CHAPTER XXXVIII.

TIMÆUS AND KRITIAS.

[Side-note: Persons and scheme of the Timæus and Kritias.]

Though the Republic of Plato appears as a substantive composition,

not including in itself any promise of an intended sequel--yet the

Timæus and Kritias are introduced by Plato as constituting a

sequel to the Republic. Timæus the Pythagorean philosopher of

Lokri, the Athenian Kritias, and Hermokrates, are now introduced,

as having been the listeners while Sokrates was recounting his

long conversation of ten Books, first with Thrasymachus, next with

Glaukon and Adeimantus. The portion of that conversation, which

described the theory of a model commonwealth, is recapitulated in

its main characteristics: and Sokrates now claims from the two

listeners some requital for the treat which he has afforded to

them. He desires to see the citizens, whose training he has

described at length, and whom he has brought up to the stage of

mature capacity--exhibited by some one else as living, acting, and

affording some brilliant evidence of courage and military

discipline.[1] Kritias undertakes to satisfy his demand, by

recounting a glorious achievement of the ancient citizens of

Attica, who had once rescued Europe from an inroad of countless

and almost irresistible invaders, pouring in from the vast island

of Atlantis in the Western Ocean. This exploit is supposed to have

been performed nearly 10,000 years before; and though lost out of

the memory of the Athenians themselves, to have been commemorated

and still preserved in the more ancient records of Sais in Egypt,

and handed down through Solon by a family tradition to Kritias.

But it is agreed between Kritias and Timæus,[2] that before the

former enters upon his quasi-historical or mythical recital

about the invasion from Atlantis, the latter shall deliver an

expository discourse, upon a subject very different and of far

greater magnitude. Unfortunately the narrative promised by Kritias

stands before us only as a fragment. There is reason to believe

that Plato never completed it.[3] But the discourse assigned to

Timæus was finished, and still remains, as a valuable record of

ancient philosophy.

[Footnote 1: Plato, Timæus, p. 20 B.]

[Footnote 2: Plato, Timæus, p. 27 A.]

[Footnote 3: Plutarch, Solon, c. 33.

Another discourse appears to have been contemplated by Plato, to

be delivered by Hermokrates after Kritias had concluded (Plato,

Timæus, p. 20 A; Kritias, p. 108). But nothing of this was

probably ever composed.]

[Side-note: The Timæus is the earliest ancient physical

theory, which we possess in the words of its author.]

For us, modern readers, the Timæus of Plato possesses a species of

interest which it did not possess either for the contemporaries of

its author, or for the ancient world generally. We read in it a

system--at least the sketch of a system--of universal philosophy,

the earliest that has come to us in the words of the author

himself. Among the many other systems, anterior or

simultaneous--those of Thales and the other Ionic philosophers, of

Herakleitus, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Empedokles, Anaxagoras,

Demokritus--not one remains to us as it was promulgated by its original

author or supporters. We know all of them only in fragments and

through the criticisms of others: fragments always scanty--criticisms

generally dissentient, often harsh, sometimes unfair, introduced

by the critic to illustrate opposing doctrines of his own. Here,

however, the Platonic system is made known to us, not in this

fragmentary and half-attested form, but in the full exposition

which Plato himself deemed sufficient for it. This is a remarkable

peculiarity.

[Side-note: Position** and character of the Pythagorean

Timæus.]

Timæus is extolled by Sokrates as combining the character of a

statesman with that of a philosopher: as being of distinguished

wealth and family in his native city (the Epizephyrian Lokri),

where he had exercised the leading political functions:--and as

having attained besides, the highest excellence in science,

astronomical as well as physical.[4] We know from other sources

(though Plato omits to tell us so, according to his usual

undefined manner of designating contemporaries) that he was of the

Pythagorean school. Much of the exposition assigned to him is

founded on Pythagorean principles, though blended by Plato

with other doctrines, either his own or borrowed elsewhere. Timæus

undertakes to requite Sokrates by giving a discourse respecting

"The Nature of the Universe"; beginning at the genesis of the

Kosmos, and ending with the constitution of man.[5] This is to

serve as an historical or mythical introduction to the Platonic

Republic recently described; wherein Sokrates had set forth the

education and discipline proper for man when located as an

inhabitant of the earth. Neither during the exposition of Timæus,

nor after it, does Sokrates make any remark. But the commencement

of the Kritias (which is evidently intended as a second part or

continuation of the Timæus) contains, first, a prayer from Timæus

that the Gods will pardon the defects of his preceding discourse

and help him to amend them--next an emphatic commendation bestowed

by Sokrates upon the discourse: thus supplying that recognition

which is not found in the first part.[6]

[Footnote 4: Plato, Timæus, pp. 20 A, 27 A.]

[Footnote 5: Plato, Timæus, p. 27 A. [Greek: e)/doxe ga\r ê(mi=n

Ti/maion me/n, a(/te a)stronomikô/taton ê(mô=n, kai\ _peri\

phu/seôs tou= panto\s_ ei)de/nai ma/lista e)/rgon

pepoiême/non, prô=ton le/gein a)rcho/menon a)po\ tê=s tou=

ko/smou gene/seôs, teleuta=|n de\ ei)s a)nthrô/pôn phu/sin.]]

[Footnote 6: Plato, Kritias, p. 108 B.]

[Side-note: Poetical imagination displayed by Plato. He

pretends to nothing more than probability. Contrast with Sokrates,

Isokrates, Xenophon.]

In this Hymn of the Universe (to use a phrase of the rhetor

Menander[7] respecting the Platonic Timæus) the prose of Plato is

quite as much the vehicle of poetical imagination as the

hexameters of Hesiod, Empedokles, or Parmenides. The Gods and

Goddesses, whom Timæus invokes at the commencement,[8] supply him

with superhuman revelations, like the Muses to Hesiod,

or the Goddess of Wisdom to Parmenides. Plato expressly recognises

the multiplicity of different statements current, respecting the

Gods and the generation of the Universe. He claims no superior

credibility for his own. He professes to give us a new doctrine,

not less probable than the numerous dissentient opinions already

advanced by others, and more acceptable to his own mind. He bids

us be content with such a measure of probability, because the

limits of our human nature preclude any fuller approach to

certainty.[9] It is important to note the modest pretensions

here unreservedly announced by Plato as to the conviction and

assent of hearers:--so different from the confidence manifested in

the Republic, where he hires a herald to proclaim his

conclusion--and from the overbearing dogmatism which we read in his

Treatise De Legibus, where he is providing a catechism for the

schooling of citizens, rather than proofs to be sifted by opponents.

He delivers, respecting matters which he admits to be unfathomable,

the theory most in harmony with his own religious and poetical

predispositions, which he declares to be as probable as any other

yet proclaimed. The Xenophontic Sokrates, who disapproved all

speculation respecting the origin and structure of the Kosmos,

would probably have granted this equal probability, and equal

absence of any satisfactory grounds of preferential belief--both

to Plato on one side and to the opposing theorists on the other.

And another intelligent contemporary, Isokrates, would probably

have considered the Platonic Timæus as one among the same class of

unprofitable extravagancies, to which he assigns the theories of

Herakleitus, Empedokles, Alkmæon, Parmenides, and others.[10]

Plato himself (in the Sophistês)[11] characterises the theories

of these philosophers as fables recited to an audience of

children, without any care to ensure a rational comprehension

and assent. _They_ would probably have made the like

criticism upon his Timæus. While he treats it as fable to apply to

the Gods the human analogy of generation and parentage--they would

have considered it only another variety of fable, to apply to them

the equally human analogy of constructive fabrication or mixture

of ingredients. The language of Xenophon shows that he agreed with

his master Sokrates in considering such speculations as not merely

unprofitable, but impious.[12] And if the mission from the

Gods--constituting Sokrates Cross-Examiner General against the

prevailing fancy of knowledge without the reality of

knowledge--drove him to court perpetual controversy with the

statesmen, poets, and Sophists of Athens; the same mission would have

compelled him, on hearing the sweeping affirmations of Timæus, to

apply the test of his Elenchus, and to appear in his well-known

character of confessed[13] but inquisitive ignorance. The Platonic

Timæus is positively anti-Sokratic. It places us at the opposite

or dogmatic pole of Plato's character.[14]

[Footnote 7: Menander, De Encomiis, i. 5, p. 39. Compare Karsten,

De Empedoclis Vitâ, p. 72; De Parmenidis Vitâ, p. 21.]

[Footnote 8: Plato, Timæus, p. 27 D; Hesiod, Theogon, 22-35-105.]

[Footnote 9: Plato, Timæus, pp. 29 D, 28 D, 59 C-D, 68 C, 72 D.

[Greek: kat' e)mê\n do/xan--para\ tê=s e)mê=s psê/phou] (p. 52

D). In many parts of the dialogue he repeats that he is delivering

his _own opinion_--that he is affirming what is probable. In

the Phædon, however, we find that [Greek: ei)ko/tes lo/goi] are

set aside as deceptive and dangerous, Phædon, p. 92 D. In the

remarkable passage of the Timæus, p. 48 C-D, Plato intimates that

he will not in the present discourse attempt to go to the bottom

of the subject--[Greek: tê\n me\n peri\ a(pa/ntôn ei)/te

a)rchê\n ei)/te a)rcha\s ei)/te o(/pê| dokei= tou/tôn pe/ri,

to\ nu=n ou) r(ête/on]--but that he will confine himself to

[Greek: ei)ko/tes lo/goi--to\ de\ kat' a)rcha\s r(êthe\n

diaphula/ttôn, tê\n _tô=n ei)ko/tôn lo/gôn du/namin,

peira/somai mêdeno\s ê(=tton ei)ko/ta_, ma=llon de\ kai\

e)/mprosthen a)p' a)rchê=s peri\ e(ka/stôn kai\ xumpa/ntôn

le/gein.]

What these _principia_ are, which Plato here keeps in the

background, I do not clearly understand. Susemihl (Entwickelung

der Plat. Phil. ii. p. 405) and Martin (Études sur le Timée, ii.

p. 173, note 56) have both given elucidations of this passage, but

neither of them appear to me satisfactory. Simplikius

says:--[Greek: O( Pla/tôn tê\n phusiologi/an ei)kotologi/an e)/legen

ei)=nai, ô(=| kai\ A)ristote/lês summarturei=], Schol. Aristot.

Phys. 325, a. 25 Brandis.]

[Footnote 10: Isokrates, De Permutatione, Or. xv. s. 287-288-304.

[Greek: ê(gou=mai ga\r ta\s me\n toiau/tas _perittologi/as_

o(moi/as ei)=nai tai=s thaumatopoii/ais tai=s ou)de\n me\n

ô)phelou/sais, u(po\ de\ tô=n a)noê/tôn perista/tois

gignome/nais] (s. 288). . . .

[Greek: tou\s de\ tô=n me\n a)nagkai/ôn a)melou=ntas, ta\s de\

tô=n palaiô=n sophistô=n _teratologi/as_ a)gapô=ntas,

philosophei=n phasi/n] (s. 304).

Compare another passage of Isokrates, the opening of Orat. x.

Encomium Helenæ; in which latter passage he seems plainly to

notice one of the main ethical doctrines advanced by Plato, though

he does not mention Plato's name, nor indeed the name of any

living person.]

[Footnote 11: Plato, Sophist. pp. 242-243. [Greek: Mu=tho/n tina

e(/kastos phai/netai/ moi diêgei=sthai paisi\n ô(s ou)=sin

ê(mi=n; o( me\n ô(s tri/a ta\ o)/nta, polemei= de\ a)llê/lois

e)ni/ote au)tô=n a)/tta pê|, to/te de\ kai\ phi/la gigno/mena

ga/mous te kai\ to/kous kai\ tropha\s tô=n e)kgo/nôn

pare/chetai] (p. 242 C-D).]

[Footnote 12: Xenophon, Memorab. i. 1, 11-14. [Greek: Ou)dei\s de\

pô/pote Sôkra/tous ou)de\n a)sebe\s ou)de\ a)no/sion ou)/te

pra/ttontos ei)=den ou)/te le/gontos ê)/kousen; _ou)de\

ga\r_ peri\ tê=s tô=n pa/ntôn phu/seôs ê(=per tô=n

a)/llôn oi(/ plei=stoi, diele/geto, skopô=n _o(/pôs o(

kalou/menos u(po\ tô=n sophistô=n ko/smos_ e)/chei, kai\

ti/sin a)na/gkais e(/kasta gi/gnetai tô=n ou)rani/ôn; a)lla\

kai\ tou\s phronti/zontas ta\ toiau=ta môrai/nontas

a)pedei/knue.]

Lucretius, i. 80:--

Illud in his rebus vereor, ne forté rearis

Impia te rationis inire elementa, viamque

Indugredi sceleris, &c.

The above cited passage of Xenophon shows that the term [Greek:

Ko/smos] was in his time a technical word among philosophers, not

yet accepted in that meaning by the general public. The aversion

to investigation of the Kosmos, on the ground of impiety,

entertained by Sokrates and Xenophon, is expressed by Plato in the

Leges (vii. 821 A) in the following words of the principal

speaker,--[Greek: To\n me/giston theo\n kai\ o(/lon to\n ko/smon

phame\n ou)/te zêtei=n dei=n ou)/te polupragmonei=n ta\s ai)ti/as

e)reunô=ntas; ou) ga\r ou)d' o(/sion ei)=nai; to\ de\ e)/oike

pa=n tou/tou tou)nanti/on gigno/menon o)rthô=s a)\n gi/gnesthai.]

This last passage is sometimes cited as if the word [Greek:

phame\n] expressed the opinion of the principal speaker, or of

Plato himself--which is a mistake: [Greek: phame\n] here expresses

the opinion which the principal speaker is about to controvert.]

[Footnote 13: See above, vol. i. ch. ix. of the present work,

where the Platonic Apology is reviewed.]

[Footnote 14: "Quocirca Timæus non dialecticé disserens inducitur,

sed loquitur ut hierophanta, qui mundi arcana aliunde accepta

grandi ac magnificâ oratione pronunciat; quin etiam quæ

experientiæ suspicionem superant, mythorum ac symbolorum

involucris obtegit, eoque modo quam ea certa sint, legentibus non

obscuré significat."--Stallbaum, Prolegg. ad Platon. Timæum, c.

iv. p. 37.]

[Side-note: Fundamental distinction between Ens and Fientia.]

Timæus begins by laying down the capital distinction between--1.

Ens or the Existent, the eternal and unchangeable, the world of

Ideas or Forms, apprehended only by mental conception or

Reason, but the object of infallible cognition. 2. The Generated

and Perishable--the sensible, phenomenal, material world--which

never really exists, but is always appearing and disappearing;

apprehended by sense, yet not capable of becoming the object of

cognition, nor of anything better than opinion or conjecture. The

Kosmos, being a visible and tangible body, belongs to this last

category. Accordingly, it can never be really known: no true or

incontestable propositions can be affirmed respecting it: you can

arrive at nothing higher than opinion and probability.

Plato seems to have had this conviction, respecting the

uncertainty of all affirmations about the sensible world or any

portions of it, forcibly present to his mind.

[Side-note: Postulates of Plato. The Demiurgus--The Eternal

Ideas--Chaotic Materia or Fundamentum. The Kosmos is a living

being and a God.]

He next proceeds to assume or imply, as postulates, his eternal

Ideas or Forms--a coeternal chaotic matter or indeterminate

Something--and a Demiurgus or Architect to construct, out of this

chaos, after contemplation of the Forms, copies of them as good as

were practicable in the world of sense. The exposition begins with

these postulates. The Demiurgus found all visible matter, not in a

state of rest, but in discordant and irregular motion. He brought

it out of disorder into order. Being himself good (says Plato),

and desiring to make everything else as good as possible, he

transformed this chaos into an orderly Kosmos.[15] He planted in

its centre a soul spreading round, so as to pervade all its

body--and reason in the soul: so that the Kosmos became animated,

rational--a God.

[Footnote 15: Plato, Timæus, pp. 29-30.]

[Side-note: The Demiurgus not a Creator--The Kosmos arises

from his operating upon the random movements of Necessity. He

cannot controul necessity--he only persuades.]

The Demiurgus of Plato is not conceived as a Creator,[16] but as a

Constructor or Artist. He is the God Promêtheus, conceived as

pre-kosmical, and elevated to the primacy of the Gods: instead of

being subordinate to Zeus, as depicted by Æschylus and others. He

represents provident intelligence or art, and beneficent purpose,

contending with a force superior and irresistible, so as to

improve it as far as it will allow itself to be improved.[17] This

pre-existing superior force Plato denominates Necessity--"the

erratic, irregular, random causality," subsisting prior to the

intervention of the Demiurgus; who can only work upon it by

persuasion, but cannot coerce or subdue it.[18] The genesis of the

Kosmos thus results from a combination of intelligent force with

the original, primordial Necessity; which was persuaded, and

consented, to have its irregular agency regularised up to a

certain point, but no farther. Beyond this limit the systematising

arrangements of the Demiurgus could not be carried; but all that

is good or beautiful in the Kosmos was owing to them.[19]

[Footnote 16: "The notion of absolute Creation is unknown to

Plato, as it is to all Grecian and Roman antiquity" (Brandis,

Gesch. der Griech. Röm. Philos. vol. ii. part 2, p. 306).]

[Footnote 17: The verbs used by Plato to describe the proceedings

of the Demiurgus are [Greek: xunetektai/neto, xune/stêse,

xunekera/sato, e)mêchanê/sato], and such like.]

[Footnote 18: Plato, Timæus, pp. 47 E-48 A. [Greek: e)pide/deiktai

ta\ dia\ nou= dedêmiourgême/na; dei= de\ kai\ ta\ di' a)na/gkês

gigno/mena tô=| lo/gô| parathe/sthai. Memigme/nê ga\r ou)=n ê(

tou=de tou= ko/smou ge/nesis e)x a)na/gkês te kai\ nou=

xusta/seôs e)gennê/thê; nou= de\ a)na/gkês a)/rchontos

_tô=| pei/thein au)tê\n_ tô=n gignome/nôn ta\ plei=sta

e)pi\ to\ be/ltiston a)/gein, tau/tê| kata\ tau=ta/ te di'

a)na/gkês ê(ttôme/nês u(po\ _pei/thous_ e)/mphronos,

ou(/tô kat' a)rcha\s xuni/stato to/de to\ pa=n. Ei)/ tis ou)=n

ê(= ge/gone, kata\ tau=ta o)/ntôs e)rei=, mikte/on kai\ _to\

tê=s planôme/nês ei)=dos ai)ti/as_, ê(= phe/rein

pe/phuken.] Compare p. 56 C: [Greek: o(/pê|per ê( tê=s

a)na/gkês _e(kou=sa peisthei=sa/_ te phu/sis u(pei=ke.] Also

pp. 68 E, 75 B, 30 A.

[Greek: Te/chnê d' a)na/gkês a)stheneste/ra makrô=|] says

Prometheus in Æschylus (P. V. 514). He identifies [Greek:

A)na/gkê] with the [Greek: Moi=rai]: and we read in Herodotus (i.

91) of Apollo as trying to persuade the Fates to spare Kroesus,

but obtaining for him only a respite of three years--[Greek: ou)k

oi(=o/n te e)ge/neto paragagei=n moi/ras, _o(/son de\

e)ne/dôkan au(=tai_, ê)nu/sato kai\ e)chari/sato/ oi(.] This

is the language used by Plato about [Greek: A)na/gkê] and the

Demiurgus. A valuable exposition of the relations believed to

subsist between the Gods and [Greek: Moi=ra] is to be found in

Naegelsbach, Homerische Theologie (chap. iii. pp. 113-131).]

[Footnote 19: Plutarch reproduces this theory (Phokion, c. 2, ad

fin.) of God governing the Kosmos, not by superior force, but by

reason and persuasion--[Greek: ê(=| kai\ to\n ko/smon o( theo\s

le/getai dioikei=n, ou) biazo/menos, a)lla\ peithoi= kai\ lo/gô|

para/gôn tê\n a)na/gkên.]]

[Side-note: Meaning of Necessity in Plato.]

We ought here to note the sense in which Plato uses the word

Necessity. This word is now usually understood as denoting what is

fixed, permanent, unalterable, knowable beforehand. In the

Platonic Timæus it means the very reverse:--the indeterminate, the

inconstant, the anomalous, that which can neither be understood

nor predicted. It is Force, Movement, or Change, with the negative

attribute of not being regular, or intelligible, or determined by

any knowable antecedent or condition--_Vis consili expers_.

It coincides, in fact, with that which is meant by

_Freewill_, in the modern metaphysical argument between

Freewill and Necessity: it is the undetermined or

self-determining, as contrasted with that which depends upon some

given determining conditions, known or knowable. The Platonic

Necessity[20] is identical with the primeval Chaos, recognised in

the Theogony or Kosmogony of Hesiod. That poet tells us that Chaos

was the primordial Something: and that afterwards came Gæa, Eros,

Uranus, Nyx, Erebus, &c., who intermarried, males with

females, and thus gave birth to numerous divine persons or

kosmical agents--each with more or less of definite character and

attributes. By these supervening agencies, the primeval Chaos was

modified and regulated, to a greater or less extent. The Platonic

Timæus starts in the same manner as Hesiod, from an original

Chaos. But then he assumes also, as coæval with it, but apart from

it, his eternal Forms or Ideas: while, in order to obtain his

kosmical agents, he does not have recourse, like Hesiod, to the

analogy of intermarriages and births, but employs another analogy

equally human and equally borrowed from experience--that of a

Demiurgus or constructive professional artist, architect, or

carpenter; who works upon the model of these Forms, and introduces

regular constructions into the Chaos. The antithesis present to

the mind of Plato is that between disorder or absence of order,

announced as Necessity,--and order or regularity, represented by

the Ideas.[21] As the mediator between these two primeval

opposites, Plato assumes Nous, or Reason, or artistic skill

personified in his Demiurgus: whom he calls essentially

good--meaning thereby that he is the regularising agent by whom

order, method, and symmetry, are copied from the Ideas and partially

realised among the intractable data of Necessity. Good is

something which Plato in other works often talks about, but never

determines: his language implies sometimes that he knows what it

is, sometimes that he does not know. But so far as we can

understand him, it means order, regularity, symmetry, proportion--by

consequence, what is ascertainable and predictable.[22] I

will not say that Plato means this always and exclusively, by

Good: but he seems to mean so in the Timæus. Evil is the reverse.

Good or regularity is associated in his mind exclusively with

rational agency. It can be produced, he assumes, only by a reason,

or by some personal agent analogous to a reasonable and

intelligent man. Whatever is not so produced, must be irregular or

bad.

[Footnote 20: In the Symposion (pp. 195 D, 197 B) we find Eros

panegyrised as having amended and mollified the primeval empire of

[Greek: A)na/gkê].

The Scholiast on Hesiod, Theogon. 119, gives a curious

metaphysical explanation of [Greek: E)/ros], mentioned in the

Hesiodic text--[Greek: tê\n e)gkatesparme/nên phusikô=s

kinêtikê\n ai)ti/an e(ka/stô| tô=n o)ntôn, kath' ê(\n

e)phi/etai e(/kastos tou= ei)=nai.]]

[Footnote 21: In the Philêbus, p. 23 C-D, these three are

recognised under the terms:--1. [Greek: Pe/ras]. 2. [Greek:

A)/peiron]. 3. [Greek: Ai)ti/a--tê=s xummi/xeôs tou/tôn pro\s

a)/llêla tê\n ai)ti/an].

Compare a curious passage of Plutarch, Symposiacon, viii. 2, p.

719 E, illustrating the Platonic phrase--[Greek: to\n theo\n a)ei\

geômetrei=n].]

[Footnote 22: Plato, Timæus, p. 30 A. Compare the Republic, vi. p.

506, Philêbus, pp. 65-66, and the investigation in the

Euthydêmus, pp. 279-293, which ends in no result.]

[Side-note: Process of demiurgic construction--The total

Kosmos comes logically first, constructed on the model of the

[Greek: Au)tozô=on].]

These are the fundamental ideas which Plato expands into a

detailed Kosmology. The first application which he makes of them

is, to construct the total Kosmos. The total is here the logical

Prius, or anterior to the parts in his order of conception. The

Kosmos is one vast and comprehensive animal: just as in

physiological description, the leading or central idea is, that of

the animal organism as a whole, to which each and all the parts

are referred. The Kosmos is constructed by the Demiurgus according

to the model of the [Greek: Au)tozô=on],[23]--(the Form or Idea

of Animal--the eternal Generic or Self-Animal,)--which comprehends

in itself the subordinate specific Ideas of different sorts of

animals. This Generic Idea of Animal comprehended four of such

specific Ideas: 1. The celestial race of animals, or Gods, who

occupied the heavens. 2. Men. 3. Animals living in air--Birds. 4.

Animals living on land or in water.[24] In order that the Kosmos

might approach near to its model the Self-animal, it was required

to contain all these four species. As there was but one

Self-Animal, so there could only be one Kosmos.

[Footnote 23: Plato, Timæus, p. 30 D.]

[Footnote 24: Plat. Timæus, pp. 39 E-40 A. [Greek: ê(=per ou)=n

nou=s e)nou/sas i)de/as tô=| o(\ e)/sti zô=on, oi(=ai/ te

e)/neisi kai\ o(/sai, kathora=|, toiau/tas kai\ tosau/tas

dienoê/thê dei=n kai\ to/de schei=n. Ei)si\ de\ te/ttares, mi/a

me\n ou)ra/nion theô=n ge/nos, a)/llê de\ ptêno\n kai\

a)eropo/ron, tri/tê de\ e)/nudron ei)=dos, pezo\n de\ kai\

chersai=on te/tarton.]]

We see thus, that the primary and dominant idea, in Plato's mind,

is, not that of inorganic matter, but that of organised and

animated matter--life or soul embodied. With him, biology comes

before physics.

The body of the Kosmos was required to be both visible and

tangible: it could not be visible without fire: it could not be

tangible without something solid, nor solid without earth. But

two things cannot be well put together by themselves, without

a third to serve as a bond of connection: and that is the best

bond which makes them One as much as possible. Geometrical

proportion best accomplishes this object. But as both Fire and

Earth were solids and not planes, no one mean proportional could

be found between them. Two mean proportionals were necessary.

Hence the Demiurgus interposed air and water, in such manner, that

as fire is to air, so is air to water: and as air is to water, so

is water to earth.[25] Thus the four elements, composing the body

of the Kosmos, were bound together in unity and friendship. Of

each of the four, the entire total was used up in the

construction: so that there remained nothing of them apart, to

hurt the Kosmos from without, nor anything as raw material for a

second Kosmos.[26]

[Footnote 25: Plato, Tim. pp. 31-32. The comment of Macrobius on

this passage (Somn. Scip. i. 6, p. 30) is interesting, if not

conclusive. But the language in which Plato lays down this

doctrine about mean proportionals is not precise, and has

occasioned much difference of opinion among commentators. Between

two solids (he says), that is, solid numbers, or numbers generated

out of the product of three factors, no one mean proportional can

be found. This is not universally true. The different suggestions

of critics to clear up this difficulty will be found set forth in

the elaborate note of M. Martin (Études sur le Timée, vol. 1, note

xx. pp. 337-345), who has given what seems a probable explanation.

Plato (he supposes) is speaking only of prime numbers and their

products. In the language of ancient arithmeticians _linear

numbers_, _par excellence_ or properly so-called, were the

prime numbers, measurable by unity only; _plane numbers_ were

the products of two such linear numbers or prime numbers; _solid

numbers_ were the products of three such. Understanding solid

numbers in this restricted sense, it will be perfectly true that

between any two of them you can never find _any one_ solid

number or any whole number which shall be a mean proportional, but

you can always find _two_ solid numbers which shall be mean

proportionals. One mean proportional will never be sufficient. On

the contrary, one mean proportional will be sufficient between two

plane numbers (in the restricted sense) when these numbers are

squares, though not if they are not squares. It is therefore true,

that in the case of two _solid_ numbers** (so understood) one

such mean proportional will never be sufficient, while two can

always be found; and that between two _plane_ numbers** (so

understood) one such mean proportional will in certain cases be

sufficient and may be found. This is what is present to Plato's

mind, though in enunciating it he does not declare the restriction

under which alone it is true. M. Boeckh (Untersuchungen über das

Kosmische System des Platon, p. 17) approves of Martin's

explanation. At the same time M. Martin has given no proof that

Plato had in his mind the distinction between prime numbers and

other numbers, for his references in p. 338 do not prove this

point; moreover, the explanation assumes such very loose

expression, that the phrase of M. Cousin in his note (p. 334) is,

after all, perfectly just: "Platon n'a pas songé à donner à sa

phrase une rigueur mathématique": and the more simple explanation

of M. Cousin (though Martin rejects it as unworthy) may perhaps

include all that is really intended. "Si deux surfaces peuvent

être unies par un seul terme intermédiaire, il faudra deux termes

intermédiaires pour unir deux solides: et l'union sera encore plus

parfaite si la raison des deux proportions est la même."]

[Footnote 26: Plat. Timæus, p. 32 E.]

[Side-note: Body of the Kosmos, perfectly spherical--its

rotations.]

The Kosmos was constructed as a perfect sphere, rounded, because

that figure both comprehends all other figures, and is, at the

same time, the most perfect, and most like to itself.[27] The

Demiurgus made it perfectly smooth on the outside, for various

reasons.[28] First, it stood in no need of either eyes or ears,

because there was nothing outside to be seen or heard. Next, it

did not want organs of respiration, inasmuch as there was no

outside air to be breathed:--nor nutritive and excrementary

organs, because its own decay supplied it with nourishment, so

that it was self-sufficing, being constructed as its own agent and

its own patient.[29] Moreover the Demiurgus did not furnish it

with hands, because there was nothing for it either to grasp or

repel--nor with legs, feet, or means of standing, because he

assigned to it only one of the seven possible varieties of

movement.[30] He gave to it no other movement except that of

rotation in a circle, in one and the same place: which is the sort

of movement that belongs most to reason and intelligence, while it

is impracticable to all other figures except the spherical.[31]

[Footnote 27: Plato, Timæus, p. 33 B. [Greek: kuklotere\s au)to\

e)torneu/sato], &c.]

[Footnote 28: Plato, Timæus, p. 33 C. [Greek: lei=on de\ dê\

ku/klô| pa=n e)/xôthen au)to\ a)pêkribou=to, pollô=n cha/rin],

&c.

Aristotle also maintains that the sphericity of the Kosmos is so

exact that no piece of workmanship can make approach to it. (De

Coelo, ii. p. 287, b. 15.)]

[Footnote 29: Plato, Timæus, p. 33 E. On this point the Platonic

Timæus is not Pythagorean, but the reverse. The Pythagoreans

recognised extraneous to the Kosmos, [Greek: to\ a)/peiron

pneu=ma] or [Greek: to\ keno/n]. The Kosmos was supposed to inhale

this vacuum, which penetrating into the interior, formed the

separating interstices between its constituent parts (Aristot.

Physic. iv. p. 213, b. 22).]

[Footnote 30: Plato, Timæus, p. 34 A. [Greek: e)pi\ de\ tê\n

peri/odon tau/tên, a(/t' ou)de\n podô=n de/on, a)skele\s kai\

a)/poun au)to\ e)ge/nnêsen.]

Plato reckons six varieties of rectilinear motion, neither of

which was assigned to the Kosmos--forward, backward, upward,

downward, to the right, to the left.]

[Footnote 31: Plat. Tim. p. 34 A. [Greek: ki/nêsin ga\r

a)pe/neimen au)tô=| tê\n tou= sô/matos oi)kei/an, tô=n e(/pta

tê\n peri\ nou=n kai\ phro/nêsin ma/lista ou)/san.] This

predicate respecting circular motion belongs to Plato and not to

Aristotle; but Aristotle makes out, in his own way, a strong case

to show that circular motion _must belong_ to the [Greek:

Prô=ton sô=ma], as being the first among all varieties of

motion, the most dignified and privileged, the only one which can

be for ever uniform and continuous. Aristot. Physic. ix. p. 265,

a. 15; De Coelo, i. pp. 269-270, ii. p. 284, a. 10.]

[Side-note: Soul of the Kosmos--its component

ingredients--stretched from centre to circumference.]

The Kosmos, one and only-begotten, was thus perfect as to its

body, including all existent bodily material,--smooth, even,

round, and equidistant from its centre to all points of the

circumference.[32] The Demiurgus put together at the same time its

soul or mind; which he planted in the centre and stretched

throughout its body in every direction,--so as not only to reach

the circumference, but also to enclose and wrap it round

externally. The soul, being intended to guide and govern the body,

was formed of appropriate ingredients, three distinct ingredients

mixed together: 1. The Same--The Identical--The indivisible, and

unchangeable essence of Ideas. 2. The Different--The Plural--The

divisible essence of bodies or of the elements. 3. A third

compound, formed of both these ingredients melted into one.--These

three ingredients--Same, Different, Same and Different in

one,--were blended together in one compound, to form the soul of

the Kosmos: though the Different was found intractable and hard to

conciliate.[33] The mixture was divided, and the portions blended

together, according to a scale of harmonic numerical proportion

complicated and difficult to follow.[34] The soul of the Kosmos

was thus harmonically constituted. Among its constituent elements,

the Same, or Identity, is placed in an even and undivided rotation

of the outer or sidereal sphere of the Kosmos,--while the

Different, or Diversity, is distributed among the rotations, all

oblique, of the seven interior or planetary spheres--that is, the

five planets, Sun, and Moon. The outer sphere revolved towards the

right: the interior spheres in an opposite direction towards the

left. The rotatory force of the Same (of the outer Sphere) being

not only one and undivided, but connected with and dependent upon

the solid revolving axis which traverses the diameter of the

Kosmos--is far greater than that of the divided spheres of the

Different; which, while striving to revolve in an opposite

direction, each by a movement of its own--are overpowered and

carried along with the outer sphere, though the time of

revolution, in the case of each, is more or less modified by its

own inherent counter-moving force.[35]

[Footnote 32: Plat. Tim. p. 31 B. [Greek: ei(=s o(/de monogenê\s

ou)rano/s], &c.]

[Footnote 33: Plat. Tim. p. 35 A. [Greek: Tau)to\n--to\

a)me/riston--tha/teron--to\ meristo\n--tri/ton e)x a)mphoi=n

ou)si/as ei)=dos.]]

[Footnote 34: Plato, Timæus, pp. 35-36. The pains which were taken

by commentators in antiquity to expound and interpret this

numerical scale may be seen especially illustrated in Plutarch's

Treatise, De Animæ Procreatione in Timæo, pp. 1012-1030, and the

Epitome which follows it. There were two fundamental [Greek:

tetraktu/es] or quaternions, one on a binary, the other on a

ternary scale of progression, which were arranged by Krantor

(Plutarch, p. 1027 E) in the form of the letter [Greek: L], as

given in Macrobius (Somn. Scip. i. 6, p. 35). The intervals

between these figures, are described by Plato as filled up by

intervening harmonic fractions, so as to constitute an harmonic or

musical diagram or scale of four octaves and a major sixth.

(Boeckh's Untersuch. p. 19.) M. Boeckh has expounded this at

length in his Dissertation, Ueber die Bildung der Welt-Seele im

Timäos. Other expositors after him.

1 /\

/ \

2_/_ _\_3

/ \

4 _/_ _\_9

/ \

------ ------

8 27

]

[Footnote 35: Plato, Timæus, p. 36 C. [Greek: tê\n me\n ou)=n

e)/xô phora\n e)pephê/misen ei)=nai tê=s tau)tou= phu/seôs,

tê\n d' e)nto/s, tê=s tha)te/rou. tê\n me\n dê\ tau)tou= kata\

pleura\n e)pi\ dexia\ periê/gage, tê\n de\ thate/rou kata\

dia/metron e)p' a)ristera/.]

For the meaning of [Greek: kata\ pleura\n] and [Greek: kata\

dia/metron], referring to the equator and the ecliptic, see the

explanation and diagram in Boeckh, Untersuchungen, p. 25, also in

the note of Stallbaum. The allusion in Plato to the letter [Greek:

chi=] is hardly intelligible without both a commentary and a

diagram.]

In regard to the constitution of the kosmical soul, we must note,

that as it is intended to know Same, Different, and Same and

Different in one--so it must embody these three ingredients in its

own nature: according to the received axiom. Like knows like--Like

is known by like.[36] Thus began, never to end, the rotatory

movements of the living Kosmos or great Kosmical God. The

invisible soul of the Kosmos, rooted at its centre and stretching

from thence so as to pervade and enclose its visible body,

circulates and communicates, though without voice or sound,

throughout its own entire range, every impression of identity and

of difference which it encounters either from essence ideal and

indivisible, or from that which is sensible and divisible.

Information is thus circulated, about the existing relations

between all the separate parts and specialties.[37] Reason and

Science are propagated by the Circle of the Same: Sense and

Opinion, by those of the Different. When these last-mentioned

Circles are in right movement, the opinions circulated are true

and trustworthy.

[Footnote 36: Aristotel. De Animâ, i. 2, 7, i. 3, 11 (pp. 404, b.

16--406 b. 26), with Trendelenburg's note, pp. 227-253; Stallbaum,

not. ad Timæum, pp. 136-157. See also the interpretation of

Plato's opinion by Krantor, as given in Plutarch, De Animæ

Procreatione in Timæo, p. 1012 E. We learn from Plutarch, however,

that the passage gave much trouble to commentators.]

[Footnote 37: Plato, Timæus, pp. 36-37. 37 A: [Greek: le/gei

kinoume/nê dia\ pa/sês e(autê=s, o(/tô| t' a)/n ti tau)to\n

ê(=|, kai\ o(/tou a)\n e(/teron, pro\s o(/, ti te ma/lista kai\

o(/pê| kai\ o(/pôs kai\ o(po/te xumbai/nei kata\ ta\ gigno/mena/

te pro\s e(/kaston e(/kasta ei)=nai kai\ pa/schein, kai\ pro\s ta\

kata\ tau)ta\ e)/chonta a)ei/.]]

[Side-note: Regular or measured Time--began with the

Kosmos.]

With the rotations of the Kosmos, began the course of Time--years,

months, days, &c. Anterior to the Kosmos, there was no time:

no past, present, and future: no numerable or mensurable motion or

change. The Ideas are eternal essences, without fluctuation or

change: existing _sub specie æternitatis_, and having only a

perpetual present, but no past or future.[38] Along with them

subsisted only the disorderly, immeasurable, movements of Chaos.

The nearest approach which the Demiurgus could make in copying

these Ideas, was, by assigning to the Kosmos an eternal and

unchanging motion, marked and measured by the varying position of

the heavenly bodies. For this purpose, the sun, moon, and planets,

were distributed among the various portions of the circle of

Different: while the fixed stars were placed in the Circle of the

Same, or the outer Circle, revolving in one uniform rotation and

in unaltered position in regard to each other. The interval of one

day was marked by one revolution of this outer or most rational

Circle:[39] that of one month, by a revolution of the moon: that

of one year, by a revolution of the sun. Among all these sidereal

and planetary Gods the Earth was the first and oldest. It was

packed close round the great axis which traversed the centre of

the Kosmos, by the turning of which axis the outer circle of the

Kosmos was made to revolve, generating night and day. The Earth

regulated the movement of this great kosmical axis, and thus

become the determining agent and guarantee of night and day.[40]

[Footnote 38: Plato, Timæus, pp. 37-38. Lassalle, in his copious

and elaborate explanation of the doctrine of Herakleitus (Die

Philosophie Herakleitos des Dunkeln, Berlin, 1858, vol. ii. p.

210, s. 26), represents this doctrine of Plato respecting Time as

"durch und durch heraklitisch". To me it seems quite distinct

from, or rather the inversion of, that which Lassalle himself sets

down as the doctrine of Herakleitus. Plato begins with [Greek: to\

a)i+/dion] or [Greek: ai)ô/nion], an eternal sameness or

duration, without succession, change, generation or

destruction,--this passes into perpetual succession or change,

with frequent generation and destruction. Herakleitus, on the other

hand, recognises for his primary or general law perpetual succession,

interchange of contraries, generation and destruction; this passes

into a secondary state, in which there is temporary duration and

sameness of particulars--the flux being interrupted.

The ideal [Greek: lo/gos] or law of Herakleitus is that of

unremitting process, flux, revolution, implication of Ens with

Non-Ens: the real world is an imperfect manifestation of this law,

because each particular clings to existence, and thereby causes

temporary halts in the process. Now Plato's starting point is

[Greek: to\ ai)ô/nion to\ a)ei\ ô(sau/tôs e)/chon to\ o)/ntôs

o)/n]: the perishable world of sense and particulars is the world

of process, and is so far degenerate from the eternal uniformity

of primordial Ens. See Lassalle, pp. 39-292-319.]

[Footnote 39: Plato, Timæus, p. 39 C. [Greek: ê( tê=s mia=s kai\

phronimôta/tês kuklê/seôs peri/odos]. Plato remarks that there

was a particular interval of time measured off and designated by

the revolution of each of the other planets, but that these

intervals were unnoticed and unknown by the greater part of

mankind.]

[Footnote 40: My explanation of this much controverted sentence

differs from that of previous commentators. I have given reasons

for adopting it in a separate Dissertation ('Plato and the

Rotation of the Earth,' Murray), to which I here refer. In that

Dissertation I endeavoured to show cause for dissenting from the

inference of M. Boeckh: who contends that Plato cannot have

believed in the diurnal rotation of the Earth, because he (Plato)

explicitly affirms the diurnal rotation of the outer celestial

sphere, or Aplanes. These two facts nullify each other, so that

the effect would be the same as if there were no rotation of

either. My reply to this argument was, in substance, that though

the two facts really are inconsistent--the one excluding the

other--yet we cannot safely conclude that Plato must have

perceived the inconsistency; the more so as Aristotle certainly

did not perceive it. To hold incompatible doctrines without being

aware of the incompatibility, is a state of mind sufficiently

common even in the present advanced condition of science, which I

could illustrate by many curious examples if my space allowed. It

must have been much more common in the age of Plato than** it is

now.

Batteux observes (Traduction et Remarques sur Ocellus Lucanus, ch.

iv. p. 116):--"Il y a un maxime qu'on ne doit jamais perdre de vue

en discutant les opinions des Anciens: c'est de ne point leur

prêter les conséquences de leurs principes, ni les principes de

leurs conséquences".

As a general rule, I subscribe to the soundness of this

admonition.]

[Side-note: Divine tenants of the Kosmos. Primary and

Visible Gods--Stars and Heavenly Bodies.]

It remained for the Demiurgus,--in order that the Kosmos might

become a full copy of its model the Generic Animal or Idea of

Animal,--to introduce into it those various species of animals

which that Idea contained. He first peopled it with Gods: the

eldest and earliest of whom was the Earth, planted in the centre

as sentinel over night and day: next the fixed stars, formed for

the most part of fire, and annexed to the circle of the Same or

the exterior circle, so as to impart to it light and brilliancy.

Each star was of spherical figure and had two motions,--one, of

uniform rotation peculiar to itself,--the other, an uniform

forward movement of translation, being carried along with the

great outer circle in its general rotation round the axis of the

Kosmos.[41] It is thus that the sidereal orbs, animated beings

eternal and divine, remained constantly turning round in the same

relative position: while the sun, moon, and planets, belonging to

the inner circles of the Different, and trying to revolve by their

own effort in the opposite direction to the outer sphere, became

irregular in their own velocities and variable in their relative

positions.[42] The complicated movements of these planetary

bodies, alternately approaching and receding--together with their

occultations and reappearances, full of alarming prognostic as to

consequences--cannot be described without having at hand some

diagrams or mechanical illustrations to refer to.[43]

[Footnote 41: Plato, Timæus, p. 40.]

[Footnote 42: Plato, Timæus, p. 40 B. [Greek: o(/s' a)planê=

tô=n a)/strôn zô=a thei=a o)/nta kai\ a)i+/dia], &c.]

[Footnote 43: Plato, Timæus, p. 40 D. [Greek: to\ le/gein a)/neu

dio/pseôs tou/tôn au)= tô=n mimêma/tôn ma/taios a)\n ei)/ê

po/nos.] Plato himself here acknowledges the necessity of

diagrams: the necessity was hardly less in the preceding part of

his exposition.]

[Side-note: Secondary and generated Gods--Plato's

dictum respecting them. His acquiescence in tradition.]

Such were all the primitive Gods visible and generated[44] by the

Demiurgus, to preside over and regulate the Kosmos. By them are

generated, and from them are descended, the remaining Gods.

[Footnote 44: Plato, Timæ. p. 40 D. [Greek: theô=n o(ratô=n kai\

gennêtô=n].]

Respecting these remaining Gods, however, the Platonic Timæus

holds a different language. Instead of speaking in his own name

and delivering his own convictions, as he had done about the

Demiurgus and the cosmical Gods--with the simple reservation, that

such convictions could be proclaimed only as probable and not as

demonstratively certain--he now descends to the Sokratic platform

of confessed ignorance and incapacity. "The generation of these

remaining Gods (he says) is a matter too great for me to

understand and declare. I must trust to those who have spoken upon

the subject before me--who were, as they themselves said,

offspring of the Gods, and must therefore have well known their

own fathers. It is impossible to mistrust the sons of the Gods.

Their statements indeed are unsupported either by probabilities or

by necessary demonstration; but since they here profess to be

declaring family traditions, we must obey the law and believe.[45]

Thus then let it stand and be proclaimed, upon their authority,

respecting the generation of the remaining Gods. The

offspring of Uranus and Gæa were, Okeanus and Tethys: from whom

sprang Phorkys, Kronus, Rhea, and those along with them. Kronus

and Rhea had for offspring Zeus, Hêrê, and all these who are

termed their brethren: from whom too, besides, we hear of other

offspring. Thus were generated all the Gods, both those who always

conspicuously revolve, and those who show themselves only when

they please."[46]

[Footnote 45: Plato, Timæus, pp. 40 D-E. [Greek: Peri\ de\ tô=n

a)/llôn daimo/nôn ei)pei=n kai\ gnô=nai tê\n ge/nesin mei=zon

ê)\ kath' ê(ma=s, peiste/on de\ toi=s ei)rêko/sin e)/mprosthen,

e)kgo/nois me\n theô=n ou)=sin, saphô=s de/ pou tou/s ge au)tôn

progo/nous ei)do/sin; _a)du/naton ou)=n theô=n paisi\n

a)pistei=n, kai/per a)/neu te ei)ko/tôn kai\ a)nagkai/ôn_

a)podei/xeôn le/gousin, a)ll' _ô(s oi)kei=a pha/skousin

a)pagge/llein, e)pome/nous tô=| no/mô| pisteute/on_. Ou(/tôs

ou)=n _kat' e)kei/nous_ ê(mi=n ê( ge/nesis peri\ tou/tôn

tô=n theô=n e)che/tô kai\ lege/sthô.]

So, too, in the Platonic Epinomis, attached as an appendix to the

Treatise De Legibus, we find (p. 984) Plato--after arranging his

quintuple scale of elemental animals (fire, æther, air, water,

earth), the highest and most divine being the stars or visible

Gods, the lowest being man, and the three others intermediate

between the two; after having thus laid out the scale, he leaves

to others to determine, [Greek: o(pê=| tis e)the/lei], in which

place Zeus, Hêrê, and the other Gods, are to be considered as

lodged. He will not contradict any one's feeling on that point; he

strongly protests (p. 985 D) against all attempts on the part of

the lawgiver to innovate ([Greek: kainotomei=n]) in contravention

of ancient religious tradition--this is what Aristophanes in the

Nubes, and Melêtus before the Dikasts, accuse Sokrates of

doing--but he denounces harshly all who will not acknowledge with

worship and sacrifice the sublime divinity of the Sun, Moon, Stars,

and Planets.

The Platonic declaration given here--[Greek: e)pome/nous tô=|

no/mô| pisteute/on]--is illustrated in the lines of Euripides,

Bacchæ, 202--

[Greek: ou)de\n sophizo/mestha toi=si dai/mosin;

patri/ous paradocha/s, a(/s th' o(mê/likas chro/nô|

kektê/meth', ou)dei\s au)ta\ katabalei= lo/gos,

ou)d' ê)\n di' a)krô=n to\ sopho\n eu(/rêtai phrenô=n.]]

[Footnote 46: Plato, Timæ. p. 41 A. [Greek: e)pei\ d' ou)=n

pa/ntes o(/soi te peripolou=si phanerô=s, kai\ o(/soi phai/nontai

kath' o(/son a)\n e)the/lôsi, theoi\ ge/nesin e)/schon.]]

[Side-note: Remarks on Plato's Canon of Belief.]

The passage above cited serves to illustrate both Plato's own

canon of belief, and his position in regard to his countrymen. The

question here is, about the Gods of tradition and of the popular

faith: with the paternity and filiation ascribed to them, by

Hesiod and the other poets, from whom Greeks of the fifth and

fourth centuries B.C. learnt their Theogony.[47] Plato

was a man both competent and willing to strike out a physical

theology of his own, but not to follow passively in the track of

orthodox tradition. I have stated briefly what he has affirmed

about the cosmical Gods (Earth, Stars, Sun, Planets) generated or

constructed by the Demiurgus as portions or members of the Kosmos:

their bodies, out of fire and other elements,--their souls out of

the Forms or abstractions called Identity and Diversity; while the

entire Kosmos is put together after the model of the Generic Idea

or Form of Animal. All this, combined with supposed purposes, and

fancies of arithmetical proportion dictating the proceedings of

the Demiurgus, Plato does not hesitate to proclaim on his own

authority and as his own belief--though he does not carry it

farther than probability.

[Footnote 47: Herodot. ii. 53.]

But while the feeling of spontaneous belief thus readily arises in

Plato's mind, following in the wake of his own constructive

imagination and ethical or æsthetical sentiment (_fingunt simul

creduntque_)--it does not so readily cleave to the theological

dogmas in actual circulation around him. In the generation of Gods

from Uranus and Gæa--which he as well as other Athenian youths

must have learnt when they recited Hesiod with their

schoolmasters--he can see neither proof nor probability: he

can find no internal ground for belief.[48] He declares himself

incompetent: he will not undertake to affirm any thing upon his

own judgment: the mystery is too dark for him to penetrate. Yet on

the other hand, though it would be rash to affirm, it would be

equally rash to deny. Nearly all around him are believers, at

least as well satisfied with their creed as he was with the

uncertified affirmations of his own Timæus. He cannot prove them

to be wrong, except by appealing to an ethical or æsthetical

sentiment which they do not share. Among the Gods said to be

descended from Uranus and Gæa, were all those to whom public

worship was paid in Greece,--to whom the genealogies of the heroic

and sacred families were traced,--and by whom cities as well as

individuals believed themselves to be protected in dangers, healed

in epidemics, and enlightened on critical emergencies through

seasonable revelations and prophecies. Against an established

creed thus avouched, it was dangerous to raise any doubts.

Moreover Plato could not have forgotten the fate of his master

Sokrates;[49] who was indicted both for not acknowledging the Gods

whom the city acknowledged, and for introducing other new divine

matters and persons. There could be no doubt that Plato was guilty

on this latter count: prudence therefore rendered it the more

incumbent on him to guard against being implicated in the former

count also. Here then Plato formally abnegates his own

self-judging power, and submits himself to orthodox authority. "It

is impossible to doubt what we have learnt from witnesses, who

declared themselves to be the offspring of the Gods, and who must

of course have known their own family affairs. We must obey the

law and believe." In what proportion such submission, of reason to

authority, embodied the sincere feeling of Pascal and

Malebranche, or the irony of Bayle and Voltaire, we are

unable to determine.[50]

[Footnote 48: The remark made by Condorcet upon Buffon is

strikingly applicable to Plato:--"On n'a reproché à M. de Buffon

que ses hypothèses. Ce sont aussi des espèces de fables--mais des

fables produites par une imagination active qui a besoin de créer,

et non par une imagination passive qui cède à des impressions

étrangères" (Condorcet, Éloge de Buffon, ad fin.).

[Greek: Au)todi/daktos d' ei)mi/, theo\s de/ moi e)n phresi\n

oi)/mas

Pantoi/as e)ne/phusen]--(Homer, Odyss. xxii. 347)--the

declaration of the bard Phemius.]

[Footnote 49: Xenoph. Memor. i. 1. [Greek: A)dikei= Sôkra/tês,

ou(\s me\n ê( po/lis nomi/zei theou/s, ou) nomi/zôn, e(/tera de\

kaina\ daimo/nia ei)sphe/rôn.]

The word [Greek: daimo/nia] may mean matters, or persons, or both

together.]

[Footnote 50: M. Martin supposes Plato to speak ironically, or

with a prudent reserve, Études sur le Timée, ii. p. 146.

What Plato says here about the Gods who bore personal names, and

were believed in by the contemporary public--is substantially

equivalent to the well-known profession of ignorance enunciated by

the Sophist Protagoras, introduced by him at the beginning of one

of his treatises. [Greek: Peri\ de\ theô=n ou)/te ei) ei)si/n,

ou)/th' o(poi=oi/ tine/s ei)si, du/namai le/gein; polla\ ga/r

e)sti ta\ kôlu/onta/ me] (Sextus Emp. adv. Mathem. ix. 56); a

declaration which, circumspect as it was (see the remark of the

sillographer Timon in Sextus), drew upon him the displeasure of

the Athenians, so that his books were burnt, and himself forced to

leave the city.]

[Side-note: Address and order of the Demiurgus to the

generated Gods.]

Having thus, during one short paragraph, proclaimed his deference,

if not his adhesion, to inspired traditions, Plato again resumes

the declaration of his own beliefs and his own book of Genesis,

without any farther appeal to authority, and without any

intimation that he is touching on mysteries too great for his

reason. When these Gods, the visible as well as the invisible,[51]

had all been constructed or generated, he (or Timæus) tells us

that the Demiurgus addressed them and informed them that they

would be of immortal duration--not indeed in their own nature, but

through his determination: that to complete the perfection of the

newly-begotten Kosmos, there were three other distinct races of

animals, all mortal, to be added: that he could not himself

undertake the construction of these three, because they would

thereby be rendered immortal, but that he confided such

construction to them (the Gods): that he would himself supply, for

the best of these three new races, an immortal element as guide

and superintendent, and that they were to join along with it

mortal and bodily accompaniments, to constitute men and animals;

thus imitating the power which he had displayed in the generation

of themselves.[52]

[Footnote 51: Plato, Timæus, p. 41 A.]

[Footnote 52: Plato, Timæus, p. 41 C. [Greek: tre/pesthe kata\

phu/sin u(mei=s e)pi\ tê\n tô=n zô/ôn dêmiourgi/an,

mimou/menoi tê\n e)mê\n du/namin peri\ tê\n u(mete/ran

ge/nesin.]]

[Side-note: Preparations for the construction of man.

Conjunction of three souls and one body.]

After this address (which Plato puts into the first person, in

Homeric manner), the Demiurgus compounded together, again and in

the same bowl, the remnant of the same elements out of which he

had formed the kosmical soul, but in perfection and purity greatly

inferior. The total mass thus formed was distributed into souls

equal in number to the stars. The Demiurgus placed each soul

in a star of its own, carried it round thus in the kosmical

rotation, and explained to it the destiny intended for all. For

each alike there was to be an appointed hour of birth, and of

conjunction with a body, as well as with two inferior sorts or

varieties of soul or mind. From such conjunction would follow, as

a necessary consequence, implanted sensibility and motive power,

with all its accompaniments of pleasure, pain, desire, fear,

anger, and such like. These were the irrational enemies, which the

rational and immortal soul would have to controul and subdue, as a

condition of just life. If it succeeded in the combat so as to

live a good life, it would return after death to the abode of its

own peculiar star. But if it failed, it would have a second birth

into the inferior nature and body of a female: if, here also, it

continued to be evil, it would be transferred after death to the

body of some inferior animal. Such transmigration would be farther

continued from animal to animal, until the rational soul should

acquire thorough controul over the irrational and turbulent. When

this was attained, the rational soul would be allowed to return to

its original privilege and happiness, residing in its own peculiar

star.[53]

[Footnote 53: Plato, Timæus, p. 42 B-D.]

It was thus that the Demiurgus confided to the recently-generated

Gods the task of fabricating both mortal bodies, and mortal souls,

to be joined with these immortal souls in their new stage of

existence--and of guiding and governing the new mortal animal in

the best manner, unless in so far as the latter should be the

cause of mischief to himself. The Demiurgus decreed and proclaimed

this beforehand, in order (says Plato) that he might not himself

be the cause of any of the evil which might ensue[54] to

individual men.

[Footnote 54: Plato, Timæus, p. 42 D-E. [Greek:

Diathesmothetê/sas de\ pa/nta au)toi=s tau=ta, i(/na tê=s

e)/peita ei)/ê kaki/as e(ka/stôn a)nai/tios . . . pare/dôke

theoi=s sô/mata pla/ttein thnêta/, to/ te e)pi/loipon o(/son

e)/t' ê)=n psuchê=s a)nthrôpi/nês de/on prosgene/sthai, tou=to

kai\ pa/nth' o(/sa a)ko/loutha e)kei/nois a)pergasame/nous

a)/rchein, kai\ kata\ du/namin o(/, ti ka/llista kai\ a)/rista to\

thnêto\n diakuberna=|n zô=on, o(/, ti mê\ kakô=n au)to\

e(autô=| gi/gnoito ai)/tion.]

We have here the theory, intimated but not expanded by Plato, that

man is, by misconduct or folly, the cause of all the evil suffered

on earth. That the Gods are not the cause of any evil, he tells us

in Republ. ii. p. 379. It seems, however, that he did not remain

satisfied with the theory of the Timæus, because we find a

different theory in the treatise De Legibus (x. p. 896 E)--two

kosmical souls, one good, the other evil.

Moreover, the recital of the Timæus itself (besides another

express passage in it, pp. 86 D-87 A) plainly contradicts the

theory, that man is the cause of his own sufferings and evil. The

Demiurgus himself is described as the cause, by directing immortal

souls to be joined with mortal bodies. The Demiurgus had

constructed a beautiful Kosmos, with perfect and regular

rotations--with the Gods, sidereal, planetary, and invisible--and

with immortal souls distributed throughout the stars and earth,

understanding and appreciating the cosmical rotations. So far all

is admirable and faultless. But he is not satisfied with this. He

determines to join each of these immortal souls with two mortal

souls and with a mortal body. According to Plato's own showing,

the immortal soul incurs nothing but corruption, disturbance, and

stupidity, by such junction: as Empedokles and Herakleitus had

said before (Plut. Solert. Animal. 7, p. 964 E). It is at first

deprived of all intelligence ([Greek: a)/nous]); from this

stupefaction it gradually but partially recovers; yet nothing

short of the best possible education and discipline will enable it

to contend, and even then imperfectly, against the corruption and

incumbrance arising out of its companion the body; lastly, if it

should contend with every success, the only recompense which

awaits it is to be re-transferred to the star from whence it came

down. What reason was there for removing the immortal soul from

its happy and privileged position, to be degraded by forced

companionship with an unworthy body and two inferior souls? The

reason assigned is, that the Demiurgus required the Kosmos to be

enlarged into a full and exact copy of the [Greek: Au)to/zôon] or

Generic Animal, which comprehended four subordinate varieties of

animals; one of them good (the Gods)--the other three inferior and

corrupt, Men, Birds, Fishes. But here, according to Plato's own

exposition, it was the Demiurgus himself and his plan that was at

fault. What necessity was there to copy the worst parts of the

Generic Animal as well as the best? The Kosmos would have been

decidedly better, though it might have been less complete, without

such unenviable accompaniments. When Plato constructs his own

community (Republic and Legg.) he does not knowingly train up

defective persons, or prepare the foundation for such, in order

that every variety of character may be included. We may add here,

according to Plato himself, [Greek: Nou=s] (intelligence or

reason) belongs not to all human beings, but only to a small

fraction of them (Timæus, p. 51 E). Except in these few, the

immortal soul is therefore irrecoverably debased by its union with

the body.]

[Side-note: Proceedings of the generated Gods--they

fabricate the cranium, as miniature of the Kosmos, with the

rational soul rotating within it.]

Accordingly the Gods, sons of the Demiurgus, entered upon the

task, trying to imitate their father. Borrowing from the Kosmos

portions of the four elements, with engagement that what was

borrowed should one day be paid back, they glued them together,

and fastened them by numerous minute invisible pegs into one body.

Into this body, always decaying and requiring renovation, they

introduced the immortal soul, with its double circular

rotations--the Circles of the Same and of the Diverse: embodying it

in the cranium, which was made spherical in exterior form like the

Kosmos, and admitting within it no other motion but the rotatory.

The head, the most divine portion of the human system, was made

master; while the body was admitted only as subject and

ministerial. The body was endowed with all the six varieties of

motive power, forward, backwards--upward, downward--to the right,

to the left.[55] The phenomena of nutrition and sensation

began. But all these irregular movements, and violent multifarious

agitations, checked or disturbed the regular rotations of the

immortal soul in the cranium, perverting the arithmetical

proportion, and harmony belonging to them. The rotations of the

Circles of Same and Diverse were made to convey false and foolish

affirmation. The soul became utterly destitute of intelligence, on

being first joined to the body, and for some time afterwards.[56]

But in the course of time the violence of these disturbing

currents abates, so that the rotations of the Circles in the head

can take place with more quiet and regularity. The man then

becomes more and more intelligent. If subjected to good education

and discipline, he will be made gradually sound and whole, free

from corruption: but if he neglect this precaution, his life

remains a lame one, and he returns back to Hades incomplete and

unprofitable.[57]

[Footnote 55: Plato, Timæus, pp. 43 B, 44 D.

Plato supposes an etymological connection between [Greek:

ai)sthê/seis] and [Greek: a)i+/ssô], p. 43 C.]

[Footnote 56: Plato, Timæus, p. 44 B. [Greek: kai\ dia\ dê\

pa/nta tau=ta ta\ pathê/mata nu=n kat' a)rcha/s te a)/nous

psuchê\ gi/gnetai to\ prô=ton, o(/tan ei)s sô=ma e)ndethê=|

thnêto/n.]]

[Footnote 57: Plato, Timæus, p. 44 C.]

[Side-note: The cranium is mounted on a tall body--six

varieties of motion--organs of sense. Vision--Light.]

The Gods, when they undertook the fabrication of the body, foresaw

the inconvenience of allowing the head--with its intelligent

rotations, and with the immortal soul enclosed in it--to roll

along the ground, unable to get over a height, or out of a

hollow.[58] Accordingly they mounted it upon a tall body; with

arms and legs as instruments of movement, support, and defence.

They caused the movements to be generally directed forward and not

backward; since front is more honourable and more commanding than

rear. For the same reason, they placed the face, with the organs

of sense, in the fore part of the head. Within the eyes, they

planted that variety of fire which does not burn, but is called

light, homogeneous with the light without. We are enabled to see

in the daytime, because the light within our eyes pours out

through the centre of them, and commingles with the light without.

The two, being thus confounded together, transmit movements from

every object which they touch, through the eye inward to the soul;

and thus bring about the sensation of sight. At night no vision

takes place: because the light from the interior of our eyes,

even when it still comes out, finds no cognate light in the air

without, and thus becomes extinguished in the darkness. All the

light within the eye would thus have been lost, if the Gods had

not provided a protection: they contrived the eyelids which drop

and shut up the interior light within. This light, being prevented

from egress, diffuses itself throughout the interior system, and

tranquillises the movements within so as to bring on sleep:

without dreams, if all the movements are quenched--with dreams,

corresponding to the movements which remain if there are any

such.[59]

[Footnote 58: Plato, Timæus, p. 44 D-E. [Greek: i(/n' ou)=n mê\

kulindou/menon e)pi\ gê=s, u(/lê te kai\ ba/thê pantodapa\

e)chou/sês, a)poroi= ta\ me\n u(perbai/nein, e)/nthen de\

e)kbai/nein, o)/chêm' au)tô=| tou=to kai\ eu)pori/an

e)/dosan.]]

[Footnote 59: Plato, Timæus, p. 45. The theory of vision here

given by Plato is interesting. A theory, similar in the main, had

been propounded by Empedoklês before him. Aristotel. De Sensu, p.

437 b.; Theophrast. De Sensu, cap. 5-9, p. 88 of Philipson's

[Greek: U(/lê A)nthrôpi/nê]. Aristotle himself impugns the

theory. It is reported and discussed in Galen, De Hippocratis et

Platonis Dogmat. vii. 5, 6, p. 619 seqq. ed. Kühn.

The different theories of vision among the ancient philosophers

anterior to Aristotle are thus enumerated by E. H. von Baumhauer

(De Sententiis Veterum Philosophorum Græcorum de Visu, Lumine, et

Coloribus, Utrecht, 1843, p. 137):--"De videndi modo tres apud

antiquos primarias theorias invenimus: et primam quidem,

emanatione lucis ex oculis ad corpora externa, ejusque reflexu ad

oculos (Pythagorei, Alcmæon): alteram emanationibus e corporibus,

quæ per oculos veluti per canales ad animum penetrent (Eleatici,

Heraclitus, Gorgias): quam sententiam Anaxagoras et Diogenes

Apolloniates eatenus mutarunt, quod dicerent pupillam quasi

speculum esse quod imagines acceptas ad animum rejiciat. Tertia

theoria, orta è conjunctione duarum priorum, statuebat tam ex

oculis quam corporibus emanationes fieri, et ambarum illarum

concursu visum effici, quum conformata imago per meatus ad animum

perveniat (Empedocles, Protagoras, Plato). Huic sententiæ etiam

Democritus annumerari potest; qui eam planè secundum materiam, ut

dicunt, exposuit."

The theory of Plato is described in the same treatise,

pp. 106-112.]

[Side-note: Principal advantages of sight and hearing.

Observations of the rotation of the Kosmos.]

Such are the auxiliary causes (continues Plato), often mistaken by

others for principal causes, which the Gods employed to bring

about sight. In themselves, they have no regularity of action: for

nothing can be regular in action without mind and

intelligence.[60] But the most important among all the advantages

of sight is, that it enables us to observe and study the rotations

of the Kosmos and of the sidereal and planetary bodies. It is the

observed rotations of days, months, and years, which impart to us

the ideas of time and number, and enable us to investigate the

universe. Hence we derive philosophy, the greatest of all

blessings. Hence too we learn to apply the celestial rotations as

a rule and model to amend the rotations of intelligence in our

own cranium--since the first are regular and unerring, while

the second are disorderly and changeful.[61] It was for the like

purpose, in view to the promotion of philosophy, that the Gods

gave us voice and hearing. Both discourse and musical harmony are

essential for this purpose. Harmony and rhythm are presents to us,

from the Muses, not, as men now employ them, for unreflecting

pleasure and recreation--but for the same purpose of regulating

and attuning the disorderly rotations of the soul, and of

correcting the ungraceful and unmeasured movements natural to the

body.[62]

[Footnote 60: Plato, Timæus, p. 46 D-E.]

[Footnote 61: Plato, Timæus, pp. 47 B-C, 90 C.]

[Footnote 62: Plato, Timæus, p. 47 D-E. [Greek: ê( de\ a(rmoni/a

. . . xu/mmachos u(po\ Mousô=n de/dotai; kai\ r(uthmo\s au)= . . .

u(po\ tô=n au)tô=n e)do/thê.] Here we see Plato, in the usual

Hellenic vein, particularising the functions and attributes of the

different Gods and Goddesses.]

[Side-note: The Kosmos is product of joint action of Reason

and Necessity. The four visible and tangible elements are not

primitive.]

At this point of the exposition, the Platonic Timæus breaks off

the thread, and takes up a new commencement. Thus far (he says) we

have proceeded in explaining the part of Reason or Intelligence in

the fabrication of the Kosmos. We must now explain the part of

Necessity: for the genesis of the Kosmos results from co-operation

of the two. By necessity (as has been said before) Plato means

random, indeterminate, chaotic, pre-existent, spontaneity of

movement or force: spontaneity ([Greek: ê( planôme/nê ai)ti/a])

upon which Reason works by persuasion up to a certain point,

prevailing upon it to submit to some degree of fixity and

regularity.[63] Timæus had described the body of the Kosmos as

being constructed by the Demiurgus out of the four elements; thus

assuming fire, air, earth, water, as pre-existent. But he now

corrects himself, and tells us that such assumption is

unwarranted. We must (he remarks) give a better and fuller

explanation of the Kosmos. No one of these four elements is either

primordial, or permanently distinct and definite in itself.

[Footnote 63: Plato, Timæus, p. 48 A.]

The only primordial reality is, an indeterminate, all-recipient

_fundamentum_: having no form or determination of its own,

but capable of receiving any form or determination from without.

[Side-note: Forms or Ideas and Materia Prima--Forms of the

Elements--Place, or Receptivity.]

In the second explanation now given by Plato of the Kosmos and its

genesis, he assumes this invisible _fundamentum_ (which he

had not assumed before) as "the mother or nurse of all

generation". He assumes, besides, the eternal Forms or Ideas, to

act upon it and to bestow determination or quality. These forms

fulfil the office of father: the offspring of the two is--the

generated, concrete, visible, objects,[64] imitations of the Forms

or Ideas, begotten out of this mother. How the Ideas act upon the

Materia Prima, Plato cannot well explain: but each Form stamps an

imitation or copy of itself upon portions of the common

_Fundamentum_.[65]

[Footnote 64: Plato, Timæus, p. 51 A. [Greek: tê\n tou=

gegono/tos o(ratou= kai\ pa/ntôs ai)sthêtou= mête/ra kai\

u(podochê/n.]]

[Footnote 65: Plato, Timæus, pp. 50-51. 50 C: [Greek: tupôthe/nta

a)p' au)tô=n tro/pon tina\ du/sphraston kai\ thaumasto/n.] 51 A:

[Greek: a)no/raton ei)=do/s ti, kai\ a)/morphon, pandeche/s,

_metalamba/non de\ a)porô/tata/ pê| tou= noêtou=_ kai\

dusalôto/taton.]]

But do there really exist any such Forms or Ideas--as Fire _per

se_, the Generic Fire--Water _per se_, the Generic Water,

invisible and intangible?[66] Or is this mere unfounded speech?

Does there exist nothing really anywhere, beyond the visible

objects which we see and touch?[67]

[Footnote 66: Plato, Timæus, p. 51 C.]

[Footnote 67: Ueberweg, in a learned Dissertation, Ueber die

Platonische Weltseele (pp. 52-53), seeks to establish a greater

distinction between the Phædrus, Phædon, and Timæus, in respect to

the way in which Plato affirms the separate substantiality of

Ideas, than the language of the dialogues warrants. He contends

that the separate substantiality of the Platonic Ideas is more

peremptorily affirmed in the Timæus than in the Phædrus. But this

will not be found borne out if we look at Phædrus, p. 247, where

the affirmation is quite as peremptory as that in the Timæus;

correlating too, as it does in the Timæus, with [Greek: Nou=s] as

the contemplating subject. Indeed the point may be said to be

affirmed more positively in the Phædrus, because the [Greek:

u(peroura/nios to/pos] is assigned to the Ideas, while in the

Timæus all [Greek: to/pos] or local existence is denied to them

(p. 52 B-C). Sensible objects are presented in the Phædrus as

faint resemblances of the archetypal Ideas (p. 250 C), just as

they are in the Timæus: on the other hand, [Greek: to\

metalamba/nein tou= noêtou=] occurs in the Timæus (p. 51 A),

equivalent to [Greek: to\ mete/chein], which Ueberweg states to be

discontinued.]

We must assume (says Plato, after a certain brief argument which

he himself does not regard as quite complete) the Forms or Ideas

of Fire, Air, Water, Earth, as distinct and self-existent,

eternal, indestructible, unchangeable--neither visible nor

tangible, but apprehended by Reason or Intellect alone--neither

receiving anything else from without, nor themselves moving to

anything else. Distinct from these--images of these, and bearing

the same name--are the sensible objects called Fire, Water,

&c.--objects of sense and opinion--always in a state of

transition--generated and destroyed, but always generated in some

place and destroyed out of some place. There is to be

assumed, besides, distinct from the two preceding--as a third

_fundamentum_--the place or receptacle in which these images

are localised, generated, and nursed up. This place, or formless

primitive receptivity, is indestructible, but out of all reach of

sense, and difficult to believe in, inasmuch as it is only

accessible by a spurious sort of ratiocination.[68]

[Footnote 68: Plato, Timæus, p. 52 B. [Greek: au)to\ de\ met'

a)naisthêsi/as a(pto\n logismô=| tini\ no/thô|, mo/gis

pisto/n.]]

[Side-note: Primordial Chaos--Effect of intervention by the

Demiurgus.]

Anterior to the construction of the Kosmos, the Forms or Ideas of

the four elements had already begun to act upon this primitive

recipient or receptacle, but in a confused and irregular way.

Neither of the four could impress itself in a special and definite

manner: there were some vestiges of each, but each was incomplete:

all were in stir and agitation, yet without any measure or fixed

rule. Thick and heavy, however, were tending to separate from thin

and light, and each particle thus tending to occupy a place of its

own.[69] In this condition (the primordial moving chaos of the

poets and earlier philosophers), things were found by the

Demiurgus, when he undertook to construct the Kosmos. There was no

ready made Fire, Water, &c. (as Plato had assumed at the

opening of the Timæus), but an agitated _imbroglio_ of all,

with the portions tending to separate from each other, and to

agglomerate each in a place of its own. The Demiurgus brought

these four elements out of confusion into definite bodies and

regular movements. He gave to each a body, constructed upon the

most beautiful proportions of arithmetic and geometry, as far as

this was possible.[70]

[Footnote 69: Plato, Timæus, pp. 52-53. 53 A: [Greek: ta\ te/ttara

ge/nê seio/mena u(po\ tê=s dexame/nês, kinoume/nês au)tê=s

oi(=on o)rga/nou seismo\n pare/chontos, ta\ me\n a)nomoio/tata

plei=ston au)ta\ a)ph' au(tô=n o(ri/zein, ta\ d' o(moio/tata

ma/lista ei)s tau)to\n xunôthei=n; dio\ dê\ kai\ chô/ran tau=ta

a)/lla a)/llên i)/schein, pri\n kai\ to\ pa=n e)x au)tô=n

diakosmêthe\n gene/sthai.] 57 C: [Greek: die/stêke me\n ga\r

tou= ge/nous e(ka/stou ta\ plê/thê kata\ to/pon i)/dion dia\

tê\n tê=s dechome/nês ki/nêsin.] 58 C.]

[Footnote 70: Plato, Timæus, p. 53 B. [Greek: to\ de\ ê(=|

dunato\n ô(s ka/llista a)/rista/ te e)x ou)ch ou(/tôs

e)cho/ntôn to\n theo\n au)ta\ xunista/nai, para\ pa/nta ê(mi=n,

ô(s a)ei/, tou=to lego/menon u(parche/tô.]

This is the hypothesis pervading all the Timæus--construction the

best and finest which the case admitted. The limitations accompany

the assumed purpose throughout.]

[Side-note: Geometrical theory of the elements--fundamental

triangles--regular solids.]

Respecting such proportions, the theory which Plato here lays out

is admitted by himself to be a novel one; but it is doubtless

borrowed, with more or less modification, from the Pythagoreans.

Every solid body is circumscribed by plane surfaces: every

plane surface is composed of triangles: all triangles are

generated out of two--the right-angled isoskeles triangle--and the

right-angled scalene or oblong triangle. Of this oblong there are

infinite varieties: but the most beautiful is a right-angled

triangle, having the hypotenuse twice as long as the lesser of the

two other sides.[71] From this sort of oblong triangle are

generated the tetrahedron or pyramid--the octahedron--and the

eikosihedron: from the equilateral triangle is generated the cube.

The cube, as the most stable and solid, was assigned by the

Demiurgus for the fundamental structure of earth: the pyramid for

that of fire: the octahedron for that of air: the eikosihedron for

that of water. The purpose was that the four should be in

continuous geometrical proportion: as Fire to Air, so Air to

Water: as Air to Water, so Water to Earth. Lastly, the

Dodekahedron was assigned as the basis of structure for the

spherical Kosmos itself or universe.[72] Upon this arrangement

each of the three elements--fire, water, air--passes into the

other; being generated from the same radical triangle. But earth

does not pass into either of the three (nor either of these into

earth), being generated from a different radical triangle. The

pyramid, as thin, sharp, and cutting, was assigned to fire as

the quickest and most piercing of the four elements: the cube as

most solid and difficult to move, was allotted to earth, the

stationary element. Fire was composed of pyramids of different

size, yet each too small to be visible by itself, and becoming

visible only when grouped together in masses: the earth was

composed of cubes of different size, each invisible from

smallness: the other elements in like manner, each from its

respective solid,[73] in exact proportion and harmony, as far as

Necessity could be persuaded to tolerate. All the five regular

solids were thus employed in the configuration and structure of

the Kosmos.[74]

[Footnote 71: Plato, Timæus, pp. 53-54. 53 C: [Greek: a)êthei=

lo/gô| dêlou=n].]

[Footnote 72: That Plato intended, by this elaborate geometrical

construction, to arrive at a continuous geometrical proportion

between the four elements, he tells us (p. 32 A-B), adding the

qualifying words [Greek: kath' o(/son ê)=n dunato/n]. M. Boeckh,

however (De Platonicâ Corporis Mundani Fabricâ, pp. viii.-xxvi.),

has shown that the geometrical proportion cannot be properly

concluded from the premisses assumed by Plato:--"Platonis

elementorum doctrinam et parum sibi constare, neque omnibus

numeris absolutam esse, immo multis incommodis laborare, et divini

ingenii lusui magis quam disciplinæ severitati originem debere

fatebimur; nec profundiorem et abstrusiorem naturæ cognitionem in

eâ sitam esse suspicabimur--in quem errorem etiam Joh. Keplerus,

summi ingenii homo, incidit".

Respecting the Dodekahedron, see Zeller, Gesch. der Philos. ii. p.

513, ed. 2nd. There is some obscurity about it. In the Epinomis

(p. 981 C) Plato gives the Æther as a fifth element, besides the

four commonly known and recited in the Timæus. It appears that

Philolaus, as well as Xenokrates, conceived the Dodekahedron as

the structural form of Æther (Schol. ad Aristot. Physic. p. 427,

a. 16, Brandis): and Xenokrates expressly says, that Plato himself

recognised it as such. Zeller dissents from this view, and thinks

that nothing more is meant than the implication, that the

Dodekahedron can have a sphere described round it more readily

than any of the other figures named.

Opponents of Plato remarked that he [Greek: katemathêmatikeu/sato

tê\n phu/sin], Schol. ad Aristot. Metaph. A. 985, b. 23, p. 539,

Brandis. Aristotle devotes himself in many places to the

refutation of the Platonic doctrine on this point; see De Coelo,

iii. 8, 306-307, and elsewhere.]

[Footnote 73: Plato, Timæus, p. 56 C. [Greek: o(/pêper ê( tê=s

A)na/gkês e(kou=sa peisthei=sa te phu/sis u(pei=ke.]]

[Footnote 74: Plato, Timæus, pp. 55-56.]

Such was the mode of formation of the four so-called elemental

bodies.[75] Of each of the four, there are diverse species or

varieties: and that which distinguishes one variety of the same

element from another variety is, that the constituent triangles,

though all similar, are of different magnitudes. The diversity of

these combinations, though the primary triangles are similar, is

infinite: the student of Nature must follow it out, to obtain any

probable result.[76]

[Footnote 75: Plato, Timæus, p. 57 C. [Greek: o(/sa a)/krata kai\

prô=ta sô/mata.]

The Platonist Attikus (ap. Eusebium, Præp. Ev. xv. 7) blames

Aristotle for dissenting from Plato on this point, and for

recognising the celestial matter as a fifth essence distinct from

the four elements. Plato (he says) followed both anterior

traditions and self-evident sense ([Greek: tê=| peri\ au)ta\

e)nargei/a|]) in admitting only the four elements, and in

regarding all things as either compounds or varieties of these.

But Aristotle, thinking to make parade of superior philosophical

sagacity, [Greek: proskatêri/thmêse toi=s phainome/nois

te/ttarsi sô/masi tê\n pe/mptên ou)si/an, pa/nu me\n lamprô=s

kai\ philodô/rôs tê=| phu/sei chrêsa/menos, mê\ sunidô\n de\

_o(/ti ou) nomothetei=n dei= phusiologou=nta, ta\ de\ tê=s

phu/seôs au)tê=s e)xistorei=n_.] This last precept is what we

are surprised to read in a Platonist of the third century

B.C. "When you are philosophising upon Nature, do not lay

down the law, but search out the real facts of Nature." It is

truly Baconian: it is justly applicable as a caution to Aristotle,

against whom Attikus directs it; but it is still more eminently

applicable to Plato, against whom he does not direct it.]

[Footnote 76: Plato, Timæus, p. 57 D.]

[Side-note: Varieties of each element.]