods, sons of gods, my works, if I will, are indissoluble. Thatwhich is bound may be dissolved, but only an evil being would dissolvethat which is harmonious and happy. And although you are not immortalyou shall not die, for I will hold you together. Hear me, then:--Threetribes of mortal beings have still to be created, but if created by methey would be like gods. Do ye therefore make them; I will implant inthem the seed of immortality, and you shall weave together the mortaland immortal, and provide food for them, and receive them again indeath. ' Thus he spake, and poured the remains of the elements intothe cup in which he had mingled the soul of the universe. They were nolonger pure as before, but diluted; and the mixture he distributed intosouls equal in number to the stars, and assigned each to a star--thenhaving mounted them, as in a chariot, he showed them the nature of theuniverse, and told them of their future birth and human lot. They wereto be sown in the planets, and out of them was to come forth the mostreligious of animals, which would hereafter be called man. The soulswere to be implanted in bodies, which were in a perpetual flux, whence, he said, would arise, first, sensation; secondly, love, which is amixture of pleasure and pain; thirdly, fear and anger, and the oppositeaffections: and if they conquered these, they would live righteously, but if they were conquered by them, unrighteously. He who livedwell would return to his native star, and would there have a blessedexistence; but, if he lived ill, he would pass into the nature of awoman, and if he did not then alter his evil ways, into the likeness ofsome animal, until the reason which was in him reasserted her sway overthe elements of fire, air, earth, water, which had engrossed her, andhe regained his first and better nature. Having given this law to hiscreatures, that he might be guiltless of their future evil, he sowedthem, some in the earth, some in the moon, and some in the otherplanets; and he ordered the younger gods to frame human bodies for themand to make the necessary additions to them, and to avert from them allbut self-inflicted evil. 

Having given these commands, the Creator remained in his own nature. Andhis children, receiving from him the immortal principle, borrowed fromthe world portions of earth, air, fire, water, hereafter to be returned, which they fastened together, not with the adamantine bonds which boundthemselves, but by little invisible pegs, making each separate body outof all the elements, subject to influx and efflux, and containing thecourses of the soul. These swelling and surging as in a river movedirregularly and irrationally in all the six possible ways, forwards, backwards, right, left, up and down. But violent as were the internaland alimentary fluids, the tide became still more violent when the bodycame into contact with flaming fire, or the solid earth, or glidingwaters, or the stormy wind; the motions produced by these impulses passthrough the body to the soul and have the name of sensations. Unitingwith the ever-flowing current, they shake the courses of the soul, stopping the revolution of the same and twisting in all sorts of waysthe nature of the other, and the harmonical ratios of twos and threesand the mean terms which connect them, until the circles are bentand disordered and their motion becomes irregular. You may imagine aposition of the body in which the head is resting upon the ground, andthe legs are in the air, and the top is bottom and the left right. Andsomething similar happens when the disordered motions of the soul comeinto contact with any external thing; they say the same or the other ina manner which is the very opposite of the truth, and they are falseand foolish, and have no guiding principle in them. And when externalimpressions enter in, they are really conquered, though they seem toconquer. 

By reason of these affections the soul is at first without intelligence, but as time goes on the stream of nutriment abates, and the coursesof the soul regain their proper motion, and apprehend the same and theother rightly, and become rational. The soul of him who has educationis whole and perfect and escapes the worst disease, but, if a man'seducation be neglected, he walks lamely through life and returns goodfor nothing to the world below. This, however, is an after-stage--atpresent, we are only concerned with the creation of the body and soul. 

The two divine courses were encased by the gods in a sphere which iscalled the head, and is the god and lord of us. And to this they gavethe body to be a vehicle, and the members to be instruments, having thepower of flexion and extension. Such was the origin of legs and arms. In the next place, the gods gave a forward motion to the human body, because the front part of man was the more honourable and had authority. And they put in a face in which they inserted organs to minister in allthings to the providence of the soul. They first contrived the eyes, into which they conveyed a light akin to the light of day, making itflow through the pupils. When the light of the eye is surrounded by thelight of day, then like falls upon like, and they unite and form onebody which conveys to the soul the motions of visible objects. But whenthe visual ray goes forth into the darkness, then unlike falls uponunlike--the eye no longer sees, and we go to sleep. The fire or light, when kept in by the eyelids, equalizes the inward motions, and thereis rest accompanied by few dreams; only when the greater motions remainthey engender in us corresponding visions of the night. And now we shallbe able to understand the nature of reflections in mirrors. The firesfrom within and from without meet about the smooth and bright surfaceof the mirror; and because they meet in a manner contrary to the usualmode, the right and left sides of the object are transposed. Ina concave mirror the top and bottom are inverted, but this is notransposition. 

These are the second causes which God used as his ministers infashioning the world. They are thought by many to be the prime causes, but they are not so; for they are destitute of mind and reason, and thelover of mind will not allow that there are any prime causes otherthan the rational and invisible ones--these he investigates first, andafterwards the causes of things which are moved by others, and whichwork by chance and without order. Of the second or concurrent causes ofsight I have already spoken, and I will now speak of the higher purposeof God in giving us eyes. Sight is the source of the greatest benefitsto us; for if our eyes had never seen the sun, stars, and heavens, thewords which we have spoken would not have been uttered. The sight ofthem and their revolutions has given us the knowledge of number andtime, the power of enquiry, and philosophy, which is the great blessingof human life; not to speak of the lesser benefits which even the vulgarcan appreciate. God gave us the faculty of sight that we might beholdthe order of the heavens and create a corresponding order in our ownerring minds. To the like end the gifts of speech and hearing werebestowed upon us; not for the sake of irrational pleasure, but in orderthat we might harmonize the courses of the soul by sympathy with theharmony of sound, and cure ourselves of our irregular and gracelessways. 

Thus far we have spoken of the works of mind; and there are otherworks done from necessity, which we must now place beside them; forthe creation is made up of both, mind persuading necessity as far aspossible to work out good. Before the heavens there existed fire, air, water, earth, which we suppose men to know, though no one has explainedtheir nature, and we erroneously maintain them to be the letters orelements of the whole, although they cannot reasonably be compared evento syllables or first compounds. I am not now speaking of the firstprinciples of things, because I cannot discover them by our present modeof enquiry. But as I observed the rule of probability at first, I willbegin anew, seeking by the grace of God to observe it still. 

In our former discussion I distinguished two kinds of being--theunchanging or invisible, and the visible or changing. But now athird kind is required, which I shall call the receptacle or nurse ofgeneration. There is a difficulty in arriving at an exact notion of thisthird kind, because the four elements themselves are of inexact naturesand easily pass into one another, and are too transient to be detainedby any one name; wherefore we are compelled to speak of water or fire, not as substances, but as qualities. They may be compared to images madeof gold, which are continually assuming new forms. Somebody asks whatthey are; if you do not know, the safest answer is to reply that theyare gold. In like manner there is a universal nature out of which allthings are made, and which is like none of them; but they enter into andpass out of her, and are made after patterns of the true in a wonderfuland inexplicable manner. The containing principle may be likened to amother, the source or spring to a father, the intermediate nature toa child; and we may also remark that the matter which receives everyvariety of form must be formless, like the inodorous liquids which areprepared to receive scents, or the smooth and soft materials on whichfigures are impressed. In the same way space or matter is neither earthnor fire nor air nor water, but an invisible and formless being whichreceives all things, and in an incomprehensible manner partakes of theintelligible. But we may say, speaking generally, that fire is that partof this nature which is inflamed, water that which is moistened, and thelike. 

Let me ask a question in which a great principle is involved: Is therean essence of fire and the other elements, or are there only firesvisible to sense? I answer in a word: If mind is one thing and trueopinion another, then there are self-existent essences; but if mind isthe same with opinion, then the visible and corporeal is most real. Butthey are not the same, and they have a different origin and nature. The one comes to us by instruction, the other by persuasion, the one isrational, the other is irrational; the one is movable by persuasion, the other immovable; the one is possessed by every man, the other by thegods and by very few men. And we must acknowledge that as there are twokinds of knowledge, so there are two kinds of being corresponding tothem; the one uncreated, indestructible, immovable, which is seen byintelligence only; the other created, which is always becoming in placeand vanishing out of place, and is apprehended by opinion and sense. There is also a third nature--that of space, which is indestructible, and is perceived by a kind of spurious reason without the help ofsense. This is presented to us in a dreamy manner, and yet is said tobe necessary, for we say that all things must be somewhere in space. Forthey are the images of other things and must therefore have a separateexistence and exist in something (i. E. In space). But true reasonassures us that while two things (i. E. The idea and the image) aredifferent they cannot inhere in one another, so as to be one and two atthe same time. 

To sum up: Being and generation and space, these three, existed beforethe heavens, and the nurse or vessel of generation, moistened by waterand inflamed by fire, and taking the forms of air and earth, assumedvarious shapes. By the motion of the vessel, the elements were divided, and like grain winnowed by fans, the close and heavy particles settledin one place, the light and airy ones in another. At first they werewithout reason and measure, and had only certain faint traces ofthemselves, until God fashioned them by figure and number. In this, asin every other part of creation, I suppose God to have made things, asfar as was possible, fair and good, out of things not fair and good. 

And now I will explain to you the generation of the world by a methodwith which your scientific training will have made you familiar. Fire, air, earth, and water are bodies and therefore solids, and solidsare contained in planes, and plane rectilinear figures are made up oftriangles. Of triangles there are two kinds; one having the oppositesides equal (isosceles), the other with unequal sides (scalene). Thesewe may fairly assume to be the original elements of fire and the otherbodies; what principles are prior to these God only knows, and he of menwhom God loves. Next, we must determine what are the four most beautifulfigures which are unlike one another and yet sometimes capable ofresolution into one another. . . Of the two kinds of triangles theequal-sided has but one form, the unequal-sided has an infinite varietyof forms; and there is none more beautiful than that which forms thehalf of an equilateral triangle. Let us then choose two triangles; one, the isosceles, the other, that form of scalene which has the square ofthe longer side three times as great as the square of the lesser side;and affirm that, out of these, fire and the other elements have beenconstructed. 

I was wrong in imagining that all the four elements could be generatedinto and out of one another. For as they are formed, three of them fromthe triangle which has the sides unequal, the fourth from the trianglewhich has equal sides, three can be resolved into one another, but thefourth cannot be resolved into them nor they into it. So much for theirpassage into one another: I must now speak of their construction. Fromthe triangle of which the hypotenuse is twice the lesser side the threefirst regular solids are formed--first, the equilateral pyramid ortetrahedron; secondly, the octahedron; thirdly, the icosahedron; andfrom the isosceles triangle is formed the cube. And there is a fifthfigure (which is made out of twelve pentagons), the dodecahedron--thisGod used as a model for the twelvefold division of the Zodiac. 

Let us now assign the geometrical forms to their respective elements. The cube is the most stable of them because resting on a quadrangularplane surface, and composed of isosceles triangles. To the earth then, which is the most stable of bodies and the most easily modelled of them, may be assigned the form of a cube; and the remaining forms to the otherelements, --to fire the pyramid, to air the octahedron, and to water theicosahedron, --according to their degrees of lightness or heaviness orpower, or want of power, of penetration. The single particles of any ofthe elements are not seen by reason of their smallness; they only becomevisible when collected. The ratios of their motions, numbers, andother properties, are ordered by the God, who harmonized them as far asnecessity permitted. 

The probable conclusion is as follows:--Earth, when dissolved by themore penetrating element of fire, whether acting immediately or throughthe medium of air or water, is decomposed but not transformed. Water, when divided by fire or air, becomes one part fire, and two parts air. A volume of air divided becomes two of fire. On the other hand, whencondensed, two volumes of fire make a volume of air; and two and a halfparts of air condense into one of water. Any element which is fastenedupon by fire is cut by the sharpness of the triangles, until at length, coalescing with the fire, it is at rest; for similars are not affectedby similars. When two kinds of bodies quarrel with one another, then thetendency to decomposition continues until the smaller either escapes toits kindred element or becomes one with its conqueror. And this tendencyin bodies to condense or escape is a source of motion. . . Where there ismotion there must be a mover, and where there is a mover there must besomething to move. These cannot exist in what is uniform, and thereforemotion is due to want of uniformity. But then why, when things aredivided after their kinds, do they not cease from motion? The answer is, that the circular motion of all things compresses them, and as 'natureabhors a vacuum, ' the finer and more subtle particles of the lighterelements, such as fire and air, are thrust into the interstices of thelarger, each of them penetrating according to their rarity, and thusall the elements are on their way up and down everywhere and alwaysinto their own places. Hence there is a principle of inequality, andtherefore of motion, in all time. 

In the next place, we may observe that there are different kinds offire--(1) flame, (2) light that burns not, (3) the red heat of theembers of fire. And there are varieties of air, as for example, the pureaether, the opaque mist, and other nameless forms. Water, again, isof two kinds, liquid and fusile. The liquid is composed of small andunequal particles, the fusile of large and uniform particles and is moresolid, but nevertheless melts at the approach of fire, and then spreadsupon the earth. When the substance cools, the fire passes into the air, which is displaced, and forces together and condenses the liquid mass. This process is called cooling and congealment. Of the fusile kinds thefairest and heaviest is gold; this is hardened by filtration throughrock, and is of a bright yellow colour. A shoot of gold which is darkerand denser than the rest is called adamant. Another kind is calledcopper, which is harder and yet lighter because the interstices arelarger than in gold. There is mingled with it a fine and small portionof earth which comes out in the form of rust. These are a few of theconjectures which philosophy forms, when, leaving the eternal nature, she turns for innocent recreation to consider the truths of generation. 

Water which is mingled with fire is called liquid because it rollsupon the earth, and soft because its bases give way. This becomes moreequable when separated from fire and air, and then congeals into hail orice, or the looser forms of hoar frost or snow. There are other waterswhich are called juices and are distilled through plants. Of these wemay mention, first, wine, which warms the soul as well as the body;secondly, oily substances, as for example, oil or pitch; thirdly, honey, which relaxes the contracted parts of the mouth and so producessweetness; fourthly, vegetable acid, which is frothy and has a burningquality and dissolves the flesh. Of the kinds of earth, that which isfiltered through water passes into stone; the water is broken up by theearth and escapes in the form of air--this in turn presses upon the massof earth, and the earth, compressed into an indissoluble union withthe remaining water, becomes rock. Rock, when it is made up of equalparticles, is fair and transparent, but the reverse when of unequal. Earth is converted into pottery when the watery part is suddenly drawnaway; or if moisture remains, the earth, when fused by fire, becomes, on cooling, a stone of a black colour. When the earth is finer and ofa briny nature then two half-solid bodies are formed by separating thewater, --soda and salt. The strong compounds of earth and water are notsoluble by water, but only by fire. Earth itself, when not consolidated, is dissolved by water; when consolidated, by fire only. The cohesion ofwater, when strong, is dissolved by fire only; when weak, either by airor fire, the former entering the interstices, the latter penetratingeven the triangles. Air when strongly condensed is indissoluble by anypower which does not reach the triangles, and even when not stronglycondensed is only resolved by fire. Compounds of earth and water areunaffected by water while the water occupies the interstices in them, but begin to liquefy when fire enters into the interstices of the water. They are of two kinds, some of them, like glass, having more earth, others, like wax, having more water in them. 

Having considered objects of sense, we now pass on to sensation. But wecannot explain sensation without explaining the nature of flesh and ofthe mortal soul; and as we cannot treat of both together, in order thatwe may proceed at once to the sensations we must assume the existence ofbody and soul. 

What makes fire burn? The fineness of the sides, the sharpness of theangles, the smallness of the particles, the quickness of the motion. Moreover, the pyramid, which is the figure of fire, is more cutting thanany other. The feeling of cold is produced by the larger particles ofmoisture outside the body trying to eject the smaller ones in the bodywhich they compress. The struggle which arises between elements thusunnaturally brought together causes shivering. That is hard to which theflesh yields, and soft which yields to the flesh, and these two termsare also relative to one another. The yielding matter is that whichhas the slenderest base, whereas that which has a rectangular baseis compact and repellent. Light and heavy are wrongly explained withreference to a lower and higher in place. For in the universe, which isa sphere, there is no opposition of above or below, and that which is tous above would be below to a man standing at the antipodes. The greateror less difficulty in detaching any element from its like is the realcause of heaviness or of lightness. If you draw the earth into thedissimilar air, the particles of earth cling to their native element, and you more easily detach a small portion than a large. There wouldbe the same difficulty in moving any of the upper elements towards thelower. The smooth and the rough are severally produced by the union ofevenness with compactness, and of hardness with inequality. 

Pleasure and pain are the most important of the affections common to thewhole body. According to our general doctrine of sensation, parts of thebody which are easily moved readily transmit the motion to the mind; butparts which are not easily moved have no effect upon the patient. Thebones and hair are of the latter kind, sight and hearing of the former. Ordinary affections are neither pleasant nor painful. The impressionsof sight afford an example of these, and are neither violent norsudden. But sudden replenishments of the body cause pleasure, and suddendisturbances, as for example cuttings and burnings, have the oppositeeffect. 

>From sensations common to the whole body, we proceed to those ofparticular parts. The affections of the tongue appear to be caused bycontraction and dilation, but they have more of roughness or smoothnessthan is found in other affections. Earthy particles, entering into thesmall veins of the tongue which reach to the heart, when they melt intoand dry up the little veins are astringent if they are rough; or ifnot so rough, they are only harsh, and if excessively abstergent, likepotash and soda, bitter. Purgatives of a weaker sort are called saltand, having no bitterness, are rather agreeable. Inflammatory bodies, which by their lightness are carried up into the head, cutting all thatcomes in their way, are termed pungent. But when these are refined byputrefaction, and enter the narrow veins of the tongue, and meet thereparticles of earth and air, two kinds of globules are formed--one ofearthy and impure liquid, which boils and ferments, the other of pureand transparent water, which are called bubbles; of all these affectionsthe cause is termed acid. When, on the other hand, the composition ofthe deliquescent particles is congenial to the tongue, and disposes theparts according to their nature, this remedial power in them is calledsweet. 

Smells are not divided into kinds; all of them are transitional, andarise out of the decomposition of one element into another, for thesimple air or water is without smell. They are vapours or mists, thinnerthan water and thicker than air: and hence in drawing in the breath, when there is an obstruction, the air passes, but there is no smell. They have no names, but are distinguished as pleasant and unpleasant, and their influence extends over the whole region from the head to thenavel. 

Hearing is the effect of a stroke which is transmitted through the earsby means of the air, brain, and blood to the soul, beginning at the headand extending to the liver. The sound which moves swiftly is acute; thatwhich moves slowly is grave; that which is uniform is smooth, and theopposite is harsh. Loudness depends on the quantity of the sound. Of theharmony of sounds I will hereafter speak. 

Colours are flames which emanate from all bodies, having particlescorresponding to the sense of sight. Some of the particles are less andsome larger, and some are equal to the parts of the sight. The equalparticles appear transparent; the larger contract, and the lesser dilatethe sight. White is produced by the dilation, black by the contraction, of the particles of sight. There is also a swifter motion of anothersort of fire which forces a way through the passages of the eyes, andelicits from them a union of fire and water which we call tears. The inner fire flashes forth, and the outer finds a way in and isextinguished in the moisture, and all sorts of colours are generatedby the mixture. This affection is termed by us dazzling, and the objectwhich produces it is called bright. There is yet another sort offire which mingles with the moisture of the eye without flashing, andproduces a colour like blood--to this we give the name of red. A brightelement mingling with red and white produces a colour which we callauburn. The law of proportion, however, according to which compoundcolours are formed, cannot be determined scientifically or evenprobably. Red, when mingled with black and white, gives a purple hue, which becomes umber when the colours are burnt and there is a largeradmixture of black. Flame-colour is a mixture of auburn and dun; dun ofwhite and black; yellow of white and auburn. White and bright meeting, and falling upon a full black, become dark blue; dark blue mingling withwhite becomes a light blue; the union of flame-colour and black makesleek-green. There is no difficulty in seeing how other colours areprobably composed. But he who should attempt to test the truth of thisby experiment, would forget the difference of the human and divinenature. God only is able to compound and resolve substances; suchexperiments are impossible to man. 

These are the elements of necessity which the Creator received inthe world of generation when he made the all-sufficient and perfectcreature, using the secondary causes as his ministers, but himselffashioning the good in all things. For there are two sorts of causes, the one divine, the other necessary; and we should seek to discover thedivine above all, and, for their sake, the necessary, because withoutthem the higher cannot be attained by us. 

Having now before us the causes out of which the rest of our discourseis to be framed, let us go back to the point at which we began, andadd a fair ending to our tale. As I said at first, all things wereoriginally a chaos in which there was no order or proportion. Theelements of this chaos were arranged by the Creator, and out of themhe made the world. Of the divine he himself was the author, but hecommitted to his offspring the creation of the mortal. From him theyreceived the immortal soul, but themselves made the body to be itsvehicle, and constructed within another soul which was mortal, andsubject to terrible affections--pleasure, the inciter of evil; pain, which deters from good; rashness and fear, foolish counsellors; angerhard to be appeased; hope easily led astray. These they mingled withirrational sense and all-daring love according to necessary laws and soframed man. And, fearing to pollute the divine element, they gave themortal soul a separate habitation in the breast, parted off from thehead by a narrow isthmus. And as in a house the women's apartments aredivided from the men's, the cavity of the thorax was divided into twoparts, a higher and a lower. The higher of the two, which is the seat ofcourage and anger, lies nearer to the head, between the midriff and theneck, and assists reason in restraining the desires. The heart is thehouse of guard in which all the veins meet, and through them reasonsends her commands to the extremity of her kingdom. When the passionsare in revolt, or danger approaches from without, then the heart beatsand swells; and the creating powers, knowing this, implanted in thebody the soft and bloodless substance of the lung, having a porous andspringy nature like a sponge, and being kept cool by drink and air whichenters through the trachea. 

The part of the soul which desires meat and drink was placed between themidriff and navel, where they made a sort of manger; and here they boundit down, like a wild animal, away from the council-chamber, and leavingthe better principle undisturbed to advise quietly for the good of thewhole. For the Creator knew that the belly would not listen to reason, and was under the power of idols and fancies. Wherefore he framed theliver to connect with the lower nature, contriving that it should becompact, and bright, and sweet, and also bitter and smooth, in orderthat the power of thought which originates in the mind might there bereflected, terrifying the belly with the elements of bitterness andgall, and a suffusion of bilious colours when the liver is contracted, and causing pain and misery by twisting out of its place the lobe andclosing up the vessels and gates. And the converse happens when somegentle inspiration coming from intelligence mirrors the oppositefancies, giving rest and sweetness and freedom, and at night, moderationand peace accompanied with prophetic insight, when reason and sense areasleep. For the authors of our being, in obedience to their Father'swill and in order to make men as good as they could, gave to the liverthe power of divination, which is never active when men are awake orin health; but when they are under the influence of some disorder orenthusiasm then they receive intimations, which have to be interpretedby others who are called prophets, but should rather be calledinterpreters of prophecy; after death these intimations becomeunintelligible. The spleen which is situated in the neighbourhood, onthe left side, keeps the liver bright and clean, as a napkin does amirror, and the evacuations of the liver are received into it; and beinga hollow tissue it is for a time swollen with these impurities, but whenthe body is purged it returns to its natural size. 

The truth concerning the soul can only be established by the word ofGod. Still, we may venture to assert what is probable both concerningsoul and body. 

The creative powers were aware of our tendency to excess. And so whenthey made the belly to be a receptacle for food, in order that men mightnot perish by insatiable gluttony, they formed the convolutions of theintestines, in this way retarding the passage of food through the body, lest mankind should be absorbed in eating and drinking, and the wholerace become impervious to divine philosophy. 

The creation of bones and flesh was on this wise. The foundation ofthese is the marrow which binds together body and soul, and the marrowis made out of such of the primary triangles as are adapted by theirperfection to produce all the four elements. These God took and mingledthem in due proportion, making as many kinds of marrow as there werehereafter to be kinds of souls. The receptacle of the divine soul hemade round, and called that portion of the marrow brain, intending thatthe vessel containing this substance should be the head. The remainingpart he divided into long and round figures, and to these as to anchors, fastening the mortal soul, he proceeded to make the rest of the body, first forming for both parts a covering of bone. The bone was formed bysifting pure smooth earth and wetting it with marrow. It was then thrustalternately into fire and water, and thus rendered insoluble by either. Of bone he made a globe which he placed around the brain, leaving anarrow opening, and around the marrow of the neck and spine he formedthe vertebrae, like hinges, which extended from the head through thewhole of the trunk. And as the bone was brittle and liable to mortifyand destroy the marrow by too great rigidity and susceptibility to heatand cold, he contrived sinews and flesh--the first to give flexibility, the second to guard against heat and cold, and to be a protectionagainst falls, containing a warm moisture, which in summer exudes andcools the body, and in winter is a defence against cold. Having this inview, the Creator mingled earth with fire and water and mixed with thema ferment of acid and salt, so as to form pulpy flesh. But the sinewshe made of a mixture of bone and unfermented flesh, giving them amean nature between the two, and a yellow colour. Hence they were moreglutinous than flesh, but softer than bone. The bones which have most ofthe living soul within them he covered with the thinnest film offlesh, those which have least of it, he lodged deeper. At the joints hediminished the flesh in order not to impede the flexure of the limbs, and also to avoid clogging the perceptions of the mind. About thethighs and arms, which have no sense because there is little soul in themarrow, and about the inner bones, he laid the flesh thicker. For wherethe flesh is thicker there is less feeling, except in certain partswhich the Creator has made solely of flesh, as for example, the tongue. Had the combination of solid bone and thick flesh been consistent withacute perceptions, the Creator would have given man a sinewy and fleshyhead, and then he would have lived twice as long. But our creators wereof opinion that a shorter life which was better was preferable to alonger which was worse, and therefore they covered the head with thinbone, and placed the sinews at the extremity of the head round the neck, and fastened the jawbones to them below the face. And they framed themouth, having teeth and tongue and lips, with a view to the necessaryand the good; for food is a necessity, and the river of speech is thebest of rivers. Still, the head could not be left a bare globe of boneon account of the extremes of heat and cold, nor be allowed to becomedull and senseless by an overgrowth of flesh. Wherefore it was coveredby a peel or skin which met and grew by the help of the cerebral humour. The diversity of the sutures was caused by the struggle of the foodagainst the courses of the soul. The skin of the head was pierced byfire, and out of the punctures came forth a moisture, part liquid, and part of a skinny nature, which was hardened by the pressure of theexternal cold and became hair. And God gave hair to the head of manto be a light covering, so that it might not interfere with hisperceptions. Nails were formed by combining sinew, skin, and bone, andwere made by the creators with a view to the future when, as they knew, women and other animals who would require them would be framed out ofman. 

The gods also mingled natures akin to that of man with other forms andperceptions. Thus trees and plants were created, which were originallywild and have been adapted by cultivation to our use. They partake ofthat third kind of life which is seated between the midriff and thenavel, and is altogether passive and incapable of reflection. 

When the creators had furnished all these natures for our sustenance, they cut channels through our bodies as in a garden, watering them witha perennial stream. Two were cut down the back, along the back bone, where the skin and flesh meet, one on the right and the other on theleft, having the marrow of generation between them. In the next place, they divided the veins about the head and interlaced them with eachother in order that they might form an additional link between the headand the body, and that the sensations from both sides might be diffusedthroughout the body. In the third place, they contrived the passageof liquids, which may be explained in this way:--Finer bodies retaincoarser, but not the coarser the finer, and the belly is capable ofretaining food, but not fire and air. God therefore formed a network offire and air to irrigate the veins, having within it two lesser nets, and stretched cords reaching from both the lesser nets to the extremityof the outer net. The inner parts of the net were made by him of fire, the lesser nets and their cavities of air. The two latter he made topass into the mouth; the one ascending by the air-pipes from the lungs, the other by the side of the air-pipes from the belly. The entrance tothe first he divided into two parts, both of which he made to meet atthe channels of the nose, that when the mouth was closed the passageconnected with it might still be fed with air. The cavity of the networkhe spread around the hollows of the body, making the entire receptacleto flow into and out of the lesser nets and the lesser nets into and outof it, while the outer net found a way into and out of the pores of thebody, and the internal heat followed the air to and fro. These, as weaffirm, are the phenomena of respiration. And all this process takesplace in order that the body may be watered and cooled and nourished, and the meat and drink digested and liquefied and carried into theveins. 

The causes of respiration have now to be considered. The exhalation ofthe breath through the mouth and nostrils displaces the external air, and at the same time leaves a vacuum into which through the pores theair which is displaced enters. Also the vacuum which is made when theair is exhaled through the pores is filled up by the inhalation ofbreath through the mouth and nostrils. The explanation of this doublephenomenon is as follows:--Elements move towards their natural places. Now as every animal has within him a fountain of fire, the air whichis inhaled through the mouth and nostrils, on coming into contactwith this, is heated; and when heated, in accordance with the law ofattraction, it escapes by the way it entered toward the place of fire. On leaving the body it is cooled and drives round the air which itdisplaces through the pores into the empty lungs. This again is in turnheated by the internal fire and escapes, as it entered, through thepores. 

The phenomena of medical cupping-glasses, of swallowing, and of thehurling of bodies, are to be explained on a similar principle; as alsosounds, which are sometimes discordant on account of the inequalityof them, and again harmonious by reason of equality. The slower soundsreaching the swifter, when they begin to pause, by degrees assimilatewith them: whence arises a pleasure which even the unwise feel, andwhich to the wise becomes a higher sense of delight, being an imitationof divine harmony in mortal motions. Streams flow, lightnings play, amber and the magnet attract, not by reason of attraction, but because'nature abhors a vacuum, ' and because things, when compounded ordissolved, move different ways, each to its own place. 

I will now return to the phenomena of respiration. The fire, enteringthe belly, minces the food, and as it escapes, fills the veins bydrawing after it the divided portions, and thus the streams of nutrimentare diffused through the body. The fruits or herbs which are our dailysustenance take all sorts of colours when intermixed, but the colour ofred or fire predominates, and hence the liquid which we call blood isred, being the nurturing principle of the body, whence all parts arewatered and empty places filled. 

The process of repletion and depletion is produced by the attractionof like to like, after the manner of the universal motion. The externalelements by their attraction are always diminishing the substance ofthe body: the particles of blood, too, formed out of the newly digestedfood, are attracted towards kindred elements within the body and so fillup the void. When more is taken away than flows in, then we decay; andwhen less, we grow and increase. 

The young of every animal has the triangles new and closely lockedtogether, and yet the entire frame is soft and delicate, being newlymade of marrow and nurtured on milk. These triangles are sharper thanthose which enter the body from without in the shape of food, andtherefore they cut them up. But as life advances, the triangles wear outand are no longer able to assimilate food; and at length, when the bondswhich unite the triangles of the marrow become undone, they in turnunloose the bonds of the soul; and if the release be according tonature, she then flies away with joy. For the death which is natural ispleasant, but that which is caused by violence is painful. 

Every one may understand the origin of diseases. They may be occasionedby the disarrangement or disproportion of the elements out of which thebody is framed. This is the origin of many of them, but the worst of allowe their severity to the following causes: There is a natural orderin the human frame according to which the flesh and sinews are made ofblood, the sinews out of the fibres, and the flesh out of the congealedsubstance which is formed by separation from the fibres. The glutinousmatter which comes away from the sinews and the flesh, not only bindsthe flesh to the bones, but nourishes the bones and waters the marrow. When these processes take place in regular order the body is in health. 

But when the flesh wastes and returns into the veins there isdiscoloured blood as well as air in the veins, having acid and saltqualities, from which is generated every sort of phlegm and bile. Allthings go the wrong way and cease to give nourishment to the body, nolonger preserving their natural courses, but at war with themselvesand destructive to the constitution of the body. The oldest part of theflesh which is hard to decompose blackens from long burning, and frombeing corroded grows bitter, and as the bitter element refines away, becomes acid. When tinged with blood the bitter substance has a redcolour, and this when mixed with black takes the hue of grass; or again, the bitter substance has an auburn colour, when new flesh is decomposedby the internal flame. To all which phenomena some physician orphilosopher who was able to see the one in many has given the name ofbile. The various kinds of bile have names answering to their colours. Lymph or serum is of two kinds: first, the whey of blood, which isgentle; secondly, the secretion of dark and bitter bile, which, whenmingled under the influence of heat with salt, is malignant andis called acid phlegm. There is also white phlegm, formed by thedecomposition of young and tender flesh, and covered with littlebubbles, separately invisible, but becoming visible when collected. The water of tears and perspiration and similar substances is also thewatery part of fresh phlegm. All these humours become sources of diseasewhen the blood is replenished in irregular ways and not by food ordrink. The danger, however, is not so great when the foundation remains, for then there is a possibility of recovery. But when the substancewhich unites the flesh and bones is diseased, and is no longer renewedfrom the muscles and sinews, and instead of being oily and smooth andglutinous becomes rough and salt and dry, then the fleshy parts fallaway and leave the sinews bare and full of brine, and the flesh getsback again into the circulation of the blood, and makes the previouslymentioned disorders still greater. There are other and worse diseaseswhich are prior to these; as when the bone through the density ofthe flesh does not receive sufficient air, and becomes stagnant andgangrened, and crumbling away passes into the food, and the food intothe flesh, and the flesh returns again into the blood. Worst of all andmost fatal is the disease of the marrow, by which the whole courseof the body is reversed. There is a third class of diseases which areproduced, some by wind and some by phlegm and some by bile. When thelung, which is the steward of the air, is obstructed, by rheums, andin one part no air, and in another too much, enters in, then the partswhich are unrefreshed by air corrode, and other parts are distorted bythe excess of air; and in this manner painful diseases are produced. Themost painful are caused by wind generated within the body, which getsabout the great sinews of the shoulders--these are termed tetanus. Thecure of them is difficult, and in most cases they are relieved only byfever. White phlegm, which is dangerous if kept in, by reason of the airbubbles, is not equally dangerous if able to escape through the pores, although it variegates the body, generating diverse kinds of leprosies. If, when mingled with black bile, it disturbs the courses of the headin sleep, there is not so much danger; but if it assails those who areawake, then the attack is far more dangerous, and is called epilepsy orthe sacred disease. Acid and salt phlegm is the source of catarrh. 

Inflammations originate in bile, which is sometimes relieved by boilsand swellings, but when detained, and above all when mingled with pureblood, generates many inflammatory disorders, disturbing the position ofthe fibres which are scattered about in the blood in order to maintainthe balance of rare and dense which is necessary to its regularcirculation. If the bile, which is only stale blood, or liquefied flesh, comes in little by little, it is congealed by the fibres and producesinternal cold and shuddering. But when it enters with more of a floodit overcomes the fibres by its heat and reaches the spinal marrow, andburning up the cables of the soul sets her free from the body. When onthe other hand the body, though wasted, still holds out, then the bileis expelled, like an exile from a factious state, causing associatingdiarrhoeas and dysenteries and similar disorders. The body which isdiseased from the effects of fire is in a continual fever; when air isthe agent, the fever is quotidian; when water, the fever intermits aday; when earth, which is the most sluggish element, the fever intermitsthree days and is with difficulty shaken off. 

Of mental disorders there are two sorts, one madness, the otherignorance, and they may be justly attributed to disease. Excessivepleasures or pains are among the greatest diseases, and deprive men oftheir senses. When the seed about the spinal marrow is too abundant, thebody has too great pleasures and pains; and during a great part of hislife he who is the subject of them is more or less mad. He isoften thought bad, but this is a mistake; for the truth is that theintemperance of lust is due to the fluidity of the marrow produced bythe loose consistency of the bones. And this is true of vice ingeneral, which is commonly regarded as disgraceful, whereas it is reallyinvoluntary and arises from a bad habit of the body and evil education. In like manner the soul is often made vicious by the influence of bodilypain; the briny phlegm and other bitter and bilious humours wander overthe body and find no exit, but are compressed within, and mingle theirown vapours with the motions of the soul, and are carried to thethree places of the soul, creating infinite varieties of trouble andmelancholy, of rashness and cowardice, of forgetfulness and stupidity. When men are in this evil plight of body, and evil forms of governmentand evil discourses are superadded, and there is no education to savethem, they are corrupted through two causes; but of neither of them arethey really the authors. For the planters are to blame rather than theplants, the educators and not the educated. Still, we should endeavourto attain virtue and avoid vice; but this is part of another subject. 

Enough of disease--I have now to speak of the means by which the mindand body are to be preserved, a higher theme than the other. The goodis the beautiful, and the beautiful is the symmetrical, and there is nogreater or fairer symmetry than that of body and soul, as the contraryis the greatest of deformities. A leg or an arm too long or too shortis at once ugly and unserviceable, and the same is true if body and soulare disproportionate. For a strong and impassioned soul may 'fret thepigmy body to decay, ' and so produce convulsions and other evils. Theviolence of controversy, or the earnestness of enquiry, will oftengenerate inflammations and rheums which are not understood, or assignedto their true cause by the professors of medicine. And in like mannerthe body may be too much for the soul, darkening the reason, andquickening the animal desires. The only security is to preserve thebalance of the two, and to this end the mathematician or philosophermust practise gymnastics, and the gymnast must cultivate music. Theparts of the body too must be treated in the same way--they shouldreceive their appropriate exercise. For the body is set in motion whenit is heated and cooled by the elements which enter in, or is dried upand moistened by external things; and, if given up to these processeswhen at rest, it is liable to destruction. But the natural motion, asin the world, so also in the human frame, produces harmony and divideshostile powers. The best exercise is the spontaneous motion of the body, as in gymnastics, because most akin to the motion of mind; not sogood is the motion of which the source is in another, as in sailing orriding; least good when the body is at rest and the motion is in partsonly, which is a species of motion imparted by physic. This should onlybe resorted to by men of sense in extreme cases; lesser diseases arenot to be irritated by medicine. For every disease is akin to the livingbeing and has an appointed term, just as life has, which depends on theform of the triangles, and cannot be protracted when they are worn out. And he who, instead of accepting his destiny, endeavours to prolonghis life by medicine, is likely to multiply and magnify his diseases. Regimen and not medicine is the true cure, when a man has time at hisdisposal. 

Enough of the nature of man and of the body, and of training andeducation. The subject is a great one and cannot be adequately treatedas an appendage to another. To sum up all in a word: there are threekinds of soul located within us, and any one of them, if remaininginactive, becomes very weak; if exercised, very strong. Wherefore weshould duly train and exercise all three kinds. 

The divine soul God lodged in the head, to raise us, like plants whichare not of earthly origin, to our kindred; for the head is nearestto heaven. He who is intent upon the gratification of his desires andcherishes the mortal soul, has all his ideas mortal, and is himselfmortal in the truest sense. But he who seeks after knowledge andexercises the divine part of himself in godly and immortal thoughts, attains to truth and immortality, as far as is possible to man, and alsoto happiness, while he is training up within him the divine principleand indwelling power of order. There is only one way in which one personcan benefit another; and that is by assigning to him his proper nurtureand motion. To the motions of the soul answer the motions of theuniverse, and by the study of these the individual is restored to hisoriginal nature. 

Thus we have finished the discussion of the universe, which, accordingto our original intention, has now been brought down to the creation ofman. Completeness seems to require that something should be briefly saidabout other animals: first of women, who are probably degenerate andcowardly men. And when they degenerated, the gods implanted in men thedesire of union with them, creating in man one animate substance andin woman another in the following manner:--The outlet for liquids theyconnected with the living principle of the spinal marrow, which the manhas the desire to emit into the fruitful womb of the woman; this is likea fertile field in which the seed is quickened and matured, and atlast brought to light. When this desire is unsatisfied the man isover-mastered by the power of the generative organs, and the womanis subjected to disorders from the obstruction of the passages of thebreath, until the two meet and pluck the fruit of the tree. 

The race of birds was created out of innocent, light-minded men, who thought to pursue the study of the heavens by sight; these weretransformed into birds, and grew feathers instead of hair. The raceof wild animals were men who had no philosophy, and never looked up toheaven or used the courses of the head, but followed only the influencesof passion. Naturally they turned to their kindred earth, and put theirforelegs to the ground, and their heads were crushed into strangeoblong forms. Some of them have four feet, and some of them more thanfour, --the latter, who are the more senseless, drawing closer to theirnative element; the most senseless of all have no limbs and trail theirwhole body on the ground. The fourth kind are the inhabitants of thewaters; these are made out of the most senseless and ignorant and impureof men, whom God placed in the uttermost parts of the world in returnfor their utter ignorance, and caused them to respire water instead ofthe pure element of air. Such are the laws by which animals pass intoone another. 

And so the world received animals, mortal and immortal, and wasfulfilled with them, and became a visible God, comprehending thevisible, made in the image of the Intellectual, being the one perfectonly-begotten heaven. 

Section 2. 

Nature in the aspect which she presented to a Greek philosopher of thefourth century before Christ is not easily reproduced to modern eyes. The associations of mythology and poetry have to be added, and theunconscious influence of science has to be subtracted, before we canbehold the heavens or the earth as they appeared to the Greek. Thephilosopher himself was a child and also a man--a child in the range ofhis attainments, but also a great intelligence having an insight intonature, and often anticipations of the truth. He was full of originalthoughts, and yet liable to be imposed upon by the most obviousfallacies. He occasionally confused numbers with ideas, and atomswith numbers; his a priori notions were out of all proportion to hisexperience. He was ready to explain the phenomena of the heavens by themost trivial analogies of earth. The experiments which nature worked forhim he sometimes accepted, but he never tried experiments for himselfwhich would either prove or disprove his theories. His knowledge wasunequal; while in some branches, such as medicine and astronomy, he hadmade considerable proficiency, there were others, such as chemistry, electricity, mechanics, of which the very names were unknown to him. He was the natural enemy of mythology, and yet mythological ideas stillretained their hold over him. He was endeavouring to form a conceptionof principles, but these principles or ideas were regarded by him asreal powers or entities, to which the world had been subjected. He wasalways tending to argue from what was near to what was remote, from whatwas known to what was unknown, from man to the universe, and back againfrom the universe to man. While he was arranging the world, he wasarranging the forms of thought in his own mind; and the light fromwithin and the light from without often crossed and helped to confuseone another. He might be compared to a builder engaged in some greatdesign, who could only dig with his hands because he was unprovided withcommon tools; or to some poet or musician, like Tynnichus (Ion), obligedto accommodate his lyric raptures to the limits of the tetrachord or ofthe flute. 

The Hesiodic and Orphic cosmogonies were a phase of thought intermediatebetween mythology and philosophy and had a great influence on thebeginnings of knowledge. There was nothing behind them; they were tophysical science what the poems of Homer were to early Greek history. They made men think of the world as a whole; they carried the mind backinto the infinity of past time; they suggested the first observationof the effects of fire and water on the earth's surface. To the ancientphysics they stood much in the same relation which geology does tomodern science. But the Greek was not, like the enquirer of the lastgeneration, confined to a period of six thousand years; he was able tospeculate freely on the effects of infinite ages in the production ofphysical phenomena. He could imagine cities which had existed timeout of mind (States. ; Laws), laws or forms of art and music which hadlasted, 'not in word only, but in very truth, for ten thousand years'(Laws); he was aware that natural phenomena like the Delta of the Nilemight have slowly accumulated in long periods of time (Hdt. ). But heseems to have supposed that the course of events was recurring ratherthan progressive. To this he was probably led by the fixedness ofEgyptian customs and the general observation that there were othercivilisations in the world more ancient than that of Hellas. 

The ancient philosophers found in mythology many ideas which, if notoriginally derived from nature, were easily transferred to her--such, for example, as love or hate, corresponding to attraction or repulsion;or the conception of necessity allied both to the regularity andirregularity of nature; or of chance, the nameless or unknown cause; orof justice, symbolizing the law of compensation; are of the Fates andFuries, typifying the fixed order or the extraordinary convulsions ofnature. Their own interpretations of Homer and the poets were supposedby them to be the original meaning. Musing in themselves on thephenomena of nature, they were relieved at being able to utter thethoughts of their hearts in figures of speech which to them were notfigures, and were already consecrated by tradition. Hesiod and theOrphic poets moved in a region of half-personification in which themeaning or principle appeared through the person. In their vasterconceptions of Chaos, Erebus, Aether, Night, and the like, the firstrude attempts at generalization are dimly seen. The Gods themselves, especially the greater Gods, such as Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, Athene, areuniversals as well as individuals. They were gradually becoming lostin a common conception of mind or God. They continued to exist for thepurposes of ritual or of art; but from the sixth century onwards or evenearlier there arose and gained strength in the minds of men the notionof 'one God, greatest among Gods and men, who was all sight, allhearing, all knowing' (Xenophanes). 

Under the influence of such ideas, perhaps also deriving from thetraditions of their own or of other nations scraps of medicine andastronomy, men came to the observation of nature. The Greek philosopherlooked at the blue circle of the heavens and it flashed upon him thatall things were one; the tumult of sense abated, and the mind foundrepose in the thought which former generations had been striving torealize. The first expression of this was some element, rarefied bydegrees into a pure abstraction, and purged from any tincture of sense. Soon an inner world of ideas began to be unfolded, more absorbing, moreoverpowering, more abiding than the brightest of visible objects, whichto the eye of the philosopher looking inward, seemed to pale beforethem, retaining only a faint and precarious existence. At the same time, the minds of men parted into the two great divisions of those who sawonly a principle of motion, and of those who saw only a principle ofrest, in nature and in themselves; there were born Heracliteans orEleatics, as there have been in later ages born Aristotelians orPlatonists. Like some philosophers in modern times, who are accused ofmaking a theory first and finding their facts afterwards, the advocatesof either opinion never thought of applying either to themselves or totheir adversaries the criterion of fact. They were mastered by theirideas and not masters of them. Like the Heraclitean fanatics whom Platohas ridiculed in the Theaetetus, they were incapable of giving areason of the faith that was in them, and had all the animosities of areligious sect. Yet, doubtless, there was some first impression derivedfrom external nature, which, as in mythology, so also in philosophy, worked upon the minds of the first thinkers. Though incapable ofinduction or generalization in the modern sense, they caught aninspiration from the external world. The most general facts orappearances of nature, the circle of the universe, the nutritive powerof water, the air which is the breath of life, the destructive forceof fire, the seeming regularity of the greater part of nature and theirregularity of a remnant, the recurrence of day and night and of theseasons, the solid earth and the impalpable aether, were always presentto them. 

The great source of error and also the beginning of truth to themwas reasoning from analogy; they could see resemblances, but notdifferences; and they were incapable of distinguishing illustrationfrom argument. Analogy in modern times only points the way, and isimmediately verified by experiment. The dreams and visions, whichpass through the philosopher's mind, of resemblances between differentclasses of substances, or between the animal and vegetable world, areput into the refiner's fire, and the dross and other elements whichadhere to them are purged away. But the contemporary of Plato andSocrates was incapable of resisting the power of any analogy whichoccurred to him, and was drawn into any consequences which seemed tofollow. He had no methods of difference or of concomitant variations, bythe use of which he could distinguish the accidental from the essential. He could not isolate phenomena, and he was helpless against theinfluence of any word which had an equivocal or double sense. 

Yet without this crude use of analogy the ancient physical philosopherwould have stood still; he could not have made even 'one guess amongmany' without comparison. The course of natural phenomena would havepassed unheeded before his eyes, like fair sights or musical soundsbefore the eyes and ears of an animal. Even the fetichism of the savageis the beginning of reasoning; the assumption of the most fanciful ofcauses indicates a higher mental state than the absence of all enquiryabout them. The tendency to argue from the higher to the lower, fromman to the world, has led to many errors, but has also had an elevatinginfluence on philosophy. The conception of the world as a whole, aperson, an animal, has been the source of hasty generalizations; yetthis general grasp of nature led also to a spirit of comprehensivenessin early philosophy, which has not increased, but rather diminished, asthe fields of knowledge have become more divided. The modern physicistconfines himself to one or perhaps two branches of science. But hecomparatively seldom rises above his own department, and often fallsunder the narrowing influence which any single branch, when pursuedto the exclusion of every other, has over the mind. Language, two, exercised a spell over the beginnings of physical philosophy, leadingto error and sometimes to truth; for many thoughts were suggested bythe double meanings of words (Greek), and the accidental distinctionsof words sometimes led the ancient philosopher to make correspondingdifferences in things (Greek). 'If they are the same, why have theydifferent names; or if they are different, why have they the samename?'--is an argument not easily answered in the infancy of knowledge. The modern philosopher has always been taught the lesson which he stillimperfectly learns, that he must disengage himself from the influenceof words. Nor are there wanting in Plato, who was himself too often thevictim of them, impressive admonitions that we should regard not wordsbut things (States. ). But upon the whole, the ancients, though notentirely dominated by them, were much more subject to the influenceof words than the moderns. They had no clear divisions of coloursor substances; even the four elements were undefined; the fields ofknowledge were not parted off. They were bringing order out of disorder, having a small grain of experience mingled in a confused heap ofa priori notions. And yet, probably, their first impressions, theillusions and mirages of their fancy, created a greater intellectualactivity and made a nearer approach to the truth than any patientinvestigation of isolated facts, for which the time had not yet come, could have accomplished. 

There was one more illusion to which the ancient philosophers weresubject, and against which Plato in his later dialogues seems to bestruggling--the tendency to mere abstractions; not perceiving thatpure abstraction is only negation, they thought that the greater theabstraction the greater the truth. Behind any pair of ideas a newidea which comprehended them--the (Greek), as it was technicallytermed--began at once to appear. Two are truer than three, one than two. The words 'being, ' or 'unity, ' or essence, ' or 'good, ' became sacred tothem. They did not see that they had a word only, and in one sense themost unmeaning of words. They did not understand that the content ofnotions is in inverse proportion to their universality--the elementwhich is the most widely diffused is also the thinnest; or, in thelanguage of the common logic, the greater the extension the less thecomprehension. But this vacant idea of a whole without parts, of asubject without predicates, a rest without motion, has been also themost fruitful of all ideas. It is the beginning of a priori thought, andindeed of thinking at all. Men were led to conceive it, not by a loveof hasty generalization, but by a divine instinct, a dialecticalenthusiasm, in which the human faculties seemed to yearn forenlargement. We know that 'being' is only the verb of existence, thecopula, the most general symbol of relation, the first and most meagreof abstractions; but to some of the ancient philosophers this littleword appeared to attain divine proportions, and to comprehend all truth. Being or essence, and similar words, represented to them a supreme ordivine being, in which they thought that they found the containing andcontinuing principle of the universe. In a few years the human mind waspeopled with abstractions; a new world was called into existence to givelaw and order to the old. But between them there was still a gulf, andno one could pass from the one to the other. 

Number and figure were the greatest instruments of thought which werepossessed by the Greek philosopher; having the same power over the mindwhich was exerted by abstract ideas, they were also capable of practicalapplication. Many curious and, to the early thinker, mysteriousproperties of them came to light when they were compared with oneanother. They admitted of infinite multiplication and construction;in Pythagorean triangles or in proportions of 1:2:4:8 and 1:3:9:27, orcompounds of them, the laws of the world seemed to be more than halfrevealed. They were also capable of infinite subdivision--a wonder andalso a puzzle to the ancient thinker (Rep. ). They were not, like beingor essence, mere vacant abstractions, but admitted of progress andgrowth, while at the same time they confirmed a higher sentiment of themind, that there was order in the universe. And so there began to bea real sympathy between the world within and the world without. Thenumbers and figures which were present to the mind's eye became visibleto the eye of sense; the truth of nature was mathematics; the otherproperties of objects seemed to reappear only in the light of number. Law and morality also found a natural expression in number and figure. Instruments of such power and elasticity could not fail to be 'a mostgracious assistance' to the first efforts of human intelligence. 

There was another reason why numbers had so great an influence over theminds of early thinkers--they were verified by experience. Every useof them, even the most trivial, assured men of their truth; they wereeverywhere to be found, in the least things and the greatest alike. One, two, three, counted on the fingers was a 'trivial matter (Rep. ), alittle instrument out of which to create a world; but from these and bythe help of these all our knowledge of nature has been developed. Theywere the measure of all things, and seemed to give law to all things;nature was rescued from chaos and confusion by their power; the notes ofmusic, the motions of the stars, the forms of atoms, the evolution andrecurrence of days, months, years, the military divisions of an army, the civil divisions of a state, seemed to afford a 'present witness'of them--what would have become of man or of the world if deprived ofnumber (Rep. )? The mystery of number and the mystery of music were akin. There was a music of rhythm and of harmonious motion everywhere; and tothe real connexion which existed between music and number, a fanciful orimaginary relation was superadded. There was a music of the spheres aswell as of the notes of the lyre. If in all things seen there was numberand figure, why should they not also pervade the unseen world, withwhich by their wonderful and unchangeable nature they seemed to holdcommunion?

Two other points strike us in the use which the ancient philosophersmade of numbers. First, they applied to external nature the relations ofthem which they found in their own minds; and where nature seemed to beat variance with number, as for example in the case of fractions, theyprotested against her (Rep. ; Arist. Metaph. ). Having long meditated onthe properties of 1:2:4:8, or 1:3:9:27, or of 3, 4, 5, they discoveredin them many curious correspondences and were disposed to find in themthe secret of the universe. Secondly, they applied number and figureequally to those parts of physics, such as astronomy or mechanics, inwhich the modern philosopher expects to find them, and to those inwhich he would never think of looking for them, such as physiology andpsychology. For the sciences were not yet divided, and there was nothingreally irrational in arguing that the same laws which regulated theheavenly bodies were partially applied to the erring limbs or brain ofman. Astrology was the form which the lively fancy of ancient thinkersalmost necessarily gave to astronomy. The observation that the lowerprinciple, e. G. Mechanics, is always seen in the higher, e. G. In thephenomena of life, further tended to perplex them. Plato's doctrineof the same and the other ruling the courses of the heavens and of thehuman body is not a mere vagary, but is a natural result of the state ofknowledge and thought at which he had arrived. 

When in modern times we contemplate the heavens, a certain amount ofscientific truth imperceptibly blends, even with the cursory glance ofan unscientific person. He knows that the earth is revolving round thesun, and not the sun around the earth. He does not imagine the earth tobe the centre of the universe, and he has some conception of chemistryand the cognate sciences. A very different aspect of nature would havebeen present to the mind of the early Greek philosopher. He would havebeheld the earth a surface only, not mirrored, however faintly, in theglass of science, but indissolubly connected with some theory of one, two, or more elements. He would have seen the world pervaded by numberand figure, animated by a principle of motion, immanent in a principleof rest. He would have tried to construct the universe on a quantitativeprinciple, seeming to find in endless combinations of geometricalfigures or in the infinite variety of their sizes a sufficient accountof the multiplicity of phenomena. To these a priori speculations hewould add a rude conception of matter and his own immediate experienceof health and disease. His cosmos would necessarily be imperfect andunequal, being the first attempt to impress form and order on theprimaeval chaos of human knowledge. He would see all things as in adream. 

The ancient physical philosophers have been charged by Dr. Whewelland others with wasting their fine intelligences in wrong methods ofenquiry; and their progress in moral and political philosophy hasbeen sometimes contrasted with their supposed failure in physicalinvestigations. 'They had plenty of ideas, ' says Dr. Whewell, 'andplenty of facts; but their ideas did not accurately represent the factswith which they were acquainted. ' This is a very crude and misleadingway of describing ancient science. It is the mistake of an uneducatedperson--uneducated, that is, in the higher sense of the word--whoimagines every one else to be like himself and explains every other ageby his own. No doubt the ancients often fell into strange and fancifulerrors: the time had not yet arrived for the slower and surer path ofthe modern inductive philosophy. But it remains to be shown that theycould have done more in their age and country; or that the contributionswhich they made to the sciences with which they were acquainted are notas great upon the whole as those made by their successors. There is nosingle step in astronomy as great as that of the nameless Pythagoreanwho first conceived the world to be a body moving round the sun inspace: there is no truer or more comprehensive principle than theapplication of mathematics alike to the heavenly bodies, and to theparticles of matter. The ancients had not the instruments which wouldhave enabled them to correct or verify their anticipations, and theiropportunities of observation were limited. Plato probably did morefor physical science by asserting the supremacy of mathematics thanAristotle or his disciples by their collections of facts. When thethinkers of modern times, following Bacon, undervalue or disparage thespeculations of ancient philosophers, they seem wholly to forget theconditions of the world and of the human mind, under which theycarried on their investigations. When we accuse them of being under theinfluence of words, do we suppose that we are altogether free from thisillusion? When we remark that Greek physics soon became stationary orextinct, may we not observe also that there have been and may be againperiods in the history of modern philosophy which have been barren andunproductive? We might as well maintain that Greek art was not realor great, because it had nihil simile aut secundum, as say that Greekphysics were a failure because they admire no subsequent progress. 

The charge of premature generalization which is often urged againstancient philosophers is really an anachronism. For they can hardly besaid to have generalized at all. They may be said more truly to havecleared up and defined by the help of experience ideas which theyalready possessed. The beginnings of thought about nature must alwayshave this character. A true method is the result of many ages ofexperiment and observation, and is ever going on and enlarging with theprogress of science and knowledge. At first men personify nature, thenthey form impressions of nature, at last they conceive 'measure' or lawsof nature. They pass out of mythology into philosophy. Early science isnot a process of discovery in the modern sense; but rather a processof correcting by observation, and to a certain extent only, the firstimpressions of nature, which mankind, when they began to think, had received from poetry or language or unintelligent sense. Of allscientific truths the greatest and simplest is the uniformity of nature;this was expressed by the ancients in many ways, as fate, or necessity, or measure, or limit. Unexpected events, of which the cause was unknownto them, they attributed to chance (Thucyd. ). But their conception ofnature was never that of law interrupted by exceptions, --a somewhatunfortunate metaphysical invention of modern times, which is at variancewith facts and has failed to satisfy the requirements of thought. 

Section 3. 

Plato's account of the soul is partly mythical or figurative, and partlyliteral. Not that either he or we can draw a line between them, or say, 'This is poetry, this is philosophy'; for the transition from the oneto the other is imperceptible. Neither must we expect to find in himabsolute consistency. He is apt to pass from one level or stage ofthought to another without always making it apparent that he is changinghis ground. In such passages we have to interpret his meaning by thegeneral spirit of his writings. To reconcile his inconsistencies wouldbe contrary to the first principles of criticism and fatal to any trueunderstanding of him. 

There is a further difficulty in explaining this part of theTimaeus--the natural order of thought is inverted. We begin with themost abstract, and proceed from the abstract to the concrete. Weare searching into things which are upon the utmost limit of humanintelligence, and then of a sudden we fall rather heavily to the earth. There are no intermediate steps which lead from one to the other. Butthe abstract is a vacant form to us until brought into relation withman and nature. God and the world are mere names, like the Being ofthe Eleatics, unless some human qualities are added on to them. Yet thenegation has a kind of unknown meaning to us. The priority of God andof the world, which he is imagined to have created, to all otherexistences, gives a solemn awe to them. And as in other systems oftheology and philosophy, that of which we know least has the greatestinterest to us. 

There is no use in attempting to define or explain the first God in thePlatonic system, who has sometimes been thought to answer to God theFather; or the world, in whom the Fathers of the Church seemed torecognize 'the firstborn of every creature. ' Nor need we discuss atlength how far Plato agrees in the later Jewish idea of creation, according to which God made the world out of nothing. For his originalconception of matter as something which has no qualities is really anegation. Moreover in the Hebrew Scriptures the creation of the worldis described, even more explicitly than in the Timaeus, not as a singleact, but as a work or process which occupied six days. There is a chaosin both, and it would be untrue to say that the Greek, any more than theHebrew, had any definite belief in the eternal existence of matter. Thebeginning of things vanished into the distance. The real creation began, not with matter, but with ideas. According to Plato in the Timaeus, Godtook of the same and the other, of the divided and undivided, of thefinite and infinite, and made essence, and out of the three combinedcreated the soul of the world. To the soul he added a body formed outof the four elements. The general meaning of these words is that Godimparted determinations of thought, or, as we might say, gave lawand variety to the material universe. The elements are moving in adisorderly manner before the work of creation begins; and there is aneternal pattern of the world, which, like the 'idea of good, ' is notthe Creator himself, but not separable from him. The pattern too, thougheternal, is a creation, a world of thought prior to the world ofsense, which may be compared to the wisdom of God in the book ofEcclesiasticus, or to the 'God in the form of a globe' of the oldEleatic philosophers. The visible, which already exists, is fashionedin the likeness of this eternal pattern. On the other hand, there is notruth of which Plato is more firmly convinced than of the priority ofthe soul to the body, both in the universe and in man. So inconsistentare the forms in which he describes the works which no tonguecan utter--his language, as he himself says, partaking of his ownuncertainty about the things of which he is speaking. 

We may remark in passing, that the Platonic compared with theJewish description of the process of creation has less of freedom orspontaneity. The Creator in Plato is still subject to a remnant ofnecessity which he cannot wholly overcome. When his work is accomplishedhe remains in his own nature. Plato is more sensible than the Hebrewprophet of the existence of evil, which he seeks to put as far aspossible out of the way of God. And he can only suppose this to beaccomplished by God retiring into himself and committing the lesserworks of creation to inferior powers. (Compare, however, Laws foranother solution of the difficulty. )

Nor can we attach any intelligible meaning to his words when he speaksof the visible being in the image of the invisible. For how can thatwhich is divided be like that which is undivided? Or that whichis changing be the copy of that which is unchanging? All the olddifficulties about the ideas come back upon us in an altered form. Wecan imagine two worlds, one of which is the mere double of the other, orone of which is an imperfect copy of the other, or one of which is thevanishing ideal of the other; but we cannot imagine an intellectualworld which has no qualities--'a thing in itself'--a point which has noparts or magnitude, which is nowhere, and nothing. This cannot be thearchetype according to which God made the world, and is in reality, whether in Plato or in Kant, a mere negative residuum of human thought. 

There is another aspect of the same difficulty which appears to have nosatisfactory solution. In what relation does the archetype stand to theCreator himself? For the idea or pattern of the world is not the thoughtof God, but a separate, self-existent nature, of which creation isthe copy. We can only reply, (1) that to the mind of Plato subject andobject were not yet distinguished; (2) that he supposes the process ofcreation to take place in accordance with his own theory of ideas; andas we cannot give a consistent account of the one, neither can we ofthe other. He means (3) to say that the creation of the world is nota material process of working with legs and arms, but ideal andintellectual; according to his own fine expression, 'the thought ofGod made the God that was to be. ' He means (4) to draw an absolutedistinction between the invisible or unchangeable which is or is theplace of mind or being, and the world of sense or becoming which isvisible and changing. He means (5) that the idea of the world is priorto the world, just as the other ideas are prior to sensible objects; andlike them may be regarded as eternal and self-existent, and also, likethe IDEA of good, may be viewed apart from the divine mind. 

There are several other questions which we might ask and which canreceive no answer, or at least only an answer of the same kind as thepreceding. How can matter be conceived to exist without form? Or, howcan the essences or forms of things be distinguished from the eternalideas, or essence itself from the soul? Or, how could there have beenmotion in the chaos when as yet time was not? Or, how did chaos comeinto existence, if not by the will of the Creator? Or, how could therehave been a time when the world was not, if time was not? Or, how couldthe Creator have taken portions of an indivisible same? Or, how couldspace or anything else have been eternal when time is only created? Or, how could the surfaces of geometrical figures have formed solids? Wemust reply again that we cannot follow Plato in all his inconsistencies, but that the gaps of thought are probably more apparent to us than tohim. He would, perhaps, have said that 'the first things are known onlyto God and to him of men whom God loves. ' How often have the gaps inTheology been concealed from the eye of faith! And we may say that onlyby an effort of metaphysical imagination can we hope to understand Platofrom his own point of view; we must not ask for consistency. Everywherewe find traces of the Platonic theory of knowledge expressed in anobjective form, which by us has to be translated into the subjective, before we can attach any meaning to it. And this theory is exhibitedin so many different points of view, that we cannot with any certaintyinterpret one dialogue by another; e. G. The Timaeus by the Parmenides orPhaedrus or Philebus. 

The soul of the world may also be conceived as the personification ofthe numbers and figures in which the heavenly bodies move. Imaginethese as in a Pythagorean dream, stripped of qualitative difference andreduced to mathematical abstractions. They too conform to the principleof the same, and may be compared with the modern conception of laws ofnature. They are in space, but not in time, and they are the makersof time. They are represented as constantly thinking of the same; forthought in the view of Plato is equivalent to truth or law, and need notimply a human consciousness, a conception which is familiar enough tous, but has no place, hardly even a name, in ancient Greek philosophy. To this principle of the same is opposed the principle of the other--theprinciple of irregularity and disorder, of necessity and chance, whichis only partially impressed by mathematical laws and figures. (Wemay observe by the way, that the principle of the other, which is theprinciple of plurality and variation in the Timaeus, has nothing incommon with the 'other' of the Sophist, which is the principle ofdetermination. ) The element of the same dominates to a certain extentover the other--the fixed stars keep the 'wanderers' of the inner circlein their courses, and a similar principle of fixedness or order appearsto regulate the bodily constitution of man. But there still remains arebellious seed of evil derived from the original chaos, which is thesource of disorder in the world, and of vice and disease in man. 

But what did Plato mean by essence, (Greek), which is the intermediatenature compounded of the Same and the Other, and out of which, togetherwith these two, the soul of the world is created? It is difficult toexplain a process of thought so strange and unaccustomed to us, in whichmodern distinctions run into one another and are lost sight of. First, let us consider once more the meaning of the Same and the Other. TheSame is the unchanging and indivisible, the heaven of the fixed stars, partaking of the divine nature, which, having law in itself, gives lawto all besides and is the element of order and permanence in man andon the earth. It is the rational principle, mind regarded as a work, ascreation--not as the creator. The old tradition of Parmenides and of theEleatic Being, the foundation of so much in the philosophy of Greece andof the world, was lingering in Plato's mind. The Other is the variableor changing element, the residuum of disorder or chaos, which cannot bereduced to order, nor altogether banished, the source of evil, seen inthe errors of man and also in the wanderings of the planets, a necessitywhich protrudes through nature. Of this too there was a shadow in theEleatic philosophy in the realm of opinion, which, like a mist, seemedto darken the purity of truth in itself. --So far the words of Plato mayperhaps find an intelligible meaning. But when he goes on to speak ofthe Essence which is compounded out of both, the track becomes fainterand we can only follow him with hesitating steps. But still we find atrace reappearing of the teaching of Anaxagoras: 'All was confusion, andthen mind came and arranged things. ' We have already remarked that Platowas not acquainted with the modern distinction of subject and object, and therefore he sometimes confuses mind and the things of mind--(Greek)and (Greek). By (Greek) he clearly means some conception of theintelligible and the intelligent; it belongs to the class of (Greek). Matter, being, the Same, the eternal, --for any of these terms, beingalmost vacant of meaning, is equally suitable to express indefiniteexistence, --are compared or united with the Other or Diverse, and out ofthe union or comparison is elicited the idea of intelligence, the 'Onein many, ' brighter than any Promethean fire (Phil. ), which co-existingwith them and so forming a new existence, is or becomes the intelligibleworld. . . So we may perhaps venture to paraphrase or interpret or put intoother words the parable in which Plato has wrapped up his conceptionof the creation of the world. The explanation may help to fill up withfigures of speech the void of knowledge. 

The entire compound was divided by the Creator in certain proportionsand reunited; it was then cut into two strips, which were bent into aninner circle and an outer, both moving with an uniform motion around acentre, the outer circle containing the fixed, the inner the wanderingstars. The soul of the world was diffused everywhere from the centre tothe circumference. To this God gave a body, consisting at first offire and earth, and afterwards receiving an addition of air and water;because solid bodies, like the world, are always connected by two middleterms and not by one. The world was made in the form of a globe, and allthe material elements were exhausted in the work of creation. 

The proportions in which the soul of the world as well as the human soulis divided answer to a series of numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 8, 27, composedof the two Pythagorean progressions 1, 2, 4, 8 and 1, 3, 9, 27, of whichthe number 1 represents a point, 2 and 3 lines, 4 and 8, 9 and 27 thesquares and cubes respectively of 2 and 3. This series, of which theintervals are afterwards filled up, probably represents (1) the diatonicscale according to the Pythagoreans and Plato; (2) the order anddistances of the heavenly bodies; and (3) may possibly contain anallusion to the music of the spheres, which is referred to in the mythat the end of the Republic. The meaning of the words that 'solid bodiesare always connected by two middle terms' or mean proportionals hasbeen much disputed. The most received explanation is that of Martin, whosupposes that Plato is only speaking of surfaces and solids compoundedof prime numbers (i. E. Of numbers not made up of two factors, or, inother words, only measurable by unity). The square of any such numberrepresents a surface, the cube a solid. The squares of any two suchnumbers (e. G. 2 squared, 3 squared = 4, 9), have always a single meanproportional (e. G. 4 and 9 have the single mean 6), whereas the cubesof primes (e. G. 3 cubed and 5 cubed) have always two mean proportionals(e. G. 27:45:75:125). But to this explanation of Martin's it may beobjected, (1) that Plato nowhere says that his proportion is to belimited to prime numbers; (2) that the limitation of surfaces to squaresis also not to be found in his words; nor (3) is there any evidence toshow that the distinction of prime from other numbers was known tohim. What Plato chiefly intends to express is that a solid requires astronger bond than a surface; and that the double bond which is givenby two means is stronger than the single bond given by one. Havingreflected on the singular numerical phenomena of the existence of onemean proportional between two square numbers are rather perhaps onlybetween the two lowest squares; and of two mean proportionals betweentwo cubes, perhaps again confining his attention to the two lowestcubes, he finds in the latter symbol an expression of the relationof the elements, as in the former an image of the combination of twosurfaces. Between fire and earth, the two extremes, he remarks thatthere are introduced, not one, but two elements, air and water, whichare compared to the two mean proportionals between two cube numbers. The vagueness of his language does not allow us to determine whetheranything more than this was intended by him. 

Leaving the further explanation of details, which the reader will finddiscussed at length in Boeckh and Martin, we may now return to the mainargument: Why did God make the world? Like man, he must have a purpose;and his purpose is the diffusion of that goodness or good which hehimself is. The term 'goodness' is not to be understood in this passageas meaning benevolence or love, in the Christian sense of the term, butrather law, order, harmony, like the idea of good in the Republic. Theancient mythologers, and even the Hebrew prophets, had spoken of thejealousy of God; and the Greek had imagined that there was a Nemesisalways attending the prosperity of mortals. But Plato delights to thinkof God as the author of order in his works, who, like a father, livesover again in his children, and can never have too much of good orfriendship among his creatures. Only, as there is a certain remnant ofevil inherent in matter which he cannot get rid of, he detaches himselffrom them and leaves them to themselves, that he may be guiltless oftheir faults and sufferings. 

Between the ideal and the sensible Plato interposes the two natures oftime and space. Time is conceived by him to be only the shadow orimage of eternity which ever is and never has been or will be, but isdescribed in a figure only as past or future. This is one of the greatthoughts of early philosophy, which are still as difficult to our mindsas they were to the early thinkers; or perhaps more difficult, becausewe more distinctly see the consequences which are involved in suchan hypothesis. All the objections which may be urged against Kant'sdoctrine of the ideality of space and time at once press upon us. Iftime is unreal, then all which is contained in time is unreal--thesuccession of human thoughts as well as the flux of sensations; there isno connecting link between (Greek) and (Greek). Yet, on the other hand, we are conscious that knowledge is independent of time, that truthis not a thing of yesterday or tomorrow, but an 'eternal now. ' To the'spectator of all time and all existence' the universe remains at rest. The truths of geometry and arithmetic in all their combinations arealways the same. The generations of men, like the leaves of the forest, come and go, but the mathematical laws by which the world is governedremain, and seem as if they could never change. The ever-present imageof space is transferred to time--succession is conceived as extension. (We remark that Plato does away with the above and below in space, ashe has done away with the absolute existence of past and future. ) Thecourse of time, unless regularly marked by divisions of number, partakesof the indefiniteness of the Heraclitean flux. By such reflections wemay conceive the Greek to have attained the metaphysical conception ofeternity, which to the Hebrew was gained by meditation on the DivineBeing. No one saw that this objective was really a subjective, andinvolved the subjectivity of all knowledge. 'Non in tempore sed cumtempore finxit Deus mundum, ' says St. Augustine, repeating a thoughtderived from the Timaeus, but apparently unconscious of the results towhich his doctrine would have led. 

The contradictions involved in the conception of time or motion, likethe infinitesimal in space, were a source of perplexity to the mind ofthe Greek, who was driven to find a point of view above or beyond them. They had sprung up in the decline of the Eleatic philosophy andwere very familiar to Plato, as we gather from the Parmenides. Theconsciousness of them had led the great Eleatic philosopher todescribe the nature of God or Being under negatives. He sings of 'Beingunbegotten and imperishable, unmoved and never-ending, which never wasnor will be, but always is, one and continuous, which cannot spring fromany other; for it cannot be said or imagined not to be. ' The ideaof eternity was for a great part a negation. There are regions ofspeculation in which the negative is hardly separable from the positive, and even seems to pass into it. Not only Buddhism, but Greek as well asChristian philosophy, show that it is quite possible that the human mindshould retain an enthusiasm for mere negations. In different ages andcountries there have been forms of light in which nothing could bediscerned and which have nevertheless exercised a life-giving andillumining power. For the higher intelligence of man seems to require, not only something above sense, but above knowledge, which can onlybe described as Mind or Being or Truth or God or the unchangeable andeternal element, in the expression of which all predicates fail and fallshort. Eternity or the eternal is not merely the unlimited in timebut the truest of all Being, the most real of all realities, the mostcertain of all knowledge, which we nevertheless only see through a glassdarkly. The passionate earnestness of Parmenides contrasts with thevacuity of the thought which he is revolving in his mind. 

Space is said by Plato to be the 'containing vessel or nurse ofgeneration. ' Reflecting on the simplest kinds of external objects, whichto the ancients were the four elements, he was led to a more generalnotion of a substance, more or less like themselves, out of which theywere fashioned. He would not have them too precisely distinguished. Thus seems to have arisen the first dim perception of (Greek) or matter, which has played so great a part in the metaphysical philosophy ofAristotle and his followers. But besides the material out of which theelements are made, there is also a space in which they are contained. There arises thus a second nature which the senses are incapable ofdiscerning and which can hardly be referred to the intelligible class. For it is and it is not, it is nowhere when filled, it is nothingwhen empty. Hence it is said to be discerned by a kind of spuriousor analogous reason, partaking so feebly of existence as to be hardlyperceivable, yet always reappearing as the containing mother or nurse ofall things. It had not that sort of consistency to Plato which has beengiven to it in modern times by geometry and metaphysics. Neither ofthe Greek words by which it is described are so purely abstract as theEnglish word 'space' or the Latin 'spatium. ' Neither Plato nor any otherGreek would have spoken of (Greek) or (Greek) in the same manner as wespeak of 'time' and 'space. '

Yet space is also of a very permanent or even eternal nature; andPlato seems more willing to admit of the unreality of time than of theunreality of space; because, as he says, all things must necessarilyexist in space. We, on the other hand, are disposed to fancy that evenif space were annihilated time might still survive. He admits indeedthat our knowledge of space is of a dreamy kind, and is given by aspurious reason without the help of sense. (Compare the hypotheses andimages of Rep. ) It is true that it does not attain to the clearnessof ideas. But like them it seems to remain, even if all the objectscontained in it are supposed to have vanished away. Hence it was naturalfor Plato to conceive of it as eternal. We must remember further that inhis attempt to realize either space or matter the two abstract ideas ofweight and extension, which are familiar to us, had never passed beforehis mind. 

Thus far God, working according to an eternal pattern, out of hisgoodness has created the same, the other, and the essence (compare thethree principles of the Philebus--the finite, the infinite, and theunion of the two), and out of them has formed the outer circle of thefixed stars and the inner circle of the planets, divided according tocertain musical intervals; he has also created time, the moving imageof eternity, and space, existing by a sort of necessity and hardlydistinguishable from matter. The matter out of which the world is formedis not absolutely void, but retains in the chaos certain germs or tracesof the elements. These Plato, like Empedocles, supposed to be four innumber--fire, air, earth, and water. They were at first mixed together;but already in the chaos, before God fashioned them by form and number, the greater masses of the elements had an appointed place. Into theconfusion (Greek) which preceded Plato does not attempt further topenetrate. They are called elements, but they are so far from beingelements (Greek) or letters in the higher sense that they are not evensyllables or first compounds. The real elements are two triangles, therectangular isosceles which has but one form, and the most beautiful ofthe many forms of scalene, which is half of an equilateral triangle. Bythe combination of these triangles which exist in an infinite variety ofsizes, the surfaces of the four elements are constructed. 

That there were only five regular solids was already known to theancients, and out of the surfaces which he has formed Plato proceeds togenerate the four first of the five. He perhaps forgets that he is onlyputting together surfaces and has not provided for their transformationinto solids. The first solid is a regular pyramid, of which the base andsides are formed by four equilateral or twenty-four scalene triangles. Each of the four solid angles in this figure is a little larger thanthe largest of obtuse angles. The second solid is composed of the sametriangles, which unite as eight equilateral triangles, and make onesolid angle out of four plane angles--six of these angles form a regularoctahedron. The third solid is a regular icosahedron, having twentytriangular equilateral bases, and therefore 120 rectangular scalenetriangles. The fourth regular solid, or cube, is formed by thecombination of four isosceles triangles into one square and of sixsquares into a cube. The fifth regular solid, or dodecahedron, cannotbe formed by a combination of either of these triangles, but each of itsfaces may be regarded as composed of thirty triangles of another kind. Probably Plato notices this as the only remaining regular polyhedron, which from its approximation to a globe, and possibly because, asPlutarch remarks, it is composed of 12 x 30 = 360 scalene triangles(Platon. Quaest. ), representing thus the signs and degrees of theZodiac, as well as the months and days of the year, God may be said tohave 'used in the delineation of the universe. ' According to Platoearth was composed of cubes, fire of regular pyramids, air of regularoctahedrons, water of regular icosahedrons. The stability of the lastthree increases with the number of their sides. 

The elements are supposed to pass into one another, but we must rememberthat these transformations are not the transformations of real solids, but of imaginary geometrical figures; in other words, we are composingand decomposing the faces of substances and not the substancesthemselves--it is a house of cards which we are pulling to pieces andputting together again (compare however Laws). Yet perhaps Plato mayregard these sides or faces as only the forms which are impressed onpre-existent matter. It is remarkable that he should speak of each ofthese solids as a possible world in itself, though upon the wholehe inclines to the opinion that they form one world and not five. To suppose that there is an infinite number of worlds, as Democritus(Hippolyt. Ref. Haer. I. ) had said, would be, as he satiricallyobserves, 'the characteristic of a very indefinite and ignorant mind. '

The twenty triangular faces of an icosahedron form the faces or sides oftwo regular octahedrons and of a regular pyramid (20 = 8 x 2 + 4); andtherefore, according to Plato, a particle of water when decomposed issupposed to give two particles of air and one of fire. So because anoctahedron gives the sides of two pyramids (8 = 4 x 2), a particle ofair is resolved into two particles of fire. 

The transformation is effected by the superior power or number of theconquering elements. The manner of the change is (1) a separation ofportions of the elements from the masses in which they are collected;(2) a resolution of them into their original triangles; and (3) areunion of them in new forms. Plato himself proposes the question, Why does motion continue at all when the elements are settled in theirplaces? He answers that although the force of attraction is continuallydrawing similar elements to the same spot, still the revolution of theuniverse exercises a condensing power, and thrusts them again out oftheir natural places. Thus want of uniformity, the condition of motion, is produced. In all such disturbances of matter there is an alternativefor the weaker element: it may escape to its kindred, or take the formof the stronger--becoming denser, if it be denser, or rarer if rarer. This is true of fire, air, and water, which, being composed of similartriangles, are interchangeable; earth, however, which has trianglespeculiar to itself, is capable of dissolution, but not of change. Of theinterchangeable elements, fire, the rarest, can only become a denser, and water, the densest, only a rarer: but air may become a denser ora rarer. No single particle of the elements is visible, but only theaggregates of them are seen. The subordinate species depend, not upondifferences of form in the original triangles, but upon differences ofsize. The obvious physical phenomena from which Plato has gathered hisviews of the relations of the elements seem to be the effect of fireupon air, water, and earth, and the effect of water upon earth. The particles are supposed by him to be in a perpetual process ofcirculation caused by inequality. This process of circulation does notadmit of a vacuum, as he tells us in his strange account of respiration. 

Of the phenomena of light and heavy he speaks afterwards, when treatingof sensation, but they may be more conveniently considered by us in thisplace. They are not, he says, to be explained by 'above' and 'below, 'which in the universal globe have no existence, but by the attraction ofsimilars towards the great masses of similar substances; fire tofire, air to air, water to water, earth to earth. Plato's doctrine ofattraction implies not only (1) the attraction of similar elementsto one another, but also (2) of smaller bodies to larger ones. Had heconfined himself to the latter he would have arrived, though, perhaps, without any further result or any sense of the greatness of thediscovery, at the modern doctrine of gravitation. He does not observethat water has an equal tendency towards both water and earth. So easilydid the most obvious facts which were inconsistent with his theoriesescape him. 

The general physical doctrines of the Timaeus may be summed up asfollows: (1) Plato supposes the greater masses of the elements to havebeen already settled in their places at the creation: (2) they are fourin number, and are formed of rectangular triangles variously combinedinto regular solid figures: (3) three of them, fire, air, and water, admit of transformation into one another; the fourth, earth, cannot besimilarly transformed: (4) different sizes of the same triangles formthe lesser species of each element: (5) there is an attraction of liketo like--smaller masses of the same kind being drawn towards greater:(6) there is no void, but the particles of matter are ever pushing oneanother round and round (Greek). Like the atomists, Plato attributes thedifferences between the elements to differences in geometrical figures. But he does not explain the process by which surfaces become solids;and he characteristically ridicules Democritus for not seeing that theworlds are finite and not infinite. 

Section 4. 

The astronomy of Plato is based on the two principles of the same andthe other, which God combined in the creation of the world. The soul, which is compounded of the same, the other, and the essence, is diffusedfrom the centre to the circumference of the heavens. We speak of a soulof the universe; but more truly regarded, the universe of the Timaeus isa soul, governed by mind, and holding in solution a residuum of matteror evil, which the author of the world is unable to expel, and of whichPlato cannot tell us the origin. The creation, in Plato's sense, isreally the creation of order; and the first step in giving order is thedivision of the heavens into an inner and outer circle of the other andthe same, of the divisible and the indivisible, answering to the twospheres, of the planets and of the world beyond them, all togethermoving around the earth, which is their centre. To us there is adifficulty in apprehending how that which is at rest can also be inmotion, or that which is indivisible exist in space. But the wholedescription is so ideal and imaginative, that we can hardly venture toattribute to many of Plato's words in the Timaeus any more meaningthan to his mythical account of the heavens in the Republic and in thePhaedrus. (Compare his denial of the 'blasphemous opinion' that thereare planets or wandering stars; all alike move in circles--Laws. ) Thestars are the habitations of the souls of men, from which they come andto which they return. In attributing to the fixed stars only the mostperfect motion--that which is on the same spot or circulating around thesame--he might perhaps have said that to 'the spectator of all time andall existence, ' to borrow once more his own grand expression, or viewed, in the language of Spinoza, 'sub specie aeternitatis, ' they were stillat rest, but appeared to move in order to teach men the periods of time. Although absolutely in motion, they are relatively at rest; or wemay conceive of them as resting, while the space in which they arecontained, or the whole anima mundi, revolves. 

The universe revolves around a centre once in twenty-four hours, but theorbits of the fixed stars take a different direction from those of theplanets. The outer and the inner sphere cross one another and meet againat a point opposite to that of their first contact; the first moving ina circle from left to right along the side of a parallelogram which issupposed to be inscribed in it, the second also moving in a circle alongthe diagonal of the same parallelogram from right to left; or, in otherwords, the first describing the path of the equator, the second, thepath of the ecliptic. The motion of the second is controlled by thefirst, and hence the oblique line in which the planets are supposed tomove becomes a spiral. The motion of the same is said to be undivided, whereas the inner motion is split into seven unequal orbits--theintervals between them being in the ratio of two and three, three ofeither:--the Sun, moving in the opposite direction to Mercury andVenus, but with equal swiftness; the remaining four, Moon, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter, with unequal swiftness to the former three and to one another. Thus arises the following progression:--Moon 1, Sun 2, Venus 3, Mercury4, Mars 8, Jupiter 9, Saturn 27. This series of numbers is the compoundof the two Pythagorean ratios, having the same intervals, though not inthe same order, as the mixture which was originally divided in formingthe soul of the world. 

Plato was struck by the phenomenon of Mercury, Venus, and the Sunappearing to overtake and be overtaken by one another. The true reasonof this, namely, that they lie within the circle of the earth's orbit, was unknown to him, and the reason which he gives--that the two formermove in an opposite direction to the latter--is far from explaining theappearance of them in the heavens. All the planets, including the sun, are carried round in the daily motion of the circle of the fixed stars, and they have a second or oblique motion which gives the explanationof the different lengths of the sun's course in different parts of theearth. The fixed stars have also two movements--a forward movement intheir orbit which is common to the whole circle; and a movement on thesame spot around an axis, which Plato calls the movement of thoughtabout the same. In this latter respect they are more perfect than thewandering stars, as Plato himself terms them in the Timaeus, although inthe Laws he condemns the appellation as blasphemous. 

The revolution of the world around earth, which is accomplished ina single day and night, is described as being the most perfect orintelligent. Yet Plato also speaks of an 'annus magnus' or cyclicalyear, in which periods wonderful for their complexity are found tocoincide in a perfect number, i. E. A number which equals the sum of itsfactors, as 6 = 1 + 2 + 3. This, although not literally contradictory, is in spirit irreconcilable with the perfect revolution of twenty-fourhours. The same remark may be applied to the complexity of theappearances and occultations of the stars, which, if the outer heaven issupposed to be moving around the centre once in twenty-four hours, mustbe confined to the effects produced by the seven planets. Plato seems toconfuse the actual observation of the heavens with his desire to find inthem mathematical perfection. The same spirit is carried yet furtherby him in the passage already quoted from the Laws, in which he affirmstheir wanderings to be an appearance only, which a little knowledge ofmathematics would enable men to correct. 

We have now to consider the much discussed question of the rotation orimmobility of the earth. Plato's doctrine on this subject is containedin the following words:--'The earth, which is our nurse, compacted (ORrevolving) around the pole which is extended through the universe, hemade to be the guardian and artificer of night and day, first and eldestof gods that are in the interior of heaven'. There is an unfortunatedoubt in this passage (1) about the meaning of the word (Greek), whichis translated either 'compacted' or 'revolving, ' and is equally capableof both explanations. A doubt (2) may also be raised as to whether thewords 'artificer of day and night' are consistent with the mere passivecausation of them, produced by the immobility of the earth in the midstof the circling universe. We must admit, further, (3) that Aristotleattributed to Plato the doctrine of the rotation of the earth on itsaxis. On the other hand it has been urged that if the earth goes roundwith the outer heaven and sun in twenty-four hours, there is no way ofaccounting for the alternation of day and night; since the equal motionof the earth and sun would have the effect of absolute immobility. Towhich it may be replied that Plato never says that the earth goes roundwith the outer heaven and sun; although the whole question depends onthe relation of earth and sun, their movements are nowhere preciselydescribed. But if we suppose, with Mr. Grote, that the diurnal rotationof the earth on its axis and the revolution of the sun and outer heavenprecisely coincide, it would be difficult to imagine that Plato wasunaware of the consequence. For though he was ignorant of many thingswhich are familiar to us, and often confused in his ideas where we havebecome clear, we have no right to attribute to him a childish want ofreasoning about very simple facts, or an inability to understand thenecessary and obvious deductions from geometrical figures or movements. Of the causes of day and night the pre-Socratic philosophers, andespecially the Pythagoreans, gave various accounts, and therefore thequestion can hardly be imagined to have escaped him. On the other handit may be urged that the further step, however simple and obvious, isjust what Plato often seems to be ignorant of, and that as there isno limit to his insight, there is also no limit to the blindness whichsometimes obscures his intelligence (compare the construction of solidsout of surfaces in his account of the creation of the world, or theattraction of similars to similars). Further, Mr. Grote supposes, notthat (Greek) means 'revolving, ' or that this is the sense in whichAristotle understood the word, but that the rotation of the earth isnecessarily implied in its adherence to the cosmical axis. But (a) if, as Mr Grote assumes, Plato did not see that the rotation of the earthon its axis and of the sun and outer heavens around the earth in equaltimes was inconsistent with the alternation of day and night, neitherneed we suppose that he would have seen the immobility of the earth tobe inconsistent with the rotation of the axis. And (b) what proof isthere that the axis of the world revolves at all? (c) The comparison ofthe two passages quoted by Mr Grote (see his pamphlet on 'The Rotationof the Earth') from Aristotle De Coelo, Book II (Greek) clearly shows, although this is a matter of minor importance, that Aristotle, asProclus and Simplicius supposed, understood (Greek) in the Timaeus tomean 'revolving. ' For the second passage, in which motion on an axis isexpressly mentioned, refers to the first, but this would be unmeaningunless (Greek) in the first passage meant rotation on an axis. (4)The immobility of the earth is more in accordance with Plato's otherwritings than the opposite hypothesis. For in the Phaedo the earth isdescribed as the centre of the world, and is not said to be in motion. In the Republic the pilgrims appear to be looking out from the earthupon the motions of the heavenly bodies; in the Phaedrus, Hestia, who remains immovable in the house of Zeus while the other gods go inprocession, is called the first and eldest of the gods, and is probablythe symbol of the earth. The silence of Plato in these and in some otherpassages (Laws) in which he might be expected to speak of the rotationof the earth, is more favourable to the doctrine of its immobility thanto the opposite. If he had meant to say that the earth revolves on itsaxis, he would have said so in distinct words, and have explained therelation of its movements to those of the other heavenly bodies. (5)The meaning of the words 'artificer of day and night' is literally trueaccording to Plato's view. For the alternation of day and night is notproduced by the motion of the heavens alone, or by the immobility of theearth alone, but by both together; and that which has the inherent forceor energy to remain at rest when all other bodies are moving, may betruly said to act, equally with them. (6) We should not lay too muchstress on Aristotle or the writer De Caelo having adopted the otherinterpretation of the words, although Alexander of Aphrodisias thinksthat he could not have been ignorant either of the doctrine of Platoor of the sense which he intended to give to the word (Greek). For thecitations of Plato in Aristotle are frequently misinterpreted by him;and he seems hardly ever to have had in his mind the connection in whichthey occur. In this instance the allusion is very slight, and thereis no reason to suppose that the diurnal revolution of the heavens waspresent to his mind. Hence we need not attribute to him the error fromwhich we are defending Plato. 

After weighing one against the other all these complicatedprobabilities, the final conclusion at which we arrive is that thereis nearly as much to be said on the one side of the question as on theother, and that we are not perfectly certain, whether, as Bockh and themajority of commentators, ancient as well as modern, are inclined tobelieve, Plato thought that the earth was at rest in the centre of theuniverse, or, as Aristotle and Mr. Grote suppose, that it revolved onits axis. Whether we assume the earth to be stationary in the centre ofthe universe, or to revolve with the heavens, no explanation is given ofthe variation in the length of days and nights at different times of theyear. The relations of the earth and heavens are so indistinct in theTimaeus and so figurative in the Phaedo, Phaedrus and Republic, that wemust give up the hope of ascertaining how they were imagined by Plato, if he had any fixed or scientific conception of them at all. 

Section 5. 

The soul of the world is framed on the analogy of the soul of man, andmany traces of anthropomorphism blend with Plato's highest flights ofidealism. The heavenly bodies are endowed with thought; the principlesof the same and other exist in the universe as well as in the humanmind. The soul of man is made out of the remains of the elements whichhad been used in creating the soul of the world; these remains, however, are diluted to the third degree; by this Plato expresses the measure ofthe difference between the soul human and divine. The human soul, likethe cosmical, is framed before the body, as the mind is before the soulof either--this is the order of the divine work--and the finer parts ofthe body, which are more akin to the soul, such as the spinal marrow, are prior to the bones and flesh. The brain, the containing vessel ofthe divine part of the soul, is (nearly) in the form of a globe, whichis the image of the gods, who are the stars, and of the universe. 

There is, however, an inconsistency in Plato's manner of conceivingthe soul of man; he cannot get rid of the element of necessity which isallowed to enter. He does not, like Kant, attempt to vindicate for men afreedom out of space and time; but he acknowledges him to be subjectto the influence of external causes, and leaves hardly any placefor freedom of the will. The lusts of men are caused by their bodilyconstitution, though they may be increased by bad education and badlaws, which implies that they may be decreased by good education andgood laws. He appears to have an inkling of the truth that to the highernature of man evil is involuntary. This is mixed up with the view which, while apparently agreeing with it, is in reality the opposite of it, that vice is due to physical causes. In the Timaeus, as well as in theLaws, he also regards vices and crimes as simply involuntary; they arediseases analogous to the diseases of the body, and arising out of thesame causes. If we draw together the opposite poles of Plato's system, we find that, like Spinoza, he combines idealism with fatalism. 

The soul of man is divided by him into three parts, answering roughlyto the charioteer and steeds of the Phaedrus, and to the (Greek) of theRepublic and Nicomachean Ethics. First, there is the immortal natureof which the brain is the seat, and which is akin to the soul of theuniverse. This alone thinks and knows and is the ruler of the whole. Secondly, there is the higher mortal soul which, though liable toperturbations of her own, takes the side of reason against the lowerappetites. The seat of this is the heart, in which courage, anger, andall the nobler affections are supposed to reside. There the veins allmeet; it is their centre or house of guard whence they carry the ordersof the thinking being to the extremities of his kingdom. There is alsoa third or appetitive soul, which receives the commands of the immortalpart, not immediately but mediately, through the liver, which reflectson its surface the admonitions and threats of the reason. 

The liver is imagined by Plato to be a smooth and bright substance, having a store of sweetness and also of bitterness, which reason freelyuses in the execution of her mandates. In this region, as ancientsuperstition told, were to be found intimations of the future. ButPlato is careful to observe that although such knowledge is given to theinferior parts of man, it requires to be interpreted by the superior. Reason, and not enthusiasm, is the true guide of man; he is onlyinspired when he is demented by some distemper or possession. Theancient saying, that 'only a man in his senses can judge of his ownactions, ' is approved by modern philosophy too. The same irony whichappears in Plato's remark, that 'the men of old time must surely haveknown the gods who were their ancestors, and we should believe them ascustom requires, ' is also manifest in his account of divination. 

The appetitive soul is seated in the belly, and there imprisoned likea wild beast, far away from the council chamber, as Plato graphicallycalls the head, in order that the animal passions may not interfere withthe deliberations of reason. Though the soul is said by him to be priorto the body, yet we cannot help seeing that it is constructed on themodel of the body--the threefold division into the rational, passionate, and appetitive corresponding to the head, heart and belly. The humansoul differs from the soul of the world in this respect, that it isenveloped and finds its expression in matter, whereas the soul of theworld is not only enveloped or diffused in matter, but is the elementin which matter moves. The breath of man is within him, but the air oraether of heaven is the element which surrounds him and all things. 

Pleasure and pain are attributed in the Timaeus to the suddenness of oursensations--the first being a sudden restoration, the second a suddenviolation, of nature (Phileb. ). The sensations become conscious to uswhen they are exceptional. Sight is not attended either by pleasure orpain, but hunger and the appeasing of hunger are pleasant and painfulbecause they are extraordinary. 

Section 6. 

I shall not attempt to connect the physiological speculations of Platoeither with ancient or modern medicine. What light I can throw upon themwill be derived from the comparison of them with his general system. 

There is no principle so apparent in the physics of the Timaeus, or inancient physics generally, as that of continuity. The world is conceivedof as a whole, and the elements are formed into and out of one another;the varieties of substances and processes are hardly known or noticed. And in a similar manner the human body is conceived of as a whole, andthe different substances of which, to a superficial observer, it appearsto be composed--the blood, flesh, sinews--like the elements out of whichthey are formed, are supposed to pass into one another in regular order, while the infinite complexity of the human frame remains unobserved. Anddiseases arise from the opposite process--when the natural proportionsof the four elements are disturbed, and the secondary substances whichare formed out of them, namely, blood, flesh, sinews, are generated inan inverse order. 

Plato found heat and air within the human frame, and the bloodcirculating in every part. He assumes in language almost unintelligibleto us that a network of fire and air envelopes the greater part of thebody. This outer net contains two lesser nets, one corresponding tothe stomach, the other to the lungs; and the entrance to the latter isforked or divided into two passages which lead to the nostrils and tothe mouth. In the process of respiration the external net is said tofind a way in and out of the pores of the skin: while the interior ofit and the lesser nets move alternately into each other. The wholedescription is figurative, as Plato himself implies when he speaks of a'fountain of fire which we compare to the network of a creel. ' He reallymeans by this what we should describe as a state of heat or temperaturein the interior of the body. The 'fountain of fire' or heat is also in afigure the circulation of the blood. The passage is partly imagination, partly fact. 

He has a singular theory of respiration for which he accounts solely bythe movement of the air in and out of the body; he does not attributeany part of the process to the action of the body itself. The air hasa double ingress and a double exit, through the mouth or nostrils, andthrough the skin. When exhaled through the mouth or nostrils, it leavesa vacuum which is filled up by other air finding a way in through thepores, this air being thrust out of its place by the exhalation from themouth and nostrils. There is also a corresponding process of inhalationthrough the mouth or nostrils, and of exhalation through the pores. Theinhalation through the pores appears to take place nearly at the sametime as the exhalation through the mouth; and conversely. The internalfire is in either case the propelling cause outwards--the inhaled air, when heated by it, having a natural tendency to move out of the body tothe place of fire; while the impossibility of a vacuum is the propellingcause inwards. 

Thus we see that this singular theory is dependent on two principleslargely employed by Plato in explaining the operations of nature, theimpossibility of a vacuum and the attraction of like to like. To thesethere has to be added a third principle, which is the condition ofthe action of the other two, --the interpenetration of particles inproportion to their density or rarity. It is this which enables fire andair to permeate the flesh. 

Plato's account of digestion and the circulation of the blood is closelyconnected with his theory of respiration. Digestion is supposed to beeffected by the action of the internal fire, which in the process ofrespiration moves into the stomach and minces the food. As the firereturns to its place, it takes with it the minced food or blood; and inthis way the veins are replenished. Plato does not enquire how the bloodis separated from the faeces. 

Of the anatomy and functions of the body he knew very little, --e. G. Of the uses of the nerves in conveying motion and sensation, which hesupposed to be communicated by the bones and veins; he was also ignorantof the distinction between veins and arteries;--the latter termhe applies to the vessels which conduct air from the mouth to thelungs;--he supposes the lung to be hollow and bloodless; the spinalmarrow he conceives to be the seed of generation; he confuses the partsof the body with the states of the body--the network of fire and air isspoken of as a bodily organ; he has absolutely no idea of the phenomenaof respiration, which he attributes to a law of equalization in nature, the air which is breathed out displacing other air which finds a wayin; he is wholly unacquainted with the process of digestion. Except thegeneral divisions into the spleen, the liver, the belly, and the lungs, and the obvious distinctions of flesh, bones, and the limbs of the body, we find nothing that reminds us of anatomical facts. But we find muchwhich is derived from his theory of the universe, and transferredto man, as there is much also in his theory of the universe which issuggested by man. The microcosm of the human body is the lesser image ofthe macrocosm. The courses of the same and the other affect both; theyare made of the same elements and therefore in the same proportions. Both are intelligent natures endued with the power of self-motion, and the same equipoise is maintained in both. The animal is a sort of'world' to the particles of the blood which circulate in it. All thefour elements entered into the original composition of the human frame;the bone was formed out of smooth earth; liquids of various kinds passto and fro; the network of fire and air irrigates the veins. Infancyand childhood is the chaos or first turbid flux of sense prior to theestablishment of order; the intervals of time which may be observed insome intermittent fevers correspond to the density of the elements. Thespinal marrow, including the brain, is formed out of the finest sorts oftriangles, and is the connecting link between body and mind. Health isonly to be preserved by imitating the motions of the world in space, which is the mother and nurse of generation. The work of digestionis carried on by the superior sharpness of the triangles forming thesubstances of the human body to those which are introduced into it inthe shape of food. The freshest and acutest forms of triangles are thosethat are found in children, but they become more obtuse with advancingyears; and when they finally wear out and fall to pieces, old age anddeath supervene. 

As in the Republic, Plato is still the enemy of the purgative treatmentof physicians, which, except in extreme cases, no man of sense will everadopt. For, as he adds, with an insight into the truth, 'every diseaseis akin to the nature of the living being and is only irritated bystimulants. ' He is of opinion that nature should be left to herself, andis inclined to think that physicians are in vain (Laws--where he saysthat warm baths would be more beneficial to the limbs of the aged rusticthan the prescriptions of a not over-wise doctor). If he seems to beextreme in his condemnation of medicine and to rely too much on diet andexercise, he might appeal to nearly all the best physicians of our ownage in support of his opinions, who often speak to their patients of theworthlessness of drugs. For we ourselves are sceptical about medicine, and very unwilling to submit to the purgative treatment of physicians. May we not claim for Plato an anticipation of modern ideas as about somequestions of astronomy and physics, so also about medicine? As in theCharmides he tells us that the body cannot be cured without the soul, so in the Timaeus he strongly asserts the sympathy of soul and body;any defect of either is the occasion of the greatest discord anddisproportion in the other. Here too may be a presentiment that in themedicine of the future the interdependence of mind and body will be morefully recognized, and that the influence of the one over the other maybe exerted in a manner which is not now thought possible. 

Section 7. 

In Plato's explanation of sensation we are struck by the fact thathe has not the same distinct conception of organs of sense which isfamiliar to ourselves. The senses are not instruments, but ratherpassages, through which external objects strike upon the mind. The eyeis the aperture through which the stream of vision passes, the ear isthe aperture through which the vibrations of sound pass. But that thecomplex structure of the eye or the ear is in any sense the cause ofsight and hearing he seems hardly to be aware. 

The process of sight is the most complicated (Rep. ), and consists ofthree elements--the light which is supposed to reside within the eye, the light of the sun, and the light emitted from external objects. Whenthe light of the eye meets the light of the sun, and both together meetthe light issuing from an external object, this is the simple act ofsight. When the particles of light which proceed from the object areexactly equal to the particles of the visual ray which meet them fromwithin, then the body is transparent. If they are larger and contractthe visual ray, a black colour is produced; if they are smaller anddilate it, a white. Other phenomena are produced by the variety andmotion of light. A sudden flash of fire at once elicits light andmoisture from the eye, and causes a bright colour. A more subdued light, on mingling with the moisture of the eye, produces a red colour. Outof these elements all other colours are derived. All of them arecombinations of bright and red with white and black. Plato himself tellsus that he does not know in what proportions they combine, and he is ofopinion that such knowledge is granted to the gods only. To have seenthe affinity of them to each other and their connection with light, isnot a bad basis for a theory of colours. We must remember that they werenot distinctly defined to his, as they are to our eyes; he saw them, notas they are divided in the prism, or artificially manufactured for thepainter's use, but as they exist in nature, blended and confused withone another. 

We can hardly agree with him when he tells us that smells do not admitof kinds. He seems to think that no definite qualities can attach tobodies which are in a state of transition or evaporation; he also makesthe subtle observation that smells must be denser than air, thoughthinner than water, because when there is an obstruction to thebreathing, air can penetrate, but not smell. 

The affections peculiar to the tongue are of various kinds, and, likemany other affections, are caused by contraction and dilation. Some ofthem are produced by rough, others by abstergent, others by inflammatorysubstances, --these act upon the testing instruments of the tongue, andproduce a more or less disagreeable sensation, while other particlescongenial to the tongue soften and harmonize them. The instruments oftaste reach from the tongue to the heart. Plato has a lively sense ofthe manner in which sensation and motion are communicated from one partof the body to the other, though he confuses the affections with theorgans. Hearing is a blow which passes through the ear and ends in theregion of the liver, being transmitted by means of the air, the brain, and the blood to the soul. The swifter sound is acute, the sound whichmoves slowly is grave. A great body of sound is loud, the oppositeis low. Discord is produced by the swifter and slower motions of twosounds, and is converted into harmony when the swifter motions begin topause and are overtaken by the slower. 

The general phenomena of sensation are partly internal, but the moreviolent are caused by conflict with external objects. Proceeding by amethod of superficial observation, Plato remarks that the more sensitiveparts of the human frame are those which are least covered by flesh, as is the case with the head and the elbows. Man, if his head had beencovered with a thicker pulp of flesh, might have been a longer-livedanimal than he is, but could not have had as quick perceptions. On theother hand, the tongue is one of the most sensitive of organs; but thenthis is made, not to be a covering to the bones which contain the marrowor source of life, but with an express purpose, and in a separate mass. 

Section 8. 

We have now to consider how far in any of these speculations Platoapproximated to the discoveries of modern science. The modern physicalphilosopher is apt to dwell exclusively on the absurdities of ancientideas about science, on the haphazard fancies and a priori assumptionsof ancient teachers, on their confusion of facts and ideas, on theirinconsistency and blindness to the most obvious phenomena. He measuresthem not by what preceded them, but by what has followed them. He doesnot consider that ancient physical philosophy was not a free enquiry, but a growth, in which the mind was passive rather than active, andwas incapable of resisting the impressions which flowed in upon it. He hardly allows to the notions of the ancients the merit of being thestepping-stones by which he has himself risen to a higher knowledge. Henever reflects, how great a thing it was to have formed a conception, however imperfect, either of the human frame as a whole, or of the worldas a whole. According to the view taken in these volumes the errors ofancient physicists were not separable from the intellectual conditionsunder which they lived. Their genius was their own; and they were notthe rash and hasty generalizers which, since the days of Bacon, wehave been apt to suppose them. The thoughts of men widened to receiveexperience; at first they seemed to know all things as in a dream: aftera while they look at them closely and hold them in their hands. Theybegin to arrange them in classes and to connect causes with effects. General notions are necessary to the apprehension of particular facts, the metaphysical to the physical. Before men can observe the world, theymust be able to conceive it. 

To do justice to the subject, we should consider the physical philosophyof the ancients as a whole; we should remember, (1) that the nebulartheory was the received belief of several of the early physicists; (2)that the development of animals out of fishes who came to land, and ofman out of the animals, was held by Anaximander in the sixth centurybefore Christ (Plut. Symp. Quaest; Plac. Phil. ); (3) that even byPhilolaus and the early Pythagoreans, the earth was held to be a bodylike the other stars revolving in space around the sun or a centralfire; (4) that the beginnings of chemistry are discernible in the'similar particles' of Anaxagoras. Also they knew or thought (5) thatthere was a sex in plants as well as in animals; (6) they were awarethat musical notes depended on the relative length or tension of thestrings from which they were emitted, and were measured by ratiosof number; (7) that mathematical laws pervaded the world; and evenqualitative differences were supposed to have their origin in number andfigure; (8) the annihilation of matter was denied by several of them, and the seeming disappearance of it held to be a transformation only. For, although one of these discoveries might have been supposed to bea happy guess, taken together they seem to imply a great advance andalmost maturity of natural knowledge. 

We should also remember, when we attribute to the ancients hastygeneralizations and delusions of language, that physical philosophy andmetaphysical too have been guilty of similar fallacies in quite recenttimes. We by no means distinguish clearly between mind and body, betweenideas and facts. Have not many discussions arisen about the Atomictheory in which a point has been confused with a material atom? Have notthe natures of things been explained by imaginary entities, such aslife or phlogiston, which exist in the mind only? Has not disease beenregarded, like sin, sometimes as a negative and necessary, sometimes asa positive or malignant principle? The 'idols' of Bacon are nearly ascommon now as ever; they are inherent in the human mind, and when theyhave the most complete dominion over us, we are least able to perceivethem. We recognize them in the ancients, but we fail to see them inourselves. 

Such reflections, although this is not the place in which to dwell uponthem at length, lead us to take a favourable view of the speculationsof the Timaeus. We should consider not how much Plato actually knew, buthow far he has contributed to the general ideas of physics, or suppliedthe notions which, whether true or false, have stimulated the mindsof later generations in the path of discovery. Some of them may seemold-fashioned, but may nevertheless have had a great influence inpromoting system and assisting enquiry, while in others we hear thelatest word of physical or metaphysical philosophy. There is also anintermediate class, in which Plato falls short of the truths of modernscience, though he is not wholly unacquainted with them. (1) To thefirst class belongs the teleological theory of creation. Whether allthings in the world can be explained as the result of natural laws, orwhether we must not admit of tendencies and marks of design also, hasbeen a question much disputed of late years. Even if all phenomena arethe result of natural forces, we must admit that there are many thingsin heaven and earth which are as well expressed under the image of mindor design as under any other. At any rate, the language of Plato hasbeen the language of natural theology down to our own time, nor can anydescription of the world wholly dispense with it. The notion of firstand second or co-operative causes, which originally appears in theTimaeus, has likewise survived to our own day, and has been a greatpeace-maker between theology and science. Plato also approaches verynear to our doctrine of the primary and secondary qualities of matter. (2) Another popular notion which is found in the Timaeus, is thefeebleness of the human intellect--'God knows the original qualities ofthings; man can only hope to attain to probability. ' We speak in almostthe same words of human intelligence, but not in the same manner of theuncertainty of our knowledge of nature. The reason is that the latter isassured to us by experiment, and is not contrasted with the certaintyof ideal or mathematical knowledge. But the ancient philosopher neverexperimented: in the Timaeus Plato seems to have thought that therewould be impiety in making the attempt; he, for example, who triedexperiments in colours would 'forget the difference of the human anddivine natures. ' Their indefiniteness is probably the reason why hesingles them out, as especially incapable of being tested by experiment. (Compare the saying of Anaxagoras--Sext. Pyrrh. --that since snow is madeof water and water is black, snow ought to be black. )

The greatest 'divination' of the ancients was the supremacy which theyassigned to mathematics in all the realms of nature; for in all of themthere is a foundation of mechanics. Even physiology partakes of figureand number; and Plato is not wrong in attributing them to the humanframe, but in the omission to observe how little could be explained bythem. Thus we may remark in passing that the most fanciful of ancientphilosophies is also the most nearly verified in fact. The fortunateguess that the world is a sum of numbers and figures has been the mostfruitful of anticipations. The 'diatonic' scale of the Pythagoreansand Plato suggested to Kepler that the secret of the distances of theplanets from one another was to be found in mathematical proportions. The doctrine that the heavenly bodies all move in a circle is known byus to be erroneous; but without such an error how could the human mindhave comprehended the heavens? Astronomy, even in modern times, hasmade far greater progress by the high a priori road than could have beenattained by any other. Yet, strictly speaking--and the remark appliesto ancient physics generally--this high a priori road was based upon aposteriori grounds. For there were no facts of which the ancients wereso well assured by experience as facts of number. Having observed thatthey held good in a few instances, they applied them everywhere; and inthe complexity, of which they were capable, found the explanation of theequally complex phenomena of the universe. They seemed to see them inthe least things as well as in the greatest; in atoms, as well as insuns and stars; in the human body as well as in external nature. Andnow a favourite speculation of modern chemistry is the explanation ofqualitative difference by quantitative, which is at present verified toa certain extent and may hereafter be of far more universal application. What is this but the atoms of Democritus and the triangles of Plato? Theancients should not be wholly deprived of the credit of their guessesbecause they were unable to prove them. May they not have had, like theanimals, an instinct of something more than they knew?

Besides general notions we seem to find in the Timaeus some more preciseapproximations to the discoveries of modern physical science. First, the doctrine of equipoise. Plato affirms, almost in so many words, thatnature abhors a vacuum. Whenever a particle is displaced, the rest pushand thrust one another until equality is restored. We must remember thatthese ideas were not derived from any definite experiment, but were theoriginal reflections of man, fresh from the first observation of nature. The latest word of modern philosophy is continuity and development, but to Plato this is the beginning and foundation of science; there isnothing that he is so strongly persuaded of as that the world is one, and that all the various existences which are contained in it are onlythe transformations of the same soul of the world acting on the samematter. He would have readily admitted that out of the protoplasm allthings were formed by the gradual process of creation; but he would haveinsisted that mind and intelligence--not meaning by this, however, a conscious mind or person--were prior to them, and could alone havecreated them. Into the workings of this eternal mind or intelligence hedoes not enter further; nor would there have been any use in attemptingto investigate the things which no eye has seen nor any human languagecan express. 

Lastly, there remain two points in which he seems to touch greatdiscoveries of modern times--the law of gravitation, and the circulationof the blood. 

(1) The law of gravitation, according to Plato, is a law, not only ofthe attraction of lesser bodies to larger ones, but of similar bodies tosimilar, having a magnetic power as well as a principle of gravitation. He observed that earth, water, and air had settled down to their places, and he imagined fire or the exterior aether to have a place beyond air. When air seemed to go upwards and fire to pierce through air--when waterand earth fell downward, they were seeking their native elements. He didnot remark that his own explanation did not suit all phenomena; and thesimpler explanation, which assigns to bodies degrees of heaviness andlightness proportioned to the mass and distance of the bodies whichattract them, never occurred to him. Yet the affinities of similarsubstances have some effect upon the composition of the world, andof this Plato may be thought to have had an anticipation. He may bedescribed as confusing the attraction of gravitation with the attractionof cohesion. The influence of such affinities and the chemical action ofone body upon another in long periods of time have become a recognizedprinciple of geology. 

(2) Plato is perfectly aware--and he could hardly be ignorant--thatblood is a fluid in constant motion. He also knew that blood is partly asolid substance consisting of several elements, which, as he might haveobserved in the use of 'cupping-glasses', decompose and die, when nolonger in motion. But the specific discovery that the blood flows out onone side of the heart through the arteries and returns through the veinson the other, which is commonly called the circulation of the blood, wasabsolutely unknown to him. 

A further study of the Timaeus suggests some after-thoughts which may beconveniently brought together in this place. The topics which I proposebriefly to reconsider are (a) the relation of the Timaeus to the otherdialogues of Plato and to the previous philosophy; (b) the nature of Godand of creation (c) the morality of the Timaeus:--

(a) The Timaeus is more imaginative and less scientific than any otherof the Platonic dialogues. It is conjectural astronomy, conjecturalnatural philosophy, conjectural medicine. The writer himself isconstantly repeating that he is speaking what is probable only. Thedialogue is put into the mouth of Timaeus, a Pythagorean philosopher, and therefore here, as in the Parmenides, we are in doubt how far Platois expressing his own sentiments. Hence the connexion with the otherdialogues is comparatively slight. We may fill up the lacunae of theTimaeus by the help of the Republic or Phaedrus: we may identify thesame and other with the (Greek) of the Philebus. We may find in the Lawsor in the Statesman parallels with the account of creation and of thefirst origin of man. It would be possible to frame a scheme in which allthese various elements might have a place. But such a mode of proceedingwould be unsatisfactory, because we have no reason to suppose that Platointended his scattered thoughts to be collected in a system. There is acommon spirit in his writings, and there are certain general principles, such as the opposition of the sensible and intellectual, and thepriority of mind, which run through all of them; but he has no definiteforms of words in which he consistently expresses himself. Whilethe determinations of human thought are in process of creation he isnecessarily tentative and uncertain. And there is least of definiteness, whenever either in describing the beginning or the end of the world, hehas recourse to myths. These are not the fixed modes in which spiritualtruths are revealed to him, but the efforts of imagination, by whichat different times and in various manners he seeks to embody hisconceptions. The clouds of mythology are still resting upon him, and hehas not yet pierced 'to the heaven of the fixed stars' which is beyondthem. It is safer then to admit the inconsistencies of the Timaeus, or to endeavour to fill up what is wanting from our own imagination, inspired by a study of the dialogue, than to refer to other Platonicwritings, --and still less should we refer to the successors ofPlato, --for the elucidation of it. 

More light is thrown upon the Timaeus by a comparison of the previousphilosophies. For the physical science of the ancients was traditional, descending through many generations of Ionian and Pythagoreanphilosophers. Plato does not look out upon the heavens and describe whathe sees in them, but he builds upon the foundations of others, addingsomething out of the 'depths of his own self-consciousness. ' Socrateshad already spoken of God the creator, who made all things for the best. While he ridiculed the superficial explanations of phenomena which werecurrent in his age, he recognised the marks both of benevolence and ofdesign in the frame of man and in the world. The apparatus of winds andwaters is contemptuously rejected by him in the Phaedo, but he thinksthat there is a power greater than that of any Atlas in the 'Best'(Phaedo; Arist. Met. ). Plato, following his master, affirms thisprinciple of the best, but he acknowledges that the best is limited bythe conditions of matter. In the generation before Socrates, Anaxagorashad brought together 'Chaos' and 'Mind'; and these are connected byPlato in the Timaeus, but in accordance with his own mode of thinking hehas interposed between them the idea or pattern according to which mindworked. The circular impulse (Greek) of the one philosopher answers tothe circular movement (Greek) of the other. But unlike Anaxagoras, Platomade the sun and stars living beings and not masses of earth or metal. The Pythagoreans again had framed a world out of numbers, which theyconstructed into figures. Plato adopted their speculations and improvedupon them by a more exact knowledge of geometry. The Atomists too madethe world, if not out of geometrical figures, at least out of differentforms of atoms, and these atoms resembled the triangles of Plato inbeing too small to be visible. But though the physiology of the Timaeusis partly borrowed from them, they are either ignored by Plato orreferred to with a secret contempt and dislike. He looks with morefavour on the Pythagoreans, whose intervals of number applied to thedistances of the planets reappear in the Timaeus. It is probable thatamong the Pythagoreans living in the fourth century B. C. , there werealready some who, like Plato, made the earth their centre. Whether heobtained his circles of the Same and Other from any previous thinker isuncertain. The four elements are taken from Empedocles; the intersticesof the Timaeus may also be compared with his (Greek). The passage of oneelement into another is common to Heracleitus and several of the Ionianphilosophers. So much of a syncretist is Plato, though not after themanner of the Neoplatonists. For the elements which he borrows fromothers are fused and transformed by his own genius. On the other handwe find fewer traces in Plato of early Ionic or Eleatic speculation. Hedoes not imagine the world of sense to be made up of opposites or tobe in a perpetual flux, but to vary within certain limits which arecontrolled by what he calls the principle of the same. Unlike theEleatics, who relegated the world to the sphere of not-being, he admitscreation to have an existence which is real and even eternal, althoughdependent on the will of the creator. Instead of maintaining thedoctrine that the void has a necessary place in the existence of theworld, he rather affirms the modern thesis that nature abhors a vacuum, as in the Sophist he also denies the reality of not-being (Aristot. Metaph. ). But though in these respects he differs from them, he isdeeply penetrated by the spirit of their philosophy; he differs fromthem with reluctance, and gladly recognizes the 'generous depth' ofParmenides (Theaet. ). 

There is a similarity between the Timaeus and the fragments ofPhilolaus, which by some has been thought to be so great as to create asuspicion that they are derived from it. Philolaus is known to us fromthe Phaedo of Plato as a Pythagorean philosopher residing at Thebes inthe latter half of the fifth century B. C. , after the dispersion of theoriginal Pythagorean society. He was the teacher of Simmias and Cebes, who became disciples of Socrates. We have hardly any other informationabout him. The story that Plato had purchased three books of hiswritings from a relation is not worth repeating; it is only a fancifulway in which an ancient biographer dresses up the fact that there wassupposed to be a resemblance between the two writers. Similar gossipingstories are told about the sources of the Republic and the Phaedo. That there really existed in antiquity a work passing under the name ofPhilolaus there can be no doubt. Fragments of this work are preservedto us, chiefly in Stobaeus, a few in Boethius and other writers. Theyremind us of the Timaeus, as well as of the Phaedrus and Philebus. When the writer says (Stob. Eclog. ) that all things are either finite(definite) or infinite (indefinite), or a union of the two, and thatthis antithesis and synthesis pervades all art and nature, we arereminded of the Philebus. When he calls the centre of the world (Greek), we have a parallel to the Phaedrus. His distinction between the world oforder, to which the sun and moon and the stars belong, and the worldof disorder, which lies in the region between the moon and the earth, approximates to Plato's sphere of the Same and of the Other. Like Plato(Tim. ), he denied the above and below in space, and said that all thingswere the same in relation to a centre. He speaks also of the world asone and indestructible: 'for neither from within nor from withoutdoes it admit of destruction' (Tim). He mentions ten heavenly bodies, including the sun and moon, the earth and the counter-earth (Greek), andin the midst of them all he places the central fire, around which theyare moving--this is hidden from the earth by the counter-earth. Ofneither is there any trace in Plato, who makes the earth the centreof his system. Philolaus magnifies the virtues of particular numbers, especially of the number 10 (Stob. Eclog. ), and descants upon odd andeven numbers, after the manner of the later Pythagoreans. It is worthyof remark that these mystical fancies are nowhere to be found in thewritings of Plato, although the importance of number as a form and alsoan instrument of thought is ever present to his mind. Both Philolausand Plato agree in making the world move in certain numerical ratiosaccording to a musical scale: though Bockh is of opinion that the twoscales, of Philolaus and of the Timaeus, do not correspond. . . We appearnot to be sufficiently acquainted with the early Pythagoreans to knowhow far the statements contained in these fragments corresponded withtheir doctrines; and we therefore cannot pronounce, either in favourof the genuineness of the fragments, with Bockh and Zeller, or, withValentine Rose and Schaarschmidt, against them. But it is clear thatthey throw but little light upon the Timaeus, and that their resemblanceto it has been exaggerated. 

That there is a degree of confusion and indistinctness in Plato'saccount both of man and of the universe has been already acknowledged. We cannot tell (nor could Plato himself have told) where the figure ormyth ends and the philosophical truth begins; we cannot explain (norcould Plato himself have explained to us) the relation of the ideas toappearance, of which one is the copy of the other, and yet of all thingsin the world they are the most opposed and unlike. This opposition ispresented to us in many forms, as the antithesis of the one and many, of the finite and infinite, of the intelligible and sensible, of theunchangeable and the changing, of the indivisible and the divisible, ofthe fixed stars and the planets, of the creative mind and the primevalchaos. These pairs of opposites are so many aspects of the greatopposition between ideas and phenomena--they easily pass into oneanother; and sometimes the two members of the relation differ inkind, sometimes only in degree. As in Aristotle's matter and form theconnexion between them is really inseparable; for if we attemptto separate them they become devoid of content and thereforeindistinguishable; there is no difference between the idea of whichnothing can be predicated, and the chaos or matter which has noperceptible qualities--between Being in the abstract and Nothing. Yetwe are frequently told that the one class of them is the reality and theother appearance; and one is often spoken of as the double or reflectionof the other. For Plato never clearly saw that both elements had anequal place in mind and in nature; and hence, especially when we arguefrom isolated passages in his writings, or attempt to draw what appearto us to be the natural inferences from them, we are full of perplexity. There is a similar confusion about necessity and free-will, and aboutthe state of the soul after death. Also he sometimes supposes that Godis immanent in the world, sometimes that he is transcendent. And havingno distinction of objective and subjective, he passes imperceptiblyfrom one to the other; from intelligence to soul, from eternity to time. These contradictions may be softened or concealed by a judicious useof language, but they cannot be wholly got rid of. That an age ofintellectual transition must also be one of inconsistency; that thecreative is opposed to the critical or defining habit of mind or time, has been often repeated by us. But, as Plato would say, 'there is noharm in repeating twice or thrice' (Laws) what is important for theunderstanding of a great author. 

It has not, however, been observed, that the confusion partly arises outof the elements of opposing philosophies which are preserved in him. Heholds these in solution, he brings them into relation with one another, but he does not perfectly harmonize them. They are part of his own mind, and he is incapable of placing himself outside of them and criticizingthem. They grow as he grows; they are a kind of composition with whichhis own philosophy is overlaid. In early life he fancies that hehas mastered them: but he is also mastered by them; and in language(Sophist) which may be compared with the hesitating tone of the Timaeus, he confesses in his later years that they are full of obscurity to him. He attributes new meanings to the words of Parmenides and Heracleitus;but at times the old Eleatic philosophy appears to go beyond him; thenthe world of phenomena disappears, but the doctrine of ideas is alsoreduced to nothingness. All of them are nearer to one another than theythemselves supposed, and nearer to him than he supposed. All of them areantagonistic to sense and have an affinity to number and measure and apresentiment of ideas. Even in Plato they still retain their contentiousor controversial character, which was developed by the growth ofdialectic. He is never able to reconcile the first causes of thepre-Socratic philosophers with the final causes of Socrates himself. There is no intelligible account of the relation of numbers to theuniversal ideas, or of universals to the idea of good. He found them allthree, in the Pythagorean philosophy and in the teaching of Socrates andof the Megarians respectively; and, because they all furnished modes ofexplaining and arranging phenomena, he is unwilling to give up any ofthem, though he is unable to unite them in a consistent whole. 

Lastly, Plato, though an idealist philosopher, is Greek and not Orientalin spirit and feeling. He is no mystic or ascetic; he is not seeking invain to get rid of matter or to find absorption in the divine nature, orin the Soul of the universe. And therefore we are not surprised to findthat his philosophy in the Timaeus returns at last to a worship of theheavens, and that to him, as to other Greeks, nature, though containinga remnant of evil, is still glorious and divine. He takes away or dropsthe veil of mythology, and presents her to us in what appears to him tobe the form-fairer and truer far--of mathematical figures. It is thiselement in the Timaeus, no less than its affinity to certain Pythagoreanspeculations, which gives it a character not wholly in accordance withthe other dialogues of Plato. 

(b) The Timaeus contains an assertion perhaps more distinct than isfound in any of the other dialogues (Rep. ; Laws) of the goodness of God. 'He was good himself, and he fashioned the good everywhere. ' He was not'a jealous God, ' and therefore he desired that all other things shouldbe equally good. He is the IDEA of good who has now become a person, andspeaks and is spoken of as God. Yet his personality seems to appear onlyin the act of creation. In so far as he works with his eye fixed upon aneternal pattern he is like the human artificer in the Republic. Here thetheory of Platonic ideas intrudes upon us. God, like man, is supposed tohave an ideal of which Plato is unable to tell us the origin. He may besaid, in the language of modern philosophy, to resolve the divine mindinto subject and object. 

The first work of creation is perfected, the second begins under thedirection of inferior ministers. The supreme God is withdrawn fromthe world and returns to his own accustomed nature (Tim. ). As in theStatesman, he retires to his place of view. So early did the Epicureandoctrine take possession of the Greek mind, and so natural is it to theheart of man, when he has once passed out of the stage of mythology intothat of rational religion. For he sees the marks of design in the world;but he no longer sees or fancies that he sees God walking in the gardenor haunting stream or mountain. He feels also that he must put God asfar as possible out of the way of evil, and therefore he banishes himfrom an evil world. Plato is sensible of the difficulty; and he oftenshows that he is desirous of justifying the ways of God to man. Yet onthe other hand, in the Tenth Book of the Laws he passes a censure onthose who say that the Gods have no care of human things. 

The creation of the world is the impression of order on a previouslyexisting chaos. The formula of Anaxagoras--'all things were in chaos orconfusion, and then mind came and disposed them'--is a summary ofthe first part of the Timaeus. It is true that of a chaos withoutdifferences no idea could be formed. All was not mixed but one;and therefore it was not difficult for the later Platonists to drawinferences by which they were enabled to reconcile the narrative of theTimaeus with the Mosaic account of the creation. Neither when wespeak of mind or intelligence, do we seem to get much further inour conception than circular motion, which was deemed to be the mostperfect. Plato, like Anaxagoras, while commencing his theory of theuniverse with ideas of mind and of the best, is compelled in theexecution of his design to condescend to the crudest physics. 

(c) The morality of the Timaeus is singular, and it is difficult toadjust the balance between the two elements of it. The difficulty whichPlato feels, is that which all of us feel, and which is increased in ourown day by the progress of physical science, how the responsibilityof man is to be reconciled with his dependence on natural causes. Andsometimes, like other men, he is more impressed by one aspect of humanlife, sometimes by the other. In the Republic he represents man asfreely choosing his own lot in a state prior to birth--a conceptionwhich, if taken literally, would still leave him subject to the dominionof necessity in his after life; in the Statesman he supposes the humanrace to be preserved in the world only by a divine interposition; whilein the Timaeus the supreme God commissions the inferior deities to avertfrom him all but self-inflicted evils--words which imply that allthe evils of men are really self-inflicted. And here, like Plato (theinsertion of a note in the text of an ancient writer is a literarycuriosity worthy of remark), we may take occasion to correct an error. For we too hastily said that Plato in the Timaeus regarded all 'vicesand crimes as involuntary. ' But the fact is that he is inconsistentwith himself; in one and the same passage vice is attributed to therelaxation of the bodily frame, and yet we are exhorted to avoid it andpursue virtue. It is also admitted that good and evil conduct are to beattributed respectively to good and evil laws and institutions. Thesecannot be given by individuals to themselves; and therefore humanactions, in so far as they are dependent upon them, are regarded byPlato as involuntary rather than voluntary. Like other writers on thissubject, he is unable to escape from some degree of self-contradiction. He had learned from Socrates that vice is ignorance, and suddenly thedoctrine seems to him to be confirmed by observing how much of the goodand bad in human character depends on the bodily constitution. Soin modern times the speculative doctrine of necessity has often beensupported by physical facts. 

The Timaeus also contains an anticipation of the stoical life accordingto nature. Man contemplating the heavens is to regulate his erring lifeaccording to them. He is to partake of the repose of nature and of theorder of nature, to bring the variable principle in himself into harmonywith the principle of the same. The ethics of the Timaeus may be summedup in the single idea of 'law. ' To feel habitually that he is part ofthe order of the universe, is one of the highest ethical motives ofwhich man is capable. Something like this is what Plato means when hespeaks of the soul 'moving about the same in unchanging thought ofthe same. ' He does not explain how man is acted upon by the lesserinfluences of custom or of opinion; or how the commands of the soulwatching in the citadel are conveyed to the bodily organs. But thisperhaps, to use once more expressions of his own, 'is part of anothersubject' or 'may be more suitably discussed on some other occasion. '

There is no difficulty, by the help of Aristotle and later writers, incriticizing the Timaeus of Plato, in pointing out the inconsistenciesof the work, in dwelling on the ignorance of anatomy displayed by theauthor, in showing the fancifulness or unmeaningness of some of hisreasons. But the Timaeus still remains the greatest effort of the humanmind to conceive the world as a whole which the genius of antiquity hasbequeathed to us. 

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One more aspect of the Timaeus remains to be considered--themythological or geographical. Is it not a wonderful thing that a fewpages of one of Plato's dialogues have grown into a great legend, notconfined to Greece only, but spreading far and wide over the nations ofEurope and reaching even to Egypt and Asia? Like the tale of Troy, or the legend of the Ten Tribes (Ewald, Hist. Of Isr. ), which perhapsoriginated in a few verses of II Esdras, it has become famous, becauseit has coincided with a great historical fact. Like the romance of KingArthur, which has had so great a charm, it has found a way over the seasfrom one country and language to another. It inspired the navigators ofthe fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; it foreshadowed the discovery ofAmerica. It realized the fiction so natural to the human mind, becauseit answered the enquiry about the origin of the arts, that there hadsomewhere existed an ancient primitive civilization. It might find aplace wherever men chose to look for it; in North, South, East, orWest; in the Islands of the Blest; before the entrance of the Straitsof Gibraltar, in Sweden or in Palestine. It mattered little whether thedescription in Plato agreed with the locality assigned to it or not. Itwas a legend so adapted to the human mind that it made a habitation foritself in any country. It was an island in the clouds, which might beseen anywhere by the eye of faith. It was a subject especially congenialto the ponderous industry of certain French and Swedish writers, whodelighted in heaping up learning of all sorts but were incapable ofusing it. 

M. Martin has written a valuable dissertation on the opinionsentertained respecting the Island of Atlantis in ancient and moderntimes. It is a curious chapter in the history of the human mind. Thetale of Atlantis is the fabric of a vision, but it has never ceased tointerest mankind. It was variously regarded by the ancients themselves. The stronger heads among them, like Strabo and Longinus, were as littledisposed to believe in the truth of it as the modern reader in Gulliveror Robinson Crusoe. On the other hand there is no kind or degree ofabsurdity or fancy in which the more foolish writers, both ofantiquity and of modern times, have not indulged respecting it. TheNeo-Platonists, loyal to their master, like some commentators on theChristian Scriptures, sought to give an allegorical meaning to what theyalso believed to be an historical fact. It was as if some one in our ownday were to convert the poems of Homer into an allegory of the Christianreligion, at the same time maintaining them to be an exact and veritablehistory. In the Middle Ages the legend seems to have been half-forgottenuntil revived by the discovery of America. It helped to form the Utopiaof Sir Thomas More and the New Atlantis of Bacon, although probablyneither of those great men were at all imposed upon by the fiction. It was most prolific in the seventeenth or in the early part ofthe eighteenth century, when the human mind, seeking for Utopias orinventing them, was glad to escape out of the dulness of the presentinto the romance of the past or some ideal of the future. The laterforms of such narratives contained features taken from the Edda, as wellas from the Old and New Testament; also from the tales of missionariesand the experiences of travellers and of colonists. 

The various opinions respecting the Island of Atlantis have no interestfor us except in so far as they illustrate the extravagances of whichmen are capable. But this is a real interest and a serious lesson, ifwe remember that now as formerly the human mind is liable to be imposedupon by the illusions of the past, which are ever assuming some newform. 

When we have shaken off the rubbish of ages, there remain one or twoquestions of which the investigation has a permanent value:--

1. Did Plato derive the legend of Atlantis from an Egyptian source? Itmay be replied that there is no such legend in any writer previous toPlato; neither in Homer, nor in Pindar, nor in Herodotus is there anymention of an Island of Atlantis, nor any reference to it in Aristotle, nor any citation of an earlier writer by a later one in which it isto be found. Nor have any traces been discovered hitherto in Egyptianmonuments of a connexion between Greece and Egypt older than the eighthor ninth century B. C. It is true that Proclus, writing in the fifthcentury after Christ, tells us of stones and columns in Egypt on whichthe history of the Island of Atlantis was engraved. The statement may befalse--there are similar tales about columns set up 'by the Canaaniteswhom Joshua drove out' (Procop. ); but even if true, it would only showthat the legend, 800 years after the time of Plato, had been transferredto Egypt, and inscribed, not, like other forgeries, in books, but onstone. Probably in the Alexandrian age, when Egypt had ceased to have ahistory and began to appropriate the legends of other nations, many suchmonuments were to be found of events which had become famous in that orother countries. The oldest witness to the story is said to be Crantor, a Stoic philosopher who lived a generation later than Plato, andtherefore may have borrowed it from him. The statement is found inProclus; but we require better assurance than Proclus can give us beforewe accept this or any other statement which he makes. 

Secondly, passing from the external to the internal evidence, we mayremark that the story is far more likely to have been invented by Platothan to have been brought by Solon from Egypt. That is another part ofhis legend which Plato also seeks to impose upon us. The verisimilitudewhich he has given to the tale is a further reason for suspecting it;for he could easily 'invent Egyptian or any other tales' (Phaedrus). Arenot the words, 'The truth of the story is a great advantage, ' if we readbetween the lines, an indication of the fiction? It is only a legendthat Solon went to Egypt, and if he did he could not have conversed withEgyptian priests or have read records in their temples. The truth isthat the introduction is a mosaic work of small touches which, partlyby their minuteness, and also by their seeming probability, win theconfidence of the reader. Who would desire better evidence than thatof Critias, who had heard the narrative in youth when the memory isstrongest at the age of ten from his grandfather Critias, an old man ofninety, who in turn had heard it from Solon himself? Is not the famousexpression--'You Hellenes are ever children and there is no knowledgeamong you hoary with age, ' really a compliment to the Athenians who aredescribed in these words as 'ever young'? And is the thought expressedin them to be attributed to the learning of the Egyptian priest, and notrather to the genius of Plato? Or when the Egyptian says--'Hereafter atour leisure we will take up the written documents and examine in detailthe exact truth about these things'--what is this but a literary trickby which Plato sets off his narrative? Could any war between Athens andthe Island of Atlantis have really coincided with the struggle betweenthe Greeks and Persians, as is sufficiently hinted though not expresslystated in the narrative of Plato? And whence came the tradition toEgypt? or in what does the story consist except in the war between thetwo rival powers and the submersion of both of them? And how was thetale transferred to the poem of Solon? 'It is not improbable, ' says Mr. Grote, 'that Solon did leave an unfinished Egyptian poem' (Plato). Butare probabilities for which there is not a tittle of evidence, andwhich are without any parallel, to be deemed worthy of attention by thecritic? How came the poem of Solon to disappear in antiquity? or why didPlato, if the whole narrative was known to him, break off almost at thebeginning of it?

While therefore admiring the diligence and erudition of M. Martin, we cannot for a moment suppose that the tale was told to Solon by anEgyptian priest, nor can we believe that Solon wrote a poem upon thetheme which was thus suggested to him--a poem which disappeared inantiquity; or that the Island of Atlantis or the antediluvian Athensever had any existence except in the imagination of Plato. Martin is ofopinion that Plato would have been terrified if he could have foreseenthe endless fancies to which his Island of Atlantis has given occasion. Rather he would have been infinitely amused if he could have known thathis gift of invention would have deceived M. Martin himself into thebelief that the tradition was brought from Egypt by Solon and made thesubject of a poem by him. M. Martin may also be gently censured forciting without sufficient discrimination ancient authors having verydifferent degrees of authority and value. 

2. It is an interesting and not unimportant question which is touchedupon by Martin, whether the Atlantis of Plato in any degree held outa guiding light to the early navigators. He is inclined to think thatthere is no real connexion between them. But surely the discovery of theNew World was preceded by a prophetic anticipation of it, which, likethe hope of a Messiah, was entering into the hearts of men? And thishope was nursed by ancient tradition, which had found expression fromtime to time in the celebrated lines of Seneca and in many other places. This tradition was sustained by the great authority of Plato, andtherefore the legend of the Island of Atlantis, though not closelyconnected with the voyages of the early navigators, may be truly said tohave contributed indirectly to the great discovery. 

The Timaeus of Plato, like the Protagoras and several portions of thePhaedrus and Republic, was translated by Cicero into Latin. About afourth, comprehending with lacunae the first portion of the dialogue, is preserved in several MSS. These generally agree, and therefore maybe supposed to be derived from a single original. The version is veryfaithful, and is a remarkable monument of Cicero's skill in managing thedifficult and intractable Greek. In his treatise De Natura Deorum, healso refers to the Timaeus, which, speaking in the person of Velleiusthe Epicurean, he severely criticises. 

The commentary of Proclus on the Timaeus is a wonderful monument ofthe silliness and prolixity of the Alexandrian Age. It extends toabout thirty pages of the book, and is thirty times the length of theoriginal. It is surprising that this voluminous work should have founda translator (Thomas Taylor, a kindred spirit, who was himself aNeo-Platonist, after the fashion, not of the fifth or sixteenth, but ofthe nineteenth century A. D. ). The commentary is of little or no value, either in a philosophical or philological point of view. The writer isunable to explain particular passages in any precise manner, and he isequally incapable of grasping the whole. He does not take words in theirsimple meaning or sentences in their natural connexion. He is thinking, not of the context in Plato, but of the contemporary Pythagoreanphilosophers and their wordy strife. He finds nothing in the textwhich he does not bring to it. He is full of Porphyry, Iamblichus andPlotinus, of misapplied logic, of misunderstood grammar, and of theOrphic theology. 

Although such a work can contribute little or nothing to theunderstanding of Plato, it throws an interesting light on theAlexandrian times; it realizes how a philosophy made up of words onlymay create a deep and widespread enthusiasm, how the forms of logic andrhetoric may usurp the place of reason and truth, how all philosophiesgrow faded and discoloured, and are patched and made up again likeworn-out garments, and retain only a second-hand existence. He whowould study this degeneracy of philosophy and of the Greek mind in theoriginal cannot do better than devote a few of his days and nights tothe commentary of Proclus on the Timaeus. 

A very different account must be given of the short work entitled'Timaeus Locrus, ' which is a brief but clear analysis of the Timaeusof Plato, omitting the introduction or dialogue and making a few smalladditions. It does not allude to the original from which it is taken;it is quite free from mysticism and Neo-Platonism. In length it does notexceed a fifth part of the Timaeus. It is written in the Doric dialect, and contains several words which do not occur in classical Greek. Noother indication of its date, except this uncertain one of language, appears in it. In several places the writer has simplified the languageof Plato, in a few others he has embellished and exaggerated it. Hegenerally preserves the thought of the original, but does not copy thewords. On the whole this little tract faithfully reflects the meaningand spirit of the Timaeus. 

From the garden of the Timaeus, as from the other dialogues of Plato, we may still gather a few flowers and present them at parting tothe reader. There is nothing in Plato grander and simpler than theconversation between Solon and the Egyptian priest, in which theyouthfulness of Hellas is contrasted with the antiquity of Egypt. Hereare to be found the famous words, 'O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are everyoung, and there is not an old man among you'--which may be comparedto the lively saying of Hegel, that 'Greek history began with the youthAchilles and left off with the youth Alexander. ' The numerous arts ofverisimilitude by which Plato insinuates into the mind of the readerthe truth of his narrative have been already referred to. Here occura sentence or two not wanting in Platonic irony (Greek--a word to thewise). 'To know or tell the origin of the other divinities is beyondus, and we must accept the traditions of the men of old time who affirmthemselves to be the offspring of the Gods--that is what they say--andthey must surely have known their own ancestors. How can we doubt theword of the children of the Gods? Although they give no probable orcertain proofs, still, as they declare that they are speaking of whattook place in their own family, we must conform to custom and believethem. ' 'Our creators well knew that women and other animals would someday be framed out of men, and they further knew that many animals wouldrequire the use of nails for many purposes; wherefore they fashioned inmen at their first creation the rudiments of nails. ' Or once more, letus reflect on two serious passages in which the order of the world issupposed to find a place in the human soul and to infuse harmonyinto it. 'The soul, when touching anything that has essence, whetherdispersed in parts or undivided, is stirred through all her powers todeclare the sameness or difference of that thing and some other; and towhat individuals are related, and by what affected, and in what wayand how and when, both in the world of generation and in the world ofimmutable being. And when reason, which works with equal truth, whethershe be in the circle of the diverse or of the same, --in voicelesssilence holding her onward course in the sphere of the self-moved, --whenreason, I say, is hovering around the sensible world, and when thecircle of the diverse also moving truly imparts the intimations of senseto the whole soul, then arise opinions and beliefs sure and certain. Butwhen reason is concerned with the rational, and the circle of thesame moving smoothly declares it, then intelligence and knowledgeare necessarily perfected;' where, proceeding in a similar path ofcontemplation, he supposes the inward and the outer world mutually toimply each other. 'God invented and gave us sight to the end that wemight behold the courses of intelligence in the heaven, and apply themto the courses of our own intelligence which are akin to them, theunperturbed to the perturbed; and that we, learning them and partakingof the natural truth of reason, might imitate the absolutely unerringcourses of God and regulate our own vagaries. ' Or let us weigh carefullysome other profound thoughts, such as the following. 'He who neglectseducation walks lame to the end of his life, and returns imperfect andgood for nothing to the world below. ' 'The father and maker of all thisuniverse is past finding out; and even if we found him, to tell of himto all men would be impossible. ' 'Let me tell you then why the Creatormade this world of generation. He was good, and the good can never havejealousy of anything. And being free from jealousy, he desired that allthings should be as like himself as they could be. This is in the truestsense the origin of creation and of the world, as we shall do well inbelieving on the testimony of wise men: God desired that all thingsshould be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable. ' Thisis the leading thought in the Timaeus, just as the IDEA of Good isthe leading thought of the Republic, the one expression describing thepersonal, the other the impersonal Good or God, differing in form ratherthan in substance, and both equally implying to the mind of Plato adivine reality. The slight touch, perhaps ironical, contained in thewords, 'as we shall do well in believing on the testimony of wise men, 'is very characteristic of Plato. 

*****

TIMAEUS. 

PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Socrates, Critias, Timaeus, Hermocrates. 

SOCRATES: One, two, three; but where, my dear Timaeus, is the fourth ofthose who were yesterday my guests and are to be my entertainers to-day?

TIMAEUS: He has been taken ill, Socrates; for he would not willinglyhave been absent from this gathering. 

SOCRATES: Then, if he is not coming, you and the two others must supplyhis place. 

TIMAEUS: Certainly, and we will do all that we can; having beenhandsomely entertained by you yesterday, those of us who remain shouldbe only too glad to return your hospitality. 

SOCRATES: Do you remember what were the points of which I required youto speak?

TIMAEUS: We remember some of them, and you will be here to remind usof anything which we have forgotten: or rather, if we are not troublingyou, will you briefly recapitulate the whole, and then the particularswill be more firmly fixed in our memories?

SOCRATES: To be sure I will: the chief theme of my yesterday's discoursewas the State--how constituted and of what citizens composed it wouldseem likely to be most perfect. 

TIMAEUS: Yes, Socrates; and what you said of it was very much to ourmind. 

SOCRATES: Did we not begin by separating the husbandmen and the artisansfrom the class of defenders of the State?

TIMAEUS: Yes. 

SOCRATES: And when we had given to each one that single employment andparticular art which was suited to his nature, we spoke of thosewho were intended to be our warriors, and said that they were to beguardians of the city against attacks from within as well as fromwithout, and to have no other employment; they were to be merciful injudging their subjects, of whom they were by nature friends, but fierceto their enemies, when they came across them in battle. 

TIMAEUS: Exactly. 

SOCRATES: We said, if I am not mistaken, that the guardians shouldbe gifted with a temperament in a high degree both passionate andphilosophical; and that then they would be as they ought to be, gentleto their friends and fierce with their enemies. 

TIMAEUS: Certainly. 

SOCRATES: And what did we say of their education? Were they not to betrained in gymnastic, and music, and all other sorts of knowledge whichwere proper for them?

TIMAEUS: Very true. 

SOCRATES: And being thus trained they were not to consider gold orsilver or anything else to be their own private property; they were tobe like hired troops, receiving pay for keeping guard from those whowere protected by them--the pay was to be no more than would sufficefor men of simple life; and they were to spend in common, and to livetogether in the continual practice of virtue, which was to be their solepursuit. 

TIMAEUS: That was also said. 

SOCRATES: Neither did we forget the women; of whom we declared, thattheir natures should be assimilated and brought into harmony with thoseof the men, and that common pursuits should be assigned to them both intime of war and in their ordinary life. 

TIMAEUS: That, again, was as you say. 

SOCRATES: And what about the procreation of children? Or rather was notthe proposal too singular to be forgotten? for all wives and childrenwere to be in common, to the intent that no one should ever know his ownchild, but they were to imagine that they were all one family; thosewho were within a suitable limit of age were to be brothers and sisters, those who were of an elder generation parents and grandparents, andthose of a younger, children and grandchildren. 

TIMAEUS: Yes, and the proposal is easy to remember, as you say. 

SOCRATES: And do you also remember how, with a view of securing as faras we could the best breed, we said that the chief magistrates, maleand female, should contrive secretly, by the use of certain lots, so toarrange the nuptial meeting, that the bad of either sex and the goodof either sex might pair with their like; and there was to be noquarrelling on this account, for they would imagine that the union was amere accident, and was to be attributed to the lot?

TIMAEUS: I remember. 

SOCRATES: And you remember how we said that the children of the goodparents were to be educated, and the children of the bad secretlydispersed among the inferior citizens; and while they were all growingup the rulers were to be on the look-out, and to bring up from below intheir turn those who were worthy, and those among themselves who wereunworthy were to take the places of those who came up?

TIMAEUS: True. 

SOCRATES: Then have I now given you all the heads of our yesterday'sdiscussion? Or is there anything more, my dear Timaeus, which has beenomitted?

TIMAEUS: Nothing, Socrates; it was just as you have said. 

SOCRATES: I should like, before proceeding further, to tell you how Ifeel about the State which we have described. I might compare myselfto a person who, on beholding beautiful animals either created by thepainter's art, or, better still, alive but at rest, is seized with adesire of seeing them in motion or engaged in some struggle or conflictto which their forms appear suited; this is my feeling about the Statewhich we have been describing. There are conflicts which all citiesundergo, and I should like to hear some one tell of our own citycarrying on a struggle against her neighbours, and how she went out towar in a becoming manner, and when at war showed by the greatness of heractions and the magnanimity of her words in dealing with other citiesa result worthy of her training and education. Now I, Critias andHermocrates, am conscious that I myself should never be able tocelebrate the city and her citizens in a befitting manner, and I amnot surprised at my own incapacity; to me the wonder is rather thatthe poets present as well as past are no better--not that I meanto depreciate them; but every one can see that they are a tribe ofimitators, and will imitate best and most easily the life in which theyhave been brought up; while that which is beyond the range of a man'seducation he finds hard to carry out in action, and still harderadequately to represent in language. I am aware that the Sophists haveplenty of brave words and fair conceits, but I am afraid that being onlywanderers from one city to another, and having never had habitationsof their own, they may fail in their conception of philosophers andstatesmen, and may not know what they do and say in time of war, whenthey are fighting or holding parley with their enemies. And thus peopleof your class are the only ones remaining who are fitted by nature andeducation to take part at once both in politics and philosophy. Here isTimaeus, of Locris in Italy, a city which has admirable laws, and who ishimself in wealth and rank the equal of any of his fellow-citizens; hehas held the most important and honourable offices in his own state, and, as I believe, has scaled the heights of all philosophy; and hereis Critias, whom every Athenian knows to be no novice in the mattersof which we are speaking; and as to Hermocrates, I am assured by manywitnesses that his genius and education qualify him to take part in anyspeculation of the kind. And therefore yesterday when I saw that youwanted me to describe the formation of the State, I readily assented, being very well aware, that, if you only would, none were betterqualified to carry the discussion further, and that when you had engagedour city in a suitable war, you of all men living could best exhibither playing a fitting part. When I had completed my task, I in returnimposed this other task upon you. You conferred together and agreedto entertain me to-day, as I had entertained you, with a feast ofdiscourse. Here am I in festive array, and no man can be more ready forthe promised banquet. 

HERMOCRATES: And we too, Socrates, as Timaeus says, will not be wantingin enthusiasm; and there is no excuse for not complying with yourrequest. As soon as we arrived yesterday at the guest-chamber ofCritias, with whom we are staying, or rather on our way thither, wetalked the matter over, and he told us an ancient tradition, which Iwish, Critias, that you would repeat to Socrates, so that he may help usto judge whether it will satisfy his requirements or not. 

CRITIAS: I will, if Timaeus, who is our other partner, approves. 

TIMAEUS: I quite approve. 

CRITIAS: Then listen, Socrates, to a tale which, though strange, iscertainly true, having been attested by Solon, who was the wisest ofthe seven sages. He was a relative and a dear friend of mygreat-grandfather, Dropides, as he himself says in many passages of hispoems; and he told the story to Critias, my grandfather, who rememberedand repeated it to us. There were of old, he said, great and marvellousactions of the Athenian city, which have passed into oblivion throughlapse of time and the destruction of mankind, and one in particular, greater than all the rest. This we will now rehearse. It will be afitting monument of our gratitude to you, and a hymn of praise true andworthy of the goddess, on this her day of festival. 

SOCRATES: Very good. And what is this ancient famous action of theAthenians, which Critias declared, on the authority of Solon, to be nota mere legend, but an actual fact?

CRITIAS: I will tell an old-world story which I heard from an aged man;for Critias, at the time of telling it, was, as he said, nearly ninetyyears of age, and I was about ten. Now the day was that day of theApaturia which is called the Registration of Youth, at which, accordingto custom, our parents gave prizes for recitations, and the poems ofseveral poets were recited by us boys, and many of us sang the poems ofSolon, which at that time had not gone out of fashion. One of our tribe, either because he thought so or to please Critias, said that in hisjudgment Solon was not only the wisest of men, but also the noblest ofpoets. The old man, as I very well remember, brightened up at hearingthis and said, smiling: Yes, Amynander, if Solon had only, like otherpoets, made poetry the business of his life, and had completed the talewhich he brought with him from Egypt, and had not been compelled, byreason of the factions and troubles which he found stirring in his owncountry when he came home, to attend to other matters, in my opinion hewould have been as famous as Homer or Hesiod, or any poet. 

And what was the tale about, Critias? said Amynander. 

About the greatest action which the Athenians ever did, and which oughtto have been the most famous, but, through the lapse of time and thedestruction of the actors, it has not come down to us. 

Tell us, said the other, the whole story, and how and from whom Solonheard this veritable tradition. 

He replied:--In the Egyptian Delta, at the head of which the river Niledivides, there is a certain district which is called the district ofSais, and the great city of the district is also called Sais, and is thecity from which King Amasis came. The citizens have a deity for theirfoundress; she is called in the Egyptian tongue Neith, and is assertedby them to be the same whom the Hellenes call Athene; they are greatlovers of the Athenians, and say that they are in some way related tothem. To this city came Solon, and was received there with great honour;he asked the priests who were most skilful in such matters, aboutantiquity, and made the discovery that neither he nor any other Helleneknew anything worth mentioning about the times of old. On one occasion, wishing to draw them on to speak of antiquity, he began to tell aboutthe most ancient things in our part of the world--about Phoroneus, whois called 'the first man, ' and about Niobe; and after the Deluge, of thesurvival of Deucalion and Pyrrha; and he traced the genealogy of theirdescendants, and reckoning up the dates, tried to compute how many yearsago the events of which he was speaking happened. Thereupon one of thepriests, who was of a very great age, said: O Solon, Solon, you Hellenesare never anything but children, and there is not an old man among you. Solon in return asked him what he meant. I mean to say, he replied, thatin mind you are all young; there is no old opinion handed down amongyou by ancient tradition, nor any science which is hoary with age. And Iwill tell you why. There have been, and will be again, many destructionsof mankind arising out of many causes; the greatest have been broughtabout by the agencies of fire and water, and other lesser ones byinnumerable other causes. There is a story, which even you havepreserved, that once upon a time Paethon, the son of Helios, havingyoked the steeds in his father's chariot, because he was not able todrive them in the path of his father, burnt up all that was upon theearth, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt. Now this has the formof a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving inthe heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of things uponthe earth, which recurs after long intervals; at such times those wholive upon the mountains and in dry and lofty places are more liable todestruction than those who dwell by rivers or on the seashore. And fromthis calamity the Nile, who is our never-failing saviour, delivers andpreserves us. When, on the other hand, the gods purge the earth witha deluge of water, the survivors in your country are herdsmen andshepherds who dwell on the mountains, but those who, like you, live incities are carried by the rivers into the sea. Whereas in this land, neither then nor at any other time, does the water come down from aboveon the fields, having always a tendency to come up from below; for whichreason the traditions preserved here are the most ancient. The fact is, that wherever the extremity of winter frost or of summer sun doesnot prevent, mankind exist, sometimes in greater, sometimes in lessernumbers. And whatever happened either in your country or in ours, orin any other region of which we are informed--if there were any actionsnoble or great or in any other way remarkable, they have all beenwritten down by us of old, and are preserved in our temples. Whereasjust when you and other nations are beginning to be provided withletters and the other requisites of civilized life, after the usualinterval, the stream from heaven, like a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only those of you who are destitute of letters and education;and so you have to begin all over again like children, and know nothingof what happened in ancient times, either among us or among yourselves. As for those genealogies of yours which you just now recounted to us, Solon, they are no better than the tales of children. In the first placeyou remember a single deluge only, but there were many previous ones; inthe next place, you do not know that there formerly dwelt in your landthe fairest and noblest race of men which ever lived, and that you andyour whole city are descended from a small seed or remnant of them whichsurvived. And this was unknown to you, because, for many generations, the survivors of that destruction died, leaving no written word. Forthere was a time, Solon, before the great deluge of all, when the citywhich now is Athens was first in war and in every way the best governedof all cities, is said to have performed the noblest deeds and to havehad the fairest constitution of any of which tradition tells, under theface of heaven. Solon marvelled at his words, and earnestly requestedthe priests to inform him exactly and in order about these formercitizens. You are welcome to hear about them, Solon, said the priest, both for your own sake and for that of your city, and above all, for thesake of the goddess who is the common patron and parent and educatorof both our cities. She founded your city a thousand years beforeours (Observe that Plato gives the same date (9000 years ago) for thefoundation of Athens and for the repulse of the invasion from Atlantis(Crit. ). ), receiving from the Earth and Hephaestus the seed of yourrace, and afterwards she founded ours, of which the constitution isrecorded in our sacred registers to be 8000 years old. As touching yourcitizens of 9000 years ago, I will briefly inform you of their laws andof their most famous action; the exact particulars of the whole we willhereafter go through at our leisure in the sacred registers themselves. If you compare these very laws with ours you will find that many ofours are the counterpart of yours as they were in the olden time. In thefirst place, there is the caste of priests, which is separated from allthe others; next, there are the artificers, who ply their severalcrafts by themselves and do not intermix; and also there is the classof shepherds and of hunters, as well as that of husbandmen; and you willobserve, too, that the warriors in Egypt are distinct from all the otherclasses, and are commanded by the law to devote themselves solely tomilitary pursuits; moreover, the weapons which they carry are shieldsand spears, a style of equipment which the goddess taught of Asiaticsfirst to us, as in your part of the world first to you. Then as towisdom, do you observe how our law from the very first made a study ofthe whole order of things, extending even to prophecy and medicine whichgives health, out of these divine elements deriving what was needful forhuman life, and adding every sort of knowledge which was akin to them. All this order and arrangement the goddess first imparted to you whenestablishing your city; and she chose the spot of earth in which youwere born, because she saw that the happy temperament of the seasons inthat land would produce the wisest of men. Wherefore the goddess, whowas a lover both of war and of wisdom, selected and first of all settledthat spot which was the most likely to produce men likest herself. Andthere you dwelt, having such laws as these and still better ones, andexcelled all mankind in all virtue, as became the children and disciplesof the gods. 

Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded of your state in ourhistories. But one of them exceeds all the rest in greatness and valour. For these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made anexpedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your cityput an end. This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for inthose days the Atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situatedin front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Heracles;the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together, and was theway to other islands, and from these you might pass to the whole of theopposite continent which surrounded the true ocean; for this sea whichis within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrowentrance, but that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may bemost truly called a boundless continent. Now in this island of Atlantisthere was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the wholeisland and several others, and over parts of the continent, and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libyawithin the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far asTyrrhenia. This vast power, gathered into one, endeavoured to subdueat a blow our country and yours and the whole of the region within thestraits; and then, Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellenceof her virtue and strength, among all mankind. She was pre-eminent incourage and military skill, and was the leader of the Hellenes. And whenthe rest fell off from her, being compelled to stand alone, after havingundergone the very extremity of danger, she defeated and triumphedover the invaders, and preserved from slavery those who were not yetsubjugated, and generously liberated all the rest of us who dwell withinthe pillars. But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes andfloods; and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike menin a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like mannerdisappeared in the depths of the sea. For which reason the sea in thoseparts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud inthe way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island. 

I have told you briefly, Socrates, what the aged Critias heard fromSolon and related to us. And when you were speaking yesterday about yourcity and citizens, the tale which I have just been repeating to you cameinto my mind, and I remarked with astonishment how, by some mysteriouscoincidence, you agreed in almost every particular with the narrativeof Solon; but I did not like to speak at the moment. For a long time hadelapsed, and I had forgotten too much; I thought that I must first ofall run over the narrative in my own mind, and then I would speak. Andso I readily assented to your request yesterday, considering that inall such cases the chief difficulty is to find a tale suitable to ourpurpose, and that with such a tale we should be fairly well provided. 

And therefore, as Hermocrates has told you, on my way home yesterday Iat once communicated the tale to my companions as I remembered it; andafter I left them, during the night by thinking I recovered nearly thewhole of it. Truly, as is often said, the lessons of our childhood makea wonderful impression on our memories; for I am not sure that I couldremember all the discourse of yesterday, but I should be much surprisedif I forgot any of these things which I have heard very long ago. Ilistened at the time with childlike interest to the old man's narrative;he was very ready to teach me, and I asked him again and again to repeathis words, so that like an indelible picture they were branded into mymind. As soon as the day broke, I rehearsed them as he spoke them to mycompanions, that they, as well as myself, might have something to say. And now, Socrates, to make an end of my preface, I am ready to tellyou the whole tale. I will give you not only the general heads, but theparticulars, as they were told to me. The city and citizens, which youyesterday described to us in fiction, we will now transfer to the worldof reality. It shall be the ancient city of Athens, and we will supposethat the citizens whom you imagined, were our veritable ancestors, ofwhom the priest spoke; they will perfectly harmonize, and there will beno inconsistency in saying that the citizens of your republic are theseancient Athenians. Let us divide the subject among us, and all endeavouraccording to our ability gracefully to execute the task which you haveimposed upon us. Consider then, Socrates, if this narrative is suited tothe purpose, or whether we should seek for some other instead. 

SOCRATES: And what other, Critias, can we find that will be better thanthis, which is natural and suitable to the festival of the goddess, andhas the very great advantage of being a fact and not a fiction? How orwhere shall we find another if we abandon this? We cannot, and thereforeyou must tell the tale, and good luck to you; and I in return for myyesterday's discourse will now rest and be a listener. 

CRITIAS: Let me proceed to explain to you, Socrates, the order in whichwe have arranged our entertainment. Our intention is, that Timaeus, whois the most of an astronomer amongst us, and has made the nature ofthe universe his special study, should speak first, beginning with thegeneration of the world and going down to the creation of man; next, Iam to receive the men whom he has created, and of whom some will haveprofited by the excellent education which you have given them; and then, in accordance with the tale of Solon, and equally with his law, we willbring them into court and make them citizens, as if they were those veryAthenians whom the sacred Egyptian record has recovered fromoblivion, and thenceforward we will speak of them as Athenians andfellow-citizens. 

SOCRATES: I see that I shall receive in my turn a perfect and splendidfeast of reason. And now, Timaeus, you, I suppose, should speak next, after duly calling upon the Gods. 

TIMAEUS: All men, Socrates, who have any degree of right feeling, at thebeginning of every enterprise, whether small or great, always callupon God. And we, too, who are going to discourse of the nature of theuniverse, how created or how existing without creation, if we be notaltogether out of our wits, must invoke the aid of Gods and Goddessesand pray that our words may be acceptable to them and consistent withthemselves. Let this, then, be our invocation of the Gods, to which Iadd an exhortation of myself to speak in such manner as will be mostintelligible to you, and will most accord with my own intent. 

First then, in my judgment, we must make a distinction and ask, Whatis that which always is and has no becoming; and what is that which isalways becoming and never is? That which is apprehended by intelligenceand reason is always in the same state; but that which is conceived byopinion with the help of sensation and without reason, is always in aprocess of becoming and perishing and never really is. Now everythingthat becomes or is created must of necessity be created by some cause, for without a cause nothing can be created. The work of the creator, whenever he looks to the unchangeable and fashions the form and natureof his work after an unchangeable pattern, must necessarily be made fairand perfect; but when he looks to the created only, and uses a createdpattern, it is not fair or perfect. Was the heaven then or the world, whether called by this or by any other more appropriate name--assumingthe name, I am asking a question which has to be asked at the beginningof an enquiry about anything--was the world, I say, always in existenceand without beginning? or created, and had it a beginning? Created, I reply, being visible and tangible and having a body, and thereforesensible; and all sensible things are apprehended by opinion and senseand are in a process of creation and created. Now that which is createdmust, as we affirm, of necessity be created by a cause. But the fatherand maker of all this universe is past finding out; and even if we foundhim, to tell of him to all men would be impossible. And there is still aquestion to be asked about him: Which of the patterns had the artificerin view when he made the world--the pattern of the unchangeable, or ofthat which is created? If the world be indeed fair and the artificergood, it is manifest that he must have looked to that which is eternal;but if what cannot be said without blasphemy is true, then to thecreated pattern. Every one will see that he must have looked to theeternal; for the world is the fairest of creations and he is the best ofcauses. And having been created in this way, the world has been framedin the likeness of that which is apprehended by reason and mind and isunchangeable, and must therefore of necessity, if this is admitted, bea copy of something. Now it is all-important that the beginning ofeverything should be according to nature. And in speaking of the copyand the original we may assume that words are akin to the matterwhich they describe; when they relate to the lasting and permanent andintelligible, they ought to be lasting and unalterable, and, as far astheir nature allows, irrefutable and immovable--nothing less. Butwhen they express only the copy or likeness and not the eternal thingsthemselves, they need only be likely and analogous to the real words. Asbeing is to becoming, so is truth to belief. If then, Socrates, amid themany opinions about the gods and the generation of the universe, we arenot able to give notions which are altogether and in every respect exactand consistent with one another, do not be surprised. Enough, if weadduce probabilities as likely as any others; for we must remember thatI who am the speaker, and you who are the judges, are only mortalmen, and we ought to accept the tale which is probable and enquire nofurther. 

SOCRATES: Excellent, Timaeus; and we will do precisely as you bid us. The prelude is charming, and is already accepted by us--may we beg ofyou to proceed to the strain?

TIMAEUS: Let me tell you then why the creator made this world ofgeneration. He was good, and the good can never have any jealousy ofanything. And being free from jealousy, he desired that all thingsshould be as like himself as they could be. This is in the truestsense the origin of creation and of the world, as we shall do well inbelieving on the testimony of wise men: God desired that all thingsshould be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable. Whereforealso finding the whole visible sphere not at rest, but moving in anirregular and disorderly fashion, out of disorder he brought order, considering that this was in every way better than the other. Now thedeeds of the best could never be or have been other than the fairest;and the creator, reflecting on the things which are by nature visible, found that no unintelligent creature taken as a whole was fairer thanthe intelligent taken as a whole; and that intelligence could not bepresent in anything which was devoid of soul. For which reason, when hewas framing the universe, he put intelligence in soul, and soul in body, that he might be the creator of a work which was by nature fairest andbest. Wherefore, using the language of probability, we may say that theworld became a living creature truly endowed with soul and intelligenceby the providence of God. 

This being supposed, let us proceed to the next stage: In the likenessof what animal did the Creator make the world? It would be an unworthything to liken it to any nature which exists as a part only; for nothingcan be beautiful which is like any imperfect thing; but let us supposethe world to be the very image of that whole of which all other animalsboth individually and in their tribes are portions. For the original ofthe universe contains in itself all intelligible beings, just as thisworld comprehends us and all other visible creatures. For the Deity, intending to make this world like the fairest and most perfect ofintelligible beings, framed one visible animal comprehending withinitself all other animals of a kindred nature. Are we right in sayingthat there is one world, or that they are many and infinite? There mustbe one only, if the created copy is to accord with the original. Forthat which includes all other intelligible creatures cannot have asecond or companion; in that case there would be need of another livingbeing which would include both, and of which they would be parts, andthe likeness would be more truly said to resemble not them, but thatother which included them. In order then that the world might besolitary, like the perfect animal, the creator made not two worlds or aninfinite number of them; but there is and ever will be one only-begottenand created heaven. 

Now that which is created is of necessity corporeal, and also visibleand tangible. And nothing is visible where there is no fire, or tangiblewhich has no solidity, and nothing is solid without earth. Whereforealso God in the beginning of creation made the body of the universe toconsist of fire and earth. But two things cannot be rightly put togetherwithout a third; there must be some bond of union between them. And thefairest bond is that which makes the most complete fusion of itself andthe things which it combines; and proportion is best adapted to effectsuch a union. For whenever in any three numbers, whether cube or square, there is a mean, which is to the last term what the first term is to it;and again, when the mean is to the first term as the last term is to themean--then the mean becoming first and last, and the first and last bothbecoming means, they will all of them of necessity come to be the same, and having become the same with one another will be all one. If theuniversal frame had been created a surface only and having no depth, asingle mean would have sufficed to bind together itself and the otherterms; but now, as the world must be solid, and solid bodies are alwayscompacted not by one mean but by two, God placed water and air in themean between fire and earth, and made them to have the same proportionso far as was possible (as fire is to air so is air to water, and as airis to water so is water to earth); and thus he bound and put togethera visible and tangible heaven. And for these reasons, and out of suchelements which are in number four, the body of the world was created, and it was harmonized by proportion, and therefore has the spirit offriendship; and having been reconciled to itself, it was indissoluble bythe hand of any other than the framer. 

Now the creation took up the whole of each of the four elements; for theCreator compounded the world out of all the fire and all the water andall the air and all the earth, leaving no part of any of them nor anypower of them outside. His intention was, in the first place, thatthe animal should be as far as possible a perfect whole and of perfectparts: secondly, that it should be one, leaving no remnants out of whichanother such world might be created: and also that it should be freefrom old age and unaffected by disease. Considering that if heat andcold and other powerful forces which unite bodies surround and attackthem from without when they are unprepared, they decompose them, and bybringing diseases and old age upon them, make them waste away--for thiscause and on these grounds he made the world one whole, having everypart entire, and being therefore perfect and not liable to old age anddisease. And he gave to the world the figure which was suitable and alsonatural. Now to the animal which was to comprehend all animals, thatfigure was suitable which comprehends within itself all other figures. Wherefore he made the world in the form of a globe, round as from alathe, having its extremes in every direction equidistant from thecentre, the most perfect and the most like itself of all figures; for heconsidered that the like is infinitely fairer than the unlike. This hefinished off, making the surface smooth all round for many reasons; inthe first place, because the living being had no need of eyes when therewas nothing remaining outside him to be seen; nor of ears when therewas nothing to be heard; and there was no surrounding atmosphere to bebreathed; nor would there have been any use of organs by the helpof which he might receive his food or get rid of what he had alreadydigested, since there was nothing which went from him or came into him:for there was nothing beside him. Of design he was created thus, hisown waste providing his own food, and all that he did or suffered takingplace in and by himself. For the Creator conceived that a being whichwas self-sufficient would be far more excellent than one which lackedanything; and, as he had no need to take anything or defend himselfagainst any one, the Creator did not think it necessary to bestow uponhim hands: nor had he any need of feet, nor of the whole apparatus ofwalking; but the movement suited to his spherical form was assigned tohim, being of all the seven that which is most appropriate to mind andintelligence; and he was made to move in the same manner and on the samespot, within his own limits revolving in a circle. All the other sixmotions were taken away from him, and he was made not to partake oftheir deviations. And as this circular movement required no feet, theuniverse was created without legs and without feet. 

Such was the whole plan of the eternal God about the god that was tobe, to whom for this reason he gave a body, smooth and even, having asurface in every direction equidistant from the centre, a body entireand perfect, and formed out of perfect bodies. And in the centre he putthe soul, which he diffused throughout the body, making it also to bethe exterior environment of it; and he made the universe a circle movingin a circle, one and solitary, yet by reason of its excellence able toconverse with itself, and needing no other friendship or acquaintance. Having these purposes in view he created the world a blessed god. 

Now God did not make the soul after the body, although we are speakingof them in this order; for having brought them together he would neverhave allowed that the elder should be ruled by the younger; but this isa random manner of speaking which we have, because somehow we ourselvestoo are very much under the dominion of chance. Whereas he made the soulin origin and excellence prior to and older than the body, to be theruler and mistress, of whom the body was to be the subject. And hemade her out of the following elements and on this wise: Out of theindivisible and unchangeable, and also out of that which is divisibleand has to do with material bodies, he compounded a third andintermediate kind of essence, partaking of the nature of the same and ofthe other, and this compound he placed accordingly in a mean between theindivisible, and the divisible and material. He took the three elementsof the same, the other, and the essence, and mingled them into one form, compressing by force the reluctant and unsociable nature of the otherinto the same. When he had mingled them with the essence and out ofthree made one, he again divided this whole into as many portions as wasfitting, each portion being a compound of the same, the other, and theessence. And he proceeded to divide after this manner:--First of all, hetook away one part of the whole (1), and then he separated a second partwhich was double the first (2), and then he took away a third part whichwas half as much again as the second and three times as much as thefirst (3), and then he took a fourth part which was twice as much as thesecond (4), and a fifth part which was three times the third (9), and asixth part which was eight times the first (8), and a seventh partwhich was twenty-seven times the first (27). After this he filled up thedouble intervals (i. E. Between 1, 2, 4, 8) and the triple (i. E. Between1, 3, 9, 27) cutting off yet other portions from the mixture and placingthem in the intervals, so that in each interval there were two kinds ofmeans, the one exceeding and exceeded by equal parts of its extremes (asfor example 1, 4/3, 2, in which the mean 4/3 is one-third of 1 more than1, and one-third of 2 less than 2), the other being that kind of meanwhich exceeds and is exceeded by an equal number (e. G. 

 - over 1, 4/3, 3/2, - over 2, 8/3, 3, - over 4, 16/3, 6, - over 8: and - over 1, 3/2, 2, - over 3, 9/2, 6, - over 9, 27/2, 18, - over 27. 

Where there were intervals of 3/2 and of 4/3 and of 9/8, made by theconnecting terms in the former intervals, he filled up all the intervalsof 4/3 with the interval of 9/8, leaving a fraction over; and theinterval which this fraction expressed was in the ratio of 256 to 243(e. G. 

 243:256::81/64:4/3::243/128:2::81/32:8/3::243/64:4::81/16:16/3::242/32:8. 

And thus the whole mixture out of which he cut these portions was allexhausted by him. This entire compound he divided lengthways into twoparts, which he joined to one another at the centre like the letter X, and bent them into a circular form, connecting them with themselves andeach other at the point opposite to their original meeting-point; and, comprehending them in a uniform revolution upon the same axis, he madethe one the outer and the other the inner circle. Now the motion of theouter circle he called the motion of the same, and the motion of theinner circle the motion of the other or diverse. The motion of the samehe carried round by the side (i. E. Of the rectangular figure supposed tobe inscribed in the circle of the Same) to the right, and the motion ofthe diverse diagonally (i. E. Across the rectangular figure from cornerto corner) to the left. And he gave dominion to the motion of the sameand like, for that he left single and undivided; but the inner motionhe divided in six places and made seven unequal circles having theirintervals in ratios of two and three, three of each, and bade the orbitsproceed in a direction opposite to one another; and three (Sun, Mercury, Venus) he made to move with equal swiftness, and the remaining four(Moon, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter) to move with unequal swiftness to thethree and to one another, but in due proportion. 

Now when the Creator had framed the soul according to his will, heformed within her the corporeal universe, and brought the two together, and united them centre to centre. The soul, interfused everywhere fromthe centre to the circumference of heaven, of which also she is theexternal envelopment, herself turning in herself, began a divinebeginning of never-ceasing and rational life enduring throughout alltime. The body of heaven is visible, but the soul is invisible, and partakes of reason and harmony, and being made by the best ofintellectual and everlasting natures, is the best of things created. Andbecause she is composed of the same and of the other and of the essence, these three, and is divided and united in due proportion, and in herrevolutions returns upon herself, the soul, when touching anything whichhas essence, whether dispersed in parts or undivided, is stirred throughall her powers, to declare the sameness or difference of that thing andsome other; and to what individuals are related, and by what affected, and in what way and how and when, both in the world of generation andin the world of immutable being. And when reason, which works with equaltruth, whether she be in the circle of the diverse or of the same--invoiceless silence holding her onward course in the sphere of theself-moved--when reason, I say, is hovering around the sensible worldand when the circle of the diverse also moving truly imparts theintimations of sense to the whole soul, then arise opinions and beliefssure and certain. But when reason is concerned with the rational, andthe circle of the same moving smoothly declares it, then intelligenceand knowledge are necessarily perfected. And if any one affirms thatin which these two are found to be other than the soul, he will say thevery opposite of the truth. 

When the father and creator saw the creature which he had made movingand living, the created image of the eternal gods, he rejoiced, and inhis joy determined to make the copy still more like the original; andas this was eternal, he sought to make the universe eternal, so faras might be. Now the nature of the ideal being was everlasting, but tobestow this attribute in its fulness upon a creature was impossible. Wherefore he resolved to have a moving image of eternity, and when heset in order the heaven, he made this image eternal but moving accordingto number, while eternity itself rests in unity; and this image we calltime. For there were no days and nights and months and years before theheaven was created, but when he constructed the heaven he created themalso. They are all parts of time, and the past and future are createdspecies of time, which we unconsciously but wrongly transfer to theeternal essence; for we say that he 'was, ' he 'is, ' he 'will be, ' butthe truth is that 'is' alone is properly attributed to him, and that'was' and 'will be' are only to be spoken of becoming in time, for theyare motions, but that which is immovably the same cannot become older oryounger by time, nor ever did or has become, or hereafter will be, olderor younger, nor is subject at all to any of those states which affectmoving and sensible things and of which generation is the cause. Theseare the forms of time, which imitates eternity and revolves accordingto a law of number. Moreover, when we say that what has become IS becomeand what becomes IS becoming, and that what will become IS aboutto become and that the non-existent IS non-existent--all these areinaccurate modes of expression (compare Parmen. ). But perhaps this wholesubject will be more suitably discussed on some other occasion. 

Time, then, and the heaven came into being at the same instant inorder that, having been created together, if ever there was to be adissolution of them, they might be dissolved together. It was framedafter the pattern of the eternal nature, that it might resemble thisas far as was possible; for the pattern exists from eternity, and thecreated heaven has been, and is, and will be, in all time. Such was themind and thought of God in the creation of time. The sun and moon andfive other stars, which are called the planets, were created by him inorder to distinguish and preserve the numbers of time; and when he hadmade their several bodies, he placed them in the orbits in which thecircle of the other was revolving, --in seven orbits seven stars. First, there was the moon in the orbit nearest the earth, and next the sun, in the second orbit above the earth; then came the morning star and thestar sacred to Hermes, moving in orbits which have an equal swiftnesswith the sun, but in an opposite direction; and this is the reason whythe sun and Hermes and Lucifer overtake and are overtaken by each other. To enumerate the places which he assigned to the other stars, and togive all the reasons why he assigned them, although a secondary matter, would give more trouble than the primary. These things at some futuretime, when we are at leisure, may have the consideration which theydeserve, but not at present. 

Now, when all the stars which were necessary to the creation of timehad attained a motion suitable to them, and had become living creatureshaving bodies fastened by vital chains, and learnt their appointedtask, moving in the motion of the diverse, which is diagonal, and passesthrough and is governed by the motion of the same, they revolved, somein a larger and some in a lesser orbit--those which had the lesser orbitrevolving faster, and those which had the larger more slowly. Now byreason of the motion of the same, those which revolved fastest appearedto be overtaken by those which moved slower although they reallyovertook them; for the motion of the same made them all turn in aspiral, and, because some went one way and some another, that whichreceded most slowly from the sphere of the same, which was the swiftest, appeared to follow it most nearly. That there might be some visiblemeasure of their relative swiftness and slowness as they proceeded intheir eight courses, God lighted a fire, which we now call the sun, inthe second from the earth of these orbits, that it might give light tothe whole of heaven, and that the animals, as many as nature intended, might participate in number, learning arithmetic from the revolution ofthe same and the like. Thus then, and for this reason the night andthe day were created, being the period of the one most intelligentrevolution. And the month is accomplished when the moon has completedher orbit and overtaken the sun, and the year when the sun has completedhis own orbit. Mankind, with hardly an exception, have not remarked theperiods of the other stars, and they have no name for them, and do notmeasure them against one another by the help of number, and hence theycan scarcely be said to know that their wanderings, being infinite innumber and admirable for their variety, make up time. And yet thereis no difficulty in seeing that the perfect number of time fulfilsthe perfect year when all the eight revolutions, having their relativedegrees of swiftness, are accomplished together and attain theircompletion at the same time, measured by the rotation of the same andequally moving. After this manner, and for these reasons, came intobeing such of the stars as in their heavenly progress received reversalsof motion, to the end that the created heaven might imitate the eternalnature, and be as like as possible to the perfect and intelligibleanimal. 

Thus far and until the birth of time the created universe was made inthe likeness of the original, but inasmuch as all animals were not yetcomprehended therein, it was still unlike. What remained, the creatorthen proceeded to fashion after the nature of the pattern. Now as in theideal animal the mind perceives ideas or species of a certain nature andnumber, he thought that this created animal ought to have species of alike nature and number. There are four such; one of them is the heavenlyrace of the gods; another, the race of birds whose way is in the air;the third, the watery species; and the fourth, the pedestrian and landcreatures. Of the heavenly and divine, he created the greater part outof fire, that they might be the brightest of all things and fairest tobehold, and he fashioned them after the likeness of the universe in thefigure of a circle, and made them follow the intelligent motion of thesupreme, distributing them over the whole circumference of heaven, whichwas to be a true cosmos or glorious world spangled with them all over. And he gave to each of them two movements: the first, a movement on thesame spot after the same manner, whereby they ever continue to thinkconsistently the same thoughts about the same things; the second, aforward movement, in which they are controlled by the revolution of thesame and the like; but by the other five motions they were unaffected, in order that each of them might attain the highest perfection. Andfor this reason the fixed stars were created, to be divine and eternalanimals, ever-abiding and revolving after the same manner and on thesame spot; and the other stars which reverse their motion and aresubject to deviations of this kind, were created in the manner alreadydescribed. The earth, which is our nurse, clinging (or 'circling')around the pole which is extended through the universe, he framed to bethe guardian and artificer of night and day, first and eldest of godsthat are in the interior of heaven. Vain would be the attempt to tellall the figures of them circling as in dance, and their juxtapositions, and the return of them in their revolutions upon themselves, and theirapproximations, and to say which of these deities in their conjunctionsmeet, and which of them are in opposition, and in what order they getbehind and before one another, and when they are severally eclipsed toour sight and again reappear, sending terrors and intimations of thefuture to those who cannot calculate their movements--to attempt totell of all this without a visible representation of the heavenly systemwould be labour in vain. Enough on this head; and now let what we havesaid about the nature of the created and visible gods have an end. 

To know or tell the origin of the other divinities is beyond us, and wemust accept the traditions of the men of old time who affirm themselvesto be the offspring of the gods--that is what they say--and they mustsurely have known their own ancestors. How can we doubt the word of thechildren of the gods? Although they give no probable or certain proofs, still, as they declare that they are speaking of what took place intheir own family, we must conform to custom and believe them. In thismanner, then, according to them, the genealogy of these gods is to bereceived and set forth. 

Oceanus and Tethys were the children of Earth and Heaven, and from thesesprang Phorcys and Cronos and Rhea, and all that generation; and fromCronos and Rhea sprang Zeus and Here, and all those who are said to betheir brethren, and others who were the children of these. 

Now, when all of them, both those who visibly appear in theirrevolutions as well as those other gods who are of a more retiringnature, had come into being, the creator of the universe addressed themin these words: 'Gods, children of gods, who are my works, and of whomI am the artificer and father, my creations are indissoluble, if so Iwill. All that is bound may be undone, but only an evil being would wishto undo that which is harmonious and happy. Wherefore, since ye are butcreatures, ye are not altogether immortal and indissoluble, but ye shallcertainly not be dissolved, nor be liable to the fate of death, havingin my will a greater and mightier bond than those with which yewere bound at the time of your birth. And now listen to myinstructions:--Three tribes of mortal beings remain to becreated--without them the universe will be incomplete, for it will notcontain every kind of animal which it ought to contain, if it is to beperfect. On the other hand, if they were created by me and received lifeat my hands, they would be on an equality with the gods. In order thenthat they may be mortal, and that this universe may be truly universal, do ye, according to your natures, betake yourselves to the formation ofanimals, imitating the power which was shown by me in creating you. Thepart of them worthy of the name immortal, which is called divine andis the guiding principle of those who are willing to follow justice andyou--of that divine part I will myself sow the seed, and having made abeginning, I will hand the work over to you. And do ye then interweavethe mortal with the immortal, and make and beget living creatures, andgive them food, and make them to grow, and receive them again in death. '

Thus he spake, and once more into the cup in which he had previouslymingled the soul of the universe he poured the remains of the elements, and mingled them in much the same manner; they were not, however, pureas before, but diluted to the second and third degree. And having madeit he divided the whole mixture into souls equal in number to the stars, and assigned each soul to a star; and having there placed them as in achariot, he showed them the nature of the universe, and declared to themthe laws of destiny, according to which their first birth would be oneand the same for all, --no one should suffer a disadvantage at his hands;they were to be sown in the instruments of time severally adapted tothem, and to come forth the most religious of animals; and as humannature was of two kinds, the superior race would hereafter be calledman. Now, when they should be implanted in bodies by necessity, and bealways gaining or losing some part of their bodily substance, then inthe first place it would be necessary that they should all have inthem one and the same faculty of sensation, arising out of irresistibleimpressions; in the second place, they must have love, in which pleasureand pain mingle; also fear and anger, and the feelings which are akin oropposite to them; if they conquered these they would live righteously, and if they were conquered by them, unrighteously. He who lived wellduring his appointed time was to return and dwell in his native star, and there he would have a blessed and congenial existence. But if hefailed in attaining this, at the second birth he would pass into awoman, and if, when in that state of being, he did not desist from evil, he would continually be changed into some brute who resembled him in theevil nature which he had acquired, and would not cease from his toilsand transformations until he followed the revolution of the same and thelike within him, and overcame by the help of reason the turbulent andirrational mob of later accretions, made up of fire and air and waterand earth, and returned to the form of his first and better state. Having given all these laws to his creatures, that he might be guiltlessof future evil in any of them, the creator sowed some of them in theearth, and some in the moon, and some in the other instruments oftime; and when he had sown them he committed to the younger gods thefashioning of their mortal bodies, and desired them to furnish whatwas still lacking to the human soul, and having made all the suitableadditions, to rule over them, and to pilot the mortal animal in thebest and wisest manner which they could, and avert from him all butself-inflicted evils. 

When the creator had made all these ordinances he remained in his ownaccustomed nature, and his children heard and were obedient to theirfather's word, and receiving from him the immortal principle of a mortalcreature, in imitation of their own creator they borrowed portions offire, and earth, and water, and air from the world, which were hereafterto be restored--these they took and welded them together, not with theindissoluble chains by which they were themselves bound, but with littlepegs too small to be visible, making up out of all the four elementseach separate body, and fastening the courses of the immortal soul ina body which was in a state of perpetual influx and efflux. Nowthese courses, detained as in a vast river, neither overcame nor wereovercome; but were hurrying and hurried to and fro, so that the wholeanimal was moved and progressed, irregularly however and irrationallyand anyhow, in all the six directions of motion, wandering backwardsand forwards, and right and left, and up and down, and in all the sixdirections. For great as was the advancing and retiring flood whichprovided nourishment, the affections produced by external contactcaused still greater tumult--when the body of any one met and cameinto collision with some external fire, or with the solid earth or thegliding waters, or was caught in the tempest borne on the air, and themotions produced by any of these impulses were carried through the bodyto the soul. All such motions have consequently received the generalname of 'sensations, ' which they still retain. And they did in factat that time create a very great and mighty movement; uniting with theever-flowing stream in stirring up and violently shaking the courses ofthe soul, they completely stopped the revolution of the same by theiropposing current, and hindered it from predominating and advancing; andthey so disturbed the nature of the other or diverse, that the threedouble intervals (i. E. Between 1, 2, 4, 8), and the three tripleintervals (i. E. Between 1, 3, 9, 27), together with the mean terms andconnecting links which are expressed by the ratios of 3:2, and 4:3, andof 9:8--these, although they cannot be wholly undone except by him whounited them, were twisted by them in all sorts of ways, and the circleswere broken and disordered in every possible manner, so that when theymoved they were tumbling to pieces, and moved irrationally, at one timein a reverse direction, and then again obliquely, and then upsidedown, as you might imagine a person who is upside down and has his headleaning upon the ground and his feet up against something in the air;and when he is in such a position, both he and the spectator fancy thatthe right of either is his left, and the left right. If, when powerfullyexperiencing these and similar effects, the revolutions of the soul comein contact with some external thing, either of the class of the sameor of the other, they speak of the same or of the other in a manner thevery opposite of the truth; and they become false and foolish, and thereis no course or revolution in them which has a guiding or directingpower; and if again any sensations enter in violently from without anddrag after them the whole vessel of the soul, then the courses of thesoul, though they seem to conquer, are really conquered. 

And by reason of all these affections, the soul, when encased in amortal body, now, as in the beginning, is at first without intelligence;but when the flood of growth and nutriment abates, and the courses ofthe soul, calming down, go their own way and become steadier as timegoes on, then the several circles return to their natural form, andtheir revolutions are corrected, and they call the same and the other bytheir right names, and make the possessor of them to become a rationalbeing. And if these combine in him with any true nurture or education, he attains the fulness and health of the perfect man, and escapes theworst disease of all; but if he neglects education he walks lame to theend of his life, and returns imperfect and good for nothing to the worldbelow. This, however, is a later stage; at present we must treat moreexactly the subject before us, which involves a preliminary enquiry intothe generation of the body and its members, and as to how the soul wascreated--for what reason and by what providence of the gods; and holdingfast to probability, we must pursue our way. 

First, then, the gods, imitating the spherical shape of the universe, enclosed the two divine courses in a spherical body, that, namely, whichwe now term the head, being the most divine part of us and the lord ofall that is in us: to this the gods, when they put together the body, gave all the other members to be servants, considering that it partookof every sort of motion. In order then that it might not tumble aboutamong the high and deep places of the earth, but might be able to getover the one and out of the other, they provided the body to be itsvehicle and means of locomotion; which consequently had length and wasfurnished with four limbs extended and flexible; these God contrivedto be instruments of locomotion with which it might take hold and findsupport, and so be able to pass through all places, carrying on high thedwelling-place of the most sacred and divine part of us. Such was theorigin of legs and hands, which for this reason were attached to everyman; and the gods, deeming the front part of man to be more honourableand more fit to command than the hinder part, made us to move mostly ina forward direction. Wherefore man must needs have his front part unlikeand distinguished from the rest of his body. 

And so in the vessel of the head, they first of all put a face in whichthey inserted organs to minister in all things to the providence of thesoul, and they appointed this part, which has authority, to be by naturethe part which is in front. And of the organs they first contrivedthe eyes to give light, and the principle according to which they wereinserted was as follows: So much of fire as would not burn, but gavea gentle light, they formed into a substance akin to the light ofevery-day life; and the pure fire which is within us and relatedthereto they made to flow through the eyes in a stream smooth and dense, compressing the whole eye, and especially the centre part, so that itkept out everything of a coarser nature, and allowed to pass only thispure element. When the light of day surrounds the stream of vision, then like falls upon like, and they coalesce, and one body is formed bynatural affinity in the line of vision, wherever the light that fallsfrom within meets with an external object. And the whole stream ofvision, being similarly affected in virtue of similarity, diffuses themotions of what it touches or what touches it over the whole body, untilthey reach the soul, causing that perception which we call sight. Butwhen night comes on and the external and kindred fire departs, then thestream of vision is cut off; for going forth to an unlike element itis changed and extinguished, being no longer of one nature with thesurrounding atmosphere which is now deprived of fire: and so the eye nolonger sees, and we feel disposed to sleep. For when the eyelids, whichthe gods invented for the preservation of sight, are closed, they keepin the internal fire; and the power of the fire diffuses and equalizesthe inward motions; when they are equalized, there is rest, and when therest is profound, sleep comes over us scarce disturbed by dreams;but where the greater motions still remain, of whatever nature and inwhatever locality, they engender corresponding visions in dreams, whichare remembered by us when we are awake and in the external world. Andnow there is no longer any difficulty in understanding the creationof images in mirrors and all smooth and bright surfaces. For from thecommunion of the internal and external fires, and again from the unionof them and their numerous transformations when they meet in the mirror, all these appearances of necessity arise, when the fire from the facecoalesces with the fire from the eye on the bright and smooth surface. And right appears left and left right, because the visual rays come intocontact with the rays emitted by the object in a manner contrary to theusual mode of meeting; but the right appears right, and the left left, when the position of one of the two concurring lights is reversed; andthis happens when the mirror is concave and its smooth surface repelsthe right stream of vision to the left side, and the left to the right(He is speaking of two kinds of mirrors, first the plane, secondly theconcave; and the latter is supposed to be placed, first horizontally, and then vertically. ). Or if the mirror be turned vertically, then theconcavity makes the countenance appear to be all upside down, and thelower rays are driven upwards and the upper downwards. 

All these are to be reckoned among the second and co-operative causeswhich God, carrying into execution the idea of the best as far aspossible, uses as his ministers. They are thought by most men not to bethe second, but the prime causes of all things, because they freeze andheat, and contract and dilate, and the like. But they are not so, forthey are incapable of reason or intellect; the only being which canproperly have mind is the invisible soul, whereas fire and water, andearth and air, are all of them visible bodies. The lover of intellectand knowledge ought to explore causes of intelligent nature first ofall, and, secondly, of those things which, being moved by others, arecompelled to move others. And this is what we too must do. Both kindsof causes should be acknowledged by us, but a distinction should be madebetween those which are endowed with mind and are the workers of thingsfair and good, and those which are deprived of intelligence and alwaysproduce chance effects without order or design. Of the second orco-operative causes of sight, which help to give to the eyes the powerwhich they now possess, enough has been said. I will therefore nowproceed to speak of the higher use and purpose for which God has giventhem to us. The sight in my opinion is the source of the greatestbenefit to us, for had we never seen the stars, and the sun, and theheaven, none of the words which we have spoken about the universe wouldever have been uttered. But now the sight of day and night, and themonths and the revolutions of the years, have created number, and havegiven us a conception of time, and the power of enquiring about thenature of the universe; and from this source we have derived philosophy, than which no greater good ever was or will be given by the gods tomortal man. This is the greatest boon of sight: and of the lesserbenefits why should I speak? even the ordinary man if he were deprivedof them would bewail his loss, but in vain. Thus much let me sayhowever: God invented and gave us sight to the end that we might beholdthe courses of intelligence in the heaven, and apply them to the coursesof our own intelligence which are akin to them, the unperturbed to theperturbed; and that we, learning them and partaking of the natural truthof reason, might imitate the absolutely unerring courses of God andregulate our own vagaries. The same may be affirmed of speech andhearing: they have been given by the gods to the same end and for alike reason. For this is the principal end of speech, whereto it mostcontributes. Moreover, so much of music as is adapted to the sound ofthe voice and to the sense of hearing is granted to us for the sake ofharmony; and harmony, which has motions akin to the revolutions of oursouls, is not regarded by the intelligent votary of the Muses as givenby them with a view to irrational pleasure, which is deemed to be thepurpose of it in our day, but as meant to correct any discord which mayhave arisen in the courses of the soul, and to be our ally in bringingher into harmony and agreement with herself; and rhythm too was given bythem for the same reason, on account of the irregular and graceless wayswhich prevail among mankind generally, and to help us against them. 

Thus far in what we have been saying, with small exception, the works ofintelligence have been set forth; and now we must place by the sideof them in our discourse the things which come into being throughnecessity--for the creation is mixed, being made up of necessity andmind. Mind, the ruling power, persuaded necessity to bring the greaterpart of created things to perfection, and thus and after this manner inthe beginning, when the influence of reason got the better of necessity, the universe was created. But if a person will truly tell of the way inwhich the work was accomplished, he must include the other influenceof the variable cause as well. Wherefore, we must return again and findanother suitable beginning, as about the former matters, so also aboutthese. To which end we must consider the nature of fire, and water, andair, and earth, such as they were prior to the creation of the heaven, and what was happening to them in this previous state; for no one has asyet explained the manner of their generation, but we speak of fire andthe rest of them, whatever they mean, as though men knew their natures, and we maintain them to be the first principles and letters or elementsof the whole, when they cannot reasonably be compared by a man of anysense even to syllables or first compounds. And let me say thus much: Iwill not now speak of the first principle or principles of all things, or by whatever name they are to be called, for this reason--becauseit is difficult to set forth my opinion according to the method ofdiscussion which we are at present employing. Do not imagine, anymore than I can bring myself to imagine, that I should be right inundertaking so great and difficult a task. Remembering what I saidat first about probability, I will do my best to give as probable anexplanation as any other--or rather, more probable; and I will first goback to the beginning and try to speak of each thing and of all. Oncemore, then, at the commencement of my discourse, I call upon God, andbeg him to be our saviour out of a strange and unwonted enquiry, and tobring us to the haven of probability. So now let us begin again. 

This new beginning of our discussion of the universe requires a fullerdivision than the former; for then we made two classes, now a third mustbe revealed. The two sufficed for the former discussion: one, which weassumed, was a pattern intelligible and always the same; and the secondwas only the imitation of the pattern, generated and visible. There isalso a third kind which we did not distinguish at the time, conceivingthat the two would be enough. But now the argument seems to requirethat we should set forth in words another kind, which is difficult ofexplanation and dimly seen. What nature are we to attribute to this newkind of being? We reply, that it is the receptacle, and in a manner thenurse, of all generation. I have spoken the truth; but I must expressmyself in clearer language, and this will be an arduous task formany reasons, and in particular because I must first raise questionsconcerning fire and the other elements, and determine what each of themis; for to say, with any probability or certitude, which of them shouldbe called water rather than fire, and which should be called any of themrather than all or some one of them, is a difficult matter. How, then, shall we settle this point, and what questions about the elements may befairly raised?

In the first place, we see that what we just now called water, bycondensation, I suppose, becomes stone and earth; and this same element, when melted and dispersed, passes into vapour and air. Air, again, wheninflamed, becomes fire; and again fire, when condensed and extinguished, passes once more into the form of air; and once more, air, whencollected and condensed, produces cloud and mist; and from these, whenstill more compressed, comes flowing water, and from water comes earthand stones once more; and thus generation appears to be transmitted fromone to the other in a circle. Thus, then, as the several elements neverpresent themselves in the same form, how can any one have the assuranceto assert positively that any of them, whatever it may be, is one thingrather than another? No one can. But much the safest plan is to speak ofthem as follows:--Anything which we see to be continually changing, as, for example, fire, we must not call 'this' or 'that, ' but rather saythat it is 'of such a nature'; nor let us speak of water as 'this'; butalways as 'such'; nor must we imply that there is any stability in anyof those things which we indicate by the use of the words 'this' and'that, ' supposing ourselves to signify something thereby; for theyare too volatile to be detained in any such expressions as 'this, 'or 'that, ' or 'relative to this, ' or any other mode of speaking whichrepresents them as permanent. We ought not to apply 'this' to any ofthem, but rather the word 'such'; which expresses the similar principlecirculating in each and all of them; for example, that should be called'fire' which is of such a nature always, and so of everything that hasgeneration. That in which the elements severally grow up, and appear, and decay, is alone to be called by the name 'this' or 'that'; but thatwhich is of a certain nature, hot or white, or anything which admits ofopposite qualities, and all things that are compounded of them, oughtnot to be so denominated. Let me make another attempt to explain mymeaning more clearly. Suppose a person to make all kinds of figures ofgold and to be always transmuting one form into all the rest;--somebodypoints to one of them and asks what it is. By far the safest and truestanswer is, That is gold; and not to call the triangle or any otherfigures which are formed in the gold 'these, ' as though they hadexistence, since they are in process of change while he is makingthe assertion; but if the questioner be willing to take the safe andindefinite expression, 'such, ' we should be satisfied. And the sameargument applies to the universal nature which receives all bodies--thatmust be always called the same; for, while receiving all things, shenever departs at all from her own nature, and never in any way, or atany time, assumes a form like that of any of the things which enter intoher; she is the natural recipient of all impressions, and is stirred andinformed by them, and appears different from time to time by reasonof them. But the forms which enter into and go out of her are thelikenesses of real existences modelled after their patterns in awonderful and inexplicable manner, which we will hereafter investigate. For the present we have only to conceive of three natures: first, that which is in process of generation; secondly, that in which thegeneration takes place; and thirdly, that of which the thing generatedis a resemblance. And we may liken the receiving principle to a mother, and the source or spring to a father, and the intermediate nature toa child; and may remark further, that if the model is to take everyvariety of form, then the matter in which the model is fashioned willnot be duly prepared, unless it is formless, and free from the impressof any of those shapes which it is hereafter to receive from without. For if the matter were like any of the supervening forms, then wheneverany opposite or entirely different nature was stamped upon its surface, it would take the impression badly, because it would intrude its ownshape. Wherefore, that which is to receive all forms should haveno form; as in making perfumes they first contrive that the liquidsubstance which is to receive the scent shall be as inodorous aspossible; or as those who wish to impress figures on soft substancesdo not allow any previous impression to remain, but begin by making thesurface as even and smooth as possible. In the same way that which is toreceive perpetually and through its whole extent the resemblances of alleternal beings ought to be devoid of any particular form. Wherefore, themother and receptacle of all created and visible and in any way sensiblethings, is not to be termed earth, or air, or fire, or water, or any oftheir compounds or any of the elements from which these are derived, butis an invisible and formless being which receives all things and insome mysterious way partakes of the intelligible, and is mostincomprehensible. In saying this we shall not be far wrong; as far, however, as we can attain to a knowledge of her from the previousconsiderations, we may truly say that fire is that part of her naturewhich from time to time is inflamed, and water that which is moistened, and that the mother substance becomes earth and air, in so far as shereceives the impressions of them. 

Let us consider this question more precisely. Is there any self-existentfire? and do all those things which we call self-existent exist? orare only those things which we see, or in some way perceive through thebodily organs, truly existent, and nothing whatever besides them? And isall that which we call an intelligible essence nothing at all, andonly a name? Here is a question which we must not leave unexamined orundetermined, nor must we affirm too confidently that there can be nodecision; neither must we interpolate in our present long discoursea digression equally long, but if it is possible to set forth a greatprinciple in a few words, that is just what we want. 

Thus I state my view:--If mind and true opinion are two distinctclasses, then I say that there certainly are these self-existent ideasunperceived by sense, and apprehended only by the mind; if, however, assome say, true opinion differs in no respect from mind, then everythingthat we perceive through the body is to be regarded as most realand certain. But we must affirm them to be distinct, for they have adistinct origin and are of a different nature; the one is implantedin us by instruction, the other by persuasion; the one is alwaysaccompanied by true reason, the other is without reason; the one cannotbe overcome by persuasion, but the other can: and lastly, every man maybe said to share in true opinion, but mind is the attribute of the godsand of very few men. Wherefore also we must acknowledge that thereis one kind of being which is always the same, uncreated andindestructible, never receiving anything into itself from without, noritself going out to any other, but invisible and imperceptible by anysense, and of which the contemplation is granted to intelligence only. And there is another nature of the same name with it, and like to it, perceived by sense, created, always in motion, becoming in place andagain vanishing out of place, which is apprehended by opinion and sense. And there is a third nature, which is space, and is eternal, and admitsnot of destruction and provides a home for all created things, and isapprehended without the help of sense, by a kind of spurious reason, andis hardly real; which we beholding as in a dream, say of all existencethat it must of necessity be in some place and occupy a space, but thatwhat is neither in heaven nor in earth has no existence. Of these andother things of the same kind, relating to the true and waking realityof nature, we have only this dreamlike sense, and we are unable to castoff sleep and determine the truth about them. For an image, since thereality, after which it is modelled, does not belong to it, and itexists ever as the fleeting shadow of some other, must be inferred to bein another (i. E. In space), grasping existence in some way or other, or it could not be at all. But true and exact reason, vindicating thenature of true being, maintains that while two things (i. E. The imageand space) are different they cannot exist one of them in the other andso be one and also two at the same time. 

Thus have I concisely given the result of my thoughts; and my verdict isthat being and space and generation, these three, existed in their threeways before the heaven; and that the nurse of generation, moistened bywater and inflamed by fire, and receiving the forms of earth and air, and experiencing all the affections which accompany these, presenteda strange variety of appearances; and being full of powers which wereneither similar nor equally balanced, was never in any part in a stateof equipoise, but swaying unevenly hither and thither, was shaken bythem, and by its motion again shook them; and the elements when movedwere separated and carried continually, some one way, some another; as, when grain is shaken and winnowed by fans and other instruments used inthe threshing of corn, the close and heavy particles are borne away andsettle in one direction, and the loose and light particles in another. In this manner, the four kinds or elements were then shaken by thereceiving vessel, which, moving like a winnowing machine, scatteredfar away from one another the elements most unlike, and forced the mostsimilar elements into close contact. Wherefore also the various elementshad different places before they were arranged so as to form theuniverse. At first, they were all without reason and measure. But whenthe world began to get into order, fire and water and earth and air hadonly certain faint traces of themselves, and were altogether such aseverything might be expected to be in the absence of God; this, Isay, was their nature at that time, and God fashioned them by form andnumber. Let it be consistently maintained by us in all that we say thatGod made them as far as possible the fairest and best, out of thingswhich were not fair and good. And now I will endeavour to show you thedisposition and generation of them by an unaccustomed argument, which Iam compelled to use; but I believe that you will be able to follow me, for your education has made you familiar with the methods of science. 

In the first place, then, as is evident to all, fire and earth and waterand air are bodies. And every sort of body possesses solidity, andevery solid must necessarily be contained in planes; and every planerectilinear figure is composed of triangles; and all triangles areoriginally of two kinds, both of which are made up of one right and twoacute angles; one of them has at either end of the base the half of adivided right angle, having equal sides, while in the other the rightangle is divided into unequal parts, having unequal sides. These, then, proceeding by a combination of probability with demonstration, weassume to be the original elements of fire and the other bodies; but theprinciples which are prior to these God only knows, and he of men who isthe friend of God. And next we have to determine what are the four mostbeautiful bodies which are unlike one another, and of which some arecapable of resolution into one another; for having discovered thus much, we shall know the true origin of earth and fire and of the proportionateand intermediate elements. And then we shall not be willing to allowthat there are any distinct kinds of visible bodies fairer than these. Wherefore we must endeavour to construct the four forms of bodieswhich excel in beauty, and then we shall be able to say that we havesufficiently apprehended their nature. Now of the two triangles, the isosceles has one form only; the scalene or unequal-sided hasan infinite number. Of the infinite forms we must select the mostbeautiful, if we are to proceed in due order, and any one who canpoint out a more beautiful form than ours for the construction of thesebodies, shall carry off the palm, not as an enemy, but as a friend. Now, the one which we maintain to be the most beautiful of all the manytriangles (and we need not speak of the others) is that of which thedouble forms a third triangle which is equilateral; the reason of thiswould be long to tell; he who disproves what we are saying, and showsthat we are mistaken, may claim a friendly victory. Then let us choosetwo triangles, out of which fire and the other elements have beenconstructed, one isosceles, the other having the square of the longerside equal to three times the square of the lesser side. 

Now is the time to explain what was before obscurely said: there was anerror in imagining that all the four elements might be generated by andinto one another; this, I say, was an erroneous supposition, forthere are generated from the triangles which we have selected fourkinds--three from the one which has the sides unequal; the fourthalone is framed out of the isosceles triangle. Hence they cannot all beresolved into one another, a great number of small bodies being combinedinto a few large ones, or the converse. But three of them can be thusresolved and compounded, for they all spring from one, and when thegreater bodies are broken up, many small bodies will spring up outof them and take their own proper figures; or, again, when many smallbodies are dissolved into their triangles, if they become one, they willform one large mass of another kind. So much for their passage into oneanother. I have now to speak of their several kinds, and show out ofwhat combinations of numbers each of them was formed. The first will bethe simplest and smallest construction, and its element is that trianglewhich has its hypotenuse twice the lesser side. When two such trianglesare joined at the diagonal, and this is repeated three times, and thetriangles rest their diagonals and shorter sides on the same point asa centre, a single equilateral triangle is formed out of six triangles;and four equilateral triangles, if put together, make out of every threeplane angles one solid angle, being that which is nearest to the mostobtuse of plane angles; and out of the combination of these four anglesarises the first solid form which distributes into equal and similarparts the whole circle in which it is inscribed. The second speciesof solid is formed out of the same triangles, which unite as eightequilateral triangles and form one solid angle out of four plane angles, and out of six such angles the second body is completed. And the thirdbody is made up of 120 triangular elements, forming twelve solid angles, each of them included in five plane equilateral triangles, havingaltogether twenty bases, each of which is an equilateral triangle. Theone element (that is, the triangle which has its hypotenuse twice thelesser side) having generated these figures, generated no more; butthe isosceles triangle produced the fourth elementary figure, whichis compounded of four such triangles, joining their right angles in acentre, and forming one equilateral quadrangle. Six of these united formeight solid angles, each of which is made by the combination of threeplane right angles; the figure of the body thus composed is a cube, having six plane quadrangular equilateral bases. There was yet a fifthcombination which God used in the delineation of the universe. 

Now, he who, duly reflecting on all this, enquires whether the worldsare to be regarded as indefinite or definite in number, will be ofopinion that the notion of their indefiniteness is characteristic of asadly indefinite and ignorant mind. He, however, who raises the questionwhether they are to be truly regarded as one or five, takes up a morereasonable position. Arguing from probabilities, I am of opinion thatthey are one; another, regarding the question from another point ofview, will be of another mind. But, leaving this enquiry, let us proceedto distribute the elementary forms, which have now been created in idea, among the four elements. 

To earth, then, let us assign the cubical form; for earth is the mostimmoveable of the four and the most plastic of all bodies, and thatwhich has the most stable bases must of necessity be of such a nature. Now, of the triangles which we assumed at first, that which has twoequal sides is by nature more firmly based than that which has unequalsides; and of the compound figures which are formed out of either, theplane equilateral quadrangle has necessarily a more stable basis thanthe equilateral triangle, both in the whole and in the parts. Wherefore, in assigning this figure to earth, we adhere to probability; and towater we assign that one of the remaining forms which is the leastmoveable; and the most moveable of them to fire; and to air that whichis intermediate. Also we assign the smallest body to fire, and thegreatest to water, and the intermediate in size to air; and, again, theacutest body to fire, and the next in acuteness to air, and the thirdto water. Of all these elements, that which has the fewest bases mustnecessarily be the most moveable, for it must be the acutest and mostpenetrating in every way, and also the lightest as being composed of thesmallest number of similar particles: and the second body has similarproperties in a second degree, and the third body in the third degree. Let it be agreed, then, both according to strict reason and according toprobability, that the pyramid is the solid which is the original elementand seed of fire; and let us assign the element which was next in theorder of generation to air, and the third to water. We must imagine allthese to be so small that no single particle of any of the four kindsis seen by us on account of their smallness: but when many of them arecollected together their aggregates are seen. And the ratios of theirnumbers, motions, and other properties, everywhere God, as far asnecessity allowed or gave consent, has exactly perfected, and harmonizedin due proportion. 

From all that we have just been saying about the elements or kinds, themost probable conclusion is as follows:--earth, when meeting with fireand dissolved by its sharpness, whether the dissolution take place inthe fire itself or perhaps in some mass of air or water, is borne hitherand thither, until its parts, meeting together and mutually harmonising, again become earth; for they can never take any other form. But water, when divided by fire or by air, on re-forming, may become one part fireand two parts air; and a single volume of air divided becomes two offire. Again, when a small body of fire is contained in a larger body ofair or water or earth, and both are moving, and the fire struggling isovercome and broken up, then two volumes of fire form one volume of air;and when air is overcome and cut up into small pieces, two and a halfparts of air are condensed into one part of water. Let us consider thematter in another way. When one of the other elements is fastenedupon by fire, and is cut by the sharpness of its angles and sides, itcoalesces with the fire, and then ceases to be cut by them any longer. For no element which is one and the same with itself can be changed byor change another of the same kind and in the same state. But so longas in the process of transition the weaker is fighting against thestronger, the dissolution continues. Again, when a few small particles, enclosed in many larger ones, are in process of decomposition andextinction, they only cease from their tendency to extinction when theyconsent to pass into the conquering nature, and fire becomes air and airwater. But if bodies of another kind go and attack them (i. E. The smallparticles), the latter continue to be dissolved until, being completelyforced back and dispersed, they make their escape to their own kindred, or else, being overcome and assimilated to the conquering power, theyremain where they are and dwell with their victors, and from being manybecome one. And owing to these affections, all things are changing theirplace, for by the motion of the receiving vessel the bulk of each classis distributed into its proper place; but those things which becomeunlike themselves and like other things, are hurried by the shaking intothe place of the things to which they grow like. 

Now all unmixed and primary bodies are produced by such causes as these. As to the subordinate species which are included in the greater kinds, they are to be attributed to the varieties in the structure of the twooriginal triangles. For either structure did not originally produce thetriangle of one size only, but some larger and some smaller, and thereare as many sizes as there are species of the four elements. Hencewhen they are mingled with themselves and with one another there is anendless variety of them, which those who would arrive at the probabletruth of nature ought duly to consider. 

Unless a person comes to an understanding about the nature andconditions of rest and motion, he will meet with many difficulties inthe discussion which follows. Something has been said of this matteralready, and something more remains to be said, which is, that motionnever exists in what is uniform. For to conceive that anything canbe moved without a mover is hard or indeed impossible, and equallyimpossible to conceive that there can be a mover unless there besomething which can be moved--motion cannot exist where either of theseare wanting, and for these to be uniform is impossible; wherefore wemust assign rest to uniformity and motion to the want of uniformity. Nowinequality is the cause of the nature which is wanting in uniformity;and of this we have already described the origin. But there stillremains the further point--why things when divided after their kinds donot cease to pass through one another and to change their place--whichwe will now proceed to explain. In the revolution of the universe arecomprehended all the four elements, and this being circular and having atendency to come together, compresses everything and will not allow anyplace to be left void. Wherefore, also, fire above all things penetrateseverywhere, and air next, as being next in rarity of the elements;and the two other elements in like manner penetrate according to theirdegrees of rarity. For those things which are composed of the largestparticles have the largest void left in their compositions, and thosewhich are composed of the smallest particles have the least. And thecontraction caused by the compression thrusts the smaller particles intothe interstices of the larger. And thus, when the small parts are placedside by side with the larger, and the lesser divide the greater and thegreater unite the lesser, all the elements are borne up and down andhither and thither towards their own places; for the change in the sizeof each changes its position in space. And these causes generate aninequality which is always maintained, and is continually creating aperpetual motion of the elements in all time. 

In the next place we have to consider that there are divers kindsof fire. There are, for example, first, flame; and secondly, thoseemanations of flame which do not burn but only give light to the eyes;thirdly, the remains of fire, which are seen in red-hot embers after theflame has been extinguished. There are similar differences in the air;of which the brightest part is called the aether, and the most turbidsort mist and darkness; and there are various other nameless kinds whicharise from the inequality of the triangles. Water, again, admits in thefirst place of a division into two kinds; the one liquid and the otherfusile. The liquid kind is composed of the small and unequal particlesof water; and moves itself and is moved by other bodies owing to thewant of uniformity and the shape of its particles; whereas the fusilekind, being formed of large and uniform particles, is more stable thanthe other, and is heavy and compact by reason of its uniformity. But when fire gets in and dissolves the particles and destroys theuniformity, it has greater mobility, and becoming fluid is thrust forthby the neighbouring air and spreads upon the earth; and this dissolutionof the solid masses is called melting, and their spreading out upon theearth flowing. Again, when the fire goes out of the fusile substance, itdoes not pass into a vacuum, but into the neighbouring air; and the airwhich is displaced forces together the liquid and still moveable massinto the place which was occupied by the fire, and unites it withitself. Thus compressed the mass resumes its equability, and is againat unity with itself, because the fire which was the author of theinequality has retreated; and this departure of the fire is calledcooling, and the coming together which follows upon it is termedcongealment. Of all the kinds termed fusile, that which is the densestand is formed out of the finest and most uniform parts is that mostprecious possession called gold, which is hardened by filtration throughrock; this is unique in kind, and has both a glittering and a yellowcolour. A shoot of gold, which is so dense as to be very hard, and takesa black colour, is termed adamant. There is also another kind which hasparts nearly like gold, and of which there are several species; it isdenser than gold, and it contains a small and fine portion of earth, andis therefore harder, yet also lighter because of the great intersticeswhich it has within itself; and this substance, which is one of thebright and denser kinds of water, when solidified is called copper. There is an alloy of earth mingled with it, which, when the two partsgrow old and are disunited, shows itself separately and is called rust. The remaining phenomena of the same kind there will be no difficulty inreasoning out by the method of probabilities. A man may sometimes setaside meditations about eternal things, and for recreation turn toconsider the truths of generation which are probable only; he will thusgain a pleasure not to be repented of, and secure for himself whilehe lives a wise and moderate pastime. Let us grant ourselves thisindulgence, and go through the probabilities relating to the samesubjects which follow next in order. 

Water which is mingled with fire, so much as is fine and liquid (beingso called by reason of its motion and the way in which it rolls alongthe ground), and soft, because its bases give way and are less stablethan those of earth, when separated from fire and air and isolated, becomes more uniform, and by their retirement is compressed into itself;and if the condensation be very great, the water above the earth becomeshail, but on the earth, ice; and that which is congealed in a lessdegree and is only half solid, when above the earth is called snow, andwhen upon the earth, and condensed from dew, hoar-frost. Then, again, there are the numerous kinds of water which have been mingled with oneanother, and are distilled through plants which grow in the earth; andthis whole class is called by the name of juices or saps. The unequaladmixture of these fluids creates a variety of species; most of them arenameless, but four which are of a fiery nature are clearly distinguishedand have names. First, there is wine, which warms the soul as wellas the body: secondly, there is the oily nature, which is smooth anddivides the visual ray, and for this reason is bright and shining and ofa glistening appearance, including pitch, the juice of the castor berry, oil itself, and other things of a like kind: thirdly, there is the classof substances which expand the contracted parts of the mouth, until theyreturn to their natural state, and by reason of this property createsweetness;--these are included under the general name of honey: and, lastly, there is a frothy nature, which differs from all juices, havinga burning quality which dissolves the flesh; it is called opos (avegetable acid). 

As to the kinds of earth, that which is filtered through water passesinto stone in the following manner:--The water which mixes with theearth and is broken up in the process changes into air, and taking thisform mounts into its own place. But as there is no surrounding vacuum itthrusts away the neighbouring air, and this being rendered heavy, and, when it is displaced, having been poured around the mass of earth, forcibly compresses it and drives it into the vacant space whence thenew air had come up; and the earth when compressed by the air into anindissoluble union with water becomes rock. The fairer sort is thatwhich is made up of equal and similar parts and is transparent; thatwhich has the opposite qualities is inferior. But when all the waterypart is suddenly drawn out by fire, a more brittle substance is formed, to which we give the name of pottery. Sometimes also moisture mayremain, and the earth which has been fused by fire becomes, when cool, a certain stone of a black colour. A like separation of the waterwhich had been copiously mingled with them may occur in two substancescomposed of finer particles of earth and of a briny nature; out ofeither of them a half-solid-body is then formed, soluble in water--theone, soda, which is used for purging away oil and earth, the other, salt, which harmonizes so well in combinations pleasing to the palate, and is, as the law testifies, a substance dear to the gods. Thecompounds of earth and water are not soluble by water, but by fire only, and for this reason:--Neither fire nor air melt masses of earth; fortheir particles, being smaller than the interstices in its structure, have plenty of room to move without forcing their way, and so they leavethe earth unmelted and undissolved; but particles of water, which arelarger, force a passage, and dissolve and melt the earth. Whereforeearth when not consolidated by force is dissolved by water only; whenconsolidated, by nothing but fire; for this is the only body which canfind an entrance. The cohesion of water again, when very strong, isdissolved by fire only--when weaker, then either by air or fire--theformer entering the interstices, and the latter penetrating even thetriangles. But nothing can dissolve air, when strongly condensed, whichdoes not reach the elements or triangles; or if not strongly condensed, then only fire can dissolve it. As to bodies composed of earth andwater, while the water occupies the vacant interstices of the earthin them which are compressed by force, the particles of water whichapproach them from without, finding no entrance, flow around the entiremass and leave it undissolved; but the particles of fire, entering intothe interstices of the water, do to the water what water does to earthand fire to air (The text seems to be corrupt. ), and are the sole causesof the compound body of earth and water liquefying and becoming fluid. Now these bodies are of two kinds; some of them, such as glass and thefusible sort of stones, have less water than they have earth; on theother hand, substances of the nature of wax and incense have more ofwater entering into their composition. 

I have thus shown the various classes of bodies as they are diversifiedby their forms and combinations and changes into one another, and now Imust endeavour to set forth their affections and the causes of them. Inthe first place, the bodies which I have been describing are necessarilyobjects of sense. But we have not yet considered the origin of flesh, orwhat belongs to flesh, or of that part of the soul which is mortal. Andthese things cannot be adequately explained without also explaining theaffections which are concerned with sensation, nor the latter withoutthe former: and yet to explain them together is hardly possible; forwhich reason we must assume first one or the other and afterwardsexamine the nature of our hypothesis. In order, then, that theaffections may follow regularly after the elements, let us presupposethe existence of body and soul. 

First, let us enquire what we mean by saying that fire is hot; and aboutthis we may reason from the dividing or cutting power which it exerciseson our bodies. We all of us feel that fire is sharp; and we may furtherconsider the fineness of the sides, and the sharpness of the angles, and the smallness of the particles, and the swiftness of the motion--allthis makes the action of fire violent and sharp, so that it cutswhatever it meets. And we must not forget that the original figure offire (i. E. The pyramid), more than any other form, has a dividing powerwhich cuts our bodies into small pieces (Kepmatizei), and thus naturallyproduces that affection which we call heat; and hence the origin ofthe name (thepmos, Kepma). Now, the opposite of this is sufficientlymanifest; nevertheless we will not fail to describe it. For the largerparticles of moisture which surround the body, entering in and drivingout the lesser, but not being able to take their places, compress themoist principle in us; and this from being unequal and disturbed, isforced by them into a state of rest, which is due to equability andcompression. But things which are contracted contrary to nature areby nature at war, and force themselves apart; and to this war andconvulsion the name of shivering and trembling is given; and the wholeaffection and the cause of the affection are both termed cold. Thatis called hard to which our flesh yields, and soft which yields toour flesh; and things are also termed hard and soft relatively to oneanother. That which yields has a small base; but that which rests onquadrangular bases is firmly posed and belongs to the class which offersthe greatest resistance; so too does that which is the most compact andtherefore most repellent. The nature of the light and the heavy will bebest understood when examined in connexion with our notions of above andbelow; for it is quite a mistake to suppose that the universe is partedinto two regions, separate from and opposite to each other, the onea lower to which all things tend which have any bulk, and an upper towhich things only ascend against their will. For as the universe is inthe form of a sphere, all the extremities, being equidistant from thecentre, are equally extremities, and the centre, which is equidistantfrom them, is equally to be regarded as the opposite of them all. Suchbeing the nature of the world, when a person says that any of thesepoints is above or below, may he not be justly charged with using animproper expression? For the centre of the world cannot be rightlycalled either above or below, but is the centre and nothing else; andthe circumference is not the centre, and has in no one part of itself adifferent relation to the centre from what it has in any of the oppositeparts. Indeed, when it is in every direction similar, how can onerightly give to it names which imply opposition? For if there were anysolid body in equipoise at the centre of the universe, there would benothing to draw it to this extreme rather than to that, for they areall perfectly similar; and if a person were to go round the world ina circle, he would often, when standing at the antipodes of his formerposition, speak of the same point as above and below; for, as I wassaying just now, to speak of the whole which is in the form of a globeas having one part above and another below is not like a sensible man. The reason why these names are used, and the circumstances under whichthey are ordinarily applied by us to the division of the heavens, may beelucidated by the following supposition:--if a person were to standin that part of the universe which is the appointed place of fire, andwhere there is the great mass of fire to which fiery bodies gather--if, I say, he were to ascend thither, and, having the power to do this, wereto abstract particles of fire and put them in scales and weigh them, andthen, raising the balance, were to draw the fire by force towards theuncongenial element of the air, it would be very evident that he couldcompel the smaller mass more readily than the larger; for when twothings are simultaneously raised by one and the same power, the smallerbody must necessarily yield to the superior power with less reluctancethan the larger; and the larger body is called heavy and said totend downwards, and the smaller body is called light and said to tendupwards. And we may detect ourselves who are upon the earth doingprecisely the same thing. For we often separate earthy natures, andsometimes earth itself, and draw them into the uncongenial element ofair by force and contrary to nature, both clinging to their kindredelements. But that which is smaller yields to the impulse given by ustowards the dissimilar element more easily than the larger; and so wecall the former light, and the place towards which it is impelled wecall above, and the contrary state and place we call heavy and belowrespectively. Now the relations of these must necessarily vary, becausethe principal masses of the different elements hold opposite positions;for that which is light, heavy, below or above in one place will befound to be and become contrary and transverse and every way diverse inrelation to that which is light, heavy, below or above in an oppositeplace. And about all of them this has to be considered:--that thetendency of each towards its kindred element makes the body which ismoved heavy, and the place towards which the motion tends below, butthings which have an opposite tendency we call by an opposite name. Suchare the causes which we assign to these phenomena. As to the smoothand the rough, any one who sees them can explain the reason of themto another. For roughness is hardness mingled with irregularity, andsmoothness is produced by the joint effect of uniformity and density. 

The most important of the affections which concern the whole bodyremains to be considered--that is, the cause of pleasure and pain in theperceptions of which I have been speaking, and in all other things whichare perceived by sense through the parts of the body, and have bothpains and pleasures attendant on them. Let us imagine the causes ofevery affection, whether of sense or not, to be of the following nature, remembering that we have already distinguished between the nature whichis easy and which is hard to move; for this is the direction in which wemust hunt the prey which we mean to take. A body which is of a natureto be easily moved, on receiving an impression however slight, spreadsabroad the motion in a circle, the parts communicating with each other, until at last, reaching the principle of mind, they announce the qualityof the agent. But a body of the opposite kind, being immobile, and notextending to the surrounding region, merely receives the impression, anddoes not stir any of the neighbouring parts; and since the parts do notdistribute the original impression to other parts, it has no effectof motion on the whole animal, and therefore produces no effect on thepatient. This is true of the bones and hair and other more earthy partsof the human body; whereas what was said above relates mainly to sightand hearing, because they have in them the greatest amount of fireand air. Now we must conceive of pleasure and pain in this way. Animpression produced in us contrary to nature and violent, if sudden, is painful; and, again, the sudden return to nature is pleasant; but agentle and gradual return is imperceptible and vice versa. On the otherhand the impression of sense which is most easily produced is mostreadily felt, but is not accompanied by pleasure or pain; such, forexample, are the affections of the sight, which, as we said above, is abody naturally uniting with our body in the day-time; for cuttings andburnings and other affections which happen to the sight do not givepain, nor is there pleasure when the sight returns to its natural state;but the sensations are clearest and strongest according to the manner inwhich the eye is affected by the object, and itself strikes and touchesit; there is no violence either in the contraction or dilation of theeye. But bodies formed of larger particles yield to the agent only witha struggle; and then they impart their motions to the whole and causepleasure and pain--pain when alienated from their natural conditions, and pleasure when restored to them. Things which experience gradualwithdrawings and emptyings of their nature, and great and suddenreplenishments, fail to perceive the emptying, but are sensible of thereplenishment; and so they occasion no pain, but the greatest pleasure, to the mortal part of the soul, as is manifest in the case of perfumes. But things which are changed all of a sudden, and only gradually andwith difficulty return to their own nature, have effects in everyway opposite to the former, as is evident in the case of burnings andcuttings of the body. 

Thus have we discussed the general affections of the whole body, andthe names of the agents which produce them. And now I will endeavour tospeak of the affections of particular parts, and the causes and agentsof them, as far as I am able. In the first place let us set forth whatwas omitted when we were speaking of juices, concerning the affectionspeculiar to the tongue. These too, like most of the other affections, appear to be caused by certain contractions and dilations, but theyhave besides more of roughness and smoothness than is found in otheraffections; for whenever earthy particles enter into the small veinswhich are the testing instruments of the tongue, reaching to the heart, and fall upon the moist, delicate portions of flesh--when, as theyare dissolved, they contract and dry up the little veins, they areastringent if they are rougher, but if not so rough, then only harsh. Those of them which are of an abstergent nature, and purge the wholesurface of the tongue, if they do it in excess, and so encroach as toconsume some part of the flesh itself, like potash and soda, are alltermed bitter. But the particles which are deficient in the alkalinequality, and which cleanse only moderately, are called salt, and havingno bitterness or roughness, are regarded as rather agreeable thanotherwise. Bodies which share in and are made smooth by the heat ofthe mouth, and which are inflamed, and again in turn inflame that whichheats them, and which are so light that they are carried upwards to thesensations of the head, and cut all that comes in their way, by reasonof these qualities in them, are all termed pungent. But when these sameparticles, refined by putrefaction, enter into the narrow veins, andare duly proportioned to the particles of earth and air which are there, they set them whirling about one another, and while they are in a whirlcause them to dash against and enter into one another, and so formhollows surrounding the particles that enter--which watery vessels ofair (for a film of moisture, sometimes earthy, sometimes pure, is spreadaround the air) are hollow spheres of water; and those of them which arepure, are transparent, and are called bubbles, while those composedof the earthy liquid, which is in a state of general agitation andeffervescence, are said to boil or ferment--of all these affections thecause is termed acid. And there is the opposite affection arising froman opposite cause, when the mass of entering particles, immersed in themoisture of the mouth, is congenial to the tongue, and smooths andoils over the roughness, and relaxes the parts which are unnaturallycontracted, and contracts the parts which are relaxed, and disposesthem all according to their nature;--that sort of remedy of violentaffections is pleasant and agreeable to every man, and has the namesweet. But enough of this. 

The faculty of smell does not admit of differences of kind; for allsmells are of a half-formed nature, and no element is so proportionedas to have any smell. The veins about the nose are too narrow to admitearth and water, and too wide to detain fire and air; and for thisreason no one ever perceives the smell of any of them; but smells alwaysproceed from bodies that are damp, or putrefying, or liquefying, orevaporating, and are perceptible only in the intermediate state, whenwater is changing into air and air into water; and all of them areeither vapour or mist. That which is passing out of air into water ismist, and that which is passing from water into air is vapour; and henceall smells are thinner than water and thicker than air. The proof ofthis is, that when there is any obstruction to the respiration, and aman draws in his breath by force, then no smell filters through, but theair without the smell alone penetrates. Wherefore the varieties of smellhave no name, and they have not many, or definite and simple kinds;but they are distinguished only as painful and pleasant, the one sortirritating and disturbing the whole cavity which is situated between thehead and the navel, the other having a soothing influence, and restoringthis same region to an agreeable and natural condition. 

In considering the third kind of sense, hearing, we must speak of thecauses in which it originates. We may in general assume sound to be ablow which passes through the ears, and is transmitted by means of theair, the brain, and the blood, to the soul, and that hearing is thevibration of this blow, which begins in the head and ends in the regionof the liver. The sound which moves swiftly is acute, and the soundwhich moves slowly is grave, and that which is regular is equable andsmooth, and the reverse is harsh. A great body of sound is loud, anda small body of sound the reverse. Respecting the harmonies of sound Imust hereafter speak. 

There is a fourth class of sensible things, having many intricatevarieties, which must now be distinguished. They are called by thegeneral name of colours, and are a flame which emanates from every sortof body, and has particles corresponding to the sense of sight. I havespoken already, in what has preceded, of the causes which generatesight, and in this place it will be natural and suitable to give arational theory of colours. 

Of the particles coming from other bodies which fall upon the sight, some are smaller and some are larger, and some are equal to the parts ofthe sight itself. Those which are equal are imperceptible, and we callthem transparent. The larger produce contraction, the smaller dilation, in the sight, exercising a power akin to that of hot and cold bodies onthe flesh, or of astringent bodies on the tongue, or of those heatingbodies which we termed pungent. White and black are similar effects ofcontraction and dilation in another sphere, and for this reason havea different appearance. Wherefore, we ought to term white that whichdilates the visual ray, and the opposite of this is black. There is alsoa swifter motion of a different sort of fire which strikes and dilatesthe ray of sight until it reaches the eyes, forcing a way through theirpassages and melting them, and eliciting from them a union of fire andwater which we call tears, being itself an opposite fire which comesto them from an opposite direction--the inner fire flashes forth likelightning, and the outer finds a way in and is extinguished in themoisture, and all sorts of colours are generated by the mixture. Thisaffection is termed dazzling, and the object which produces it iscalled bright and flashing. There is another sort of fire which isintermediate, and which reaches and mingles with the moisture of theeye without flashing; and in this, the fire mingling with the ray ofthe moisture, produces a colour like blood, to which we give the nameof red. A bright hue mingled with red and white gives the colour calledauburn (Greek). The law of proportion, however, according to which theseveral colours are formed, even if a man knew he would be foolish intelling, for he could not give any necessary reason, nor indeed anytolerable or probable explanation of them. Again, red, when mingled withblack and white, becomes purple, but it becomes umber (Greek) when thecolours are burnt as well as mingled and the black is more thoroughlymixed with them. Flame-colour (Greek) is produced by a union of auburnand dun (Greek), and dun by an admixture of black and white; pale yellow(Greek), by an admixture of white and auburn. White and bright meeting, and falling upon a full black, become dark blue (Greek), and when darkblue mingles with white, a light blue (Greek) colour is formed, asflame-colour with black makes leek green (Greek). There will be nodifficulty in seeing how and by what mixtures the colours derived fromthese are made according to the rules of probability. He, however, who should attempt to verify all this by experiment, would forgetthe difference of the human and divine nature. For God only has theknowledge and also the power which are able to combine many things intoone and again resolve the one into many. But no man either is or everwill be able to accomplish either the one or the other operation. 

These are the elements, thus of necessity then subsisting, which thecreator of the fairest and best of created things associated withhimself, when he made the self-sufficing and most perfect God, using thenecessary causes as his ministers in the accomplishment of his work, but himself contriving the good in all his creations. Wherefore we maydistinguish two sorts of causes, the one divine and the other necessary, and may seek for the divine in all things, as far as our nature admits, with a view to the blessed life; but the necessary kind only for thesake of the divine, considering that without them and when isolated fromthem, these higher things for which we look cannot be apprehended orreceived or in any way shared by us. 

Seeing, then, that we have now prepared for our use the various classesof causes which are the material out of which the remainder of ourdiscourse must be woven, just as wood is the material of the carpenter, let us revert in a few words to the point at which we began, and thenendeavour to add on a suitable ending to the beginning of our tale. 

As I said at first, when all things were in disorder God created ineach thing in relation to itself, and in all things in relation to eachother, all the measures and harmonies which they could possibly receive. For in those days nothing had any proportion except by accident; nor didany of the things which now have names deserve to be named at all--as, for example, fire, water, and the rest of the elements. All these thecreator first set in order, and out of them he constructed the universe, which was a single animal comprehending in itself all other animals, mortal and immortal. Now of the divine, he himself was the creator, but the creation of the mortal he committed to his offspring. And they, imitating him, received from him the immortal principle of the soul; andaround this they proceeded to fashion a mortal body, and made it tobe the vehicle of the soul, and constructed within the body a soul ofanother nature which was mortal, subject to terrible and irresistibleaffections, --first of all, pleasure, the greatest incitement to evil;then, pain, which deters from good; also rashness and fear, twofoolish counsellors, anger hard to be appeased, and hope easily ledastray;--these they mingled with irrational sense and with all-daringlove according to necessary laws, and so framed man. Wherefore, fearingto pollute the divine any more than was absolutely unavoidable, theygave to the mortal nature a separate habitation in another part of thebody, placing the neck between them to be the isthmus and boundary, which they constructed between the head and breast, to keep them apart. And in the breast, and in what is termed the thorax, they encased themortal soul; and as the one part of this was superior and the otherinferior they divided the cavity of the thorax into two parts, as thewomen's and men's apartments are divided in houses, and placed themidriff to be a wall of partition between them. That part of theinferior soul which is endowed with courage and passion and lovescontention they settled nearer the head, midway between the midriff andthe neck, in order that it might be under the rule of reason and mightjoin with it in controlling and restraining the desires when they are nolonger willing of their own accord to obey the word of command issuingfrom the citadel. 

The heart, the knot of the veins and the fountain of the blood whichraces through all the limbs, was set in the place of guard, that whenthe might of passion was roused by reason making proclamation of anywrong assailing them from without or being perpetrated by the desireswithin, quickly the whole power of feeling in the body, perceivingthese commands and threats, might obey and follow through every turn andalley, and thus allow the principle of the best to have the command inall of them. But the gods, foreknowing that the palpitation of the heartin the expectation of danger and the swelling and excitement of passionwas caused by fire, formed and implanted as a supporter to the heart thelung, which was, in the first place, soft and bloodless, and also hadwithin hollows like the pores of a sponge, in order that by receivingthe breath and the drink, it might give coolness and the power ofrespiration and alleviate the heat. Wherefore they cut the air-channelsleading to the lung, and placed the lung about the heart as a softspring, that, when passion was rife within, the heart, beating againsta yielding body, might be cooled and suffer less, and might thus becomemore ready to join with passion in the service of reason. 

The part of the soul which desires meats and drinks and the other thingsof which it has need by reason of the bodily nature, they placed betweenthe midriff and the boundary of the navel, contriving in all this regiona sort of manger for the food of the body; and there they bound it downlike a wild animal which was chained up with man, and must be nourishedif man was to exist. They appointed this lower creation his place herein order that he might be always feeding at the manger, and have hisdwelling as far as might be from the council-chamber, making as littlenoise and disturbance as possible, and permitting the best part toadvise quietly for the good of the whole. And knowing that this lowerprinciple in man would not comprehend reason, and even if attainingto some degree of perception would never naturally care for rationalnotions, but that it would be led away by phantoms and visions nightand day, --to be a remedy for this, God combined with it the liver, andplaced it in the house of the lower nature, contriving that it shouldbe solid and smooth, and bright and sweet, and should also have a bitterquality, in order that the power of thought, which proceeds from themind, might be reflected as in a mirror which receives likenesses ofobjects and gives back images of them to the sight; and so might striketerror into the desires, when, making use of the bitter part of theliver, to which it is akin, it comes threatening and invading, anddiffusing this bitter element swiftly through the whole liver producescolours like bile, and contracting every part makes it wrinkled andrough; and twisting out of its right place and contorting the lobe andclosing and shutting up the vessels and gates, causes pain andloathing. And the converse happens when some gentle inspiration of theunderstanding pictures images of an opposite character, and allays thebile and bitterness by refusing to stir or touch the nature opposedto itself, but by making use of the natural sweetness of the liver, corrects all things and makes them to be right and smooth and free, andrenders the portion of the soul which resides about the liver happyand joyful, enabling it to pass the night in peace, and to practisedivination in sleep, inasmuch as it has no share in mind and reason. Forthe authors of our being, remembering the command of their father whenhe bade them create the human race as good as they could, that theymight correct our inferior parts and make them to attain a measure oftruth, placed in the liver the seat of divination. And herein is a proofthat God has given the art of divination not to the wisdom, but to thefoolishness of man. No man, when in his wits, attains prophetic truthand inspiration; but when he receives the inspired word, either hisintelligence is enthralled in sleep, or he is demented by some distemperor possession. And he who would understand what he remembers to havebeen said, whether in a dream or when he was awake, by the propheticand inspired nature, or would determine by reason the meaning of theapparitions which he has seen, and what indications they afford tothis man or that, of past, present or future good and evil, must firstrecover his wits. But, while he continues demented, he cannot judgeof the visions which he sees or the words which he utters; the ancientsaying is very true, that 'only a man who has his wits can act or judgeabout himself and his own affairs. ' And for this reason it is customaryto appoint interpreters to be judges of the true inspiration. Somepersons call them prophets; they are quite unaware that they are onlythe expositors of dark sayings and visions, and are not to be calledprophets at all, but only interpreters of prophecy. 

Such is the nature of the liver, which is placed as we have describedin order that it may give prophetic intimations. During the life of eachindividual these intimations are plainer, but after his death the liverbecomes blind, and delivers oracles too obscure to be intelligible. Theneighbouring organ (the spleen) is situated on the left-hand side, andis constructed with a view of keeping the liver bright and pure, --likea napkin, always ready prepared and at hand to clean the mirror. Andhence, when any impurities arise in the region of the liver by reason ofdisorders of the body, the loose nature of the spleen, which is composedof a hollow and bloodless tissue, receives them all and clears themaway, and when filled with the unclean matter, swells and festers, but, again, when the body is purged, settles down into the same place asbefore, and is humbled. 

Concerning the soul, as to which part is mortal and which divine, andhow and why they are separated, and where located, if God acknowledgesthat we have spoken the truth, then, and then only, can we be confident;still, we may venture to assert that what has been said by us isprobable, and will be rendered more probable by investigation. Let usassume thus much. 

The creation of the rest of the body follows next in order, and this wemay investigate in a similar manner. And it appears to be very meet thatthe body should be framed on the following principles:--

The authors of our race were aware that we should be intemperate ineating and drinking, and take a good deal more than was necessary orproper, by reason of gluttony. In order then that disease might notquickly destroy us, and lest our mortal race should perish withoutfulfilling its end--intending to provide against this, the gods madewhat is called the lower belly, to be a receptacle for the superfluousmeat and drink, and formed the convolution of the bowels, so that thefood might be prevented from passing quickly through and compellingthe body to require more food, thus producing insatiable gluttony, andmaking the whole race an enemy to philosophy and music, and rebelliousagainst the divinest element within us. 

The bones and flesh, and other similar parts of us, were made asfollows. The first principle of all of them was the generation of themarrow. For the bonds of life which unite the soul with the body aremade fast there, and they are the root and foundation of the human race. The marrow itself is created out of other materials: God took such ofthe primary triangles as were straight and smooth, and were adapted bytheir perfection to produce fire and water, and air and earth--these, Isay, he separated from their kinds, and mingling them in due proportionswith one another, made the marrow out of them to be a universal seed ofthe whole race of mankind; and in this seed he then planted and enclosedthe souls, and in the original distribution gave to the marrow as manyand various forms as the different kinds of souls were hereafter toreceive. That which, like a field, was to receive the divine seed, hemade round every way, and called that portion of the marrow, brain, intending that, when an animal was perfected, the vessel containing thissubstance should be the head; but that which was intended to containthe remaining and mortal part of the soul he distributed into figures atonce round and elongated, and he called them all by the name 'marrow';and to these, as to anchors, fastening the bonds of the whole soul, he proceeded to fashion around them the entire framework of our body, constructing for the marrow, first of all a complete covering of bone. 

Bone was composed by him in the following manner. Having sifted pure andsmooth earth he kneaded it and wetted it with marrow, and after that heput it into fire and then into water, and once more into fire and againinto water--in this way by frequent transfers from one to the other hemade it insoluble by either. Out of this he fashioned, as in a lathe, a globe made of bone, which he placed around the brain, and in this heleft a narrow opening; and around the marrow of the neck and backhe formed vertebrae which he placed under one another like pivots, beginning at the head and extending through the whole of the trunk. Thus wishing to preserve the entire seed, he enclosed it in a stone-likecasing, inserting joints, and using in the formation of them the powerof the other or diverse as an intermediate nature, that they might havemotion and flexure. Then again, considering that the bone would be toobrittle and inflexible, and when heated and again cooled would soonmortify and destroy the seed within--having this in view, he contrivedthe sinews and the flesh, that so binding all the members together bythe sinews, which admitted of being stretched and relaxed about thevertebrae, he might thus make the body capable of flexion and extension, while the flesh would serve as a protection against the summer heatand against the winter cold, and also against falls, softly and easilyyielding to external bodies, like articles made of felt; and containingin itself a warm moisture which in summer exudes and makes the surfacedamp, would impart a natural coolness to the whole body; and again inwinter by the help of this internal warmth would form a very tolerabledefence against the frost which surrounds it and attacks it fromwithout. He who modelled us, considering these things, mixed earth withfire and water and blended them; and making a ferment of acid and salt, he mingled it with them and formed soft and succulent flesh. As forthe sinews, he made them of a mixture of bone and unfermented flesh, attempered so as to be in a mean, and gave them a yellow colour;wherefore the sinews have a firmer and more glutinous nature than flesh, but a softer and moister nature than the bones. With these God coveredthe bones and marrow, binding them together by sinews, and thenenshrouded them all in an upper covering of flesh. The more living andsensitive of the bones he enclosed in the thinnest film of flesh, andthose which had the least life within them in the thickest and mostsolid flesh. So again on the joints of the bones, where reason indicatedthat no more was required, he placed only a thin covering of flesh, that it might not interfere with the flexion of our bodies and make themunwieldy because difficult to move; and also that it might not, by beingcrowded and pressed and matted together, destroy sensation by reason ofits hardness, and impair the memory and dull the edge of intelligence. Wherefore also the thighs and the shanks and the hips, and the bones ofthe arms and the forearms, and other parts which have no joints, and theinner bones, which on account of the rarity of the soul in the marroware destitute of reason--all these are abundantly provided with flesh;but such as have mind in them are in general less fleshy, exceptwhere the creator has made some part solely of flesh in order to givesensation, --as, for example, the tongue. But commonly this is not thecase. For the nature which comes into being and grows up in us by a lawof necessity, does not admit of the combination of solid bone and muchflesh with acute perceptions. More than any other part the frameworkof the head would have had them, if they could have co-existed, and thehuman race, having a strong and fleshy and sinewy head, would have hada life twice or many times as long as it now has, and also more healthyand free from pain. But our creators, considering whether they shouldmake a longer-lived race which was worse, or a shorter-lived race whichwas better, came to the conclusion that every one ought to prefer ashorter span of life, which was better, to a longer one, which wasworse; and therefore they covered the head with thin bone, but not withflesh and sinews, since it had no joints; and thus the head was added, having more wisdom and sensation than the rest of the body, but alsobeing in every man far weaker. For these reasons and after this mannerGod placed the sinews at the extremity of the head, in a circle roundthe neck, and glued them together by the principle of likeness andfastened the extremities of the jawbones to them below the face, and theother sinews he dispersed throughout the body, fastening limb to limb. The framers of us framed the mouth, as now arranged, having teeth andtongue and lips, with a view to the necessary and the good contrivingthe way in for necessary purposes, the way out for the best purposes;for that is necessary which enters in and gives food to the body; butthe river of speech, which flows out of a man and ministers to theintelligence, is the fairest and noblest of all streams. Still the headcould neither be left a bare frame of bones, on account of the extremesof heat and cold in the different seasons, nor yet be allowed tobe wholly covered, and so become dull and senseless by reason of anovergrowth of flesh. The fleshy nature was not therefore wholly driedup, but a large sort of peel was parted off and remained over, whichis now called the skin. This met and grew by the help of the cerebralmoisture, and became the circular envelopment of the head. And themoisture, rising up under the sutures, watered and closed in the skinupon the crown, forming a sort of knot. The diversity of the sutures wascaused by the power of the courses of the soul and of the food, and themore these struggled against one another the more numerous they became, and fewer if the struggle were less violent. This skin the divine powerpierced all round with fire, and out of the punctures which were thusmade the moisture issued forth, and the liquid and heat which was purecame away, and a mixed part which was composed of the same material asthe skin, and had a fineness equal to the punctures, was borne up byits own impulse and extended far outside the head, but being too slowto escape, was thrust back by the external air, and rolled up underneaththe skin, where it took root. Thus the hair sprang up in the skin, beingakin to it because it is like threads of leather, but rendered harderand closer through the pressure of the cold, by which each hair, whilein process of separation from the skin, is compressed and cooled. Wherefore the creator formed the head hairy, making use of the causeswhich I have mentioned, and reflecting also that instead of flesh thebrain needed the hair to be a light covering or guard, which would giveshade in summer and shelter in winter, and at the same time would notimpede our quickness of perception. From the combination of sinew, skin, and bone, in the structure of the finger, there arises a triplecompound, which, when dried up, takes the form of one hard skinpartaking of all three natures, and was fabricated by these secondcauses, but designed by mind which is the principal cause with an eyeto the future. For our creators well knew that women and other animalswould some day be framed out of men, and they further knew that manyanimals would require the use of nails for many purposes; wherefore theyfashioned in men at their first creation the rudiments of nails. Forthis purpose and for these reasons they caused skin, hair, and nails togrow at the extremities of the limbs. 

And now that all the parts and members of the mortal animal had cometogether, since its life of necessity consisted of fire and breath, and it therefore wasted away by dissolution and depletion, the godscontrived the following remedy: They mingled a nature akin to that ofman with other forms and perceptions, and thus created another kindof animal. These are the trees and plants and seeds which have beenimproved by cultivation and are now domesticated among us; ancientlythere were only the wild kinds, which are older than the cultivated. Foreverything that partakes of life may be truly called a living being, andthe animal of which we are now speaking partakes of the third kind ofsoul, which is said to be seated between the midriff and the navel, having no part in opinion or reason or mind, but only in feelings ofpleasure and pain and the desires which accompany them. For this natureis always in a passive state, revolving in and about itself, repellingthe motion from without and using its own, and accordingly is notendowed by nature with the power of observing or reflecting on its ownconcerns. Wherefore it lives and does not differ from a livingbeing, but is fixed and rooted in the same spot, having no power ofself-motion. 

Now after the superior powers had created all these natures to be foodfor us who are of the inferior nature, they cut various channels throughthe body as through a garden, that it might be watered as from a runningstream. In the first place, they cut two hidden channels or veins downthe back where the skin and the flesh join, which answered severallyto the right and left side of the body. These they let down along thebackbone, so as to have the marrow of generation between them, where itwas most likely to flourish, and in order that the stream coming downfrom above might flow freely to the other parts, and equalize theirrigation. In the next place, they divided the veins about the head, and interlacing them, they sent them in opposite directions; thosecoming from the right side they sent to the left of the body, and thosefrom the left they diverted towards the right, so that they and the skinmight together form a bond which should fasten the head to the body, since the crown of the head was not encircled by sinews; and also inorder that the sensations from both sides might be distributed over thewhole body. And next, they ordered the water-courses of the body in amanner which I will describe, and which will be more easily understoodif we begin by admitting that all things which have lesser parts retainthe greater, but the greater cannot retain the lesser. Now of allnatures fire has the smallest parts, and therefore penetrates throughearth and water and air and their compounds, nor can anything hold it. And a similar principle applies to the human belly; for when meats anddrinks enter it, it holds them, but it cannot hold air and fire, becausethe particles of which they consist are smaller than its own structure. 

These elements, therefore, God employed for the sake of distributingmoisture from the belly into the veins, weaving together a networkof fire and air like a weel, having at the entrance two lesser weels;further he constructed one of these with two openings, and from thelesser weels he extended cords reaching all round to the extremities ofthe network. All the interior of the net he made of fire, but the lesserweels and their cavity, of air. The network he took and spread over thenewly-formed animal in the following manner:--He let the lesser weelspass into the mouth; there were two of them, and one he let down by theair-pipes into the lungs, the other by the side of the air-pipes intothe belly. The former he divided into two branches, both of which hemade to meet at the channels of the nose, so that when the way throughthe mouth did not act, the streams of the mouth as well were replenishedthrough the nose. With the other cavity (i. E. Of the greater weel) heenveloped the hollow parts of the body, and at one time he made all thisto flow into the lesser weels, quite gently, for they are composed ofair, and at another time he caused the lesser weels to flow back again;and the net he made to find a way in and out through the pores of thebody, and the rays of fire which are bound fast within followed thepassage of the air either way, never at any time ceasing so long as themortal being holds together. This process, as we affirm, the name-givernamed inspiration and expiration. And all this movement, active aswell as passive, takes place in order that the body, being watered andcooled, may receive nourishment and life; for when the respiration isgoing in and out, and the fire, which is fast bound within, followsit, and ever and anon moving to and fro, enters through the belly andreaches the meat and drink, it dissolves them, and dividing them intosmall portions and guiding them through the passages where it goes, pumps them as from a fountain into the channels of the veins, and makesthe stream of the veins flow through the body as through a conduit. 

Let us once more consider the phenomena of respiration, and enquire intothe causes which have made it what it is. They are as follows:--Seeingthat there is no such thing as a vacuum into which any of those thingswhich are moved can enter, and the breath is carried from us into theexternal air, the next point is, as will be clear to every one, thatit does not go into a vacant space, but pushes its neighbour out of itsplace, and that which is thrust out in turn drives out its neighbour;and in this way everything of necessity at last comes round to thatplace from whence the breath came forth, and enters in there, andfollowing the breath, fills up the vacant space; and this goes on likethe rotation of a wheel, because there can be no such thing as a vacuum. Wherefore also the breast and the lungs, when they emit the breath, are replenished by the air which surrounds the body and which entersin through the pores of the flesh and is driven round in a circle; andagain, the air which is sent away and passes out through the body forcesthe breath inwards through the passage of the mouth and the nostrils. Now the origin of this movement may be supposed to be as follows. In theinterior of every animal the hottest part is that which is around theblood and veins; it is in a manner an internal fountain of fire, whichwe compare to the network of a creel, being woven all of fire andextended through the centre of the body, while the outer parts arecomposed of air. Now we must admit that heat naturally proceeds outwardto its own place and to its kindred element; and as there are two exitsfor the heat, the one out through the body, and the other through themouth and nostrils, when it moves towards the one, it drives round theair at the other, and that which is driven round falls into the fireand becomes warm, and that which goes forth is cooled. But when the heatchanges its place, and the particles at the other exit grow warmer, thehotter air inclining in that direction and carried towards its nativeelement, fire, pushes round the air at the other; and this beingaffected in the same way and communicating the same impulse, a circularmotion swaying to and fro is produced by the double process, which wecall inspiration and expiration. 

The phenomena of medical cupping-glasses and of the swallowing of drinkand of the projection of bodies, whether discharged in the air or bowledalong the ground, are to be investigated on a similar principle;and swift and slow sounds, which appear to be high and low, and aresometimes discordant on account of their inequality, and then againharmonical on account of the equality of the motion which they excite inus. For when the motions of the antecedent swifter sounds begin to pauseand the two are equalized, the slower sounds overtake the swifter andthen propel them. When they overtake them they do not intrude a newand discordant motion, but introduce the beginnings of a slower, whichanswers to the swifter as it dies away, thus producing a single mixedexpression out of high and low, whence arises a pleasure which even theunwise feel, and which to the wise becomes a higher sort of delight, being an imitation of divine harmony in mortal motions. Moreover, as tothe flowing of water, the fall of the thunderbolt, and the marvels thatare observed about the attraction of amber and the Heraclean stones, --innone of these cases is there any attraction; but he who investigatesrightly, will find that such wonderful phenomena are attributable to thecombination of certain conditions--the non-existence of a vacuum, thefact that objects push one another round, and that they change places, passing severally into their proper positions as they are divided orcombined. 

Such as we have seen, is the nature and such are the causes ofrespiration, --the subject in which this discussion originated. For thefire cuts the food and following the breath surges up within, fire andbreath rising together and filling the veins by drawing up out of thebelly and pouring into them the cut portions of the food; and so thestreams of food are kept flowing through the whole body in all animals. And fresh cuttings from kindred substances, whether the fruits of theearth or herb of the field, which God planted to be our daily food, acquire all sorts of colours by their inter-mixture; but red is the mostpervading of them, being created by the cutting action of fire and bythe impression which it makes on a moist substance; and hence the liquidwhich circulates in the body has a colour such as we have described. The liquid itself we call blood, which nourishes the flesh and the wholebody, whence all parts are watered and empty places filled. 

Now the process of repletion and evacuation is effected after themanner of the universal motion by which all kindred substances are drawntowards one another. For the external elements which surround us arealways causing us to consume away, and distributing and sending off liketo like; the particles of blood, too, which are divided and containedwithin the frame of the animal as in a sort of heaven, are compelledto imitate the motion of the universe. Each, therefore, of the dividedparts within us, being carried to its kindred nature, replenishes thevoid. When more is taken away than flows in, then we decay, and whenless, we grow and increase. 

The frame of the entire creature when young has the triangles of eachkind new, and may be compared to the keel of a vessel which is just offthe stocks; they are locked firmly together and yet the whole mass issoft and delicate, being freshly formed of marrow and nurtured on milk. Now when the triangles out of which meats and drinks are composed comein from without, and are comprehended in the body, being older andweaker than the triangles already there, the frame of the body gets thebetter of them and its newer triangles cut them up, and so the animalgrows great, being nourished by a multitude of similar particles. Butwhen the roots of the triangles are loosened by having undergone manyconflicts with many things in the course of time, they are no longerable to cut or assimilate the food which enters, but are themselveseasily divided by the bodies which come in from without. In this wayevery animal is overcome and decays, and this affection is called oldage. And at last, when the bonds by which the triangles of the marroware united no longer hold, and are parted by the strain of existence, they in turn loosen the bonds of the soul, and she, obtaining a naturalrelease, flies away with joy. For that which takes place according tonature is pleasant, but that which is contrary to nature is painful. Andthus death, if caused by disease or produced by wounds, is painful andviolent; but that sort of death which comes with old age and fulfilsthe debt of nature is the easiest of deaths, and is accompanied withpleasure rather than with pain. 

Now every one can see whence diseases arise. There are four natures outof which the body is compacted, earth and fire and water and air, andthe unnatural excess or defect of these, or the change of any of themfrom its own natural place into another, or--since there are more kindsthan one of fire and of the other elements--the assumption by any ofthese of a wrong kind, or any similar irregularity, produces disordersand diseases; for when any of them is produced or changed in a mannercontrary to nature, the parts which were previously cool grow warm, andthose which were dry become moist, and the light become heavy, and theheavy light; all sorts of changes occur. For, as we affirm, a thingcan only remain the same with itself, whole and sound, when the same isadded to it, or subtracted from it, in the same respect and in thesame manner and in due proportion; and whatever comes or goes awayin violation of these laws causes all manner of changes and infinitediseases and corruptions. Now there is a second class of structureswhich are also natural, and this affords a second opportunity ofobserving diseases to him who would understand them. For whereas marrowand bone and flesh and sinews are composed of the four elements, and theblood, though after another manner, is likewise formed out of them, mostdiseases originate in the way which I have described; but the worstof all owe their severity to the fact that the generation of thesesubstances proceeds in a wrong order; they are then destroyed. For thenatural order is that the flesh and sinews should be made of blood, thesinews out of the fibres to which they are akin, and the flesh outof the clots which are formed when the fibres are separated. And theglutinous and rich matter which comes away from the sinews and theflesh, not only glues the flesh to the bones, but nourishes and impartsgrowth to the bone which surrounds the marrow; and by reason of thesolidity of the bones, that which filters through consists of the purestand smoothest and oiliest sort of triangles, dropping like dew from thebones and watering the marrow. Now when each process takes place in thisorder, health commonly results; when in the opposite order, disease. Forwhen the flesh becomes decomposed and sends back the wasting substanceinto the veins, then an over-supply of blood of diverse kinds, minglingwith air in the veins, having variegated colours and bitter properties, as well as acid and saline qualities, contains all sorts of bile andserum and phlegm. For all things go the wrong way, and having becomecorrupted, first they taint the blood itself, and then ceasing togive nourishment to the body they are carried along the veins in alldirections, no longer preserving the order of their natural courses, butat war with themselves, because they receive no good from one another, and are hostile to the abiding constitution of the body, which theycorrupt and dissolve. The oldest part of the flesh which is corrupted, being hard to decompose, from long burning grows black, and from beingeverywhere corroded becomes bitter, and is injurious to every part ofthe body which is still uncorrupted. Sometimes, when the bitter elementis refined away, the black part assumes an acidity which takes the placeof the bitterness; at other times the bitterness being tinged with bloodhas a redder colour; and this, when mixed with black, takes the hue ofgrass; and again, an auburn colour mingles with the bitter matterwhen new flesh is decomposed by the fire which surrounds the internalflame;--to all which symptoms some physician perhaps, or rather somephilosopher, who had the power of seeing in many dissimilar things onenature deserving of a name, has assigned the common name of bile. Butthe other kinds of bile are variously distinguished by their colours. Asfor serum, that sort which is the watery part of blood is innocent, but that which is a secretion of black and acid bile is malignant whenmingled by the power of heat with any salt substance, and is then calledacid phlegm. Again, the substance which is formed by the liquefactionof new and tender flesh when air is present, if inflated and encased inliquid so as to form bubbles, which separately are invisible owing totheir small size, but when collected are of a bulk which is visible, and have a white colour arising out of the generation of foam--all thisdecomposition of tender flesh when intermingled with air is termed by uswhite phlegm. And the whey or sediment of newly-formed phlegm is sweatand tears, and includes the various daily discharges by which the bodyis purified. Now all these become causes of disease when the blood isnot replenished in a natural manner by food and drink but gains bulkfrom opposite sources in violation of the laws of nature. When theseveral parts of the flesh are separated by disease, if the foundationremains, the power of the disorder is only half as great, and thereis still a prospect of an easy recovery; but when that which binds theflesh to the bones is diseased, and no longer being separated from themuscles and sinews, ceases to give nourishment to the bone and to uniteflesh and bone, and from being oily and smooth and glutinous becomesrough and salt and dry, owing to bad regimen, then all the substancethus corrupted crumbles away under the flesh and the sinews, andseparates from the bone, and the fleshy parts fall away from theirfoundation and leave the sinews bare and full of brine, and theflesh again gets into the circulation of the blood and makes thepreviously-mentioned disorders still greater. And if these bodilyaffections be severe, still worse are the prior disorders; as when thebone itself, by reason of the density of the flesh, does not obtainsufficient air, but becomes mouldy and hot and gangrened and receives nonutriment, and the natural process is inverted, and the bone crumblingpasses into the food, and the food into the flesh, and the flesh againfalling into the blood makes all maladies that may occur more virulentthan those already mentioned. But the worst case of all is when themarrow is diseased, either from excess or defect; and this is the causeof the very greatest and most fatal disorders, in which the whole courseof the body is reversed. 

There is a third class of diseases which may be conceived of as arisingin three ways; for they are produced sometimes by wind, and sometimes byphlegm, and sometimes by bile. When the lung, which is the dispenser ofthe air to the body, is obstructed by rheums and its passages are notfree, some of them not acting, while through others too much air enters, then the parts which are unrefreshed by air corrode, while in otherparts the excess of air forcing its way through the veins distorts themand decomposing the body is enclosed in the midst of it and occupies themidriff; thus numberless painful diseases are produced, accompanied bycopious sweats. And oftentimes when the flesh is dissolved in the body, wind, generated within and unable to escape, is the source of quite asmuch pain as the air coming in from without; but the greatest pain isfelt when the wind gets about the sinews and the veins of the shoulders, and swells them up, and so twists back the great tendons and the sinewswhich are connected with them. These disorders are called tetanus andopisthotonus, by reason of the tension which accompanies them. Thecure of them is difficult; relief is in most cases given by feversupervening. The white phlegm, though dangerous when detained within byreason of the air-bubbles, yet if it can communicate with the outsideair, is less severe, and only discolours the body, generating leprouseruptions and similar diseases. When it is mingled with black bile anddispersed about the courses of the head, which are the divinest partof us, the attack if coming on in sleep, is not so severe; but whenassailing those who are awake it is hard to be got rid of, and being anaffection of a sacred part, is most justly called sacred. An acid andsalt phlegm, again, is the source of all those diseases which take theform of catarrh, but they have many names because the places into whichthey flow are manifold. 

Inflammations of the body come from burnings and inflamings, and all ofthem originate in bile. When bile finds a means of discharge, it boilsup and sends forth all sorts of tumours; but when imprisoned within, itgenerates many inflammatory diseases, above all when mingled with pureblood; since it then displaces the fibres which are scattered about inthe blood and are designed to maintain the balance of rare and dense, in order that the blood may not be so liquefied by heat as to exudefrom the pores of the body, nor again become too dense and thus finda difficulty in circulating through the veins. The fibres are soconstituted as to maintain this balance; and if any one brings themall together when the blood is dead and in process of cooling, then theblood which remains becomes fluid, but if they are left alone, they sooncongeal by reason of the surrounding cold. The fibres having this powerover the blood, bile, which is only stale blood, and which from beingflesh is dissolved again into blood, at the first influx coming inlittle by little, hot and liquid, is congealed by the power of thefibres; and so congealing and made to cool, it produces internal coldand shuddering. When it enters with more of a flood and overcomes thefibres by its heat, and boiling up throws them into disorder, if it havepower enough to maintain its supremacy, it penetrates the marrow andburns up what may be termed the cables of the soul, and sets her free;but when there is not so much of it, and the body though wasted stillholds out, the bile is itself mastered, and is either utterly banished, or is thrust through the veins into the lower or upper belly, and isdriven out of the body like an exile from a state in which there hasbeen civil war; whence arise diarrhoeas and dysenteries, and all suchdisorders. When the constitution is disordered by excess of fire, continuous heat and fever are the result; when excess of air is thecause, then the fever is quotidian; when of water, which is a moresluggish element than either fire or air, then the fever is a tertian;when of earth, which is the most sluggish of the four, and is onlypurged away in a four-fold period, the result is a quartan fever, whichcan with difficulty be shaken off. 

Such is the manner in which diseases of the body arise; the disordersof the soul, which depend upon the body, originate as follows. We mustacknowledge disease of the mind to be a want of intelligence; and ofthis there are two kinds; to wit, madness and ignorance. In whateverstate a man experiences either of them, that state may be calleddisease; and excessive pains and pleasures are justly to be regarded asthe greatest diseases to which the soul is liable. For a man who is ingreat joy or in great pain, in his unreasonable eagerness to attainthe one and to avoid the other, is not able to see or to hear anythingrightly; but he is mad, and is at the time utterly incapable of anyparticipation in reason. He who has the seed about the spinal marrow tooplentiful and overflowing, like a tree overladen with fruit, hasmany throes, and also obtains many pleasures in his desires and theiroffspring, and is for the most part of his life deranged, because hispleasures and pains are so very great; his soul is rendered foolish anddisordered by his body; yet he is regarded not as one diseased, but asone who is voluntarily bad, which is a mistake. The truth is thatthe intemperance of love is a disease of the soul due chiefly to themoisture and fluidity which is produced in one of the elements by theloose consistency of the bones. And in general, all that which is termedthe incontinence of pleasure and is deemed a reproach under theidea that the wicked voluntarily do wrong is not justly a matter forreproach. For no man is voluntarily bad; but the bad become bad byreason of an ill disposition of the body and bad education, things whichare hateful to every man and happen to him against his will. And inthe case of pain too in like manner the soul suffers much evil from thebody. For where the acid and briny phlegm and other bitter and bilioushumours wander about in the body, and find no exit or escape, but arepent up within and mingle their own vapours with the motions of thesoul, and are blended with them, they produce all sorts of diseases, more or fewer, and in every degree of intensity; and being carried tothe three places of the soul, whichever they may severally assail, theycreate infinite varieties of ill-temper and melancholy, of rashness andcowardice, and also of forgetfulness and stupidity. Further, when tothis evil constitution of body evil forms of government are added andevil discourses are uttered in private as well as in public, and no sortof instruction is given in youth to cure these evils, then all of uswho are bad become bad from two causes which are entirely beyond ourcontrol. In such cases the planters are to blame rather than the plants, the educators rather than the educated. But however that may be, we should endeavour as far as we can by education, and studies, andlearning, to avoid vice and attain virtue; this, however, is part ofanother subject. 

There is a corresponding enquiry concerning the mode of treatment bywhich the mind and the body are to be preserved, about which it is meetand right that I should say a word in turn; for it is more our duty tospeak of the good than of the evil. Everything that is good is fair, andthe fair is not without proportion, and the animal which is to befair must have due proportion. Now we perceive lesser symmetries orproportions and reason about them, but of the highest and greatestwe take no heed; for there is no proportion or disproportion moreproductive of health and disease, and virtue and vice, than that betweensoul and body. This however we do not perceive, nor do we reflect thatwhen a weak or small frame is the vehicle of a great and mighty soul, or conversely, when a little soul is encased in a large body, thenthe whole animal is not fair, for it lacks the most important of allsymmetries; but the due proportion of mind and body is the fairest andloveliest of all sights to him who has the seeing eye. Just as a bodywhich has a leg too long, or which is unsymmetrical in some otherrespect, is an unpleasant sight, and also, when doing its share of work, is much distressed and makes convulsive efforts, and often stumblesthrough awkwardness, and is the cause of infinite evil to its ownself--in like manner we should conceive of the double nature which wecall the living being; and when in this compound there is an impassionedsoul more powerful than the body, that soul, I say, convulses and fillswith disorders the whole inner nature of man; and when eager in thepursuit of some sort of learning or study, causes wasting; or again, when teaching or disputing in private or in public, and strifes andcontroversies arise, inflames and dissolves the composite frame ofman and introduces rheums; and the nature of this phenomenon is notunderstood by most professors of medicine, who ascribe it to theopposite of the real cause. And once more, when a body large and toostrong for the soul is united to a small and weak intelligence, theninasmuch as there are two desires natural to man, --one of food for thesake of the body, and one of wisdom for the sake of the diviner partof us--then, I say, the motions of the stronger, getting the better andincreasing their own power, but making the soul dull, and stupid, andforgetful, engender ignorance, which is the greatest of diseases. Thereis one protection against both kinds of disproportion:--that we shouldnot move the body without the soul or the soul without the body, andthus they will be on their guard against each other, and be healthy andwell balanced. And therefore the mathematician or any one else whosethoughts are much absorbed in some intellectual pursuit, must allow hisbody also to have due exercise, and practise gymnastic; and he whois careful to fashion the body, should in turn impart to the soul itsproper motions, and should cultivate music and all philosophy, if hewould deserve to be called truly fair and truly good. And the separateparts should be treated in the same manner, in imitation of the patternof the universe; for as the body is heated and also cooled within bythe elements which enter into it, and is again dried up and moistened byexternal things, and experiences these and the like affections from bothkinds of motions, the result is that the body if given up to motion whenin a state of quiescence is overmastered and perishes; but if any one, in imitation of that which we call the foster-mother and nurse of theuniverse, will not allow the body ever to be inactive, but is alwaysproducing motions and agitations through its whole extent, which formthe natural defence against other motions both internal and external, and by moderate exercise reduces to order according to their affinitiesthe particles and affections which are wandering about the body, as wehave already said when speaking of the universe, he will not allow enemyplaced by the side of enemy to stir up wars and disorders in the body, but he will place friend by the side of friend, so as to create health. Now of all motions that is the best which is produced in a thingby itself, for it is most akin to the motion of thought and of theuniverse; but that motion which is caused by others is not so good, andworst of all is that which moves the body, when at rest, in parts onlyand by some external agency. Wherefore of all modes of purifying andre-uniting the body the best is gymnastic; the next best is a surgingmotion, as in sailing or any other mode of conveyance which is notfatiguing; the third sort of motion may be of use in a case of extremenecessity, but in any other will be adopted by no man of sense: I meanthe purgative treatment of physicians; for diseases unless they arevery dangerous should not be irritated by medicines, since every form ofdisease is in a manner akin to the living being, whose complex framehas an appointed term of life. For not the whole race only, but eachindividual--barring inevitable accidents--comes into the world having afixed span, and the triangles in us are originally framed with power tolast for a certain time, beyond which no man can prolong his life. Andthis holds also of the constitution of diseases; if any one regardlessof the appointed time tries to subdue them by medicine, he onlyaggravates and multiplies them. Wherefore we ought always to managethem by regimen, as far as a man can spare the time, and not provoke adisagreeable enemy by medicines. 

Enough of the composite animal, and of the body which is a part of him, and of the manner in which a man may train and be trained by himself soas to live most according to reason: and we must above and before allprovide that the element which is to train him shall be the fairest andbest adapted to that purpose. A minute discussion of this subject wouldbe a serious task; but if, as before, I am to give only an outline, thesubject may not unfitly be summed up as follows. 

I have often remarked that there are three kinds of soul located withinus, having each of them motions, and I must now repeat in the fewestwords possible, that one part, if remaining inactive and ceasing fromits natural motion, must necessarily become very weak, but that which istrained and exercised, very strong. Wherefore we should take carethat the movements of the different parts of the soul should be in dueproportion. 

And we should consider that God gave the sovereign part of the humansoul to be the divinity of each one, being that part which, as we say, dwells at the top of the body, and inasmuch as we are a plant not of anearthly but of a heavenly growth, raises us from earth to our kindredwho are in heaven. And in this we say truly; for the divine powersuspended the head and root of us from that place where the generationof the soul first began, and thus made the whole body upright. When aman is always occupied with the cravings of desire and ambition, and iseagerly striving to satisfy them, all his thoughts must be mortal, and, as far as it is possible altogether to become such, he must be mortalevery whit, because he has cherished his mortal part. But he who hasbeen earnest in the love of knowledge and of true wisdom, and hasexercised his intellect more than any other part of him, must havethoughts immortal and divine, if he attain truth, and in so far ashuman nature is capable of sharing in immortality, he must altogether beimmortal; and since he is ever cherishing the divine power, and has thedivinity within him in perfect order, he will be perfectly happy. Nowthere is only one way of taking care of things, and this is to give toeach the food and motion which are natural to it. And the motions whichare naturally akin to the divine principle within us are the thoughtsand revolutions of the universe. These each man should follow, andcorrect the courses of the head which were corrupted at our birth, and by learning the harmonies and revolutions of the universe, shouldassimilate the thinking being to the thought, renewing his originalnature, and having assimilated them should attain to that perfect lifewhich the gods have set before mankind, both for the present and thefuture. 

Thus our original design of discoursing about the universe down to thecreation of man is nearly completed. A brief mention may be made of thegeneration of other animals, so far as the subject admits of brevity;in this manner our argument will best attain a due proportion. On thesubject of animals, then, the following remarks may be offered. Of themen who came into the world, those who were cowards or led unrighteouslives may with reason be supposed to have changed into the nature ofwomen in the second generation. And this was the reason why at that timethe gods created in us the desire of sexual intercourse, contrivingin man one animated substance, and in woman another, which they formedrespectively in the following manner. The outlet for drink by whichliquids pass through the lung under the kidneys and into the bladder, which receives and then by the pressure of the air emits them, was sofashioned by them as to penetrate also into the body of the marrow, which passes from the head along the neck and through the back, andwhich in the preceding discourse we have named the seed. And the seedhaving life, and becoming endowed with respiration, produces in thatpart in which it respires a lively desire of emission, and thus createsin us the love of procreation. Wherefore also in men the organ ofgeneration becoming rebellious and masterful, like an animal disobedientto reason, and maddened with the sting of lust, seeks to gain absolutesway; and the same is the case with the so-called womb or matrix ofwomen; the animal within them is desirous of procreating children, andwhen remaining unfruitful long beyond its proper time, gets discontentedand angry, and wandering in every direction through the body, closes upthe passages of the breath, and, by obstructing respiration, drivesthem to extremity, causing all varieties of disease, until at length thedesire and love of the man and the woman, bringing them together andas it were plucking the fruit from the tree, sow in the womb, as in afield, animals unseen by reason of their smallness and without form;these again are separated and matured within; they are then finallybrought out into the light, and thus the generation of animals iscompleted. 

Thus were created women and the female sex in general. But the race ofbirds was created out of innocent light-minded men, who, although theirminds were directed toward heaven, imagined, in their simplicity, thatthe clearest demonstration of the things above was to be obtained bysight; these were remodelled and transformed into birds, and they grewfeathers instead of hair. The race of wild pedestrian animals, again, came from those who had no philosophy in any of their thoughts, andnever considered at all about the nature of the heavens, because theyhad ceased to use the courses of the head, but followed the guidance ofthose parts of the soul which are in the breast. In consequence of thesehabits of theirs they had their front-legs and their heads resting uponthe earth to which they were drawn by natural affinity; and the crownsof their heads were elongated and of all sorts of shapes, into which thecourses of the soul were crushed by reason of disuse. And this was thereason why they were created quadrupeds and polypods: God gave the moresenseless of them the more support that they might be more attracted tothe earth. And the most foolish of them, who trail their bodies entirelyupon the ground and have no longer any need of feet, he made withoutfeet to crawl upon the earth. The fourth class were the inhabitantsof the water: these were made out of the most entirely senseless andignorant of all, whom the transformers did not think any longer worthyof pure respiration, because they possessed a soul which was made impureby all sorts of transgression; and instead of the subtle and pure mediumof air, they gave them the deep and muddy sea to be their element ofrespiration; and hence arose the race of fishes and oysters, and otheraquatic animals, which have received the most remote habitations as apunishment of their outlandish ignorance. These are the laws by whichanimals pass into one another, now, as ever, changing as they lose orgain wisdom and folly. 

We may now say that our discourse about the nature of the universe hasan end. The world has received animals, mortal and immortal, and isfulfilled with them, and has become a visible animal containing thevisible--the sensible God who is the image of the intellectual, thegreatest, best, fairest, most perfect--the one only-begotten heaven.