Chapter 20

10Isokrates, De Permutatione, Or. xv. s. 287-288-304. ἡγοῦμαι γὰρ τὰς μὲν τοιαύταςπεριττολογίαςὁμοίας εἶναι ταῖς θαυματοποιίαις ταῖς οὐδὲν μὲν ὠφελούσαις, ὑπὸ δὲ τῶν ἀνοήτων περιστάτοις γιγνομέναις (s. 288). …τοὺς δὲ τῶν μὲν ἀναγκαίων ἀμελοῦντας, τὰς δὲ τῶν παλαιῶν σοφιστῶντερατολογίαςἀγαπῶντας, φιλοσοφεῖν φασίν (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.

τοὺς δὲ τῶν μὲν ἀναγκαίων ἀμελοῦντας, τὰς δὲ τῶν παλαιῶν σοφιστῶντερατολογίαςἀγαπῶντας, φιλοσοφεῖν φασίν (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.

11Plato, Sophist. pp. 242-243. Μῦθόν τινα ἕκαστος φαίνεταί μοι διηγεῖσθαι παισὶν ὡς οὖσιν ἡμῖν· ὁ μὲν ὡς τρία τὰ ὄντα, πολεμεῖ δὲ ἀλλήλοις ἐνίοτε αὐτῶν ἄττα πῃ, τότε δὲ καὶ φίλα γιγνόμενα γάμους τε καὶ τόκους καὶ τροφὰς τῶν ἐκγόνων παρέχεται (p. 242 C-D).

12Xenophon, Memorab. i. 1, 11-14. Οὐδεὶς δὲ πώποτε Σωκράτους οὐδὲν ἀσεβὲς οὐδὲ ἀνόσιον οὔτε πράττοντος εἶδεν οὔτε λέγοντος ἤκουσεν·οὐδὲ γὰρπερὶ τῆς τῶν πάντων φύσεως ἧπερ τῶν ἄλλων οἵ πλεῖστοι, διελέγετο, σκοπῶνὅπως ὁ καλούμενος ὑπὸ τῶν σοφιστῶν κόσμοςἔχει, καὶ τίσιν ἀνάγκαις ἕκαστα γίγνεται τῶν οὐρανίων· ἀλλὰ καὶ τοὺς φροντίζοντας τὰ τοιαῦτα μωραίνοντας ἀπεδείκνυε.Lucretius, i. 80:—Illud in his rebus vereor, ne forté rearisImpia te rationis inire elementa, viamqueIndugredi sceleris, &c.The above cited passage of Xenophon shows that the term Κόσμος 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, — Τὸν μέγιστον θεὸν καὶ ὅλον τὸν κόσμον φαμὲν οὔτε ζητεῖν δεῖν οὔτε πολυπραγμονεῖν τὰς αἰτίας ἐρευνῶντας· οὐ γὰρ οὐδ’ ὅσιον εἶναι· τὸ δὲ ἔοικε πᾶν τούτου τοὐναντίον γιγνόμενον ὀρθῶς ἂν γίγνεσθαι. This last passage is sometimes cited as if the word φαμὲν expressed the opinion of the principal speaker, or of Plato himself — which is a mistake: φαμὲν here expresses the opinion which the principal speaker is about to controvert.

Lucretius, i. 80:—

Illud in his rebus vereor, ne forté rearisImpia te rationis inire elementa, viamqueIndugredi sceleris, &c.

The above cited passage of Xenophon shows that the term Κόσμος 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, — Τὸν μέγιστον θεὸν καὶ ὅλον τὸν κόσμον φαμὲν οὔτε ζητεῖν δεῖν οὔτε πολυπραγμονεῖν τὰς αἰτίας ἐρευνῶντας· οὐ γὰρ οὐδ’ ὅσιον εἶναι· τὸ δὲ ἔοικε πᾶν τούτου τοὐναντίον γιγνόμενον ὀρθῶς ἂν γίγνεσθαι. This last passage is sometimes cited as if the word φαμὲν expressed the opinion of the principal speaker, or of Plato himself — which is a mistake: φαμὲν here expresses the opinion which the principal speaker is about to controvert.

13See above,vol. i. ch. ix.of the present work, where the Platonic Apology is reviewed.

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.

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 onlyby 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.

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.15He 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.

15Plato, Timæus, pp. 29-30.

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,16but 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 andirresistible, so as to improve it as far as it will allow itself to be improved.17This 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.18The 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

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).

17The verbs used by Plato to describe the proceedings of the Demiurgus are ξυνετεκταίνετο, ξυνέστησε, ξυνεκεράσατο, ἐμηχανήσατο, and such like.

18Plato, Timæus, pp. 47 E-48 A. ἐπιδέδεικται τὰ διὰ νοῦ δεδημιουργημένα· δεῖ δὲ καὶ τὰ δι’ ἀνάγκης γιγνόμενα τῷ λόγῳ παραθέσθαι. Μεμιγμένη γὰρ οὖν ἡ τοῦδε τοῦ κόσμου γένεσις ἐξ ἀνάγκης τε καὶ νοῦ ξυστάσεως ἐγεννήθη· νοῦ δὲ ἀνάγκης ἄρχοντοςτῷ πείθειν αὐτὴντῶν γιγνομένων τὰ πλεῖστα ἐπὶ τὸ βέλτιστον ἄγειν, ταύτῃ κατὰ ταῦτά τε δι’ ἀνάγκης ἡττωμένης ὑπὸπείθουςἔμφρονος, οὕτω κατ’ ἀρχὰς ξυνίστατο τόδε τὸ πᾶν. Εἴ τις οὖν ἧ γέγονε, κατὰ ταῦτα ὄντως ἐρεῖ, μικτέον καὶτὸ τῆς πλανωμένης εἶδος αἰτίας, ἧ φέρειν πέφυκεν. Compare p. 56 C: ὅπῃπερ ἡ τῆς ἀνάγκηςἑκοῦσα πεισθεῖσάτε φύσις ὑπεῖκε. Also pp. 68 E, 75 B, 30 A.Τέχνη δ’ ἀνάγκης ἀσθενεστέρα μακρῷ says Prometheus in Æschylus (P. V. 514). He identifies Ἀνάγκη with the Μοῖραι: and we read in Herodotus (i. 91) of Apollo as trying to persuade the Fates to spare Krœsus, but obtaining for him only a respite of three years — οὐκ οἷόν τε ἐγένετο παραγαγεῖν μοίρας,ὅσον δὲ ἐνέδωκαν αὗται, ἠνύσατο καὶ ἐχαρίσατό οἱ. This is the language used by Plato about Ἀνάγκη and the Demiurgus. A valuable exposition of the relations believed to subsist between the Gods and Μοῖρα is to be found in Naegelsbach, Homerische Theologie (chap. iii. pp. 113-131).

Τέχνη δ’ ἀνάγκης ἀσθενεστέρα μακρῷ says Prometheus in Æschylus (P. V. 514). He identifies Ἀνάγκη with the Μοῖραι: and we read in Herodotus (i. 91) of Apollo as trying to persuade the Fates to spare Krœsus, but obtaining for him only a respite of three years — οὐκ οἷόν τε ἐγένετο παραγαγεῖν μοίρας,ὅσον δὲ ἐνέδωκαν αὗται, ἠνύσατο καὶ ἐχαρίσατό οἱ. This is the language used by Plato about Ἀνάγκη and the Demiurgus. A valuable exposition of the relations believed to subsist between the Gods and Μοῖρα is to be found in Naegelsbach, Homerische Theologie (chap. iii. pp. 113-131).

19Plutarch reproduces this theory (Phokion, c. 2, ad fin.) of God governing the Kosmos, not by superior force, but by reason and persuasion — ᾗ καὶ τὸν κόσμον ὁ θεὸς λέγεται διοικεῖν, οὐ βιαζόμενος, ἀλλὰ πειθοῖ καὶ λόγῳ παράγων τὴν ἀνάγκην.

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 byFreewill, in the modern metaphysical argument between Freewill and Necessity: it is the undeterminedor self-determining, as contrasted with that which depends upon some given determining conditions, known or knowable. The Platonic Necessity20is 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.21As 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, whatis ascertainable and predictable.22I 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.

20In the Symposion (pp. 195 D, 197 B) we find Eros panegyrised as having amended and mollified the primeval empire of Ἀνάγκη.The Scholiast on Hesiod, Theogon. 119, gives a curious metaphysical explanation of Ἔρος, mentioned in the Hesiodic text — τὴν ἐγκατεσπαρμένην φυσικῶς κινητικὴν αἰτίαν ἑκάστῳ τῶν ὀντων, καθ’ ἣν ἐφίεται ἕκαστος τοῦ εἶναι.

20In the Symposion (pp. 195 D, 197 B) we find Eros panegyrised as having amended and mollified the primeval empire of Ἀνάγκη.

The Scholiast on Hesiod, Theogon. 119, gives a curious metaphysical explanation of Ἔρος, mentioned in the Hesiodic text — τὴν ἐγκατεσπαρμένην φυσικῶς κινητικὴν αἰτίαν ἑκάστῳ τῶν ὀντων, καθ’ ἣν ἐφίεται ἕκαστος τοῦ εἶναι.

21In the Philêbus, p. 23 C-D, these three are recognised under the terms:— 1. Πέρας. 2. Ἄπειρον. 3. Αἰτία — τῆς ξυμμίξεως τούτων πρὸς ἄλληλα τὴν αἰτίαν.Compare a curious passage of Plutarch, Symposiacon, viii. 2, p. 719 E, illustrating the Platonic phrase — τὸν θεὸν ἀεὶ γεωμετρεῖν.

21In the Philêbus, p. 23 C-D, these three are recognised under the terms:— 1. Πέρας. 2. Ἄπειρον. 3. Αἰτία — τῆς ξυμμίξεως τούτων πρὸς ἄλληλα τὴν αἰτίαν.

Compare a curious passage of Plutarch, Symposiacon, viii. 2, p. 719 E, illustrating the Platonic phrase — τὸν θεὸν ἀεὶ γεωμετρεῖν.

22Plato, 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.

Process of demiurgic construction — The total Kosmos comes logically first, constructed on the model of the Αὐτοζῶον.

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 Αὐτοζῶον,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.24In 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.

23Plato, Timæus, p. 30 D.

24Plat. Timæus, pp. 39 E-40 A. ἧπερ οὖν νοῦς ἐνούσας ἰδέας τῷ ὃ ἔστι ζῶον, οἷαί τε ἔνεισι καὶ ὅσαι, καθορᾷ, τοιαύτας καὶ τοσαύτας διενοήθη δεῖν καὶ τόδε σχεῖν. Εἰσὶ δὲ τέτταρες, μία μὲν οὐράνιον θεῶν γένος, ἄλλη δὲ πτηνὸν καὶ ἀεροπόρον, τρίτη δὲ ἔνυδρον εἶδος, πεζὸν δὲ καὶ χερσαῖον τέταρτον.

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. Buttwo 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.25Thus 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

25Plato, 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 arithmeticianslinear numbers,par excellenceor properly so-called, were the prime numbers, measurable by unity only;plane numberswere the products of two such linear numbers or prime numbers;solid numberswere 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 findany onesolid number or any whole number which shall be a mean proportional, but you can always findtwosolid 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 twosolidnumbers (so understood) one such mean proportional will never be sufficient, while two can always be found; and that between twoplanenumbers(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.”

26Plat. Timæus, p. 32 E.

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.27The Demiurgus made it perfectly smooth on the outside, for various reasons.28First, 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.29Moreover 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.30He 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

27Plato, Timæus, p. 33 B. κυκλοτερὲς αὐτὸ ἐτορνεύσατο, &c.

28Plato, Timæus, p. 33 C. λεῖον δὲ δὴ κύκλῳ πᾶν ἔξωθεν αὐτὸ ἀπηκριβοῦτο, πολλῶν χάριν, &c.Aristotle also maintains that the sphericity of the Kosmos is so exact that no piece of workmanship can make approach to it. (De Cœlo, ii. p. 287, b. 15.)

28Plato, Timæus, p. 33 C. λεῖον δὲ δὴ κύκλῳ πᾶν ἔξωθεν αὐτὸ ἀπηκριβοῦτο, πολλῶν χάριν, &c.

Aristotle also maintains that the sphericity of the Kosmos is so exact that no piece of workmanship can make approach to it. (De Cœlo, ii. p. 287, b. 15.)

29Plato, Timæus, p. 33 E. On this point the Platonic Timæus is not Pythagorean, but the reverse. The Pythagoreans recognised extraneous to the Kosmos, τὸ ἄπειρον πνεῦμα or τὸ κενόν. 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).

30Plato, Timæus, p. 34 A. ἐπὶ δὲ τὴν περίοδον ταύτην, ἅτ’ οὐδὲν ποδῶν δέον, ἀσκελὲς καὶ ἄπουν αὐτὸ ἐγέννησεν.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.

30Plato, Timæus, p. 34 A. ἐπὶ δὲ τὴν περίοδον ταύτην, ἅτ’ οὐδὲν ποδῶν δέον, ἀσκελὲς καὶ ἄπουν αὐτὸ ἐγέννησεν.

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.

31Plat. Tim. p. 34 A. κίνησιν γὰρ ἀπένειμεν αὐτῷ τὴν τοῦ σώματος οἰκείαν, τῶν ἕπτα τὴν περὶ νοῦν καὶ φρόνησιν μάλιστα οὔσαν. 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 motionmust belongto the Πρῶτον σῶμα, 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 Cœlo, i. pp. 269-270, ii. p. 284, a. 10.

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.32The Demiurgus put together at the same time its soul or mind; whichhe 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.33The mixture was divided, and the portions blended together, according to a scale of harmonic numerical proportion complicated and difficult to follow.34The 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 bya 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

32Plat. Tim. p. 31 B. εἷς ὅδε μονογενὴς οὐρανός, &c.

33Plat. Tim. p. 35 A. Ταὐτὸν — τὸ ἀμέριστον — θάτερον — τὸ μεριστὸν — τρίτον ἐξ ἀμφοῖν οὐσίας εἶδος.

34Plato, 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 τετρακτύες 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 Λ, 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.

35Plato, Timæus, p. 36 C. τὴν μὲν οὖν ἔξω φορὰν ἐπεφήμισεν εἶναι τῆς ταὐτοῦ φύσεως, τὴν δ’ ἐντός, τῆς θἀτέρου. τὴν μὲν δὴ ταὐτοῦ κατὰ πλευρὰν ἐπὶ δεξιὰ περιήγαγε, τὴν δὲ θατέρου κατὰ διάμετρον ἐπ’ ἀριστερά.For the meaning of κατὰ πλευρὰν and κατὰ διάμετρον, 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 χῖ is hardly intelligible without both a commentary and a diagram.

For the meaning of κατὰ πλευρὰν and κατὰ διάμετρον, 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 χῖ 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.36Thus 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.37Reason 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.

36Aristotel. 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.

37Plato, Timæus, pp. 36-37. 37 A: λέγει κινουμένη διὰ πάσης ἑαυτῆς, ὅτῳ τ’ ἄν τι ταὐτὸν ᾗ, καὶ ὅτου ἂν ἕτερον, πρὸς ὅ, τι τε μάλιστα καὶ ὅπῃ καὶ ὅπως καὶ ὁπότε ξυμβαίνει κατὰ τὰ γιγνόμενά τε πρὸς ἕκαστον ἕκαστα εἶναι καὶ πάσχειν, καὶ πρὸς τὰ κατὰ ταὐτὰ ἔχοντα ἀεί.

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: existingsub specie æternitatis, and having only a perpetualpresent, but no past or future.38Along 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:39that 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

38Plato, 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 τὸ ἀΐδιον or αἰώνιον, 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 λόγος 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 τὸ αἰώνιον τὸ ἀεὶ ὡσαύτως ἔχον τὸ ὄντως ὄν: 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.

The ideal λόγος 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 τὸ αἰώνιον τὸ ἀεὶ ὡσαύτως ἔχον τὸ ὄντως ὄν: 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.

39Plato, Timæus, p. 39 C. ἡ τῆς μιᾶς καὶ φρονιμωτάτης κυκλήσεως περίοδος. 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.

40My 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 Platothanit 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.

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.

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.41It 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.42The 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

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