care.* By slow degrees the former motion, with the order and harmony by which it was accompanied, is diminished, until, having passed the minimum point, it makes a transition to the contrary direction with a constantly accelerated momentum. It is then that the greatest deteriorations and corruptions take place; first, of the vegetable, next, of the animal world, and, finally, of the human race, until here and there a small and wretched remnant alone survive. The old harmony, the remembrance of which had not before been entirely quenched, is now utterly extinct. The former laws of nature are all reversed, until, finally, when on the very verge of utter ruin—τότ ̓ ἤδη ὁ θεὸς, καθορῶν αὐτὸν ἐν ἀπορίαις ὄντα, κηδόμενος ἵνα μὴ χειμασθεὶς ὑπὸ ταραχῆς διαλυθεὶς εἰς τὸν τῆς ἀνομοιότητος ἄπειρον ὄντα τόπον δύη, πάλιν ἔφεδρος αὐτοῦ τῶν πηδαλίων γιγνόμενος, τὰ νοσήσαντα καὶ λυθέντα στρέψας, κοσμεῖ τε καὶ ἐπανορθῶν, ἀθάνατον αὐτὸν καὶ ἀγήρω ἀπεργάζεται— God, beholding it in great extremity, and being concerned, lest, being overwhelmed in disorder and utterly dissolved, it should plunge again into the limitless, formless region of dissimilitude and chaos, once more seats himself at the helm (from which he had before returned to his secret place of observation, els Tηv aντον περιwπŃν), and having arrested its weak and dissolved parts in their course to ruin, arranges it again in order, rectifies it, and thus renders it immortal," 273, D. 66 the Heavenly Bodies; and Note LXVII., on the Platonic Doctrine of the Demons or Genii. * Or, in the expressive language of the original, τǹν тоυ πатpòs didaxǹv åñoμvnμoveúwv eis dúvaμıv—“ Still, as well as it could, remembering the teaching of its father." The allusion seems to be to the fable of Phaeton striving in vain to remember and follow the directions given him by his father, when he so rashly undertook to drive the chariot of the Sun. + Lest it should plunge again into the limitless place of dissimilitude. That is, back again to old chaos. The language strongly calls to mind the of Genesis, i., 2. he --We find occasionally in Plato, especially in the Timæus, mention made of åváyêŋ, or necessity, as some strong and apparently opposing power, on which the Divine energy was constantly exercised, not so much in directly overcoming, as in controlling and directing it to the accomplishment of the Divine purposes. Thus, in the Timæus, 48, A., speaks of the generation of the world having proceeded from the combined operation of voũs and ȧváyêŋ, mind and necessity. To the former, however, he ascribes a species of authority, yet of a persuasive rather than of a violent nature: Νοῦ δὲ ἀνάγκης ἄρχοντος, τῷ πείθειν αὐτὴν τῶν γιγνομένων τὰ πλεῖστα ἐπὶ τὸ βέλτιστον ἄγειν, ταύτη δι' ἀνάγκης ἡττωμένης ὑπὸ πειθοῦς ἔμφρονος, οὕτω ξυνίστατο Tódε Tò пãν—“ But, since Mind rules Necessity, by persuading her to bring to the best results the most of things as they are generated; thus, in this way, through necessity overcome by rational persuasion, this universe received its construction." By ȧváуêη, here, Plato does not mean his evil soul, neither does he generally intend any physical necessity arising from motion as a property of matter (although he and the Greek poets* do sometimes apply the term to what we style the laws of nature, and it has something of this aspect in the present passage from the Timæus), but rather a metaphysical or logical necessity, a necessity existing in the idea of a thing, in its constituting cause, or that which makes it what it is in its λóyoç, or notion-in short, a necessity of the mind, by which it is compelled to include certain principia in the very definition of any existing or conceivable thing; and hence he employs in respect to it such terms as πείθειν, and πειθοῦς ἔμφρονος, words which would have little or no meaning as applied to a purely physical necessity. * As, for example, Euripides, Troades, 893: Ζεύς, εἶτ ̓ ἀνάγκη φύσεος, εἴτε νοῦς βροτῶν. For example, in the idea of matter, or rather body, impenetrability necessarily enters. Hence, also, the impossibility that two bodies should ever occupy the same space; which we have shown (page 143) to be more of a logical than a physical necessity. God cannot make matter without this. It is no more irreverent thus to speak, than to say that God cannot make matter or body, which is not body, or in any case go contrary to the idea of anything, and yet have it remain the same. Motion is not a necessary property of matter; and when we say this, we mean that there is no law of our minds, as in the above cases, which compels us to predicate it of matter. Other species of logical necessity (that is, a necessity in the ideas of things) are the mathematical ȧváyκaι. Hence, the laws of motion, being partly mathematical and partly physical, are necessary, so far as they partake of the former character. It is not necessary that bodies should attract each other in the inverse ratio of the squares of their distances: had it been the ordinance of God, it would have been in the ratio of their cubes. When, however, the Deity establishes such a motion as a fact, it must conform to all the necessities of numbers involved in, and which grow out of, the first simple formula or statement of the law. So, also, in morals, the idea of good may, perhaps, necessarily include the contingency of evil; sin may be necessarily associated, in idea, with misery. In all such cases, Plato would speak of the Deity not as violently overcoming necessity, but as ruling, directing, controlling it, to bring about the purposes of his moral government, or, in other words, using towards it "a kind of rational persuasion." XXXII. Platonic Analogy between the Motion of Nous and Ψυχή and that of a Sphere, or of the Heavens. PAGE 34, LINE 5. Εἰ μὲν ἡ ξύμπασα οὐρανοῦ ὁδὸς ἅμα καὶ φορὰ νοῦ κινήσει καὶ περιφορᾷ καὶ λογισμοῖς ὁμοίαν φύσιν ἔχει καὶ ξυγγενῶς ἔρχεται, κ. τ. λ. — If the whole way and course of the heavens hath a nature similar to the course, and period, and reasonings of mind, and proceeds in a kindred manner, we must certainly affirm that the best soul (τὴν εὐεργέτιδα) takes care of the universe.” We may compare with this the expressions, περίοδος νοῦ-περίοδος ψυχῆς, which occur so frequently in the Timæus: Τὰς τῆς ἀθανάτου ψυχῆς περιόδους ἐνέδουν εἰς ἐπίῤῥυτον καὶ ἀπόῤῥυτον σῶμα. Timæus, 43, A. So, also, 39, where there is the same allusion in the expression, ἡ τῆς μιᾶς καὶ φρονιμωτάτης κυκλήσεως περίοδος. 66 After the description of the visible animal (ζῶον ὁρατόν), or material universe in which the new-created soul of the world was to reside, he thus says: κίνησιν γὰρ ἀπένειμεν αὐτῷ τὴν τοῦ σώματος μάλιστα οἰκείαν, τῶν ἑπτὰ τὴν περὶ νοῦν καὶ φρόνησιν μάλιστα οὖσαν. διὸ δὴ κατὰ ταὐτὰ, ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ καὶ ἐν αὐτῷ περιαγαγὼν αὐτό, ἐποίησε κύκλῳ κινεῖσθαι στρεφόμενον— For he gave to it a peculiar motion of its own, namely, that one of the seven which has the nearest relation (or analogy) to mind and wisdom. Wherefore, guiding it so as to move always in the same relations, in the same place, and within itself, he made it revolve in a circle." Timæus, 33, P. We have the same idea a little farther on in this tenth book of The Laws, page 35, line 15 : Τὸ κατὰ ταὐτὰ δήπου καὶ ὡσαύτως καὶ ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ, καὶ περὶ τὰ αὐτά, καὶ πρὸς τὰ αὐτά, καὶ ἕνα λόγον καὶ τάξιν μίαν ἄμφω κινεῖσθαι λέγοντες, νοῦν, τήν τε ἐν ἑνὶ φερομένην κίνησιν, σφαίρας ἐντόρνου ἀπεικασμένα φο ραῖς, οὐκ ἄν ποτε, κ. τ. λ.—“ If we say this, namely, that mind and motion in one, &c., being both of them capable of being likened to the revolutions of a sphere, do both of them ever move kaтà Tavтá, preserving the same relations, in a uniform manner, in the same, around the same, and according to one analogy and one order, we should not institute an inferior or imperfect comparison." This was one of the favourite speculations of Plato, and is kept prominently in view in the Timæus; so much so, that, without attending to it, it is impossible to understand many passages in that most profound, yet strange and difficult dialogue. He there describes the soul of the world as being constituted of two essences-τῆς ἀμερίστου καὶ ἀεὶ κατὰ ταὐτὰ ἐχούσης ουσίας καὶ τῆς αὖ περὶ τὰ σώματα YLYVOμÉVNS μEPLoτns—the one conversant with eternal, unchangeable, and necessary truth, νοήσει μετὰ λόγου περιληπтóν; the other, with facts or phenomena, or, as he here styles them in The Laws, the second-working motions of matter, physical laws, or second causes. Corresponding to these, he frequently speaks of two periods, which, in very strange phraseology, he describes as ἡ τῆς ταὐτοῦ φύσεως καὶ τῆς τοῦ ἑτέρου. The first he likens to spherical or circular motion (pepoμévŋv ¿v ¿ví), and finds its symbolical expression in the steady, unvarying, and eternal revolution of the sphere of the fixed stars or highest heavens (whether regarded as phenomenal or not makes, in this respect, no difference). The other, which he elsewhere styles a bastard reason (vółoç λoyɩσμóç), is conceived as represented by the irregular, variant, and sometimes retrograde motions of the lower bodies, and especially of the terrestrial phenomena. Matter and the external world being in a continual flux, he regarded sensation, and that exercise of reason which takes sensation and phenomenal facts for its necessary hypotheses, as partaking of all the instability of its ever-flowing foundation. See the Timaus, from 28, A., to 43, B. |