Plato next enumerates the several varieties of each element--fire,

water, earth.[77] He then proceeds to mention the attributes,

properties, affections, &c., of each: which he characterises

as essentially relative to a sentient Subject: nothing being

absolute except the constituent geometrical figures. You cannot

describe these attributes (he says) without assuming (what has not

yet been described) the sensitive or mortal soul, to which

they are relative.[78] Assuming this provisionally, Plato gives

account of Hot and Cold, Hard and Soft, Heavy and Light, Rough and

Smooth, &c.[79] Then he describes, first, the sensations of

pleasure and pain, common to the whole body--next those of the

special senses, sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch.[80] These

descriptions are very curious and interesting. I am compelled to

pass them over by want of space, and shall proceed to the

statements respecting the two mortal souls and the containing

organism--which belong to a vein more analogous to that of the

other Platonic dialogues.

[Footnote 77: Plato, Timæus, pp. 58-61 C.]

[Footnote 78: Plato, Timæus, p. 61 C-D. [Greek: Prô=ton me\n

ou)=n u(pa/rchein ai)/sthêsin dei= toi=s legome/nois (ge/nesin)

a)ei/; sarko\s de\ kai\ tô=n peri\ sa/rka ge/nesin, psuchê=s te

o(/son thnêto/n, ou(/pô dielêlu/thamen. Tugcha/nei de\ ou)/te

tau=ta chôri\s tô=n peri\ ta\ pathê/mata o(/sa ai)sthêtika/,

ou)/t' e)kei=na a)/neu tou/tôn dunata\ i(kanô=s lechthê=nai;

to\ de\ a(/ma schedo\n ou) dunato/n. U(pothete/on dê\ pro/teron

tha/tera, ta\ d' u(/stera u(potethe/nta e)pa/nimen au)=this. I(/na

ou)=n e(xê=s ta\ pathê/mata le/gêtai toi=s ge/nesin, e)/stô

pro/tera ê(mi=n ta\ peri\ sô=ma kai\ psuchê\n o)/nta.]]

[Footnote 79: Plato, Tim. pp. 62-64 B. Demokritus appears to have

held on this point an opinion approaching to that of Plato. See

Democr. Frag. ed. Mullach, pp. 204-215: Aristot. Metaph. A. p.

985, b. 15; De Sensu, s. 62-65; Sextus Empiric. adv. Math. vii.

135.

[Greek: Peri\ me\n ou)=n bare/os kai\ kou/phou kai\ sklêrou= kai\

malakou=, e)n tou/tois a)phori/zei--tô=n d' a)/llôn

ai)sthêtô=n ou)deno\s ei)=nai phu/sin, a)lla\ pa/nta pa/thê

tê=s ai)sthê/seôs a)lloioume/nês.] We may remark that Plato

includes hardness and softness, the different varieties of

resistance, among the secondary or relative qualities of matter;

all that he seems to conceive as absolute are extension and

figure, the geometrical conception of matter. In the view of most

modern philosophers, resistance is considered as the most

obviously and undeniably _absolute_ of all the attributes of

matter, as that which serves to prove that matter itself is

absolute. Dr. Johnson refuted the doctrine of Berkeley by knocking

a stick against the ground; and a similar refutation is adopted in

words by Reid and Stewart (see Mill's System of Logic, Book vi. ad

finem, also Book i. ch. 3, s. 7-8). To me the fact appealed to by

Johnson appears an evidence in favour of Berkeley's theory rather

than against it. The Resistant ([Greek: o(\ pare/chei prosbolê\n

kai\ e)paphê/n tina], Plato, Sophist. p. 246 A) can be understood

only as a correlate of something which is resisted: the fact of

sense called Resistance is an indivisible fact, involving the

implication of the two. In the first instance it is the resistance

experienced to our own motions (A. Bain, The Senses and the

Intellect, p. 91, 3rd ed.), and thus involves the feeling of our

own spontaneous muscular energy.

The Timæus of Plato is not noticed by Sir W. Hamilton in his very

learned and instructive Dissertation on the Primary and Secondary

Qualities of Body (notes to his edition of Reid's Works, p. 826),

though it bears upon his point more than the Theætêtus, which he

mentions.]

[Footnote 80: Plato, Timæus, pp. 65-69 E.]

[Side-note: Construction of man imposed by the Demiurgus

upon the secondary Gods. Triple Soul. Distribution thereof in the

body.]

The Demiurgus, after having constructed the entire Kosmos,

together with the generated Gods, as well as Necessity would

permit--imposed upon these Gods the task of constructing Man: the

second best of the four varieties of animals whom he considered it

necessary to include in the Kosmos. He furnished to them as a

basis an immortal rational soul (diluted remnant from the

soul of the Kosmos); with which they were directed to combine two

mortal souls and a body.[81] They executed their task as well as

the conditions of the problem admitted. They were obliged to

include in the mortal souls pleasure and pain, audacity and fear,

anger, hope, appetite, sensation, &c., with all the

concomitant mischiefs. By such uncongenial adjuncts the immortal

rational soul was unavoidably defiled. The constructing Gods

however took care to defile it as little as possible.[82] They

reserved the head as a separate abode for the immortal soul:

planting the mortal soul apart from it in the trunk, and

establishing the neck as an isthmus of separation between the two.

Again the mortal soul was itself not single but double: including

two divisions, a better and a worse. The Gods kept the two parts

separate; placing the better portion in the thoracic cavity nearer

to the head, and the worse portion lower down, in the abdominal

cavity: the two being divided from each other by the diaphragm,

built across the body as a wall of partition: just as in a

dwelling-house, the apartments of the women are separated from

those of the men. Above the diaphragm and near to the neck, was

planted the energetic, courageous, contentious, soul; so placed as

to receive orders easily from the head, and to aid the rational

soul in keeping under constraint the mutinous soul of appetite,

which was planted below the diaphragm.[83] The immortal soul[84]

was fastened or anchored in the brain, the two mortal souls in the

line of the spinal marrow continuous with the brain: which line

thus formed the thread of connection between the three. The heart

was established as an outer fortress for the exercise of influence

by the immortal soul over the other two. It was at the same time

made the initial point of the veins, the fountain from whence the

current of blood proceeded to pass forcibly through the veins

round to all parts of the body. The purpose of this arrangement

is, that when the rational soul denounces some proceeding as wrong

(either on the part of others without, or in the appetitive soul

within), it may stimulate an ebullition of anger in the

heart, and may transmit from thence its exhortations and threats

through the many small blood channels to all the sensitive parts

of the body: which may thus be rendered obedient everywhere to the

orders of our better nature.[85]

[Footnote 81: Plato, Timæus, p. 69 C.]

[Footnote 82: Plato, Tim. p. 69 D. [Greek: xugkerasa/menoi/ t'

au)ta\ a)nagkai/ôs to\ thnêto\n ge/nos xune/thesan. kai\ dia\

tau=ta dê\ sebo/menoi miai/nein to\ thei=on, o(/ ti mê\ pa=sa

ê)=n a)na/gkê], &c.]

[Footnote 83: Plato, Timæus, pp. 69-70.]

[Footnote 84: Plato, Timæus, p. 73 B-D.]

[Footnote 85: Plato, Timæus, p. 70 B-C.]

[Side-note: Functions of the heart and lungs. Thoracic

soul.]

In such ebullitions of anger, as well as in moments of imminent

danger, the heart leaps violently, becoming overheated and

distended by excess of fire. The Gods foresaw this, and provided a

safeguard against it by placing the lungs close at hand with the

wind-pipe and trachea. The lungs were constructed soft and full of

internal pores and cavities like a sponge; without any

blood,[86]--but receiving, instead of blood, both the air inspired

through the trachea, and the water swallowed to quench thirst. Being

thus always cool, and soft like a cushion, the lungs received and

deadened the violent beating and leaping of the heart; at the same

time that they cooled down its excessive heat, and rendered it a

more equable minister for the orders of reason.[87]

[Footnote 86: Plato, Timæus, p. 70 C. [Greek: tê\n tou=

pleu/monos i)de/an e)nephu/teusan, prô=ton me\n malakê\n kai\

a)/naimon, ei)=ta sê/raggas e)nto\s e)/chousan oi(=on spo/ggou

katatetrême/nas.]

Aristotle notices this opinion as held by some persons (not naming

Plato), but impugns it as erroneous. He affirms that the lungs

have more blood in them than any of the other viscera (Histor.

Animal. i. 17, p. 496, b. 1-8; De Respirat. c. 15, p. 478, a.

13).]

[Footnote 87: Plato, Timæus, p. 70.]

[Side-note: Abdominal Soul--difficulty of controuling

it--functions of the liver.]

The third or lowest soul, of appetite and nutrition, was placed

between the diaphragm and the navel. This region of the body was

set apart like a manger for containing necessary food: and the

appetitive soul was tied up to it like a wild beast; indispensable

indeed for the continuance of the race, yet a troublesome adjunct,

and therefore placed afar off, in order that its bellowings might

disturb as little as possible the deliberations of the rational

soul in the cranium, for the good of the whole. The Gods knew that

this appetitive soul would never listen to reason, and that it

must be kept under subjection altogether by the influence of

phantoms and imagery. They provided an agency for this purpose in

the liver, which they placed close upon the abode of the

appetitive soul.[88] They made the liver compact, smooth, and

brilliant, like a mirror reflecting images:--moreover, both

sweet and bitter on occasions. The thoughts of the rational soul

were thus brought within view of the appetitive soul, in the form

of phantoms or images exhibited on the mirror of the liver. When

the rational soul is displeased, not only images corresponding to

this feeling are impressed, but the bitter properties of the liver

are all called forth. It becomes crumpled, discoloured, dark and

rough; the gall bladder is compressed; the veins carrying the

blood are blocked up, and pain as well as sickness arise. On the

contrary, when the rational soul is satisfied, so as to send forth

mild and complacent inspirations,--all this bitterness of the

liver is tranquillised, and all its native sweetness called forth.

The whole structure becomes straight and smooth; and the images

impressed upon it are rendered propitious. It is thus through the

liver, and by means of these images, that the rational soul

maintains its ascendancy over the appetitive soul; either to

terrify and subdue, or to comfort and encourage it.[89]

[Footnote 88: Plato, Timæus, p. 71 A. [Greek: ei)do/tes de\ au)to\

ô(s lo/gou me\n ou)/te xunê/sein e)/mellen, ei)/te pê| kai\

metala/mbanoi tino\s au)= tô=n ai)sthê/seôn, ou)k e)/mphuton

au)tô=| to\ me/lein tinô=n e)/soito lo/gôn, u(po\ de\

ei)dô/lôn kai\ phantasma/tôn nukto/s te kai\ meth' ê(me/ran

ma/lista psuchagôgê/soito, tou/tô| dê\ theo\s e)pibouleu/sas

au)tô=| tê\n tou= ê(/patos i)de/an xune/stêsen.]]

[Footnote 89: Plato, Timæus, p. 71 C-D.]

[Side-note: The liver is made the seat of the prophetic

agency. Function of the spleen.]

Moreover, the liver was made to serve another purpose. It was

selected as the seat of the prophetic agency; which the Gods

considered to be indispensable, as a refuge and aid for the

irrational department of man. Though this portion of the soul had

no concern with sense or reason, they would not shut it out

altogether from some glimpse of truth. The revelations of prophecy

were accordingly signified on the liver, for the instruction and

within the easy view of the appetitive soul: and chiefly at

periods when the functions of the rational soul are

suspended--either during sleep, or disease, or fits of temporary

ecstasy. For no man in his perfect senses comes under the influence

of a genuine prophetic inspiration. Sense and intelligence are often

required to interpret prophecies, and to determine what is meant

by dreams or signs or prognostics of other kinds: but such

revelations are received by men destitute of sense. To receive

them, is the business of one class of men: to interpret them, that

of another. It is a grave mistake, though often committed, to

confound the two. It was in order to furnish prophecy to man,

therefore, that the Gods devised both the structure and the

place of the liver. During life, the prophetic indications are

clearly marked upon it: but after death they become obscure and

hard to decipher.[90]

[Footnote 90: Plato, Timæus, pp. 71-72. 71 E: [Greek: i(kano\n de\

sêmei=on, ô(s mantikê\n a)phrosu/nê| theo\s a)nthrôpi/nê|

de/dôken; ou)dei\s ga\r e)/nnous e)pha/ptetai mantikê=s

e)nthe/ou kai\ a)lêthou=s.]]

The spleen was placed near the liver, corresponding to it on the

left side, in order to take off from it any impure or excessive

accretions or accumulations, and thus to preserve it clean and

pure.[91]

[Footnote 91: Plato, Timæus, p. 72 D.]

Such was the distribution of the one immortal and the two mortal

souls, and such the purposes by which it was dictated. We cannot

indeed (says Plato) proclaim this with full assurance as truth,

unless the Gods would confirm our declarations. We must take the

risk of affirming what appears to us probable--and we shall

proceed with this risk yet further.[92] The following is the plan

and calculation according to which it was becoming that our

remaining bodily frame should be put together.

[Footnote 92: Plato, Timæus, p. 72 D-E. [Greek: to\ me\n

a)lêthe/s, ô(s ei)/rêtai, theou= xumphê/santos to/t' a)\n

ou(/tô mo/nôs dii+schurizoi/metha; to/ ge mê\n ei)ko\s ê(mi=n

ei)rêsthai kai\ nu=n kai\ e)/ti ma=llon a)naskopou=si

diakinduneute/on to\ pha/nai, kai\ pepha/sthô . . . e)k dê\

logismou= toiou=de xuni/stasthai ma/list' a)\n au)to\ pa/ntôn

pre/poi.]]

[Side-note: Length of the intestinal canal, in order that

food might not be frequently needed.]

The Gods foresaw that we should be intemperate in our appetite for

food and drink, and that we should thus bring upon ourselves many

diseases injurious to life. To mitigate this mischief, they

provided us with a great length of intestinal canal, but twisted

it round so as to occupy but a small space, in the belly. All the

food which we introduce remains thus a long time within us, before

it passes away. A greater interval elapses before we need fresh

supplies of food. If the food passed away speedily, so that we

were constantly obliged to renew it, and were therefore always

eating--the human race would be utterly destitute of intelligence

and philosophy. They would be beyond the controul of the rational

soul.[93]

[Footnote 93: Plato, Timæus, p. 73 A.]

[Side-note: Bone--Flesh--Marrow.]

Bone and flesh come next to be explained. Both of them derive

their origin from the spinal marrow: in which the bonds of life

are fastened, and soul is linked with body--the root of the human

race. The origin of the spinal marrow itself is special and

exceptional. Among the triangles employed in the construction

of all the four elements, the Gods singled out the very best of

each sort. Those selected were combined harmoniously with each

other, and employed in the formation of the spinal marrow, as the

universal seed ground ([Greek: panspermi/an]) for all the human

race. In this marrow the Gods planted the different sorts of

souls; distributing and accommodating the figure of each portion

of marrow to the requirements of each different soul. For that

portion (called the encephalon, as being contained in the head)

which was destined to receive the immortal soul, they employed the

spherical figure and none other: for the remaining portion,

wherein the mortal soul was to be received, they employed a

mixture of the spherical and the oblong. All of it together was

called by the same name _marrow_, covered and protected by

one continuous bony case, and established as the holding ground to

fasten the whole extent of soul with the whole extent of body.[94]

[Footnote 94: Plato, Timæus, p. 73 C-D.]

[Side-note: Nails--Mouth--Teeth. Plants produced for

nutrition of man.]

Plato next explains the construction of ligaments and flesh--of

the mouth, tongue, teeth, and lips: of hair and nails.[95] These

last were produced with a long-sighted providence: for the Gods

foresaw that the lower animals would be produced from the

degeneration of man, and that to them nails and claws would be

absolutely indispensable: accordingly, a sketch or rudiment of

nails was introduced into the earliest organisation of man.[96]

Nutrition being indispensable to man, the Gods produced for this

purpose plants (trees, shrubs, herbs, &c.)--with a nature

cognate to that of man, but having only the lowest of the three

human souls.[97] They then cut ducts and veins throughout the

human body, in directions appropriate for distributing the

nutriment everywhere. They provided proper structures (here

curiously described) for digestion, inspiration, and

expiration.[98] The constituent triangles within the body, when

young and fresh, overpower the triangles, older and weaker,

contained in the nutritive matters swallowed, and then appropriate

part of them to the support and growth of the body: in old age,

the triangles within are themselves overpowered, and the body

decays. When the fastenings, whereby the triangles in the

spinal marrow have been fitted together, are worn out and give

way, they let go the fastenings of the soul also. The soul, when

thus released in a natural way, flies away with delight. Death in

this manner is pleasurable: though it is distressing, when brought

on violently, by disease or wounds.[99]

[Footnote 95: Plato, Tim. pp. 75-76.]

[Footnote 96: Plat. Tim. p. 76 E. [Greek: o(/then e)n

a)nthrô/pois eu)thu\s gignome/nois _u(petupô/santo_ tê\n

tô=n o)nu/chôn ge/nesin.]]

[Footnote 97: Plat. Tim. p. 77 B-C.]

[Footnote 98: Plat. Tim. pp. 78-79.]

[Footnote 99: Plat. Tim. p. 81.]

[Side-note: General view of Diseases and their Causes.]

Here Plato passes into a general survey of diseases and the proper

treatment of them. "As to the source from whence diseases arise

(he says) this is a matter evident to every one. They arise from

unnatural excess, deficiency, or displacement, of some one or more

of the four elements (fire, air, water, earth) which go to compose

the body."[100] If the element in excess be fire, heat and

continuous fever are produced: if air, the fever comes on

alternate days: if water (a duller element), it is a tertian

fever: if earth, it is a quartan--since earth is the dullest and

most sluggish of the four.[101]

[Footnote 100: Plat. Tim. p. 81 E. [Greek: to\ de\ tô=n no/sôn

o(/then xuni/statai, dê=lo/n pou kai\ panti/.]]

[Footnote 101: Plat. Tim. p. 86 A. [Greek: to\ de\ gê=s,

teta/rtôs o)\n nôthe/staton tou/tôn.]]

[Side-note: Diseases of mind--wickedness is a disease--no

man is voluntarily wicked.]

Having dwelt at considerable length on the distempers of the body,

the Platonic Timæus next examines those of the soul, which proceed

from the condition of the body.[102] The generic expression for

all distemper of the soul is, irrationality--unreason--absence of

reason or intelligence. Of this there are two sorts--madness and

ignorance. Intense pleasures and pains are the gravest cause of

madness.[103] A man under either of these two influences--either

grasping at the former, or running away from the latter, out of

season--can neither see nor hear any thing rightly. He is at that

moment mad and incapable of using his reason. When the flow of

sperm round his marrow is overcharged and violent, so as to

produce desires with intense throes of uneasiness beforehand and

intense pleasure when satisfaction arrives,--his soul is really

distempered and irrational, through the ascendancy of his body.

Yet such a man is erroneously looked upon in general not as

distempered, but as wicked voluntarily, of his own accord.

The truth is, that sexual intemperance is a disorder of the soul

arising from an abundant flow of one kind of liquid in the body,

combined with thin bones or deficiency in the solids. And nearly

all those intemperate habits which are urged as matters of

reproach against a man--as if he were bad willingly,--are urged

only from the assumption of an erroneous hypothesis. No man is bad

willingly, but only from some evil habit of body and from wrong or

perverting treatment in youth; which is hostile to his nature, and

comes upon him against his own will.[104]

[Footnote 102: Plato, Timæus, p. 86 B. [Greek: Kai\ ta\ me\n peri\

to\ sô=ma nosê/mata tau/tê| xumbai/nei gigno/mena, ta\ de\

peri\ psuchê\n dia\ sô/matos e(/xin tê=|de.]]

[Footnote 103: Plato, Timæus, p. 86 B. [Greek: no/son me\n dê\

psuchê=s a)/noian xugchôrête/on. Du/o d' a)noi/as ge/nê, to\

me\n mani/an, to\ de\ a)mathi/an.]]

[Footnote 104: Plato, Timæus, p. 86 C-D.]

[Side-note: Badness of mind arises from body.]

Again, not merely by way of pleasures, but by way of pains also,

the body operates to entail evil or wickedness on the soul. When

acid or salt phlegm--when bitter and bilious humours--come to

spread through the body, remaining pent up therein, without being

able to escape by exhalation,--the effluvia which ought to have

been exhaled from them become confounded with the rotation of the

soul, producing in it all manner of distempers. These effluvia

attack all the three different seats of the soul, occasioning

great diversity of mischiefs according to the part

attacked--irascibility, despondency, rashness, cowardice, forgetfulness,

stupidity. Such bad constitution of the body serves as the

foundation of ulterior mischief. And when there supervene, in

addition, bad systems of government and bad social maxims, without

any means of correction furnished to youth through good social

instruction--it is from these two combined causes, both of them

against our own will, that all of us who are wicked become wicked.

Parents and teachers are more in fault than children and pupils.

We must do our best to arrange the bringing up, the habits, and

the instruction, so as to eschew evil and attain good.[105]

[Footnote 105: Plato, Timæus, p. 87 A-C.]

[Side-note: Preservative and healing agencies against

disease--well-regulated exercise, of mind and body

proportionally.]

After thus describing the causes of corruption, both in body and

mind, Plato adverts to the preservative and corrective agencies

applicable to them. Between the one and the other, constant

proportion and symmetry must be imperatively maintained. When the

one is strong, and the other weak, nothing but mischief can

ensue.[106] Mind must not be exercised alone, to the

exclusion of body; nor body alone, without mind. Each must be

exercised, so as to maintain adequate reaction and equilibrium

against the other.[107] We ought never to let the body be at rest:

we must keep up within it a perpetual succession of moderate

shocks, so that it may make suitable resistance against foreign

causes of movement, internal and external.[108] The best of all

movements is, that which is both in itself and made by itself:

analogous to the self-continuing rotation both of the Kosmos and

of the rational soul in our cranium.[109] Movement in itself, but

by an external agent, is less good. The worst of all is, movement

neither in itself nor by itself. Among these three sorts of

movement, the first is, Gymnastic: the second, propulsion

backwards and forwards in a swing, gestation in a carriage: the

third is, purgation or medicinal disturbance.[110] This last is

never to be employed, except in extreme emergencies.

[Footnote 106: Plat. Tim. pp. 87-88 A.]

[Footnote 107: Plat. Tim. p. 88 C.]

[Footnote 108: Plat. Tim. p. 88 D-E.]

[Footnote 109: Plat. Tim. p. 89 A. [Greek: tô=n d' au)=

kinê/seôn ê( e)n e(autô=| u(ph' e(autou= a)ri/stê ki/nêsis;

ma/lista ga\r tê=| dianoêtikê=| kai\ tê=| tou= panto\s

kinê/sei xuggenê/s; ê( d' u(p' a)/llou chei/rôn.]]

[Footnote 110: Plat. Tim. p. 89 A. [Greek: deute/ra de\ ê( dia\

tô=n ai)ôrê/seôn].

Foes, in the Oeconomia Hippocratica v. [Greek: Ai)ô/ra], gives

information about these _pensiles gestationes_, upon which

the ancient physicians bestowed much attention.]

[Side-note: Treatment proper for mind alone, apart from

body--supremacy of the rational soul must be cultivated.]

We must now indicate the treatment necessary for mind alone, apart

from body. It has been already stated, that there are in each of

us three souls, or three distinct varieties of soul; each having

its own separate place and special movements. Of these three, that

which is most exercised must necessarily become the strongest:

that which is left unexercised, unmoved, at rest or in

indolence,--will become the weakest. The object to be aimed at is,

that all three shall be exercised in harmony or proportion with each

other. Respecting the soul in our head, the grandest and most

commanding of the three, we must bear in mind that it is this which

the Gods have assigned to each man as his own special Dæmon or

presiding Genius. Dwelling as it does in the highest region of the

body, it marks us and links us as akin with heaven--as a celestial

and not a terrestrial plant, having root in heaven and not in earth.

It is this encephalic or head-soul, which, connected with and

suspended from the divine soul of the Kosmos, keeps our whole body

in its erect attitude. Now if a man neglects this soul, directing

all his favour and development towards the two others (the energetic

or the appetitive),--all his judgments will infallibly become

mortal and transient, and he himself will be degraded into a

mortal being, as far as it is possible for man to become so. But

if he devotes himself to study and meditation on truth, exercising

the encephalic soul more than the other two--he will assuredly, if

he seizes truth,[111] have his mind filled with immortal and

divine judgments, and will become himself immortal, as far as

human nature admits of it. Cultivating as he does systematically

the divine element within him, and having his in-dwelling Genius

decorated as perfectly as possible, he will be eminently

well-inspired or happy.[112]

[Footnote 111: Plato, Timæus, p. 90 C. [Greek: a)/n per

a)lêthei/as e)pha/ptêtai.]]

[Footnote 112: Plato, Timæus, p. 90 B-D. [Greek: e)/chonta/ te

au)to\n eu)= ma/la kekosmême/non to\n dai/mona xu/noikon e)n

au(tô=|, diaphero/ntôs eu)dai/mona ei)=nai.]

It is hardly possible to translate this play upon the word [Greek:

eu)dai/môn].]

[Side-note: We must study and understand the rotations of

the Kosmos--this is the way to amend the rotations of the rational

soul.]

The mode of cultivating or developing each soul is the same--to

assign to each the nourishment and the movement which is suitable

to it. Now the movements which are kindred and congenial to our

divine encephalic soul, are--the rotations of the Kosmos and the

intellections traversing the Kosmical soul. It is these that we

ought to follow and study. By learning and embracing in our minds

the rotations and proportions of the Kosmos, we shall assimilate

the comprehending subject to the comprehended object, and shall

rectify that derangement of our own intra-cranial rotations, which

was entailed upon us by our birth into a body. By such

assimilation, we shall attain the perfection of the life allotted

to us, both at present and for the future.[113]

[Footnote 113: Plato, Timæus, pp. 90 D, 91 C-D. The phrase of

Plato in describing the newly introduced mode of

procreation--[Greek: ô(s ei)s a)/rouran tê\n mê/tran a)o/rata

u(po\ smikro/têtos kai\ a)dia/plasta zô=a kataspei/rantes]--is

remarkable, as it might be applied to the spermatozoa, which

nevertheless he cannot have known.]

[Side-note: Construction of women, birds, quadrupeds,

fishes, &c., all from the degradation of primitive man.]

We have thus--says the Platonic Timæus in approaching his

conclusion--gone through all those matters which we promised at

the beginning, from the first construction of the Kosmos to the

genesis of man. We must now devote a few words to the other

animals. All of these derive their origin from man, by

successive degradations. The first transition is from man into

woman. Men whose lives had been characterised by cowardice or

injustice, were after death and in their second birth born again

as women. It was then that the Gods planted in us the sexual

impulse, reconstructing the bodily organism with suitable

adjustment, on the double pattern, male and female.[114]

[Footnote 114: Plat. Tim. p. 91 D. Whoever compares the step of

marked degeneration here indicated--in passing from men to

women--with that which is affirmed by Plato in the fifth book of the

Republic about the character, attributes, and capacities of women,

will recognise a material difference between the two.]

Such was the genesis of women, by a partial transformation and

diversification of the male structure.

We next come to birds; who are likewise a degraded birth or

formation, derived from one peculiar mode of degeneracy in man:

hair being transmuted into feathers and wings. Birds were formed

from the harmless, but light, airy, and superficial men; who,

though carrying their minds aloft to the study of kosmical

phenomena, studied them by visual observation and not by reason,

foolishly imagining that they had discovered the way of reaching

truth.[115]

[Footnote 115: Plato, Timæus, p. 91 E.]

The more brutal land animals proceeded from men totally destitute

of philosophy, who neither looked up to the heavens nor cared for

celestial objects: from men making no use whatever of the

rotations of their encephalic soul, but following exclusively the

guidance of the lower soul in the trunk. Through such tastes and

occupations, both their heads and their anterior limbs became

dragged down to the earth by the force of affinity. Moreover, when

the rotations of the encephalic soul, from want of exercise,

became slackened and fell into desuetude, the round form of the

cranium was lost, and converted into an oblong or some other form.

These men thus degenerated into quadrupeds and multipeds: the Gods

furnishing a greater number of feet in proportion to the stupidity

of each, in order that its approximations to earth might be

multiplied. To some of the more stupid, however, the Gods gave no

feet nor limbs at all; constraining them to drag the whole length

of their bodies along the ground, and to become Reptiles.[116]

[Footnote 116: Plato, Timæus, pp. 91-92.]

Out of the most stupid and senseless of mankind, by still

greater degeneracy, the Gods formed Fishes or Aquatic

Animals:--the fourth and lowest genus, after Men, Birds, Land-Animals.

This race of beings, from their extreme want of mind, were not

considered worthy to live on earth, or to respire thin and pure

air. They were condemned to respire nothing but deep and turbid

water, many of them, as oysters, and other descriptions of

shellfish, being fixed down at the lowest depth or bottom.[117]

[Footnote 117: Plato, Timæus, p. 92 B.]

It is by such transitions (concludes the Platonic Timæus) that the

different races of animals passed originally, and still continue

to pass, into each other. The interchange is determined by the

acquisition or loss of reason or irrationality.[118]

[Footnote 118: Plato, Timæus, p. 92 B. [Greek: kai\ kata\ tau=ta

dê\ pa/nta _to/te kai\ nu=n diamei/betai ta\ zô=a ei)s

a)/llêla_, nou= kai\ a)noi/as a)pobolê=| kai\ ktê/sei

metaballo/mena.]]

* * * * *

[Side-note: Large range of topics introduced in the Timæus.]

The vast range of topics, included in this curious exposition, is

truly remarkable: Kosmogony or Theogony, First Philosophy, Physics

(resting upon Geometry and Arithmetic), Zoology, Physiology,

Anatomy, Pathology, Therapeutics, mental as well as physical. Of

all these, I have not been able to furnish more than scanty

illustrations; but the whole are well worthy of study, as the

conjectures of a great and ingenious mind in the existing state of

knowledge and belief among the Greeks: and all the more worthy,

because they form in many respects a striking contrast with the

points of view prevalent in more recent times.

[Side-note: The Demiurgus of the Platonic Timæus--how

conceived by other philosophers of the same century.]

The position and functions of the Demiurgus, in the Timæus, form a

peculiar phase in Grecian Philosophy, and even in the doctrine of

Plato himself: for the theology and kosmology of the Timæus differ

considerably from what we read in the Phædrus, Politikus,

Republic, Leges, &c. The Demiurgus is presented in Timæus as a

personal agent, pre-kosmical and extra-kosmical: but he appears

only as initiating; he begets or fabricates, once for all, a most

beautiful Kosmos (employing all the available material, so

that nothing more could afterwards be added). The Kosmos having

body and soul, is itself a God, but with many separate Gods

resident within it, or attached to it. The Demiurgus then retires,

leaving it to be peopled and administered by the Gods thus

generated, or by its own soul. His acting and speaking is

recounted in the manner of the ancient mythes: and many critics,

ancient as well as modern, have supposed that he is intended by

Plato only as a mythical personification of the Idea Boni: the

construction described being only an ideal process, like the

generation of a geometrical figure.[119] Whatever may have been

Plato's own intention, in this last sense his hypothesis was

interpreted by his immediate successors, Speusippus and

Xenokrates, as well as by Eudêmus.[120] Aristotle in his comments

upon Plato takes little notice of the Demiurgus: the hypothesis

(of a distinct personal constructive agent) did not fit into his

_principia_ of the Kosmos, and he probably ranked it among

those mythical modes of philosophising which he expressly

pronounces to be unworthy of serious criticism.[121] Various

succeeding philosophers also, especially the Stoics, while

they insisted much upon Providence, conceived this as residing in

the Kosmos itself, and in the divine intra-kosmical agencies.

[Footnote 119: Stallbaum, Proleg. ad Timæum, p. 47.

Zeller, Platonische Studien, pp. 207-215; also his Gesch. d. Phil.

d. Griech. vol. ii. p. 508 seq. ed. 2nd; and Susemihl, Genetische

Entwicklung der Platon. Philosophie, vol. ii. pp. 322-340.

Ueberweg, Ueber die Platon. Welt-seele, p. 69; Brandis, Gesch. der

Griech. Philos. ii. cx. pp. 357-365.

A good note of Ast (Platon's Leben und Schriften, p. 363 seq.)

illustrates the analogy between the Platonic Timæus and the old

Greek cosmogonic poems.]

[Footnote 120: Respecting Speusippus and Xenokrates, see

Aristotel. De Coelo, i. 10, pp. 279-280, with Scholia, 487, b.

37, 488, b. 15, 489, a. 10, Brandis. Respecting Eudemus, Krantor,

Eudorus, and the majority of the Platonic followers, see Plutarch,

De Animæ Procreatione in Timæo, 1012 D, 1013 A, 1015 D, 1017 B,

1028 B.

Plutarch reasons against them; but he recognises their

interpretation as the predominant one.

See also the view ascribed to Speusippus and the Pythagoreans by

Aristotle (Metaphys. A. 1072, a. 1, b. 30).]

[Footnote 121: Proklus ad Platon. Tim. ii. pp. 138 E, 328, ed.

Schn.: [Greek: ê)\ ga\r mo/nos ê)\ ma/lista, Pla/tôn tê=|

a)po\ tou= pronoou=ntos ai)ti/a| katechrê/sato, phêsi\n o(

Theo/phrastos, tou=to/ ge kalô=s au)tô=| marturô=n.] And

another reference to Theophrastus, in Proklus, pp. 117, 417 Schn.

Also pp. 118 E-F, 279 Schn.: [Greek: A)ristote/lês me\n ou)=n

tê\n e)n tô=| dêmiourgô=| ta/xin ou)k oi)=den . . . o( de\

Pla/tôn O)rphei= sunepo/menos e)n tô=| dêmiourgô=| prô=ton

ei)=nai phêsi tê\n ta/xin, kai\ to\ pro\ tô=n merô=n o(/lon.]

For further coincidences between the Platonic Timæus and Orpheus

([Greek: o( theolo/gos]) see Proklus ad Timæ. pp. 233-235, Schn.

The passage of Aristotle respecting those who blended mythe and

philosophy is remarkable, Metaphys. B. 1000, a. 9-20. [Greek: Oi(

me\n ou)=n peri\ Ê(si/odon, kai\ pa/ntes o(/soi theolo/goi,

mo/non e)phro/ntisan tou= pithanou= tou= pro\s au)tou/s, ê(mô=n

d' ô)ligô/rêsan . . . A)lla\ peri\ me\n tô=n muthikô=s

sophizome/nôn ou)k a)/xion meta\ spoudê=s skopei=n; para\ de\

tô=n di' a)podei/xeôs lego/ntôn dei= puntha/nesthai

dierôtô=ntas], &c. About those whom Aristotle calls [Greek:

oi( memigme/noi] (partly mythe, partly philosophy), see Metaphys.

N. 1091, b. 8.

Compare, on Aristotle's non-recognition of the Platonic Demiurgus,

a remarkable note of Prantl, ad Aristot. Physica, viii. p. 524,

also p. 478, in his edition of that treatise, Leipsic, 1854.

Weisse speaks to the same effect in his translation of the Physica

of Aristotle, pp. 350-356, Leips. 1829.

Lichtenstädt, in his ingenious work, (Ueber Platon's Lehren auf

dem Gebiete der Natur-Forschung und der Heilkunde, Leipsic, 1826),

ranks several of the characteristic tenets of the Timæus as only

mythical: the pre-existent Chaos, the divinity of the entire

Kosmos, even the metempsychosis, though it is affirmed most

directly,--see pp. 24, 46, 48, 86, &c. How much of all this

Plato intended as purely mythical, appears to me impossible to

determine. I agree with the opinion of Ueberweg, that Plato did

not draw any clear line in his own mind between the mythical and

the real (Ueber die Platon. Weltseele, pp. 70-71).]

[Side-note: Adopted and welcomed by the Alexandrine Jews, as

a parallel to the Mosaic Genesis.]

But though the idea of a pre-kosmic Demiurgus found little favour

among the Grecian schools of philosophy, before the Christian

era--it was greatly welcomed among the Hellenising Jews at

Alexandria, from Aristobulus (about B. C. 150) down to Philo. It

formed the suitable point of conjunction, between Hellenic and

Judaic speculation. The marked distinction drawn by Plato between

the Demiurgus, and the constructed or generated Kosmos, with its

in-dwelling Gods--provided a suitable place for the Supreme God of

the Jews, degrading the Pagan Gods in comparison. The Timæus was

compared with the book of Genesis, from which it was even affirmed

that Plato had copied. He received the denomination of the

atticising Moses: Moses writing in Attic Greek.[122] It was thus

that the Platonic Timæus became the medium of transition, from the

Polytheistic theology which served as philosophy among the

early ages of Greece, to the omnipotent Monotheism to which

philosophy became subordinated after the Christian era.]

[Footnote 122: The learned work of Gfrörer--Philo und die

Jüdisch-Alexandrin. Theosophie--illustrates well this coalescence

of Platonism with the Pentateuch in the minds of the Hellenising

Jews at Alexandria. "Aristobulus maintained, 150 years earlier

than Philo, that not only the oldest Grecian poets, Homer, Hesiod,

Orpheus, &c., but also the most celebrated thinkers,

especially Plato, had acquired all their wisdom from a very old

translation of the Pentateuch" (Gfrörer, i. p. 308, also ii.

111-118). The first form of Grecian philosophy which found favour

among the Alexandrine Jews was the Platonic:--"since a Jew could

not fail to be pleased--besides the magnificent style and high

moral tone--with a certain likeness between the Oriental

Kosmogonies and the Timæus, the favourite treatise of all

Theosophists," see p. 72. Compare the same work, pp.

78-80-167-184-314.

Philo calls Sokrates [Greek: a)nê\r para\ Môu+sei= ta\

prote/leia tê=s sophi/as a)nadidachthei/s]: he refers to the

terminology of the Platonic Timæus (Gfrörer, 308-327-328).

Eusebius (Præp. Ev. ix. 6, xi. 10), citing Aristobulus and

Numenius, says [Greek: Ti/ ga\r e)/sti Pla/tôn, ê)\ Môu+sê\s

a)ttiki/zôn?] Compare also the same work, xi. 16-25-29, and xiii.

18, where the harmony between Plato and Moses, and the preference

of the author for Plato over other Greek philosophers, are

earnestly declared.

See also Vacherot, Histoire Critique de l'École d'Alexandrie, vol.

i. pp. 110-163-319-335.]

[Side-note: Physiology of the Platonic Timæus--subordinate

to Plato's views of ethical teleology. Triple soul--each soul at

once material and mental.]

Of the vast outline sketched in the Timæus, no part illustrates

better the point of view of the author, than what is said about

human anatomy and physiology. The human body is conceived

altogether as subservient to an ethical and æsthetical teleology:

it is (like the Praxitelean statue of Eros[123]) a work adapted to

an archetypal model in Plato's own heart--his emotions,

preferences, antipathies.[124] The leading idea in his mind is,

What purposes would be most suitable to the presumed character of

the Demiurgus, and to those generated Gods who are assumed to act

as his ministers? The purposes which Plato ascribes, both to the

one and to the others, emanate from his own feelings: they are

such as he would himself have aimed at accomplishing, if he had

possessed demiurgic power: just as the Republic describes the

principles on which he would have constituted a Commonwealth, had

he been lawgiver or Oekist. His inventive fancy depicts the

interior structure, both of the great Kosmos and of its little

human miniature, in a way corresponding to these sublime purposes.

The three souls, each with its appropriate place and functions,

form the cardinal principle of the organism:[125] the unity of

which is maintained by the spinal marrow in continuity with,

the brain; all the three souls having their roots in different

parts of this continuous line. Neither of these three souls is

immaterial, in the sense which that word now bears: even the

encephalic rational soul--the most exalted in function, and

commander of the other two--has its own extension and rotatory

motion: as the kosmical soul has also, though yet more exalted in

its endowments. All these souls have material properties, and are

implicated essentially with other material agents:[126] all are at

once material and mental. The encephalic or rational soul has its

share in material properties, while the abdominal or appetitive

soul also has its share in mental properties: even the liver has

for its function to exhibit images impressed by the rational soul,

and to serve as the theatre of prophetic representations.[127]

[Footnote 123: [Greek: Praxite/lês o(\n e)/pasche

diêkri/bôsen E)/rôta

e)x i)di/ês e(/lkôn a)rche/tupon kradi/ês]--(Anthologia).]

[Footnote 124: Plato says (Tim. p. 53 E) that in investigating the

fundamental configuration of the elements you must search for the

most beautiful: these will of course be the true ones. Again, p.

72 E, [Greek: e)k dê\ logismou= toi/oude xuni/stasthai ma/list'

a)\n au(tô=| pa/ntôn pre/poi.] Galen applies an analogous

principle of reasoning to explain the structure of apes, whom he

pronounces to be a caricature of man. Man having a rational and

intelligent soul, Nature has properly attached to it an admirable

bodily organism: with equal propriety she has assigned to the ape

a ridiculous bodily organism, because he has a ridiculous

soul--[Greek: le/xeien a)\n ê( phu/sis, geloi/ô| tê\n psuchê\n

zô/ô| geloi/an e)chrê=n dothê=nai sô/matos kataskeuê/n] (De

Usu Partium, i. c. 13, pp. 80-81, iii. 16, p. 284, xiii. 2, p.

126, xv. 8, p. 252, Kühn).]

[Footnote 125: Respecting a view analogous to that of Plato, M.

Littré observes, in his Proleg. to the Hippokratic treatise

[Greek: Peri\ Kardi/ês] (OEuvres d'Hippocrate T. ix.

p. 77):--"Deux fois l'auteur s'occupe des fins de la structure (du

coeur) et admire avec quelle habileté elles sont atteintes. La

première, c'est à propos des valvules sigmöides: il est instruit

de leur usage, qui est de fermer le coeur du côté de l'artère; et

dès-lors, son admiration ne se méprend pas, quand il fait remarquer

avec quelle exactitude ils accomplissent leur office. Mais elle se

méprend quand, se tournant vers les oreillettes, elle loue la main

de l'artiste habile qui les a si bien arrangées pour souffler

l'air dans le coeur. Ces déceptions de la téléologie sont

perpétuelles dans l'histoire de la science; à chaque instant, on

s'est extasié devant des structures que l'imagination seule

appropriait à certaines fonctions. 'Cet optimisme' (dit Condorcet

dans son Fragment sur l'Atlantide) 'qui consiste à trouver tout à

merveille dans la nature telle qu'on l'invente, à condition

d'admirer également sa sagesse, si par malheur on avait découvert

qu'elle a suivi d'autres combinaisons; cet optimisme de détail

doit être banni de la philosophie, dont le but n'est pas

d'admirer, mais de connaître; qui, dans l'étude, cherche la

vérité, et non des motifs de reconnaissance.'"]

[Footnote 126: Proklus could hardly make out that Plato recognised

any [Greek: psuchê\n a)me/thekton], ad Tim. ii. pp. 220, 94 A.]

[Footnote 127: Plat. Tim. p. 71 B-C. The criticism of Aristotle

(De Partibus Animal. iv. 2, 676, b. 21) is directed against this

doctrine, but without naming Plato. But when Aristotle says

[Greek: Oi( le/gontes tê\n phu/sin tê=s cholê=s ai)sthê/seôs

tino\s ei)=nai sêmei=on, ou) kalô=s le/gousin], he substitutes

the _bile_ in place of the liver. In Aristotle's mind the two

are intimately associated.]

[Side-note: Triplicity of the soul--espoused afterwards by

Galen.]

The Platonic doctrine, of three souls in one organism, derives a

peculiar interest from the earnest way in which it is espoused

afterwards by Galen. This last author represents Plato as agreeing

in main doctrines with Hippokrates. He has composed nine distinct

Dissertations or Books, for the purpose of upholding their joint

doctrines. But the agreement which he shows between Hippokrates

and Plato is very vague, and his own agreement with Plato is

rather ethical than physiological. What is the essence of the

three souls, and whether they are immortal or not, Galen leaves

undecided:[128] but that there must be three distinct souls in

each human body, and that the supposition of one soul only is an

absurdity--he considers Plato to have positively demonstrated.

He rejects the doctrine of Aristotle, Theophrastus,

Poseidonius, and others, who acknowledged only one soul, lodged in

the heart, but with distinct co-existent powers.[129]

[Footnote 128: Galen, De Foetuum Formatione, p. 701, Kühn.

[Greek: Peri\ Ou)si/as tô=n phusikô=n duna/meôn], p. 763.

[Greek: Peri\ tô=n tê=s psuchê=s Ê)thô=n], p. 773.]

[Footnote 129: Galen, De Hipp. et Plat. Dogm. iii. pp. 337-347,

Kühn, vi. pp. 515-516, i. p. 200, iv. p. 363, ix. p. 727.]

[Side-note: Admiration of Galen for Plato--his agreement

with Plato, and his dissension from Plato--his improved

physiology.]

So far Galen concurs with Plato. But he connects this triplicity

of soul with a physiological theory of his own, which he professes

to derive from, or at least to hold in common with, Hippokrates

and Plato. Galen recognises three [Greek:

a)rcha\s]--_principia_, beginnings, originating and governing

organs--in the body: the brain, which is the origin of all the nerves,

both of sensation and motion: the heart, the origin of the arteries:

the liver, the sanguifacient organ, and the origin of the veins

which distribute nourishment to all parts of the body. These three

are respectively the organs of the rational, the energetic, and

the appetitive soul.[130]

[Footnote 130: Galen, Hipp. et Plat. Dogm. viii. pp. 656-657,

Kühn. [Greek: e)x ô(=n e)perai/neto ê( tô=n phlebô=n a)rchê\

to\ ê(=par u(pa/rchein; ô(=| pa/lin ei(/peto, kai\ tê=s

koinê=s pro\s ta\ phuta\ duna/meôs a)rchê\n ei)=nai tou=to to\

spla/gchnon, ê(/ntina du/namin o( Pla/tôn e)pithumêtikê\n

o)noma/zei.] Compare vi. 519-572, vii. 600-601.

The same triplicity of [Greek: a)rchai\] in the organism had been

recognised by Erasistratus, later than Aristotle, though long

before Galen. [Greek: Kai\ E)rasi/stratos de\ ô(s a)rcha\s kai\

stoichei=a o(/lou sô/matos u(potithe/menos tê\n triploki/an

tô=n a)ggei/ôn, neu=ra, kai\ phle/bas, kai\ a)rtêri/as] (Galen,

T. iv. p. 375, ed. Basil). See Littré, Introduction aux Oeuvres

d'Hippocrate, T. i. p. 203.

Plato does not say, as Galen declares him to say, that the

appetitive soul has its primary seat or [Greek: a)rchê\] in the

liver. It has its seat between the diaphragm and the navel; the

liver is placed in this region as an outlying fort, occupied by

the rational soul, and used for the purpose of controuling the

rebellious tendencies of the appetitive soul. Chrysippus (ap.

Galen, Hipp. et Plat. Dogm. iii. p. 288, Kühn) stated Plato's

doctrine about the [Greek: trimerê\s psuchê\] more simply and

faithfully than Galen himself. Compare his words ib. viii. p. 651,

vi. p. 519. Galen represents Plato as saying that nourishment is

furnished by the stomach first to the liver, to be there made into

blood and sent round the body through the veins (pp. 576-578).

This is Galen's own theory (De Usu Partium, iv. p. 268, Kühn), but

it is not to be found in Plato. Whoever reads the Timæus, pp.

77-78, will see that Plato's theory of the conversion of food into

blood, and its transmission as blood through the veins, is

altogether different. It is here that he propounds his singular

hypothesis--the interior network of air and fire, and the

oscillating ebb and flow of these intense agencies in the cavity

of the abdomen. The liver has nothing to do with the process.

So again Galen (p. 573) puts upon the words of Plato about the

heart--[Greek: pêgê\n tou= peripherome/nou sphodrô=s

ai(/matos]--an interpretation conformable to the Galenian theory,

but noway consistent with the statements of the Timæus itself. And

he treats the comparison of the cranium and the rotations of the

brain within, to the rotations of the spherical Kosmos--which

comparison weighed greatly in Plato's mind--as an illustrative

simile without any philosophical value (Galen, H. et P. D. ii. 4,

p. 230, Kühn; Plato, Tim. pp. 41 B, 90 A).]

The Galenian theory here propounded (which held its place in

physiology until Harvey's great discovery of the circulation of

the blood in the seventeenth century), though proved by

fuller investigation to be altogether erroneous as to the

liver--and partially erroneous as to the heart--is nevertheless

made by its author to rest upon plausible reasons, as well as upon

many anatomical facts, and results of experiments on the animal body,

by tying or cutting nerves and arteries.[131] Its resemblance with

the Platonic theory is altogether superficial: while the Galenian

reasoning, so far from resembling the Platonic, stands in striking

contrast with it. Anxious as Galen is to extol Plato, his manner

of expounding and defending the Platonic thesis is such as to mark

the scientific progress realised during the five centuries

intervening between the two. Plato himself, in the Timæus,

displays little interest or curiosity about the facts of

physiology: the connecting principles, whereby he explains to

himself the mechanism of the organs as known by ordinary

experience, are altogether psychological, ethical, teleological.

In the praise which Galen, with his very superior knowledge of the

human organism, bestows upon the Timæus, he unconsciously

substitutes a new doctrine of his own, differing materially from

that of Plato.

[Footnote 131: Galen (Hipp. et Plat. Dogm. ii. p. 233, Kühn).

[Greek: kai/toi ge ê(mei=s, a(/per e)paggello/metha lo/gô|,

tau=ta e)pi\ tai=s tô=n zô=ôn a)natomai=s e)pidei/knumen],

&c. P. 220: [Greek: Po/then ou)=n tou=to deichthê/setai?

po/then a)/llothen ê)\ e)k tô=n a)natomô=n?]]

[Side-note: Physiology and pathology of Plato--compared with

that of Aristotle and the Hippokratic treatises.]

I have no space here to touch on the interesting comparisons which

might be made between the physiology and pathology of the

Timæus--and that which we read in other authors of the same

century--Aristotle and the Hippokratic treatises. More than one

allusion is made in the Timæus to physicians: and Plato cites

Hippokrates in other dialogues with respect.[132] The study and

practice of medicine was at that time greatly affected by the current

speculations respecting Nature as a whole: accomplished physicians

combined both lines of study, implicating kosmical and biological

theories:[133] and in the Platonic Timæus, the former might

properly be comprised in the latter, since the entire Kosmos

is regarded as one animated and rational being. Among the sixty

treatises in the Hippokratic collection, composed by different

authors, there are material differences--sometimes even positive

opposition--both of doctrine and spirit. Some of them are the work

of practitioners, familiar with the details of sickness and bodily

injuries, as well as with the various modes of treatment: others

again proceed from pure theorists, following out some speculative

dogmas more or less plausible, but usually vague and

indeterminate. It is to one of this last class of treatises that

Galen chiefly refers, when he dwells upon the agreement between

Plato and Hippokrates.[134] This is the point which the Platonic

Timæus has in common with both Hippokrates and Aristotle. But on

the other hand, Timæus appears entirely wanting in that element of

observation, and special care about matters of fact, which

these two last-mentioned authors very frequently display, even

while confusing themselves by much vagueness of dogmatising

theory. The Timæus evinces no special study of matters of fact: it

contains ingenious and fanciful combinations, dictated chiefly

from the ethical and theological point of view, but brought to

bear upon such limited amount of knowledge as an accomplished man

of Plato's day could hardly fail to acquire without special study.

In the extreme importance which it assigns to diet, regimen, and

bodily discipline, it agrees generally with Hippokrates: but for

the most part, the points of contrast are more notable than those

of agreement.

[Footnote 132: Plato, Phædrus, p. 270; Protagoras, p. 311.]

[Footnote 133: See a remarkable passage, Aristotel. De Sensu, 436,

a. 21, [Greek: tô=n i)atrô=n oi( philosophôte/rôs tê\n

te/chnên metio/ntes], &c.: also De Respiratione, ad finem,

480, b. 21, and [Greek: Peri\ tê=s kath' u(/pnon mantikê=s], i.

p. 463, a. 5. [Greek: tô=n i)atrô=n oi( charie/ntes]. Compare

Hippokrat. De Aere, Locis, &c., c. 2.

M. Littré observes:--

"La science antique, et par conséquent la médecine qui en formait

une branche, était essentiellement synthétique. Platon, dans le

Charmide, dit qu'on ne peut guérir la partie sans le tout. Le

philosophe avait pris cette idée à l'enseignement médical qui se

donnait de son temps: cet enseignement partait donc du tout, de

l'ensemble; nous en avons la preuve dans le livre même du

Pronostic, qui nous montre d'une manière frappante comment la

composition des écrits particuliers se subordonne à la conception

générale de la science; ce livre, tel qu'Hippocrate l'a composé,

ne pouvait se faire qu'à une époque où la médecine conservait

encore l'empreinte des doctrines encyclopédiques qui avaient

constitué le fond de tout l'enseignement oriental." (Littré,

OEuvres D'Hippocrate, T. ii. p. 96. Argument prefixed to the

Prognostikon.)]

[Footnote 134: He alludes especially to the Hippokratic treatise

[Greek: Peri\ Phu/sios a)nthrô/pou], see De Hipp. et Plat. Dogm.

viii. pp. 674-710, ed. Kühn.

In the valuable Hippokratic composition--[Greek: Peri\ A)rchai/ês

I)êtrikê=s]--(vol. i. pp. 570-636, ed. Littré) the author

distinguished [Greek: i)êtroi/], properly so-called, from [Greek:

sophistai/], who merely laid down general principles about

medicine. He enters a protest against the employment, in reference

to medicine, of those large and indefinite assumptions which

characterised the works of Sophists or physical philosophers such

as Empedokles (pp. 570-620, Littré). "Such compositions," he says,

"belong less to the medical art than to the art of literary

composition"--[Greek: e)gô\ de\ toute/ôn me\n o(/sa tini\

ei)/rêtai sophistê=| ê)\ i)êtrô=|, ê)\ ge/graptai peri\

phu/sios, ê(=sson nomi/zô tê=| i)êtrikê=| te/chnê|

prosê/kein ê)\ tê=| graphikê=|] (p. 620). Such men cannot (he

says) deal with a case of actual sickness: they ought to speak

intelligible language--[Greek: gnôsta\ le/gein toi=si

dêmo/tê|si] (p. 572). Again, in the Treatise De Aere, Locis, et

Aquis, Hippokrates defends himself against the charge of entering

upon topics which are [Greek: meteôrolo/ga] (vol. ii. p. 14,

Littré).

The Platonic Timæus would have been considered by Hippokrates as

the work of a [Greek: sophistê/s]. It was composed not for

professional readers alone, but for the public--[Greek:

e)pi/stasthai e)s o(/son ei)ko\s i)diô/tên]--(Hippokrat. [Greek:

Peri\ Pathô=n], vol. vi. p. 208, Littré).

The Hippokratic treatises afford evidence of an established art,

with traditions of tolerably long standing, a considerable medical

literature, and even much oral debate on medical subjects--[Greek:

e)nanti/on a)kroate/ôn] (Hipp. [Greek: Peri\ Nou/sôn], vol. vi.

pp 140-142-150, Littré). [Greek: O(\s a)\n peri\ i)ê/sios

e)the/lê| e)rôta=|n te o)rthô=s, kai\ e)rôtô=nti

a)pokri/nesthai, kai\ a)ntile/gein o)rthô=s, e)nthume/esthai

chrê\ ta/de] (p. 140) . . . [Greek: Tau=ta e)nthumêthe/nta

diaphula/ssein dei= e)n toi=si lo/goisin; o(/, ti a)\n de/ tis

tou/tôn a(marta/nê|, ê)\ le/gôn ê)\ e)rôtô=n ê)\

a)pokrino/menos, . . . tau/tê| phula/ssonta chrê\

e)piti/thesthai e)n tê=| a)ntilogi/ê|] (p. 142).

The method, which Sokrates and Plato applied to ethical topics was

thus applied by others to medicine and medical dogmas. How the

dogmas of the Platonic Timæus would have fared, if scrutinised

with oral interrogations in this spirit, by men even far inferior

to Sokrates himself in acuteness--I will not say.]

[Side-note: Contrast between the admiration of Plato for the

constructors of the Kosmos, and the defective results which he

describes.]

From the glowing terms in which Plato describes the architectonic

skill and foresight of those Gods who put together the three souls

and the body of man, we should anticipate that the fabric would be

perfect, and efficacious for all intended purposes, in spite of

interruptions or accidents. But Plato, when he passes from

purposes to results, is constrained to draw a far darker picture.

He tells us that the mechanism of the human body will work well,

only so long as the juncture of the constituent triangles is fresh

and tight: after that period of freshness has passed, it begins to

fail.[135] But besides this, there exist a formidable catalogue of

diseases, attacking both body and mind: the cause of which (Plato

says) "is plain to every one": they proceed from excess, or

deficiency, or displacement, of some one among the four

constituent elements of the human body.[136] If we enquire why the

wise Constructors put together their materials in so faulty a

manner, the only reply to be made is, that the counteracting hand

of Necessity was too strong for them. In the Hesiodic and other

legends respecting anthropogony we find at least a happy

commencement, and the deterioration gradually supervening after

it. But Plato opens the scene at once with all the suffering

reality of the iron age--

[Greek: Plei/ê me\n ga\r gai=a kakô=n, plei/ê de\ tha/lassa;

Nou=soi d' a)nthrô/poisin e)ph' ê(me/rê| ê)\d' e)pi\ nukti\

Au)to/matoi phoitô=si]--[137]

[Footnote 135: Plat. Tim. pp. 81-89 B.]

[Footnote 136: Plat. Tim. p. 82. [Greek: dê=lo/n pou kai\

panti/].]

[Footnote 137: Compare what Plato says in Republic, ii. p. 379 C,

about the prodigious preponderance of [Greek: kaka\] over [Greek:

a)gatha\] in the life of man.]

[Side-note: Degeneration of the real tenants of Earth

from their primitive type.]

When Plato tells us that most part of the tenants of earth, air,

and water--all women, birds, quadrupeds, reptiles, and fishes--are

the deteriorated representatives of primitive men, constructed at

the beginning with the most provident skill, but debased by

degeneracy in various directions--this doctrine (something

analogous to the theory of Darwin with its steps inverted)

indicates that the original scheme of the Demiurgus, though

magnificent in its _ensemble_ with reference to the entire

Kosmos, was certain from the beginning to fail in its details. For

we are told that the introduction of birds, quadrupeds, &c.,

as among the constituents of the Auto-zôon, was an essential part

of the original scheme.[138] The constructing Gods, while forming

men upon a pure non-sexual type (such as that invoked by the

austere Hippolytus) exempt from the temptations of the most

violent appetite,[139] foresaw that such an angelic type could not

maintain itself:--that they would be obliged to reconstruct the

whole human organism upon the bi-sexual principle, introducing the

comparatively lower type of woman:--and that they must make

preparation for the still more degenerate varieties of birds and

quadrupeds, into which the corrupt and stupid portion of mankind

would sink.[140] Plato does indeed tell us, that the primitive

non-sexual type had the option of maintaining itself; and that it

perished by its own fault alone.[141] But since we find that not

one representative of it has been able to hold his ground:--and

since we also read in Plato, that no man is willingly corrupt, but

that corruption and stupidity of mind are like fevers and other

diseases, under which a man suffers against his own

consent[142]:--we see that the option was surrounded with insurmountable

difficulties: and that the steady and continued degradation, under

which the human race has sunk from its original perfection into

the lower endowments of the animal world, can be ascribed only to

the impracticability of the original scheme: that is, in

other words, to the obstacles interposed by implacable Necessity,

frustrating the benevolent purposes of the Constructors.

[Footnote 138: Plat. Tim. p. 41 B-C.]

[Footnote 139: Eurip. Hippol. 615; Medea, 573; Milton, Paradise

Lost, x. 888.

[Greek: chrê\n a)/r' a)/llothe/n pothen brotou\s

pai=das teknou=sthai, thê=lu d' ou)k ei)=nai ge/nos;

chou(/tôs a)\n ou)k ê)=n ou)de\n a)nthrô/pois kako/n.]]

[Footnote 140: Plat. Tim. p. 76 D. [Greek: ô(s ga/r pote e)x

a)ndrô=n gunai=kes kai\ ta)/lla thêri/a genê/sointo,

ê)pi/stanto oi( xunista/ntes ê(ma=s], &c. Compare pp. 90 E,

91.]

[Footnote 141: Plat. Tim. p. 42.]

[Footnote 142: Plat. Tim. pp. 86-87.]

[Side-note: Close of the Timæus. Plato turns away from the

shameful results, and reverts to the glorification of the

primitive types.]

However, all these details, attesting the low and poor actual

condition of the tenants of earth, water, and air--and forming so

marked a contrast to the magnificent description of the Kosmos as

a whole, with the splendid type of men who were established at

first alone in its central region--all these are hurried over by

Plato, as unwelcome accompaniments which he cannot put out of

sight. They have their analogies even in the kosmical agencies:

there are destructive kosmical forces, earthquakes, deluges,

conflagrations, &c., noticed as occurring periodically, and as

causing the almost total extinction of different communities.[143]

Though they must not be altogether omitted, he will nevertheless

touch them as briefly as possible.[144] He turns aside from this,

the shameful side of the Kosmos, to the sublime conception of it

with which he had begun, and which he now builds up again in the

following poetical doxology the concluding words of the Timæus:--

"Let us now declare that the discourse respecting the Universe is

brought to its close. This Kosmos, having received its complement

of animals, mortal and immortal, has become greatest, best, most

beautiful and most perfect: a visible animal comprehending all

things visible--a perceivable God the image of the cogitable God:

this Uranus, one and only begotten."[145]

[Footnote 143: Plato, Timæus, pp. 22, 23. Legg. iii. 677.

Politikus, pp. 272, 273.]

[Footnote 144: Plat. Tim. p. 90 E. [Greek: ta\ ga\r a)/lla zô=a

ê(=| ge/gonen au)=, dia\ brache/ôn e)pimnêste/on, o(/, ti mê/

tis a)na/gkê mêku/nein; ou(/tô ga\r e)mmetro/tero/s tis a)\n

au)tô=| do/xeie peri\ tou\s tou/tôn lo/gous ei)=nai.]]

[Footnote 145: Plat. Tim. p. 92 C. [Greek: Kai\ dê\ kai\ te/los

peri\ tou= panto\s nu=n ê)/dê to\n lo/gon ê(mi=n phô=men

e)/chein; thnêta\ ga\r kai\ a)tha/nata zô=a labô\n kai\

xumplêrôthei\s o(/de o( ko/smos, ou(/tô zô=on o(rato\n ta\

o(rata\ perie/chon, ei)kô\n tou= noêtou= theo\s ai)sthêto/s,

me/gistos kai\ a)/ristos ka/llisto/s te kai\ teleô/tatos

ge/gonen,--ei(=s ou)rano\s o(/de, monogenê\s ô)/n.]

Weh! Weh!

Du hast sie zerstört,

Die schöne Welt,

Mit mächtiger Faust;

Sie stürzt, sie zerfällt!

Ein Halb-Gott hat sie zerschlagen!

Wir tragen

Die Trümmern ins Nichts hinüber,

Und klagen

Ueber die verlorne Schöne!

Mächtiger

Der Erdensöhne,

Prächtiger

Baue sie wieder,

In deinem Busen baue sie auf!

(The response of the Geister-Chor, in Goethe's Faust, after the

accumulated imprecations uttered by Faust in his despair.)]

KRITIAS.

[Side-note: Kritias: a fragment.]

The dialogue Kritias exists only as a fragment, breaking off

abruptly in the middle of a sentence. The ancient Platonists found

it in the same condition, and it probably was never finished. We

know, however, the general scheme and purpose for which it was

destined.

[Side-note: Prooemium to Timæus. Intended Tetralogy for

the Republic. The Kritias was third piece in that Tetralogy.]

The prooemium to the Timæus introduces us to three persons[146]:

Kritias and Hermokrates, along with Sokrates. It is to them (as we

now learn) that Sokrates had on the preceding day recited the

Republic: a fourth hearer having been present besides, whom

Sokrates expects to see now, but does not see--and who is said to

be absent from illness. In requital for the intellectual treat

received from Sokrates, Timæus delivers the discourse which we

have just passed in review: Kritias next enters upon his narrative

or exposition, now lying before us as a fragment: and Hermokrates

was intended to follow it up with a fourth discourse, upon some

other topic not specified. It appears as if Plato, after having

finished the Republic as a distinct dialogue, conceived

subsequently the idea of making it the basis of a Tetralogy, to be

composed as follows: 1. _Timæus_: describing the construction

of the divine Kosmos, soul and body--with its tenants divine and

human; "the diapason ending full in man"--but having its harmony

spoiled by the degeneration of man, and the partial substitution

of inferior animals. 2. _Republic_: Man in a constituted

society, administered by a few skilful professional Rulers,

subject to perfect ethical training, and fortified by the most

tutelary habits. 3. _Kritias_: this perfect society,

exhibited in energetic action, and under pressure of terrible

enemies. 4. _Hermokrates_--subject unknown: perhaps the same

society, exhibited under circumstances calculated to try their

justice and temperance, rather than their courage. Of this

intended tetralogy the first two members alone exist: the third

was left unfinished: and the fourth was never commenced. But the

Republic appears to me to have been originally a distinct

composition. An afterthought of Plato induced him to rank it as

second piece in a projected tetralogy.[147]

[Footnote 146: Plato, Tim. p. 17 A. [Greek: ei(=s, du/o, trei=s;

o( de\ dê\ te/tartos ê(mi=n, ô)= phi/le Ti/maie, pou=, tô=n

chthe\s me\n daitumo/nôn, ta\ nu=n d' e(stiato/rôn?]

These are the words with which the Platonic Sokrates opens this

dialogue. Proklus, in his Commentary on the Timæus (i. pp.

5-10-14, ed. Schneider), notices a multiplicity of insignificant

questions raised by the ancient Platonic critics upon this

exordium. The earliest whom he notices is Praxiphanes, the friend

of Theophrastus, who blamed Plato for the absurdity of making

Sokrates count aloud one, two, three, &c. Porphyry replied to

him at length.

We see here that the habit of commenting on the Platonic dialogues

began in the generation immediately after Plato's death, that is,

the generation of Demetrius Phalereus.

Whom does Plato intend for the fourth person, unnamed and absent?

Upon this point the Platonic critics indulged in a variety of

conjectures, suggesting several different persons as intended.

Proklus (p. 14, Schn.) remarks upon these critics justly--[Greek:

ô(s ou)/te a)/xia zêtê/seôs zêtou=ntas, ou)/t' a)sphale/s ti

le/gontas.] But the comments which he proceeds to cite from his

master Syrianus are not at all more instructive (pp. 15-16,

Schn.).]

[Footnote 147: Socher (Ueber Platon's Schriften, pp. 370-371)

declares the fragment of the Kritias now existing to be spurious

and altogether unworthy of Plato. His opinion appears to me

unfounded, and has not obtained assent; but his arguments are as

good as those upon which other critics reject so many other

dialogues. He thinks the Kritias an inferior production: therefore

it cannot have been composed by Plato. Socher also thinks that the

whole allusion, made by Plato in this dialogue to Solon, is a

fiction by Plato himself. That the intended epic about Atlantis

would have been Plato's own fiction, I do not doubt, but it

appears to me that Solon's poems (as they then existed, though

fragmentary) must have contained allusions to Egyptian priests

with whom he had conversed in Egypt, and to their abundance of

historical anecdote (Plutarch, Solon, c. 26-31). It is not

improbable that Solon did leave an unfinished Egyptian poem.]

[Side-note: Subject of the Kritias. Solon and the Egyptian

priests. Citizens of Platonic Republic are identified with ancient

Athenians.]

The subject embraced by the Kritias is traced back to an

unfinished epic poem of Solon, intended by that poet and lawgiver

to celebrate a memorable exploit of Athenian antiquity, which he

had heard from the Priests of the Goddess Neith or Athênê at

Sais in Egypt. These priests (Plato tells us) treated the Greeks

as children, compared with the venerable antiquity of their own

ancestors; they despised the short backward reckoning of the

heroic genealogies at Athens or Argos. There were in the temple of

Athênê at Sais records of past time for 9000 years back: and

among these records was one, of that date, commemorating a

glorious exploit, of the Athenians as they then had been, unknown

to Solon or any of his countrymen.[148] The Athens, of 9000 years

anterior to Solon, had been great, powerful, courageous,

admirably governed, and distinguished for every kind of

virtue.[149] Athênê, the presiding Goddess both of Athens and of

Sais, had bestowed upon the Athenians a salubrious climate,

fertile soil, a healthy breed of citizens, and highly endowed

intelligence. Under her auspices, they were excellent alike in war

and in philosophy.[150] The separation of professions was fully

realised among them, according to the principle laid down in the

Republic as the only foundation for a good commonwealth. The

military class, composed of both sexes, was quartered in barrack

on the akropolis; which was at that time more spacious than it had

since become--and which possessed then, in common with the whole

surface of Attica, a rich soil covering that rocky bottom to which

it had been reduced in the Platonic age, through successive

deluges.[151] These soldiers, male and female, were maintained by

contributions from the remaining community: they lived in

perpetual drill, having neither separate property, nor separate

families, nor gold nor silver: lastly, their procreation was

strictly regulated, and their numbers kept from either increase or

diminution.[152] The husbandmen and the artizans were alike

excellent in their respective professions, to which they were

exclusively confined:[153] Hephæstus being the partner of Athênê

in joint tutelary presidency, and joint occupation of the central

temple on the akropolis. Thus admirably administered, the

Athenians were not only powerful at home, but also chiefs or

leaders of all the cities comprised under the Hellenic name:

chiefs by the voluntary choice and consent of the subordinates.

But the old Attic race by whom these achievements had been

performed, belonged to a former geological period: they had

perished, nearly all, by violent catastrophe--leaving the actual

Athenians as imperfect representatives.

[Footnote 148: Plato, Timæus, pp. 22-23. The great knowledge of

past history (real or supposed) possessed by the Egyptian priests,

and the length of their back chronology, alleged by themselves to

depend upon records preserved from a period of 17,000 years, are

well known from the interesting narrative of Herodotus (ii.

37-43-77-145)--[Greek: mnê/mên a)nthrô/pôn pa/ntôn e)paske/ontes]

(the priests of Egypt) [Greek: ma/lista, logiô/tatoi/ ei)si

makrô=| tô=n e)gô\ e)s dia/peiran a)phiko/mên] (ii. 77) . . .

[Greek: kai\ tau=ta a)treke/ôs phasi\n e)pi/stasthai, ai)ei/ te

logizo/menoi, kai\ ai)ei\ a)pographo/menoi ta\ e)/tea] (ii. 145).

Herodotus (ii. 143) tells us that the Egyptian priests at Thebes

held the same language to the historian Hekatæus, as Plato here

says that they held to Solon, when he talked about Grecian

antiquity in the persons of Phorôneus and Niobê. Hekatæus laid

before them his own genealogy--a dignified list of sixteen

ancestors, beginning from a God--upon which they out-bid him with

a counter-genealogy ([Greek: a)ntegenealo/gêsan]) of 345 chief

priests, who had succeeded each other from father to son. Plato

appears to have contracted great reverence for this long duration

of unchanged regulations in Egypt, and for the fixed, consecrated,

customs, with minute subdivision of professional castes and

employments: the hymns, psalmody, and music, having continued

without alteration for 10,000 years (_literally_

10,000--[Greek: ou)ch ô(s e)/pos ei)pei=n muriosto/n, a)ll'

o)/ntôs], Plat. Legg. ii. p. 656 E).]

[Footnote 149: Plato, Timæus, p. 23 C-D.]

[Footnote 150: Plato, Tim. p. 24 D. [Greek: a(/te ou)=n

philopo/lemo/s te kai\ philo/sophos ê( theo\s ou)=sa], &c.

Also p. 23 C.]

[Footnote 151: Plato, Krit. pp. 110 C, 112 B-D.]

[Footnote 152: Plato, Krit. p. 112 D. [Greek: plê=thos de\

diaphula/ttontes o(/, ti ma/lista tau)to\n e(autô=n ei)=nai pro\s

to\n a)ei\ chro/non a)ndrô=n kai\ gunaikô=n], &c.]

[Footnote 153: Plato, Krit. p. 111 E. [Greek: u(po\ geôrgô=n

me\n a)lêthinô=n kai\ pratto/ntôn au)to\ tou=to, gê=n de\

a)ri/stên kai\ u(/dôr a)phthonô/taton e)cho/ntôn], &c.

Also p. 110 C.]

[Side-note: Plato professes that what he is about to recount

is matter of history, recorded by Egyptian priests.]

Such was the enviable condition of Athens and Attica, at a period

9400 years before the Christian era. The Platonic Kritias takes

pains to assure us that the statement was true, both as to facts

and as to dates: that he had heard it himself when a boy of ten

years old, from his grandfather Kritias, then ninety years old,

whose father Dropides had been the intimate friend of Solon: and

that Solon had heard it from the priests at Sais, who offered to

show him the contemporary record of all its details in their

temple archives.[154] Kritias now proposes to repeat this

narrative to Sokrates, as a fulfilment of the wish expressed by

the latter to see the citizens of the Platonic Republic exhibited

in full action and movement. For the Athenians of 9000 years

before, having been organised on the principles of that Republic,

may fairly be taken as representing its citizens. And it will be

more satisfactory to Sokrates to hear a recital of real history

than a series of imagined exploits.[155]

[Footnote 154: Plat. Tim. pp. 23 E, 24 A-D. [Greek: to\ d'

a)kribe\s peri\ pa/ntôn e)phexê=s ei)sau=this kata\ scholê/n,

au)ta\ ta\ gra/mmata labo/ntes die/ximen] (24 A).]

[Footnote 155: Plat. Tim. p. 26 D-E.]

[Side-note: Description of the vast island of Atlantis and

its powerful kings.]

Accordingly, Kritias proceeds to describe, in some detail, the

formidable invaders against whom these old Athenians had

successfully contended: the inhabitants of the vast island

Atlantis (larger than Libya and Asia united), which once occupied

most of the space now filled by the great ocean westward of Gades

and the pillars of Heraklês. This prodigious island was governed

by ten kings of a common ancestry: descending respectively from

ten sons (among whom Atlas was first-born and chief) of the God

Poseidon by the indigenous Nymph Kleito.[156] We read an imposing

description of its large population and abundant produce of every

kind: grain for man, pasture for animals, elephants being abundant

among them:[157] timber and metals of all varieties: besides which

the central city, with its works for defence, and its

artificial canals, bridges, and harbour, is depicted as a

wonder to behold.[158] The temple of Poseidon was magnificent and

of vast dimensions, though in barbaric style.[159] The harbour,

surrounded by a dense and industrious population, was full of

trading vessels arriving with merchandise from all quarters.[160]

[Footnote 156: Plat. Krit. pp. 113-114.]

[Footnote 157: Plat. Krit. p. 114 E.]

[Footnote 158: Plat. Krit. p. 115 D. [Greek: ei)s e)/kplêxin

mege/thesi ka/llesi/ te e)/rgôn i)dei=n], &c.]

[Footnote 159: Plat. Krit. p. 116 D-E.]

[Footnote 160: Plat. Krit. p. 117 E.]

[Side-note: Corruption and wickedness of the Atlantid

people.]

The Atlantid kings, besides this great power and prosperity at

home, exercised dominion over all Libya as far as Egypt, and over

all Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. The corrupting influence of such

vast power was at first counteracted by their divine descent and

the attributes attached to it: but the divine attributes became

more and more adulterated at each successive generation, so that

the breed was no longer qualified to contend against corruption.

The kings came to be intoxicated with wealth, full of exorbitant

ambition and rapacity, reckless of temperance or justice. The

measure of their iniquity at length became full; and Zeus was

constrained to take notice of it, for the purpose of inflicting

the chastisement which the case required.[161] He summoned a

meeting of the Gods, at his own Panoptikon in the centre of the

Kosmos and there addressed them.

[Footnote 161: Plat. Krit. p. 121.]

[Side-note: Conjectures as to what the Platonic Kritias

would have been--an ethical epic in prose.]

At this critical moment the fragment called Kritias breaks off. We

do not know what was the plan which Plato (in the true spirit of

the ancient epic) was about to put into the mouth of Zeus, for the

information of the divine agora. We learn only that Plato intended

to recount an invasion of Attica, by an army of Atlantids almost

irresistible: and the glorious repulse thereof by Athens and her

allies, with very inferior forces. The tale would have borne much

resemblance to the Persian invasion of Greece, as recounted by

Herodotus: but Plato, while employing the same religious agencies

which that historian puts in the foreground, would probably have

invested them with a more ethical character, and would have

arranged the narrative so as to illustrate the triumph of

philosophical Reason and disciplined Energy, over gigantic,

impetuous, and reckless Strength. He would have described in

detail the heroic valour and endurance of the trained

Athenian Soldiers, women as well as men: and he would have

embodied the superior Reason of the philosophical Chiefs not

merely in prudent orders given to subordinates, but also in wise

discourses[162] and deliberations such as we read in the Cyropædia

of Xenophon. We should have had an edifying epic in prose, if

Plato had completed his project. Unfortunately we know only two

small fractions of it: first the introductory prologue (which I

have already noticed)--lastly, the concluding catastrophe. The

conclusion was, that both the victors and the vanquished

disappeared altogether, and became extinct. Terrific earthquakes,

and not less terrific deluges, shook and overspread the earth. The

whole military caste of Attica were, in one day and night,

swallowed up into the bowels of the earth (the same release as

Zeus granted to the just Amphiaraus)[163] and no more heard of:

while not only the population of Atlantis, but that entire island

itself, was submerged beneath the ocean. The subsidence of this

vast island has rendered navigation impossible; there is nothing

in the Atlantic Ocean but shallow water and mud.[164]

[Footnote 162: Plat. Tim. p. 19 C-E. [Greek: kata/ te ta\s e)n

toi=s e)/rgois pra/xeis kai\ kata\ ta\s e)n toi=s lo/gois

diermêneu/seis] (19 C).]

[Footnote 163: Apollodorus, iii. 6, 6; Pausanias, ix. 8, 2.]

[Footnote 164: Plat. Tim. p. 25 C-D. [Greek: seismô=n e)xaisi/ôn

kai\ kataklusmô=n genome/nôn, mia=s ê(me/ras kai\ nukto\s

chalepê=s e)pelthou/sês . . . a)/poron kai\ a)diereu/nêton

ge/gone to\ e)kei= pe/lagos], &c.

Respecting the shallow and muddy water of the Atlantic and its

unnavigable character, as believed in the age of Plato, see a long

note in my 'History of Greece' (ch. xviii. vol. iii. p. 381).]

[Side-note: Plato represents the epic Kritias as matter of

recorded history.]

The epic of Plato would thus have concluded with an appalling

catastrophe of physical agencies or divine prodigies (such as that

which we read at the close of the Æschylean Prometheus[165]),

under which both the contending parties perished. These gigantic

outbursts of kosmical forces, along with the other facts, Plato

affirms to have been recorded in the archives of the Egyptian

priests. He wishes us to believe that the whole transaction is

historical. As to particular narratives, the line between truth

and fiction was obscurely drawn in his mind.

[Footnote 165: Æschyl. Prom. 1086.]

Another remark here deserving of notice is, That in this epic of

the Kritias, Plato introduces the violent and destructive kosmical

agencies (earthquakes, deluges, and the like) as frequently

occurring, and as one cause of the periodical destruction of

many races or communities. It is in this way that the Egyptian

priest is made to explain to Solon the reason why no

long-continued past records were preserved in Attica, or anywhere

else, except in Egypt.[166] This last-mentioned country was exempt

from such calamities: but in other countries, the thread of tradition

was frequently broken, because the whole race (except a few) were

periodically destroyed by deluges or conflagrations, leaving only

a few survivors miserably poor, without arts or letters. The

affirmation of these frequent destructions stands in marked

contradiction with the chief thesis announced at the beginning of

the Timæus--_viz._, the beauty and perfection of the Kosmos.

[Footnote 166: Plato, Tim. pp. 22 C-D, 23 B-C.]