Sacred Texts
Classics
Plato
TIMAEUS
by Plato
360 BC
translated by Benjamin Jowett
New York, C. Scribner's Sons, [1871]
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: SOCRATES; CRITIAS; TIMAEUS; HERMOCRATES
Socrates. One, two, three; but where, my dear Timaeus, is the fourth
of those who were yesterday my guests and are to be my entertainers
to-day?
Timaeus. He has been taken ill, Socrates; for he would not willingly
have been absent from this gathering.
Soc. Then, if he is not coming, you and the two others must supply
his place.
Tim. Certainly, and we will do all that we can; having been
handsomely entertained by you yesterday, those of us who remain should
be only too glad to return your hospitality.
Soc. Do you remember what were the points of which I required you to
speak?
Tim. We remember some of them, and you will be here to remind us
of anything which we have forgotten: or rather, if we are not
troubling you, will you briefly recapitulate the whole, and then the
particulars will be more firmly fixed in our memories?
Soc. To be sure I will: the chief theme of my yesterday's
discourse was the State-how constituted and of what citizens
composed it would seem likely to be most perfect.
Tim. Yes, Socrates; and what you said of it was very much to our
mind.
Soc. Did we not begin by separating the husbandmen and the
artisans from the class of defenders of the State?
Tim. Yes.
Soc. And when we had given to each one that single employment and
particular art which was suited to his nature, we spoke of those who
were intended to be our warriors, and said that they were to be
guardians of the city against attacks from within as well as from
without, and to have no other employment; they were to be merciful
in judging their subjects, of whom they were by nature friends, but
fierce to their enemies, when they came across them in battle.
Tim. Exactly.
Soc. We said, if I am not mistaken, that the guardians should be
gifted with a temperament in a high degree both passionate and
philosophical; and that then they would be as they ought to be, gentle
to their friends and fierce with their enemies.
Tim. Certainly.
Soc. And what did we say of their education? Were they not to be
trained in gymnastic, and music, and all other sorts of knowledge
which were proper for them?
Tim. Very true.
Soc. And being thus trained they were not to consider gold or silver
or anything else to be their own private property; they were to be
like hired troops, receiving pay for keeping guard from those who were
protected by them-the pay was to be no more than would suffice for men
of simple life; and they were to spend in common, and to live together
in the continual practice of virtue, which was to be their sole
pursuit.
Tim. That was also said.
Soc. Neither did we forget the women; of whom we declared, that
their natures should be assimilated and brought into harmony with
those of the men, and that common pursuits should be assigned to
them both in time of war and in their ordinary life.
Tim. That, again, was as you say.
Soc. And what about the procreation of children? Or rather not the
proposal too singular to be forgotten? for all wives and children were
to be in common, to the intent that no one should ever know his own
child, but they were to imagine that they were all one family; those
who were within a suitable limit of age were to be brothers and
sisters, those who were of an elder generation parents and
grandparents, and those of a younger children and grandchildren.
Tim. Yes, and the proposal is easy to remember, as you say.
Soc. And do you also remember how, with a view of securing as far as
we could the best breed, we said that the chief magistrates, male
and female, should contrive secretly, by the use of certain lots, so
to arrange the nuptial meeting, that the bad of either sex and the
good of either sex might pair with their like; and there was to be
no quarrelling on this account, for they would imagine that the
union was a mere accident, and was to be attributed to the lot?
Tim. I remember.
Soc. And you remember how we said that the children of the good
parents were to be educated, and the children of the bad secretly
dispersed among the inferior citizens; and while they were all growing
up the rulers were to be on the look-out, and to bring up from below
in their turn those who were worthy, and those among themselves who
were unworthy were to take the places of those who came up?
Tim. True.
Soc. Then have I now given you all the heads of our yesterday's
discussion? Or is there anything more, my dear Timaeus, which has been
omitted?
Tim. Nothing, Socrates; it was just as you have said.
Soc. I should like, before proceeding further, to tell you how I
feel about the State which we have described. I might compare myself
to a person who, on beholding beautiful animals either created by
the painter's art, or, better still, alive but at rest, is seized with
a desire of seeing them in motion or engaged in some struggle or
conflict to which their forms appear suited; this is my feeling
about the State which we have been describing. There are conflicts
which all cities undergo, and I should like to hear some one tell of
our own city carrying on a struggle against her neighbours, and how
she went out to war in a becoming manner, and when at war showed by
the greatness of her actions and the magnanimity of her words in
dealing with other cities a result worthy of her training and
education. Now I, Critias and Hermocrates, am conscious that I
myself should never be able to celebrate the city and her citizens
in a befitting manner, and I am not surprised at my own incapacity; to
me the wonder is rather that the poets present as well as past are
no better-not that I mean to depreciate them; but every one can see
that they are a tribe of imitators, and will imitate best and most
easily the life in which they have been brought up; while that which
is beyond the range of a man's education he finds hard to carry out in
action, and still harder adequately to represent in language. I am
aware that the Sophists have plenty of brave words and fair
conceits, but I am afraid that being only wanderers from one city to
another, and having never had habitations of their own, they may
fail in their conception of philosophers and statesmen, and may not
know what they do and say in time of war, when they are fighting or
holding parley with their enemies. And thus people of your class are
the only ones remaining who are fitted by nature and education to take
part at once both in politics and philosophy. Here is Timaeus, of
Locris in Italy, a city which has admirable laws, and who is himself
in wealth and rank the equal of any of his fellow-citizens; he has
held the most important and honourable offices in his own state,
and, as I believe, has scaled the heights of all philosophy; and
here is Critias, whom every Athenian knows to be no novice in the
matters of which we are speaking; and as to, Hermocrates, I am assured
by many witnesses that his genius and education qualify him to take
part in any speculation of the kind. And therefore yesterday when I
saw that you wanted me to describe the formation of the State, I
readily assented, being very well aware, that, if you only would, none
were better qualified to carry the discussion further, and that when
you had engaged our city in a suitable war, you of all men living
could best exhibit her playing a fitting part. When I had completed my
task, I in return imposed this other task upon you. You conferred
together and agreed to entertain me to-day, as I had entertained
you, with a feast of discourse. Here am I in festive array, and no man
can be more ready for the promised banquet.
Her. And we too, Socrates, as Timaeus says, will not be wanting in
enthusiasm; and there is no excuse for not complying with your
request. As soon as we arrived yesterday at the guest-chamber of
Critias, with whom we are staying, or rather on our way thither, we
talked the matter over, and he told us an ancient tradition, which I
wish, Critias, that you would repeat to Socrates, so that he may
help us to judge whether it will satisfy his requirements or not.
Crit. I will, if Timaeus, who is our other partner, approves.
Tim. I quite approve.
Crit. Then listen, Socrates, to a tale which, though strange, is
certainly true, having been attested by Solon, who was the wisest of
the seven sages. He was a relative and a dear friend of my
great-grandfather, Dropides, as he himself says in many passages of
his poems; and he told the story to Critias, my grandfather, who
remembered and repeated it to us. There were of old, he said, great
and marvellous actions of the Athenian city, which have passed into
oblivion through lapse of time and the destruction of mankind, and one
in particular, greater than all the rest. This we will now rehearse.
It will be a fitting monument of our gratitude to you, and a hymn of
praise true and worthy of the goddess, on this her day of festival.
Soc. Very good. And what is this ancient famous action of the
Athenians, which Critias declared, on the authority of Solon, to be
not a mere legend, but an actual fact?
Crit. I will tell an old-world story which I heard from an aged man;
for Critias, at the time of telling it, was as he said, nearly
ninety years of age, and I was about ten. Now the day was that day
of the Apaturia which is called the Registration of Youth, at which,
according to custom, our parents gave prizes for recitations, and
the poems of several poets were recited by us boys, and many of us
sang the poems of Solon, which at that time had not gone out of
fashion. One of our tribe, either because he thought so or to please
Critias, said that in his judgment Solon was not only the wisest of
men, but also the noblest of poets. The old man, as I very well
remember, brightened up at hearing this and said, smiling: Yes,
Amynander, if Solon had only, like other poets, made poetry the
business of his life, and had completed the tale which he brought with
him from Egypt, and had not been compelled, by reason of the
factions and troubles which he found stirring in his own country
when he came home, to attend to other matters, in my opinion he
would have been as famous as Homer or Hesiod, or any poet.
And what was the tale about, Critias? said Amynander.
About the greatest action which the Athenians ever did, and which
ought to have been the most famous, but, through the lapse of time and
the destruction of the actors, it has not come down to us.
Tell us, said the other, the whole story, and how and from whom
Solon heard this veritable tradition.
He replied:-In the Egyptian Delta, at the head of which the river
Nile divides, there is a certain district which is called the district
of Sais, and the great city of the district is also called Sais, and
is the city from which King Amasis came. The citizens have a deity for
their foundress; she is called in the Egyptian tongue Neith, and is
asserted by them to be the same whom the Hellenes call Athene; they
are great lovers of the Athenians, and say that they are in some way
related to them. To this city came Solon, and was received there
with great honour; he asked the priests who were most skilful in
such matters, about antiquity, and made the discovery that neither
he nor any other Hellene knew anything worth mentioning about the
times of old. On one occasion, wishing to draw them on to speak of
antiquity, he began to tell about the most ancient things in our
part of the world-about Phoroneus, who is called "the first man,"
and about Niobe; and after the Deluge, of the survival of Deucalion
and Pyrrha; and he traced the genealogy of their descendants, and
reckoning up the dates, tried to compute how many years ago the events
of which he was speaking happened. Thereupon one of the priests, who
was of a very great age, said: O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are
never anything but children, and there is not an old man among you.
Solon in return asked him what he meant. I mean to say, he replied,
that in mind you are all young; there is no old opinion handed down
among you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is hoary with
age. And I will tell you why. There have been, and will be again, many
destructions of mankind arising out of many causes; the greatest
have been brought about by the agencies of fire and water, and other
lesser ones by innumerable other causes. There is a story, which
even you have preserved, that once upon a time Paethon, the son of
Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father's chariot, because he
was not able to drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all
that was upon the earth, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt.
Now this has the form of a myth, but really signifies a declination of
the bodies moving in the heavens around the earth, and a great
conflagration of things upon the earth, which recurs after long
intervals; at such times those who live upon the mountains and in
dry and lofty places are more liable to destruction than those who
dwell by rivers or on the seashore. And from this calamity the Nile,
who is our never-failing saviour, delivers and preserves us. When,
on the other hand, the gods purge the earth with a deluge of water,
the survivors in your country are herdsmen and shepherds who dwell
on the mountains, but those who, like you, live in cities are
carried by the rivers into the sea. Whereas in this land, neither then
nor at any other time, does the water come down from above on the
fields, having always a tendency to come up from below; for which
reason the traditions preserved here are the most ancient.
The fact is, that wherever the extremity of winter frost or of
summer does not prevent, mankind exist, sometimes in greater,
sometimes in lesser numbers. And whatever happened either in your
country or in ours, or in any other region of which we are informed-if
there were any actions noble or great or in any other way
remarkable, they have all been written down by us of old, and are
preserved in our temples. Whereas just when you and other nations
are beginning to be provided with letters and the other requisites
of civilized life, after the usual interval, the stream from heaven,
like a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only those of you
who are destitute of letters and education; and so you have to begin
all over again like children, and know nothing of what happened in
ancient times, either among us or among yourselves. As for those
genealogies of yours which you just now recounted to us, Solon, they
are no better than the tales of children. In the first place you
remember a single deluge only, but there were many previous ones; in
the next place, you do not know that there formerly dwelt in your land
the fairest and noblest race of men which ever lived, and that you and
your whole city are descended from a small seed or remnant of them
which survived. And this was unknown to you, because, for many
generations, the survivors of that destruction died, leaving no
written word. For there was a time, Solon, before the great deluge
of all, when the city which now is Athens was first in war and in
every way the best governed of all cities, is said to have performed
the noblest deeds and to have had the fairest constitution of any of
which tradition tells, under the face of heaven.
Solon marvelled at his words, and earnestly requested the priests to
inform him exactly and in order about these former citizens. You are
welcome to hear about them, Solon, said the priest, both for your
own sake and for that of your city, and above all, for the sake of the
goddess who is the common patron and parent and educator of both our
cities. She founded your city a thousand years before ours,
receiving from the Earth and Hephaestus the seed of your race, and
afterwards she founded ours, of which the constitution is recorded
in our sacred registers to be eight thousand years old. As touching
your citizens of nine thousand years ago, I will briefly inform you of
their laws and of their most famous action; the exact particulars of
the whole we will hereafter go through at our leisure in the sacred
registers themselves. If you compare these very laws with ours you
will find that many of ours are the counterpart of yours as they
were in the olden time. In the first place, there is the caste of
priests, which is separated from all the others; next, there are the
artificers, who ply their several crafts by themselves and do not
intermix; and also there is the class of shepherds and of hunters,
as well as that of husbandmen; and you will observe, too, that the
warriors in Egypt are distinct from all the other classes, and are
commanded by the law to devote themselves solely to military pursuits;
moreover, the weapons which they carry are shields and spears, a style
of equipment which the goddess taught of Asiatics first to us, as in
your part of the world first to you. Then as to wisdom, do you observe
how our law from the very first made a study of the whole order of
things, extending even to prophecy and medicine which gives health,
out of these divine elements deriving what was needful for human life,
and adding every sort of knowledge which was akin to them. All this
order and arrangement the goddess first imparted to you when
establishing your city; and she chose the spot of earth in which you
were born, because she saw that the happy temperament of the seasons
in that land would produce the wisest of men. Wherefore the goddess,
who was a lover both of war and of wisdom, selected and first of all
settled that spot which was the most likely to produce men likest
herself. And there you dwelt, having such laws as these and still
better ones, and excelled all mankind in all virtue, as became the
children and disciples of the gods.
Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded of your state in our
histories. But one of them exceeds all the rest in greatness and
valour. For these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked
made an expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to
which your city put an end. This power came forth out of the
Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable; and
there was an island situated in front of the straits which are by
you called the Pillars of Heracles; the island was larger than Libya
and Asia put together, and was the way to other islands, and from
these you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent which
surrounded the true ocean; for this sea which is within the Straits of
Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow entrance, but that other
is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a
boundless continent. Now in this island of Atlantis there was a
great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and
several others, and over parts of the continent, and, furthermore, the
men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of
Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. This vast
power, gathered into one, endeavoured to subdue at a blow our
country and yours and the whole of the region within the straits;
and then, Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence of her
virtue and strength, among all mankind. She was pre-eminent in courage
and military skill, and was the leader of the Hellenes. And when the
rest fell off from her, being compelled to stand alone, after having
undergone the very extremity of danger, she defeated and triumphed
over the invaders, and preserved from slavery those who were not yet
subjugated, and generously liberated all the rest of us who dwell
within the pillars. But afterwards there occurred violent
earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune
all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island
of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea. For
which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable,
because there is a shoal of mud in the way; and this was caused by the
subsidence of the island.
I have told you briefly, Socrates, what the aged Critias heard
from Solon and related to us. And when you were speaking yesterday
about your city and citizens, the tale which I have just been
repeating to you came into my mind, and I remarked with astonishment
how, by some mysterious coincidence, you agreed in almost every
particular with the narrative of Solon; but I did not like to speak at
the moment. For a long time had elapsed, and I had forgotten too much;
I thought that I must first of all run over the narrative in my own
mind, and then I would speak. And so I readily assented to your
request yesterday, considering that in all such cases the chief
difficulty is to find a tale suitable to our purpose, and that with
such a tale we should be fairly well provided.
And therefore, as Hermocrates has told you, on my way home yesterday
I at once communicated the tale to my companions as I remembered it;
and after I left them, during the night by thinking I recovered nearly
the whole it. Truly, as is often said, the lessons of our childhood
make wonderful impression on our memories; for I am not sure that I
could remember all the discourse of yesterday, but I should be much
surprised if I forgot any of these things which I have heard very long
ago. I listened at the time with childlike interest to the old man's
narrative; he was very ready to teach me, and I asked him again and
again to repeat his words, so that like an indelible picture they were
branded into my mind. As soon as the day broke, I rehearsed them as he
spoke them to my companions, that they, as well as myself, might
have something to say. And now, Socrates, to make an end my preface, I
am ready to tell you the whole tale. I will give you not only the
general heads, but the particulars, as they were told to me. The
city and citizens, which you yesterday described to us in fiction,
we will now transfer to the world of reality. It shall be the
ancient city of Athens, and we will suppose that the citizens whom you
imagined, were our veritable ancestors, of whom the priest spoke; they
will perfectly harmonise, and there will be no inconsistency in saying
that the citizens of your republic are these ancient Athenians. Let us
divide the subject among us, and all endeavour according to our
ability gracefully to execute the task which you have imposed upon us.
Consider then, Socrates, if this narrative is suited to the purpose,
or whether we should seek for some other instead.
Soc. And what other, Critias, can we find that will be better than
this, which is natural and suitable to the festival of the goddess,
and has the very great advantage of being a fact and not a fiction?
How or where shall we find another if we abandon this? We cannot,
and therefore you must tell the tale, and good luck to you; and I in
return for my yesterday's discourse will now rest and be a listener.
Crit. Let me proceed to explain to you, Socrates, the order in which
we have arranged our entertainment. Our intention is, that Timaeus,
who is the most of an astronomer amongst us, and has made the nature
of the universe his special study, should speak first, beginning
with the generation of the world and going down to the creation of
man; next, I am to receive the men whom he has created of whom some
will have profited by the excellent education which you have given
them; and then, in accordance with the tale of Solon, and equally with
his law, we will bring them into court and make them citizens, as if
they were those very Athenians whom the sacred Egyptian record has
recovered from oblivion, and thenceforward we will speak of them as
Athenians and fellow-citizens.
Soc. I see that I shall receive in my turn a perfect and splendid
feast of reason. And now, Timaeus, you, I suppose, should speak
next, after duly calling upon the Gods.
Tim. All men, Socrates, who have any degree of right feeling, at the
beginning of every enterprise, whether small or great, always call
upon God. And we, too, who are going to discourse of the nature of the
universe, how created or how existing without creation, if we be not
altogether out of our wits, must invoke the aid of Gods and
Goddesses and pray that our words may be acceptable to them and
consistent with themselves. Let this, then, be our invocation of the
Gods, to which I add an exhortation of myself to speak in such
manner as will be most intelligible to you, and will most accord
with my own intent.
First then, in my judgment, we must make a distinction and ask, What
is that which always is and has no becoming; and what is that which is
always becoming and never is? That which is apprehended by
intelligence and reason is always in the same state; but that which is
conceived by opinion with the help of sensation and without reason, is
always in a process of becoming and perishing and never really is. Now
everything that becomes or is created must of necessity be created
by some cause, for without a cause nothing can be created. The work of
the creator, whenever he looks to the unchangeable and fashions the
form and nature of his work after an unchangeable pattern, must
necessarily be made fair and perfect; but when he looks to the created
only, and uses a created pattern, it is not fair or perfect. Was the
heaven then or the world, whether called by this or by any other
more appropriate name-assuming the name, I am asking a question
which has to be asked at the beginning of an enquiry about
anything-was the world, I say, always in existence and without
beginning? or created, and had it a beginning? Created, I reply, being
visible and tangible and having a body, and therefore sensible; and
all sensible things are apprehended by opinion and sense and are in
a process of creation and created. Now that which is created must,
as we affirm, of necessity be created by a cause. But the father and
maker of all this universe is past finding out; and even if we found
him, to tell of him to all men would be impossible. And there is still
a question to be asked about him: Which of the patterns had the
artificer in view when he made the world-the pattern of the
unchangeable, or of that which is created? If the world be indeed fair
and the artificer good, it is manifest that he must have looked to
that which is eternal; but if what cannot be said without blasphemy is
true, then to the created pattern. Every one will see that he must
have looked to, the eternal; for the world is the fairest of creations
and he is the best of causes. And having been created in this way, the
world has been framed in the likeness of that which is apprehended
by reason and mind and is unchangeable, and must therefore of
necessity, if this is admitted, be a copy of something. Now it is
all-important that the beginning of everything should be according
to nature. And in speaking of the copy and the original we may
assume that words are akin to the matter which they describe; when
they relate to the lasting and permanent and intelligible, they
ought to be lasting and unalterable, and, as far as their nature
allows, irrefutable and immovable-nothing less. But when they
express only the copy or likeness and not the eternal things
themselves, they need only be likely and analogous to the real
words. As being is to becoming, so is truth to belief. If then,
Socrates, amid the many opinions about the gods and the generation
of the universe, we are not able to give notions which are
altogether and in every respect exact and consistent with one another,
do not be surprised. Enough, if we adduce probabilities as likely as
any others; for we must remember that I who am the speaker, and you
who are the judges, are only mortal men, and we ought to accept the
tale which is probable and enquire no further.
Soc. Excellent, Timaeus; and we will do precisely as you bid us. The
prelude is charming, and is already accepted by us-may we beg of you
to proceed to the strain?
Tim. Let me tell you then why the creator made this world of
generation. He was good, and the good can never have any jealousy of
anything. And being free from jealousy, he desired that all things
should be as like himself as they could be. This is in the truest
sense the origin of creation and of the world, as we shall do well
in believing on the testimony of wise men: God desired that all things
should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable.
Wherefore also finding the whole visible sphere not at rest, but
moving in an irregular and disorderly fashion, out of disorder he
brought order, considering that this was in every way better than
the other. Now the deeds of the best could never be or have been other
than the fairest; and the creator, reflecting on the things which
are by nature visible, found that no unintelligent creature taken as a
whole was fairer than the intelligent taken as a whole; and that
intelligence could not be present in anything which was devoid of
soul. For which reason, when he was framing the universe, he put
intelligence in soul, and soul in body, that he might be the creator
of a work which was by nature fairest and best. Wherefore, using the
language of probability, we may say that the world became a living
creature truly endowed with soul and intelligence by the providence of
God.
This being supposed, let us proceed to the next stage: In the
likeness of what animal did the Creator make the world? It would be an
unworthy thing to liken it to any nature which exists as a part
only; for nothing can be beautiful which is like any imperfect
thing; but let us suppose the world to be the very image of that whole
of which all other animals both individually and in their tribes are
portions. For the original of the universe contains in itself all
intelligible beings, just as this world comprehends us and all other
visible creatures. For the Deity, intending to make this world like
the fairest and most perfect of intelligible beings, framed one
visible animal comprehending within itself all other animals of a
kindred nature. Are we right in saying that there is one world, or
that they are many and infinite? There must be one only, if the
created copy is to accord with the original. For that which includes
all other intelligible creatures cannot have a second or companion; in
that case there would be need of another living being which would
include both, and of which they would be parts, and the likeness would
be more truly said to resemble not them, but that other which included
them. In order then that the world might be solitary, like the perfect
animal, the creator made not two worlds or an infinite number of them;
but there is and ever will be one only-begotten and created heaven.
Now that which is created is of necessity corporeal, and also
visible and tangible. And nothing is visible where there is no fire,
or tangible which has no solidity, and nothing is solid without earth.
Wherefore also God in the beginning of creation made the body of the
universe to consist of fire and earth. But two things cannot be
rightly put together without a third; there must be some bond of union
between them. And the fairest bond is that which makes the most
complete fusion of itself and the things which it combines; and
proportion is best adapted to effect such a union. For whenever in any
three numbers, whether cube or square, there is a mean, which is to
the last term what the first term is to it; and again, when the mean
is to the first term as the last term is to the mean-then the mean
becoming first and last, and the first and last both becoming means,
they will all of them of necessity come to be the same, and having
become the same with one another will be all one. If the universal
frame had been created a surface only and having no depth, a single
mean would have sufficed to bind together itself and the other
terms; but now, as the world must be solid, and solid bodies are
always compacted not by one mean but by two, God placed water and
air in the mean between fire and earth, and made them to have the same
proportion so far as was possible (as fire is to air so is air to
water, and as air is to water so is water to earth); and thus he bound
and put together a visible and tangible heaven. And for these reasons,
and out of such elements which are in number four, the body of the
world was created, and it was harmonised by proportion, and
therefore has the spirit of friendship; and having been reconciled
to itself, it was indissoluble by the hand of any other than the
framer.
Now the creation took up the whole of each of the four elements; for
the Creator compounded the world out of all the fire and all the water
and all the air and all the earth, leaving no part of any of them
nor any power of them outside. His intention was, in the first
place, that the animal should be as far as possible a perfect whole
and of perfect parts: secondly, that it should be one, leaving no
remnants out of which another such world might be created: and also
that it should be free from old age and unaffected by disease.
Considering that if heat and cold and other powerful forces which
unite bodies surround and attack them from without when they are
unprepared, they decompose them, and by bringing diseases and old
age upon them, make them waste away-for this cause and on these
grounds he made the world one whole, having every part entire, and
being therefore perfect and not liable to old age and disease. And
he gave to the world the figure which was suitable and also natural.
Now to the animal which was to comprehend all animals, that figure was
suitable which comprehends within itself all other figures.
Wherefore he made the world in the form of a globe, round as from a
lathe, having its extremes in every direction equidistant from the
centre, the most perfect and the most like itself of all figures;
for he considered that the like is infinitely fairer than the
unlike. This he finished off, making the surface smooth all around for
many reasons; in the first place, because the living being had no need
of eyes when there was nothing remaining outside him to be seen; nor
of ears when there was nothing to be heard; and there was no
surrounding atmosphere to be breathed; nor would there have been any
use of organs by the help of which he might receive his food or get
rid of what he had already digested, since there was nothing which
went from him or came into him: for there was nothing beside him. Of
design he was created thus, his own waste providing his own food,
and all that he did or suffered taking place in and by himself. For
the Creator conceived that a being which was self-sufficient would
be far more excellent than one which lacked anything; and, as he had
no need to take anything or defend himself against any one, the
Creator did not think it necessary to bestow upon him hands: nor had
he any need of feet, nor of the whole apparatus of walking; but the
movement suited to his spherical form was assigned to him, being of
all the seven that which is most appropriate to mind and intelligence;
and he was made to move in the same manner and on the same spot,
within his own limits revolving in a circle. All the other six motions
were taken away from him, and he was made not to partake of their
deviations. And as this circular movement required no feet, the
universe was created without legs and without feet.
Such was the whole plan of the eternal God about the god that was to
be, to whom for this reason he gave a body, smooth and even, having
a surface in every direction equidistant from the centre, a body
entire and perfect, and formed out of perfect bodies. And in the
centre he put the soul, which he diffused throughout the body,
making it also to be the exterior environment of it; and he made the
universe a circle moving in a circle, one and solitary, yet by
reason of its excellence able to converse with itself, and needing
no other friendship or acquaintance. Having these purposes in view
he created the world a blessed god.
Now God did not make the soul after the body, although we are
speaking of them in this order; for having brought them together he
would never have allowed that the elder should be ruled by the
younger; but this is a random manner of speaking which we have,
because somehow we ourselves too are very much under the dominion of
chance. Whereas he made the soul in origin and excellence prior to and
older than the body, to be the ruler and mistress, of whom the body
was to be the subject. And he made her out of the following elements
and on this wise: Out of the indivisible and unchangeable, and also
out of that which is divisible and has to do with material bodies,
he compounded a third and intermediate kind of essence, partaking of
the nature of the same and of the other, and this compound he placed
accordingly in a mean between the indivisible, and the divisible and
material. He took the three elements of the same, the other, and the
essence, and mingled them into one form, compressing by force the
reluctant and unsociable nature of the other into the same. When he
had mingled them with the essence and out of three made one, he
again divided this whole into as many portions as was fitting, each
portion being a compound of the same, the other, and the essence.
And he proceeded to divide after this manner:-First of all, he took
away one part of the whole [1], and then he separated a second part
which was double the first [2], and then he took away a third part
which was half as much again as the second and three times as much
as the first [3], and then he took a fourth part which was twice as
much as the second [4], and a fifth part which was three times the
third [9], and a sixth part which was eight times the first [8], and a
seventh part which was twenty-seven times the first [27]. After this
he filled up the double intervals [i.e. between 1, 2, 4, 8] and the
triple [i.e. between 1, 3, 9, 27] cutting off yet other portions
from the mixture and placing them in the intervals, so that in each
interval there were two kinds of means, the one exceeding and exceeded
by equal parts of its extremes [as for example 1, 4/3, 2, in which the
mean 4/3 is one-third of 1 more than 1, and one-third of 2 less than
2], the other being that kind of mean which exceeds and is exceeded by
an equal number. Where there were intervals of 3/2 and of 4/3 and of
9/8, made by the connecting terms in the former intervals, he filled
up all the intervals of 4/3 with the interval of 9/8, leaving a
fraction over; and the interval which this fraction expressed was in
the ratio of 256 to 243. And thus the whole mixture out of which he
cut these portions was all exhausted by him. This entire compound he
divided lengthways into two parts, which he joined to one another at
the centre like the letter X, and bent them into a circular form,
connecting them with themselves and each other at the point opposite
to their original meeting-point; and, comprehending them in a
uniform revolution upon the same axis, he made the one the outer and
the other the inner circle. Now the motion of the outer circle he
called the motion of the same, and the motion of the inner circle
the motion of the other or diverse. The motion of the same he
carried round by the side to the right, and the motion of the
diverse diagonally to the left. And he gave dominion to the motion
of the same and like, for that he left single and undivided; but the
inner motion he divided in six places and made seven unequal circles
having their intervals in ratios of two-and three, three of each,
and bade the orbits proceed in a direction opposite to one another;
and three [Sun, Mercury, Venus] he made to move with equal
swiftness, and the remaining four [Moon, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter] to
move with unequal swiftness to the three and to one another, but in
due proportion.
Now when the Creator had framed the soul according to his will, he
formed within her the corporeal universe, and brought the two
together, and united them centre to centre. The soul, interfused
everywhere from the centre to the circumference of heaven, of which
also she is the external envelopment, herself turning in herself,
began a divine beginning of never ceasing and rational life enduring
throughout all time. The body of heaven is visible, but the soul is
invisible, and partakes of reason and harmony, and being made by the
best of intellectual and everlasting natures, is the best of things
created. And because she is composed of the same and of the other
and of the essence, these three, and is divided and united in due
proportion, and in her revolutions returns upon herself, the soul,
when touching anything which has essence, whether dispersed in parts
or undivided, is stirred through all her powers, to declare the
sameness or difference of that thing and some other; and to what
individuals are related, and by what affected, and in what way and how
and when, both in the world of generation and in the world of
immutable being. And when reason, which works with equal truth,
whether she be in the circle of the diverse or of the same-in
voiceless silence holding her onward course in the sphere of the
self-moved-when reason, I say, is hovering around the sensible world
and when the circle of the diverse also moving truly imparts the
intimations of sense to the whole soul, then arise opinions and
beliefs sure and certain. But when reason is concerned with the
rational, and the circle of the same moving smoothly declares it, then
intelligence and knowledge are necessarily perfected. And if any one
affirms that in which these two are found to be other than the soul,
he will say the very opposite of the truth.
When the father creator saw the creature which he had made moving
and living, the created image of the eternal gods, he rejoiced, and in
his joy determined to make the copy still more like the original;
and as this was eternal, he sought to make the universe eternal, so
far as might be. Now the nature of the ideal being was everlasting,
but to bestow this attribute in its fulness upon a creature was
impossible. Wherefore he resolved to have a moving image of
eternity, and when he set in order the heaven, he made this image
eternal but moving according to number, while eternity itself rests in
unity; and this image we call time. For there were no days and
nights and months and years before the heaven was created, but when he
constructed the heaven he created them also. They are all parts of
time, and the past and future are created species of time, which we
unconsciously but wrongly transfer to the eternal essence; for we
say that he "was," he "is," he "will be," but the truth is that "is"
alone is properly attributed to him, and that "was" and "will be" only
to be spoken of becoming in time, for they are motions, but that which
is immovably the same cannot become older or younger by time, nor ever
did or has become, or hereafter will be, older or younger, nor is
subject at all to any of those states which affect moving and sensible
things and of which generation is the cause. These are the forms of
time, which imitates eternity and revolves according to a law of
number. Moreover, when we say that what has become is become and
what becomes is becoming, and that what will become is about to become
and that the non-existent is non-existent-all these are inaccurate
modes of expression. But perhaps this whole subject will be more
suitably discussed on some other occasion.
Time, then, and the heaven came into being at the same instant in
order that, having been created together, if ever there was to be a
dissolution of them, they might be dissolved together. It was framed
after the pattern of the eternal nature, that it might resemble this
as far as was possible; for the pattern exists from eternity, and
the created heaven has been, and is, and will be, in all time. Such
was the mind and thought of God in the creation of time. The sun and
moon and five other stars, which are called the planets, were
created by him in order to distinguish and preserve the numbers of
time; and when he had made-their several bodies, he placed them in the
orbits in which the circle of the other was revolving-in seven
orbits seven stars. First, there was the moon in the orbit nearest the
earth, and next the sun, in the second orbit above the earth; then
came the morning star and the star sacred to Hermes, moving in
orbits which have an equal swiftness with the sun, but in an
opposite direction; and this is the reason why the sun and Hermes
and Lucifer overtake and are overtaken by each other. To enumerate the
places which he assigned to the other stars, and to give all the
reasons why he assigned them, although a secondary matter, would
give more trouble than the primary. These things at some future
time, when we are at leisure, may have the consideration which they
deserve, but not at present.
Now, when all the stars which were necessary to the creation of time
had attained a motion suitable to them,-and had become living
creatures having bodies fastened by vital chains, and learnt their
appointed task, moving in the motion of the diverse, which is
diagonal, and passes through and is governed by the motion of the
same, they revolved, some in a larger and some in a lesser orbit-those
which had the lesser orbit revolving faster, and those which had the
larger more slowly. Now by reason of the motion of the same, those
which revolved fastest appeared to be overtaken by those which moved
slower although they really overtook them; for the motion of the
same made them all turn in a spiral, and, because some went one way
and some another, that which receded most slowly from the sphere of
the same, which was the swiftest, appeared to follow it most nearly.
That there might be some visible measure of their relative swiftness
and slowness as they proceeded in their eight courses, God lighted a
fire, which we now call the sun, in the second from the earth of these
orbits, that it might give light to the whole of heaven, and that
the animals, as many as nature intended, might participate in
number, learning arithmetic from the revolution of the same and the
like. Thus then, and for this reason the night and the day were
created, being the period of the one most intelligent revolution.
And the month is accomplished when the moon has completed her orbit
and overtaken the sun, and the year when the sun has completed his own
orbit. Mankind, with hardly an exception, have not remarked the
periods of the other stars, and they have no name for them, and do not
measure them against one another by the help of number, and hence they
can scarcely be said to know that their wanderings, being infinite
in number and admirable for their variety, make up time. And yet there
is no difficulty in seeing that the perfect number of time fulfils the
perfect year when all the eight revolutions, having their relative
degrees of swiftness, are accomplished together and attain their
completion at the same time, measured by the rotation of the same
and equally moving. After this manner, and for these reasons, came
into being such of the stars as in their heavenly progress received
reversals of motion, to the end that the created heaven might
imitate the eternal nature, and be as like as possible to the
perfect and intelligible animal.
Thus far and until the birth of time the created universe was made
in the likeness of the original, but inasmuch as all animals were
not yet comprehended therein, it was still unlike. What remained,
the creator then proceeded to fashion after the nature of the pattern.
Now as in the ideal animal the mind perceives ideas or species of a
certain nature and number, he thought that this created animal ought
to have species of a like nature and number. There are four such;
one of them is the heavenly race of the gods; another, the race of
birds whose way is in the air; the third, the watery species; and
the fourth, the pedestrian and land creatures. Of the heavenly and
divine, he created the greater part out of fire, that they might be
the brightest of all things and fairest to behold, and he fashioned
them after the likeness of the universe in the figure of a circle, and
made them follow the intelligent motion of the supreme, distributing
them over the whole circumference of heaven, which was to be a true
cosmos or glorious world spangled with them all over. And he gave to
each of them two movements: the first, a movement on the same spot
after the same manner, whereby they ever continue to think
consistently the same thoughts about the same things; the second, a
forward movement, in which they are controlled by the revolution of
the same and the like; but by the other five motions they were
unaffected, in order that each of them might attain the highest
perfection. And for this reason the fixed stars were created, to be
divine and eternal animals, ever-abiding and revolving after the
same manner and on the same spot; and the other stars which reverse
their motion and are subject to deviations of this kind, were
created in the manner already described. The earth, which is our
nurse, clinging around the pole which is extended through the
universe, he framed to be the guardian and artificer of night and day,
first and eldest of gods that are in the interior of heaven. Vain
would be the attempt to tell all the figures of them circling as in
dance, and their juxtapositions, and the return of them in their
revolutions upon themselves, and their approximations, and to say
which of these deities in their conjunctions meet, and which of them
are in opposition, and in what order they get behind and before one
another, and when they are severally eclipsed to our sight and again
reappear, sending terrors and intimations of the future to those who
cannot calculate their movements-to attempt to tell of all this
without a visible representation of the heavenly system would be
labour in vain. Enough on this head; and now let what we have said
about the nature of the created and visible gods have an end.
To know or tell the origin of the other divinities is beyond us, and
we must accept the traditions of the men of old time who affirm
themselves to be the offspring of the gods-that is what they say-and
they must surely have known their own ancestors. How can we doubt
the word of the children of the gods? Although they give no probable
or certain proofs, still, as they declare that they are speaking of
what took place in their own family, we must conform to custom and
believe them. In this manner, then, according to them, the genealogy
of these gods is to be received and set forth.
Oceanus and Tethys were the children of Earth and Heaven, and from
these sprang Phorcys and Cronos and Rhea, and all that generation; and
from Cronos and Rhea sprang Zeus and Here, and all those who are
said to be their brethren, and others who were the children of these.
Now, when all of them, both those who visibly appear in their
revolutions as well as those other gods who are of a more retiring
nature, had come into being, the creator of the universe addressed
them in these words: "Gods, children of gods, who are my works, and of
whom I am the artificer and father, my creations are indissoluble,
if so I will. All that is bound may be undone, but only an evil
being would wish to undo that which is harmonious and happy.
Wherefore, since ye are but creatures, ye are not altogether
immortal and indissoluble, but ye shall certainly not be dissolved,
nor be liable to the fate of death, having in my will a greater and
mightier bond than those with which ye were bound at the time of
your birth. And now listen to my instructions:-Three tribes of
mortal beings remain to be created-without them the universe will be
incomplete, for it will not contain every kind of animal which it
ought to contain, if it is to be perfect. On the other hand, if they
were created by me and received life at my hands, they would be on
an equality with the gods. In order then that they may be mortal,
and that this universe may be truly universal, do ye, according to
your natures, betake yourselves to the formation of animals, imitating
the power which was shown by me in creating you. The part of them
worthy of the name immortal, which is called divine and is the guiding
principle of those who are willing to follow justice and you-of that
divine part I will myself sow the seed, and having made a beginning, I
will hand the work over to you. And do ye then interweave the mortal
with the immortal, and make and beget living creatures, and give
them food, and make them to grow, and receive them again in death."
Thus he spake, and once more into the cup in which he had previously
mingled the soul of the universe he poured the remains of the
elements, and mingled them in much the same manner; they were not,
however, pure as before, but diluted to the second and third degree.
And having made it he divided the whole mixture into souls equal in
number to the stars, and assigned each soul to a star; and having
there placed them as in a chariot, he showed them the nature of the
universe, and declared to them the laws of destiny, according to which
their first birth would be one and the same for all,-no one should
suffer a disadvantage at his hands; they were to be sown in the
instruments of time severally adapted to them, and to come forth the
most religious of animals; and as human nature was of two kinds, the
superior race would here after be called man. Now, when they should be
implanted in bodies by necessity, and be always gaining or losing some
part of their bodily substance, then in the first place it would be
necessary that they should all have in them one and the same faculty
of sensation, arising out of irresistible impressions; in the second
place, they must have love, in which pleasure and pain mingle; also
fear and anger, and the feelings which are akin or opposite to them;
if they conquered these they would live righteously, and if they
were conquered by them, unrighteously. He who lived well during his
appointed time was to return and dwell in his native star, and there
he would have a blessed and congenial existence. But if he failed in
attaining this, at the second birth he would pass into a woman, and
if, when in that state of being, he did not desist from evil, he would
continually be changed into some brute who resembled him in the evil
nature which he had acquired, and would not cease from his toils and
transformations until he followed the revolution of the same and the
like within him, and overcame by the help of reason the turbulent
and irrational mob of later accretions, made up of fire and air and
water and earth, and returned to the form of his first and better
state. Having given all these laws to his creatures, that he might
be guiltless of future evil in any of them, the creator sowed some
of them in the earth, and some in the moon, and some in the other
instruments of time; and when he had sown them he committed to the
younger gods the fashioning of their mortal bodies, and desired them
to furnish what was still lacking to the human soul, and having made
all the suitable additions, to rule over them, and to pilot the mortal
animal in the best and wisest manner which they could, and avert
from him all but self-inflicted evils.
When the creator had made all these ordinances he remained in his
own accustomed nature, and his children heard and were obedient to
their father's word, and receiving from him the immortal principle
of a mortal creature, in imitation of their own creator they
borrowed portions of fire, and earth, and water, and air from the
world, which were hereafter to be restored-these they took and
welded them together, not with the indissoluble chains by which they
were themselves bound, but with little pegs too small to be visible,
making up out of all the four elements each separate body, and
fastening the courses of the immortal soul in a body which was in a
state of perpetual influx and efflux. Now these courses, detained as
in a vast river, neither overcame nor were overcome; but were hurrying
and hurried to and fro, so that the whole animal was moved and
progressed, irregularly however and irrationally and anyhow, in all
the six directions of motion, wandering backwards and forwards, and
right and left, and up and down, and in all the six directions. For
great as was the advancing and retiring flood which provided
nourishment, the affections produced by external contact caused
still greater tumult-when the body of any one met and came into
collision with some external fire, or with the solid earth or the
gliding waters, or was caught in the tempest borne on the air, and the
motions produced by any of these impulses were carried through the
body to the soul. All such motions have consequently received the
general name of "sensations," which they still retain. And they did in
fact at that time create a very great and mighty movement; uniting
with the ever flowing stream in stirring up and violently shaking
the courses of the soul, they completely stopped the revolution of the
same by their opposing current, and hindered it from predominating and
advancing; and they so disturbed the nature of the other or diverse,
that the three double intervals [i.e. between 1, 2, 4, 8], and the
three triple intervals [i.e. between 1, 3, 9, 27], together with the
mean terms and connecting links which are expressed by the ratios of 3
: 2, and 4 : 3, and of 9 : 8-these, although they cannot be wholly
undone except by him who united them, were twisted by them in all
sorts of ways, and the circles were broken and disordered in every
possible manner, so that when they moved they were tumbling to pieces,
and moved irrationally, at one time in a reverse direction, and then
again obliquely, and then upside down, as you might imagine a person
who is upside down and has his head leaning upon the ground and his
feet up against something in the air; and when he is in such a
position, both he and the spectator fancy that the right of either
is his left, and left right. If, when powerfully experiencing these
and similar effects, the revolutions of the soul come in contact
with some external thing, either of the class of the same or of the
other, they speak of the same or of the other in a manner the very
opposite of the truth; and they become false and foolish, and there is
no course or revolution in them which has a guiding or directing
power; and if again any sensations enter in violently from without and
drag after them the whole vessel of the soul, then the courses of
the soul, though they seem to conquer, are really conquered.
And by reason of all these affections, the soul, when encased in a
mortal body, now, as in the beginning, is at first without
intelligence; but when the flood of growth and nutriment abates, and
the courses of the soul, calming down, go their own way and become
steadier as time goes on, then the several circles return to their
natural form, and their revolutions are corrected, and they call the
same and the other by their right names, and make the possessor of
them to become a rational being. And if these combine in him with
any true nurture or education, he attains the fulness and health of
the perfect man, and escapes the worst disease of all; but if he
neglects education he walks lame to the end of his life, and returns
imperfect and good for nothing to the world below. This, however, is a
later stage; at present we must treat more exactly the subject
before us, which involves a preliminary enquiry into the generation of
the body and its members, and as to how the soul was created-for
what reason and by what providence of the gods; and holding fast to
probability, we must pursue our way.
First, then, the gods, imitating the spherical shape of the
universe, enclosed the two divine courses in a spherical body, that,
namely, which we now term the head, being the most divine part of us
and the lord of all that is in us: to this the gods, when they put
together the body, gave all the other members to be servants,
considering that it partook of every sort of motion. In order then
that it might not tumble about among the high and deep places of the
earth, but might be able to get over the one and out of the other,
they provided the body to be its vehicle and means of locomotion;
which consequently had length and was furnished with four limbs
extended and flexible; these God contrived to be instruments of
locomotion with which it might take hold and find support, and so be
able to pass through all places, carrying on high the dwelling-place
of the most sacred and divine part of us. Such was the origin of
legs and hands, which for this reason were attached to every man;
and the gods, deeming the front part of man to be more honourable
and more fit to command than the hinder part, made us to move mostly
in a forward direction. Wherefore man must needs have his front part
unlike and distinguished from the rest of his body.
And so in the vessel of the head, they first of all put a face in
which they inserted organs to minister in all things to the providence
of the soul, and they appointed this part, which has authority, to
be by nature the part which is in front. And of the organs they
first contrived the eyes to give light, and the principle according to
which they were inserted was as follows: So much of fire as would
not burn, but gave a gentle light, they formed into a substance akin
to the light of every-day life; and the pure fire which is within us
and related thereto they made to flow through the eyes in a stream
smooth and dense, compressing the whole eye, and especially the centre
part, so that it kept out everything of a coarser nature, and
allowed to pass only this pure element. When the light of day
surrounds the stream of vision, then like falls upon like, and they
coalesce, and one body is formed by natural affinity in the line of
vision, wherever the light that falls from within meets with an
external object. And the whole stream of vision, being similarly
affected in virtue of similarity, diffuses the motions of what it
touches or what touches it over the whole body, until they reach the
soul, causing that perception which we call sight. But when night
comes on and the external and kindred fire departs, then the stream of
vision is cut off; for going forth to an unlike element it is
changed and extinguished, being no longer of one nature with the
surrounding atmosphere which is now deprived of fire: and so the eye
no longer sees, and we feel disposed to sleep. For when the eyelids,
which the gods invented for the preservation of sight, are closed,
they keep in the internal fire; and the power of the fire diffuses and
equalises the inward motions; when they are equalised, there is
rest, and when the rest is profound, sleep comes over us scarce
disturbed by dreams; but where the greater motions still remain, of
whatever nature and in whatever locality, they engender
corresponding visions in dreams, which are remembered by us when we
are awake and in the external world. And now there is no longer any
difficulty in understanding the creation of images in mirrors and
all smooth and bright surfaces. For from the communion of the internal
and external fires, and again from the union of them and their
numerous transformations when they meet in the mirror, all these
appearances of necessity arise, when the fire from the face
coalesces with the fire from the eye on the bright and smooth surface.
And right appears left and left right, because the visual rays come
into contact with the rays emitted by the object in a manner
contrary to the usual mode of meeting; but the right appears right,
and the left left, when the position of one of the two concurring
lights is reversed; and this happens when the mirror is concave and
its smooth surface repels the right stream of vision to the left side,
and the left to the right. Or if the mirror be turned vertically, then
the concavity makes the countenance appear to be all upside down,
and the lower rays are driven upwards and the upper downwards.
All these are to be reckoned among the second and co-operative
causes which God, carrying into execution the idea of the best as
far as possible, uses as his ministers. They are thought by most men
not to be the second, but the prime causes of all things, because they
freeze and heat, and contract and dilate, and the like. But they are
not so, for they are incapable of reason or intellect; the only
being which can properly have mind is the invisible soul, whereas fire
and water, and earth and air, are all of them visible bodies. The
lover of intellect and knowledge ought to explore causes of
intelligent nature first of all, and, secondly, of those things which,
being moved by others, are compelled to move others. And this is
what we too must do. Both kinds of causes should be acknowledged by
us, but a distinction should be made between those which are endowed
with mind and are the workers of things fair and good, and those which
are deprived of intelligence and always produce chance effects without
order or design. Of the second or co-operative causes of sight,
which help to give to the eyes the power which they now possess,
enough has been said. I will therefore now proceed to speak of the
higher use and purpose for which God has given them to us. The sight
in my opinion is the source of the greatest benefit to us, for had
we never seen the stars, and the sun, and the heaven, none of the
words which we have spoken about the universe would ever have been
uttered. But now the sight of day and night, and the months and the
revolutions of the years, have created number, and have given us a
conception of time, and the power of enquiring about the nature of the
universe; and from this source we have derived philosophy, than
which no greater good ever was or will be given by the gods to
mortal man. This is the greatest boon of sight: and of the lesser
benefits why should I speak? even the ordinary man if he were deprived
of them would bewail his loss, but in vain. Thus much let me say
however: God invented and gave us sight to the end that we might
behold the courses of intelligence in the heaven, and apply them to
the courses of our own intelligence which are akin to them, the
unperturbed to the perturbed; and that we, learning them and partaking
of the natural truth of reason, might imitate the absolutely
unerring courses of God and regulate our own vagaries. The same may be
affirmed of speech and hearing: they have been given by the gods to
the same end and for a like reason. For this is the principal end of
speech, whereto it most contributes. Moreover, so much of music as
is adapted to the sound of the voice and to the sense of hearing is
granted to us for the sake of harmony; and harmony, which has
motions akin to the revolutions of our souls, is not regarded by the
intelligent votary of the Muses as given by them with a view to
irrational pleasure, which is deemed to be the purpose of it in our
day, but as meant to correct any discord which may have arisen in
the courses of the soul, and to be our ally in bringing her into
harmony and agreement with herself; and rhythm too was given by them
for the same reason, on account of the irregular and graceless ways
which prevail among mankind generally, and to help us against them.
Thus far in what we have been saying, with small exception, the
works of intelligence have been set forth; and now we must place by
the side of them in our discourse the things which come into being
through necessity-for the creation is mixed, being made up of
necessity and mind. Mind, the ruling power, persuaded necessity to
bring the greater part of created things to perfection, and thus and
after this manner in the beginning, when the influence of reason got
the better of necessity, the universe was created. But if a person
will truly tell of the way in which the work was accomplished, he must
include the other influence of the variable cause as well.
Wherefore, we must return again and find another suitable beginning,
as about the former matters, so also about these. To which end we must
consider the nature of fire, and water, and air, and earth, such as
they were prior to the creation of the heaven, and what was
happening to them in this previous state; for no one has as yet
explained the manner of their generation, but we speak of fire and the
rest of them, whatever they mean, as though men knew their natures,
and we maintain them to be the first principles and letters or
elements of the whole, when they cannot reasonably be compared by a
man of any sense even to syllables or first compounds. And let me
say thus much: I will not now speak of the first principle or
principles of all things, or by whatever name they are to be called,
for this reason-because it is difficult to set forth my opinion
according to the method of discussion which we are at present
employing. Do not imagine, any more than I can bring myself to
imagine, that I should be right in undertaking so great and
difficult a task. Remembering what I said at first about
probability, I will do my best to give as probable an explanation as
any other-or rather, more probable; and I will first go back to the
beginning and try to speak of each thing and of all. Once more,
then, at the commencement of my discourse, I call upon God, and beg
him to be our saviour out of a strange and unwonted enquiry, and to
bring us to the haven of probability. So now let us begin again.
This new beginning of our discussion of the universe requires a
fuller division than the former; for then we made two classes, now a
third must be revealed. The two sufficed for the former discussion:
one, which we assumed, was a pattern intelligible and always the same;
and the second was only the imitation of the pattern, generated and
visible. There is also a third kind which we did not distinguish at
the time, conceiving that the two would be enough. But now the
argument seems to require that we should set forth in words another
kind, which is difficult of explanation and dimly seen. What nature
are we to attribute to this new kind of being? We reply, that it is
the receptacle, and in a manner the nurse, of all generation. I have
spoken the truth; but I must express myself in clearer language, and
this will be an arduous task for many reasons, and in particular
because I must first raise questions concerning fire and the other
elements, and determine what each of them is; for to say, with any
probability or certitude, which of them should be called water
rather than fire, and which should be called any of them rather than
all or some one of them, is a difficult matter. How, then, shall we
settle this point, and what questions about the elements may be fairly
raised?
In the first place, we see that what we just now called water, by
condensation, I suppose, becomes stone and earth; and this same
element, when melted and dispersed, passes into vapour and air. Air,
again, when inflamed, becomes fire; and again fire, when condensed and
extinguished, passes once more into the form of air; and once more,
air, when collected and condensed, produces cloud and mist; and from
these, when still more compressed, comes flowing water, and from water
comes earth and stones once more; and thus generation appears to be
transmitted from one to the other in a circle. Thus, then, as the
several elements never present themselves in the same form, how can
any one have the assurance to assert positively that any of them,
whatever it may be, is one thing rather than another? No one can.
But much the safest plan is to speak of them as follows:-Anything
which we see to be continually changing, as, for example, fire, we
must not call "this" or "that," but rather say that it is "of such a
nature"; nor let us speak of water as "this"; but always as "such";
nor must we imply that there is any stability in any of those things
which we indicate by the use of the words "this" and "that," supposing
ourselves to signify something thereby; for they are too volatile to
be detained in any such expressions as "this," or "that," or "relative
to this," or any other mode of speaking which represents them as
permanent. We ought not to apply "this" to any of them, but rather the
word "such"; which expresses the similar principle circulating in each
and all of them; for example, that should be called "fire" which is of
such a nature always, and so of everything that has generation. That
in which the elements severally grow up, and appear, and decay, is
alone to be called by the name "this" or "that"; but that which is
of a certain nature, hot or white, or anything which admits of
opposite equalities, and all things that are compounded of them, ought
not to be so denominated. Let me make another attempt to explain my
meaning more clearly. Suppose a person to make all kinds of figures of
gold and to be always transmuting one form into all the
rest-somebody points to one of them and asks what it is. By far the
safest and truest answer is, That is gold; and not to call the
triangle or any other figures which are formed in the gold "these," as
though they had existence, since they are in process of change while
he is making the assertion; but if the questioner be willing to take
the safe and indefinite expression, "such," we should be satisfied.
And the same argument applies to the universal nature which receives
all bodies-that must be always called the same; for, while receiving
all things, she never departs at all from her own nature, and never in
any way, or at any time, assumes a form like that of any of the things
which enter into her; she is the natural recipient of all impressions,
and is stirred and informed by them, and appears different from time
to time by reason of them. But the forms which enter into and go out
of her are the likenesses of real existences modelled after their
patterns in wonderful and inexplicable manner, which we will hereafter
investigate. For the present we have only to conceive of three
natures: first, that which is in process of generation; secondly, that
in which the generation takes place; and thirdly, that of which the
thing generated is a resemblance. And we may liken the receiving
principle to a mother, and the source or spring to a father, and the
intermediate nature to a child; and may remark further, that if the
model is to take every variety of form, then the matter in which the
model is fashioned will not be duly prepared, unless it is formless,
and free from the impress of any of these shapes which it is hereafter
to receive from without. For if the matter were like any of the
supervening forms, then whenever any opposite or entirely different
nature was stamped upon its surface, it would take the impression
badly, because it would intrude its own shape. Wherefore, that which
is to receive all forms should have no form; as in making perfumes
they first contrive that the liquid substance which is to receive
the scent shall be as inodorous as possible; or as those who wish to
impress figures on soft substances do not allow any previous
impression to remain, but begin by making the surface as even and
smooth as possible. In the same way that which is to receive
perpetually and through its whole extent the resemblances of all
eternal beings ought to be devoid of any particular form. Wherefore,
the mother and receptacle of all created and visible and in any way
sensible things, is not to be termed earth, or air, or fire, or water,
or any of their compounds or any of the elements from which these
are derived, but is an invisible and formless being which receives all
things and in some mysterious way partakes of the intelligible, and is
most incomprehensible. In saying this we shall not be far wrong; as
far, however, as we can attain to a knowledge of her from the previous
considerations, we may truly say that fire is that part of her
nature which from time to time is inflamed, and water that which is
moistened, and that the mother substance becomes earth and air, in
so far as she receives the impressions of them.
Let us consider this question more precisely. Is there any
self-existent fire? and do all those things which we call
self-existent exist? or are only those things which we see, or in some
way perceive through the bodily organs, truly existent, and nothing
whatever besides them? And is all that which, we call an
intelligible essence nothing at all, and only a name? Here is a
question which we must not leave unexamined or undetermined, nor
must we affirm too confidently that there can be no decision;
neither must we interpolate in our present long discourse a digression
equally long, but if it is possible to set forth a great principle
in a few words, that is just what we want.
Thus I state my view:-If mind and true opinion are two distinct
classes, then I say that there certainly are these self-existent ideas
unperceived by sense, and apprehended only by the mind; if, however,
as some say, true opinion differs in no respect from mind, then
everything that we perceive through the body is to be regarded as most
real and certain. But we must affirm that to be distinct, for they
have a distinct origin and are of a different nature; the one is
implanted in us by instruction, the other by persuasion; the one is
always accompanied by true reason, the other is without reason; the
one cannot be overcome by persuasion, but the other can: and lastly,
every man may be said to share in true opinion, but mind is the
attribute of the gods and of very few men. Wherefore also we must
acknowledge that there is one kind of being which is always the
same, uncreated and indestructible, never receiving anything into
itself from without, nor itself going out to any other, but
invisible and imperceptible by any sense, and of which the
contemplation is granted to intelligence only. And there is another
nature of the same name with it, and like to it, perceived by sense,
created, always in motion, becoming in place and again vanishing out
of place, which is apprehended by opinion and sense. And there is a
third nature, which is space, and is eternal, and admits not of
destruction and provides a home for all created things, and is
apprehended without the help of sense, by a kind of spurious reason,
and is hardly real; which we beholding as in a dream, say of all
existence that it must of necessity be in some place and occupy a
space, but that what is neither in heaven nor in earth has no
existence. Of these and other things of the same kind, relating to the
true and waking reality of nature, we have only this dreamlike
sense, and we are unable to cast off sleep and determine the truth
about them. For an image, since the reality, after which it is
modelled, does not belong to it, and it exists ever as the fleeting
shadow of some other, must be inferred to be in another [i.e. in space
], grasping existence in some way or other, or it could not be at all.
But true and exact reason, vindicating the nature of true being,
maintains that while two things [i.e. the image and space] are
different they cannot exist one of them in the other and so be one and
also two at the same time.
Thus have I concisely given the result of my thoughts; and my
verdict is that being and space and generation, these three, existed
in their three ways before the heaven; and that the nurse of
generation, moistened by water and inflamed by fire, and receiving the
forms of earth and air, and experiencing all the affections which
accompany these, presented a strange variety of appearances; and being
full of powers which were neither similar nor equally balanced, was
never in any part in a state of equipoise, but swaying unevenly hither
and thither, was shaken by them, and by its motion again shook them;
and the elements when moved were separated and carried continually,
some one way, some another; as, when rain is shaken and winnowed by
fans and other instruments used in the threshing of corn, the close
and heavy particles are borne away and settle in one direction, and
the loose and light particles in another. In this manner, the four
kinds or elements were then shaken by the receiving vessel, which,
moving like a winnowing machine, scattered far away from one another
the elements most unlike, and forced the most similar elements into
dose contact. Wherefore also the various elements had different places
before they were arranged so as to form the universe. At first, they
were all without reason and measure. But when the world began to get
into order, fire and water and earth and air had only certain faint
traces of themselves, and were altogether such as everything might
be expected to be in the absence of God; this, I say, was their nature
at that time, and God fashioned them by form and number. Let it be
consistently maintained by us in all that we say that God made them as
far as possible the fairest and best, out of things which were not
fair and good. And now I will endeavour to show you the disposition
and generation of them by an unaccustomed argument, which am compelled
to use; but I believe that you will be able to follow me, for your
education has made you familiar with the methods of science.
In the first place, then, as is evident to all, fire and earth and
water and air are bodies. And every sort of body possesses solidity,
and every solid must necessarily be contained in planes; and every
plane rectilinear figure is composed of triangles; and all triangles
are originally of two kinds, both of which are made up of one right
and two acute angles; one of them has at either end of the base the
half of a divided right angle, having equal sides, while in the
other the right angle is divided into unequal parts, having unequal
sides. These, then, proceeding by a combination of probability with
demonstration, we assume to be the original elements of fire and the
other bodies; but the principles which are prior to these God only
knows, and he of men who is the friend God. And next we have to
determine what are the four most beautiful bodies which are unlike one
another, and of which some are capable of resolution into one another;
for having discovered thus much, we shall know the true origin of
earth and fire and of the proportionate and intermediate elements. And
then we shall not be willing to allow that there are any distinct
kinds of visible bodies fairer than these. Wherefore we must endeavour
to construct the four forms of bodies which excel in beauty, and
then we shall be able to say that we have sufficiently apprehended
their nature. Now of the two triangles, the isosceles has one form
only; the scalene or unequal-sided has an infinite number. Of the
infinite forms we must select the most beautiful, if we are to proceed
in due order, and any one who can point out a more beautiful form than
ours for the construction of these bodies, shall carry off the palm,
not as an enemy, but as a friend. Now, the one which we maintain to be
the most beautiful of all the many triangles (and we need not speak of
the others) is that of which the double forms a third triangle which
is equilateral; the reason of this would be long to tell; he who
disproves what we are saying, and shows that we are mistaken, may
claim a friendly victory. Then let us choose two triangles, out of
which fire and the other elements have been constructed, one
isosceles, the other having the square of the longer side equal to
three times the square of the lesser side.
Now is the time to explain what was before obscurely said: there was
an error in imagining that all the four elements might be generated by
and into one another; this, I say, was an erroneous supposition, for
there are generated from the triangles which we have selected four
kinds-three from the one which has the sides unequal; the fourth alone
is framed out of the isosceles triangle. Hence they cannot all be
resolved into one another, a great number of small bodies being
combined into a few large ones, or the converse. But three of them can
be thus resolved and compounded, for they all spring from one, and
when the greater bodies are broken up, many small bodies will spring
up out of them and take their own proper figures; or, again, when many
small bodies are dissolved into their triangles, if they become one,
they will form one large mass of another kind. So much for their
passage into one another. I have now to speak of their several
kinds, and show out of what combinations of numbers each of them was
formed. The first will be the simplest and smallest construction,
and its element is that triangle which has its hypotenuse twice the
lesser side. When two such triangles are joined at the diagonal, and
this is repeated three times, and the triangles rest their diagonals
and shorter sides on the same point as a centre, a single
equilateral triangle is formed out of six triangles; and four
equilateral triangles, if put together, make out of every three
plane angles one solid angle, being that which is nearest to the
most obtuse of plane angles; and out of the combination of these
four angles arises the first solid form which distributes into equal
and similar parts the whole circle in which it is inscribed. The
second species of solid is formed out of the same triangles, which
unite as eight equilateral triangles and form one solid angle out of
four plane angles, and out of six such angles the second body is
completed. And the third body is made up of 120 triangular elements,
forming twelve solid angles, each of them included in five plane
equilateral triangles, having altogether twenty bases, each of which
is an equilateral triangle. The one element [that is, the triangle
which has its hypotenuse twice the lesser side] having generated these
figures, generated no more; but the isosceles triangle produced the
fourth elementary figure, which is compounded of four such
triangles, joining their right angles in a centre, and forming one
equilateral quadrangle. Six of these united form eight solid angles,
each of which is made by the combination of three plane right
angles; the figure of the body thus composed is a cube, having six
plane quadrangular equilateral bases. There was yet a fifth
combination which God used in the delineation of the universe.
Now, he who, duly reflecting on all this, enquires whether the
worlds are to be regarded as indefinite or definite in number, will be
of opinion that the notion of their indefiniteness is characteristic
of a sadly indefinite and ignorant mind. He, however, who raises the
question whether they are to be truly regarded as one or five, takes
up a more reasonable position. Arguing from probabilities, I am of
opinion that they are one; another, regarding the question from
another point of view, will be of another mind. But, leaving this
enquiry, let us proceed to distribute the elementary forms, which have
now been created in idea, among the four elements.
To earth, then, let us assign the cubical form; for earth is the
most immoveable of the four and the most plastic of all bodies, and
that which has the most stable bases must of necessity be of such a
nature. Now, of the triangles which we assumed at first, that which
has two equal sides is by nature more firmly based than that which has
unequal sides; and of the compound figures which are formed out of
either, the plane equilateral quadrangle has necessarily, a more
stable basis than the equilateral triangle, both in the whole and in
the parts. Wherefore, in assigning this figure to earth, we adhere
to probability; and to water we assign that one of the remaining forms
which is the least moveable; and the most moveable of them to fire;
and to air that which is intermediate. Also we assign the smallest
body to fire, and the greatest to water, and the intermediate in
size to air; and, again, the acutest body to fire, and the next in
acuteness to, air, and the third to water. Of all these elements, that
which has the fewest bases must necessarily be the most moveable,
for it must be the acutest and most penetrating in every way, and also
the lightest as being composed of the smallest number of similar
particles: and the second body has similar properties in a second
degree, and the third body in the third degree. Let it be agreed,
then, both according to strict reason and according to probability,
that the pyramid is the solid which is the original element and seed
of fire; and let us assign the element which was next in the order
of generation to air, and the third to water. We must imagine all
these to be so small that no single particle of any of the four
kinds is seen by us on account of their smallness: but when many of
them are collected together their aggregates are seen. And the
ratios of their numbers, motions, and other properties, everywhere
God, as far as necessity allowed or gave consent, has exactly
perfected, and harmonised in due proportion.
From all that we have just been saying about the elements or
kinds, the most probable conclusion is as follows:-earth, when meeting
with fire and dissolved by its sharpness, whether the dissolution take
place in the fire itself or perhaps in some mass of air or water, is
borne hither and thither, until its parts, meeting together and
mutually harmonising, again become earth; for they can never take
any other form. But water, when divided by fire or by air, on
reforming, may become one part fire and two parts air; and a single
volume of air divided becomes two of fire. Again, when a small body of
fire is contained in a larger body of air or water or earth, and
both are moving, and the fire struggling is overcome and broken up,
then two volumes of fire form one volume of air; and when air is
overcome and cut up into small pieces, two and a half parts of air are
condensed into one part of water. Let us consider the matter in
another way. When one of the other elements is fastened upon by
fire, and is cut by the sharpness of its angles and sides, it
coalesces with the fire, and then ceases to be cut by them any longer.
For no element which is one and the same with itself can be changed by
or change another of the same kind and in the same state. But so
long as in the process of transition the weaker is fighting against
the stronger, the dissolution continues. Again, when a few small
particles, enclosed in many larger ones, are in process of
decomposition and extinction, they only cease from their tendency to
extinction when they consent to pass into the conquering nature, and
fire becomes air and air water. But if bodies of another kind go and
attack them [i.e. the small particles], the latter continue to be
dissolved until, being completely forced back and dispersed, they make
their escape to their own kindred, or else, being overcome and
assimilated to the conquering power, they remain where they are and
dwell with their victors, and from being many become one. And owing to
these affections, all things are changing their place, for by the
motion of the receiving vessel the bulk of each class is distributed
into its proper place; but those things which become unlike themselves
and like other things, are hurried by the shaking into the place of
the things to which they grow like.
Now all unmixed and primary bodies are produced by such causes as
these. As to the subordinate species which are included in the greater
kinds, they are to be attributed to the varieties in the structure
of the two original triangles. For either structure did not originally
produce the triangle of one size only, but some larger and some
smaller, and there are as many sizes as there are species of the
four elements. Hence when they are mingled with themselves and with
one another there is an endless variety of them, which those who would
arrive at the probable truth of nature ought duly to consider.
Unless a person comes to an understanding about the nature and
conditions of rest and motion, he will meet with many difficulties
in the discussion which follows. Something has been said of this
matter already, and something more remains to be said, which is,
that motion never exists in what is uniform. For to conceive that
anything can be moved without a mover is hard or indeed impossible,
and equally impossible to conceive that there can be a mover unless
there be something which can be moved-motion cannot exist where either
of these are wanting, and for these to be uniform is impossible;
wherefore we must assign rest to uniformity and motion to the want
of uniformity. Now inequality is the cause of the nature which is
wanting in uniformity; and of this we have already described the
origin. But there still remains the further point-why things when
divided after their kinds do not cease to pass through one another and
to change their place-which we will now proceed to explain. In the
revolution of the universe are comprehended all the four elements, and
this being circular and having a tendency to come together, compresses
everything and will not allow any place to be left void. Wherefore,
also, fire above all things penetrates everywhere, and air next, as
being next in rarity of the elements; and the two other elements in
like manner penetrate according to their degrees of rarity. For
those things which are composed of the largest particles have the
largest void left in their compositions, and those which are
composed of the smallest particles have the least. And the contraction
caused by the compression thrusts the smaller particles into the
interstices of the larger. And thus, when the small parts are placed
side by side with the larger, and the lesser divide the greater and
the greater unite the lesser, all the elements are borne up and down
and hither and thither towards their own places; for the change in the
size of each changes its position in space. And these causes
generate an inequality which is always maintained, and is
continually creating a perpetual motion of the elements in all time.
In the next place we have to consider that there are divers kinds of
fire. There are, for example, first, flame; and secondly, those
emanations of flame which do not burn but only give light to the eyes;
thirdly, the remains of fire, which are seen in red-hot embers after
the flame has been extinguished. There are similar differences in
the air; of which the brightest part is called the aether, and the
most turbid sort mist and darkness; and there are various other
nameless kinds which arise from the inequality of the triangles.
Water, again, admits in the first place of a division into two
kinds; the one liquid and the other fusile. The liquid kind is
composed of the small and unequal particles of water; and moves itself
and is moved by other bodies owing to the want of uniformity and the
shape of its particles; whereas the fusile kind, being formed of large
and uniform particles, is more stable than the other, and is heavy and
compact by reason of its uniformity. But when fire gets in and
dissolves the particles and destroys the uniformity, it has greater
mobility, and becoming fluid is thrust forth by the neighbouring air
and spreads upon the earth; and this dissolution of the solid masses
is called melting, and their spreading out upon the earth flowing.
Again, when the fire goes out of the fusile substance, it does not
pass into vacuum, but into the neighbouring air; and the air which
is displaced forces together the liquid and still moveable mass into
the place which was occupied by the fire, and unites it with itself.
Thus compressed the mass resumes its equability, and is again at unity
with itself, because the fire which was the author of the inequality
has retreated; and this departure of the fire is called cooling, and
the coming together which follows upon it is termed congealment. Of
all the kinds termed fusile, that which is the densest and is formed
out of the finest and most uniform parts is that most precious
possession called gold, which is hardened by filtration through
rock; this is unique in kind, and has both a glittering and a yellow
colour. A shoot of gold, which is so dense as to be very hard, and
takes a black colour, is termed adamant. There is also another kind
which has parts nearly like gold, and of which there are several
species; it is denser than gold, and it contains a small and fine
portion of earth, and is therefore harder, yet also lighter because of
the great interstices which it has within itself; and this
substance, which is one of the bright and denser kinds of water,
when solidified is called copper. There is an alloy of earth mingled
with it, which, when the two parts grow old and are disunited, shows
itself separately and is called rust. The remaining phenomena of the
same kind there will be no difficulty in reasoning out by the method
of probabilities. A man may sometimes set aside meditations about
eternal things, and for recreation turn to consider the truths of
generation which are probable only; he will thus gain a pleasure not
to be repented of, and secure for himself while he lives a wise and
moderate pastime. Let us grant ourselves this indulgence, and go
through the probabilities relating to the same subjects which follow
next in order.
Water which is mingled with fire, so much as is fine and liquid
(being so called by reason of its motion and the way in which it rolls
along the ground), and soft, because its bases give way are less
stable than those of earth, when separated from fire and air and
isolated, becomes more uniform, and by their retirement is
compressed into itself; and if the condensation be very great, the
water above the earth becomes hail, but on the earth, ice; and that
which is congealed in a less degree and is only half solid, when above
the earth is called snow, and when upon the earth, and condensed
from dew, hoarfrost. Then, again, there are the numerous kinds of
water which have been mingled with one another, and are distilled
through plants which grow in the earth; and this whole class is called
by the name of juices or saps. The unequal admixture of these fluids
creates a variety of species; most of them are nameless, but four
which are of a fiery nature are clearly distinguished and have
names. First there is wine, which warms the soul as well as the
body: secondly, there is the oily nature, which is smooth and
divides the visual ray, and for this reason is bright and shining
and of a glistening appearance, including pitch, the juice of the
castor berry, oil itself, and other things of a like kind: thirdly,
there is the class of substances which expand the contracted parts
of the mouth, until they return to their natural state, and by
reason of this property create sweetness;-these are included under the
general name of honey: and, lastly, there is a frothy nature, which
differs from all juices, having a burning quality which dissolves
the flesh; it is called opos (a vegetable acid).
As to the kinds of earth, that which is filtered through water
passes into stone in the following manner:-The water which mixes
with the earth and is broken up in the process changes into air, and
taking this form mounts into its own place. But as there is no
surrounding vacuum it thrusts away the neighbouring air, and this
being rendered heavy, and, when it is displaced, having been poured
around the mass of earth, forcibly compresses it and drives it into
the vacant space whence the new air had come up; and the earth when
compressed by the air into an indissoluble union with water becomes
rock. The fairer sort is that which is made up of equal and similar
parts and is transparent; that which has the opposite qualities is
inferior. But when all the watery part is suddenly drawn out by
fire, a more brittle substance is formed, to which we give the name of
pottery. Sometimes also moisture may remain, and the earth which has
been fused by fire becomes, when cool, a certain stone of a black
colour. A like separation of the water which had been copiously
mingled with them may occur in two substances composed of finer
particles of earth and of a briny nature; out of either of them a half
solid body is then formed, soluble in water-the one, soda, which is
used for purging away oil and earth, and other, salt, which harmonizes
so well in combinations pleasing to the palate, and is, as the law
testifies, a substance dear to the gods. The compounds of earth and
water are not soluble by water, but by fire only, and for this
reason:-Neither fire nor air melt masses of earth; for their
particles, being smaller than the interstices in its structure, have
plenty of room to move without forcing their way, and so they leave
the earth unmelted and undissolved; but particles of water, which
are larger, force a passage, and dissolve and melt the earth.
Wherefore earth when not consolidated by force is dissolved by water
only; when consolidated, by nothing but fire; for this is the only
body which can find an entrance. The cohesion of water again, when
very strong, is dissolved by fire only-when weaker, then either by air
or fire-the former entering the interstices, and the latter
penetrating even the triangles. But nothing can dissolve air, when
strongly condensed, which does not reach the elements or triangles; or
if not strongly condensed, then only fire can dissolve it. As to
bodies composed of earth and water, while the water occupies the
vacant interstices of the earth in them which are compressed by force,
the particles of water which approach them from without, finding no
entrance, flow around the entire mass and leave it undissolved; but
the particles of fire, entering into the interstices of the water,
do to the water what water does to earth and fire to air, and are
the sole causes of the compound body of earth and water liquefying and
becoming fluid. Now these bodies are of two kinds; some of them,
such as glass and the fusible sort of stones, have less water than
they have earth; on the other hand, substances of the nature of wax
and incense have more of water entering into their composition.
I have thus shown the various classes of bodies as they are
diversified by their forms and combinations and changes into one
another, and now I must endeavour to set forth their affections and
the causes of them. In the first place, the bodies which I have been
describing are necessarily objects of sense. But we have not yet
considered the origin of flesh, or what belongs to flesh, or of that
part of the soul which is mortal. And these things cannot be
adequately explained without also explaining the affections which
are concerned with sensation, nor the latter without the former: and
yet to explain them together is hardly possible; for which reason we
must assume first one or the other and afterwards examine the nature
of our hypothesis. In order, then, that the affections may follow
regularly after the elements, let us presuppose the existence of
body and soul.
First, let us enquire what we mean by saying that fire is hot; and
about this we may reason from the dividing or cutting power which it
exercises on our bodies. We all of us feel that fire is sharp; and
we may further consider the fineness of the sides, and the sharpness
of the angles, and the smallness of the particles, and the swiftness
of the motion-all this makes the action of fire violent and sharp,
so that it cuts whatever it meets. And we must not forget that the
original figure of fire [i.e. the pyramid], more than any other
form, has a dividing power which cuts our bodies into small pieces
(Kepmatizei), and thus naturally produces that affection which we call
heat; and hence the origin of the name (thepmos, Kepma). Now, the
opposite of this is sufficiently manifest; nevertheless we will not
fail to describe it. For the larger particles of moisture which
surround the body, entering in and driving out the lesser, but not
being able to take their places, compress the moist principle in us;
and this from being unequal and disturbed, is forced by them into a
state of rest, which is due to equability and compression. But
things which are contracted contrary to nature are by nature at war,
and force themselves apart; and to this war and convulsion the name of
shivering and trembling is given; and the whole affection and the
cause of the affection are both termed cold. That is called hard to
which our flesh yields, and soft which yields to our flesh; and things
are also termed hard and soft relatively to one another. That which
yields has a small base; but that which rests on quadrangular bases is
firmly posed and belongs to the class which offers the greatest
resistance; so too does that which is the most compact and therefore
most repellent. The nature of the light and the heavy will be best
understood when examined in connexion with our notions of above and
below; for it is quite a mistake to suppose that the universe is
parted into two regions, separate from and opposite to each other, the
one a lower to which all things tend which have any bulk, and an upper
to which things only ascend against their will. For as the universe is
in the form of a sphere, all the extremities, being equidistant from
the centre, are equally extremities, and the centre, which is
equidistant from them, is equally to be regarded as the opposite of
them all. Such being the nature of the world, when a person says
that any of these points is above or below, may he not be justly
charged with using an improper expression? For the centre of the world
cannot be rightly called either above or below, but is the centre
and nothing else; and the circumference is not the centre, and has
in no one part of itself a different relation to the centre from
what it has in any of the opposite parts. Indeed, when it is in
every direction similar, how can one rightly give to it names which
imply opposition? For if there were any solid body in equipoise at the
centre of the universe, there would be nothing to draw it to this
extreme rather than to that, for they are all perfectly similar; and
if a person were to go round the world in a circle, he would often,
when standing at the antipodes of his former position, speak of the
same point as above and below; for, as I was saying just now, to speak
of the whole which is in the form of a globe as having one part
above and another below is not like a sensible man.
The reason why these names are used, and the circumstances under
which they are ordinarily applied by us to the division of the
heavens, may be elucidated by the following supposition:-if a person
were to stand in that part of the universe which is the appointed
place of fire, and where there is the great mass of fire to which
fiery bodies gather-if, I say, he were to ascend thither, and,
having the power to do this, were to abstract particles of fire and
put them in scales and weigh them, and then, raising the balance, were
to draw the fire by force towards the uncongenial element of the
air, it would be very evident that he could compel the smaller mass
more readily than the larger; for when two things are simultaneously
raised by one and the same power, the smaller body must necessarily
yield to the superior power with less reluctance than the larger;
and the larger body is called heavy and said to tend downwards, and
the smaller body is called light and said to tend upwards. And we
may detect ourselves who are upon the earth doing precisely the same
thing. For we of separate earthy natures, and sometimes earth
itself, and draw them into the uncongenial element of air by force and
contrary to nature, both clinging to their kindred elements. But
that which is smaller yields to the impulse given by us towards the
dissimilar element more easily than the larger; and so we call the
former light, and the place towards which it is impelled we call
above, and the contrary state and place we call heavy and below
respectively. Now the relations of these must necessarily vary,
because the principal masses of the different elements hold opposite
positions; for that which is light, heavy, below or above in one place
will be found to be and become contrary and transverse and every way
diverse in relation to that which is light, heavy, below or above in
an opposite place. And about all of them this has to be
considered:-that the tendency of each towards its kindred element
makes the body which is moved heavy, and the place towards which the
motion tends below, but things which have an opposite tendency we call
by an opposite name. Such are the causes which we assign to these
phenomena. As to the smooth and the rough, any one who sees them can
explain the reason of them to another. For roughness is hardness
mingled with irregularity, and smoothness is produced by the joint
effect of uniformity and density.
The most important of the affections which concern the whole body
remains to be considered-that is, the cause of pleasure and pain in
the perceptions of which I have been speaking, and in all other things
which are perceived by sense through the parts of the body, and have
both pains and pleasures attendant on them. Let us imagine the
causes of every affection, whether of sense or not, to be of the
following nature, remembering that we have already distinguished
between the nature which is easy and which is hard to move; for this
is the direction in which we must hunt the prey which we mean to take.
A body which is of a nature to be easily moved, on receiving an
impression however slight, spreads abroad the motion in a circle,
the parts communicating with each other, until at last, reaching the
principle of mind, they announce the quality of the agent. But a
body of the opposite kind, being immobile, and not extending to the
surrounding region, merely receives the impression, and does not
stir any of the neighbouring parts; and since the parts do not
distribute the original impression to other parts, it has no effect of
motion on the whole animal, and therefore produces no effect on the
patient. This is true of the bones and hair and other more earthy
parts of the human body; whereas what was said above relates mainly to
sight and hearing, because they have in them the greatest amount of
fire and air. Now we must conceive of pleasure and pain in this way.
An impression produced in us contrary to nature and violent, if
sudden, is painful; and, again, the sudden return to nature is
pleasant; but a gentle and gradual return is imperceptible and vice
versa. On the other hand the impression of sense which is most
easily produced is most readily felt, but is not accompanied by
Pleasure or pain; such, for example, are the affections of the
sight, which, as we said above, is a body naturally uniting with our
body in the day-time; for cuttings and burnings and other
affections which happen to the sight do not give pain, nor is there
pleasure when the sight returns to its natural state; but the
sensations are dearest and strongest according to the manner in
which the eye is affected by the object, and itself strikes and
touches it; there is no violence either in the contraction or dilation
of the eye. But bodies formed of larger particles yield to the agent
only with a struggle; and then they impart their motions to the
whole and cause pleasure and pain-pain when alienated from their
natural conditions, and pleasure when restored to them. Things which
experience gradual withdrawings and emptyings of their nature, and
great and sudden replenishments, fail to perceive the emptying, but
are sensible of the replenishment; and so they occasion no pain, but
the greatest pleasure, to the mortal part of the soul, as is
manifest in the case of perfumes. But things which are changed all of
a sudden, and only gradually and with difficulty return to their own
nature, have effects in every way opposite to the former, as is
evident in the case of burnings and cuttings of the body.
Thus have we discussed the general affections of the whole body, and
the names of the agents which produce them. And now I will endeavour
to speak of the affections of particular parts, and the causes and
agents of them, as far as I am able. In the first place let us set
forth what was omitted when we were speaking of juices, concerning the
affections peculiar to the tongue. These too, like most of the other
affections, appear to be caused by certain contractions and dilations,
but they have besides more of roughness and smoothness than is found
in other affections; for whenever earthy particles enter into the
small veins which are the testing of the tongue, reaching to the
heart, and fall upon the moist, delicate portions of flesh-when, as
they are dissolved, they contract and dry up the little veins, they
are astringent if they are rougher, but if not so rough, then only
harsh. Those of them which are of an abstergent nature, and purge
the whole surface of the tongue, if they do it in excess, and so
encroach as to consume some part of the flesh itself, like potash
and soda, are all termed bitter. But the particles which are deficient
in the alkaline quality, and which cleanse only moderately, are called
salt, and having no bitterness or roughness, are regarded as rather
agreeable than otherwise. Bodies which share in and are made smooth by
the heat of the mouth, and which are inflamed, and again in turn
inflame that which heats them, and which are so light that they are
carried upwards to the sensations of the head, and cut all that
comes in their way, by reason of these qualities in them, are all
termed pungent. But when these same particles, refined by
putrefaction, enter into the narrow veins, and are duly proportioned
to the particles of earth and air which are there, they set them
whirling about one another, and while they are in a whirl cause them
to dash against and enter into one another, and so form hollows
surrounding the particles that enter-which watery vessels of air
(for a film of moisture, sometimes earthy, sometimes pure, is spread
around the air) are hollow spheres of water; and those of them which
are pure, are transparent, and are called bubbles, while those
composed of the earthy liquid, which is in a state of general
agitation and effervescence, are said to boil or ferment-of all
these affections the cause is termed acid. And there is the opposite
affection arising from an opposite cause, when the mass of entering
particles, immersed in the moisture of the mouth, is congenial to
the tongue, and smooths and oils over the roughness, and relaxes the
parts which are unnaturally contracted, and contracts the parts
which are relaxed, and disposes them all according to their
nature-that sort of remedy of violent affections is pleasant and
agreeable to every man, and has the name sweet. But enough of this.
The faculty of smell does not admit of differences of kind; for
all smells are of a half formed nature, and no element is so
proportioned as to have any smell. The veins about the nose are too
narrow to admit earth and water, and too wide to detain fire and
air; and for this reason no one ever perceives the smell of any of
them; but smells always proceed from bodies that are damp, or
putrefying, or liquefying, or evaporating, and are perceptible only in
the intermediate state, when water is changing into air and air into
water; and all of them are either vapor or mist. That which is passing
out of air into water is mist, and that which is passing from water
into air is vapour; and hence all smells are thinner than water and
thicker than air. The proof of this is, that when there is any
obstruction to the respiration, and a man draws in his breath by
force, then no smell filters through, but the air without the smell
alone penetrates. Wherefore the varieties of smell have no name, and
they have not many, or definite and simple kinds; but they are
distinguished only painful and pleasant, the one sort irritating and
disturbing the whole cavity which is situated between the head and the
navel, the other having a soothing influence, and restoring this
same region to an agreeable and natural condition.
In considering the third kind of sense, hearing, we must speak of
the causes in which it originates. We may in general assume sound to
be a blow which passes through the ears, and is transmitted by means
of the air, the brain, and the blood, to the soul, and that hearing is
the vibration of this blow, which begins in the head and ends in the
region of the liver. The sound which moves swiftly is acute, and the
sound which moves slowly is grave, and that which is regular is
equable and smooth, and the reverse is harsh. A great body of sound is
loud, and a small body of sound the reverse. Respecting the
harmonies of sound I must hereafter speak.
There is a fourth class of sensible things, having many intricate
varieties, which must now be distinguished. They are called by the
general name of colours, and are a flame which emanates from every
sort of body, and has particles corresponding to the sense of sight. I
have spoken already, in what has preceded, of the causes which
generate sight, and in this place it will be natural and suitable to
give a rational theory of colours.
Of the particles coming from other bodies which fall upon the sight,
some are smaller and some are larger, and some are equal to the
parts of the sight itself. Those which are equal are imperceptible,
and we call them transparent. The larger produce contraction, the
smaller dilation, in the sight, exercising a power akin to that of hot
and cold bodies on the flesh, or of astringent bodies on the tongue,
or of those heating bodies which we termed pungent. White and black
are similar effects of contraction and dilation in another sphere, and
for this reason have a different appearance. Wherefore, we ought to
term white that which dilates the visual ray, and the opposite of this
is black. There is also a swifter motion of a different sort of fire
which strikes and dilates the ray of sight until it reaches the
eyes, forcing a way through their passages and melting them, and
eliciting from them a union of fire and water which we call tears,
being itself an opposite fire which comes to them from an opposite
direction-the inner fire flashes forth like lightning, and the outer
finds a way in and is extinguished in the moisture, and all sorts of
colours are generated by the mixture. This affection is termed
dazzling, and the object which produces it is called bright and
flashing. There is another sort of fire which is intermediate, and
which reaches and mingles with the moisture of the eye without
flashing; and in this, the fire mingling with the ray of the moisture,
produces a colour like blood, to which we give the name of red. A
bright hue mingled with red and white gives the colour called
auburn. The law of proportion, however, according to which the several
colours are formed, even if a man knew he would be foolish in telling,
for he could not give any necessary reason, nor indeed any tolerable
or probable explanation of them. Again, red, when mingled with black
and white, becomes purple, but it becomes umber when the colours are
burnt as well as mingled and the black is more thoroughly mixed with
them. Flame colour is produced by a union of auburn and dun, and dun
by an admixture of black and white; pale yellow, by an admixture of
white and auburn. White and bright meeting, and falling upon a full
black, become dark blue, and when dark blue mingles with white, a
light blue colour is formed, as flame-colour with black makes leek
green. There will be no difficulty in seeing how and by what
mixtures the colours derived from these are made according to the
rules of probability. He, however, who should attempt to verify all
this by experiment, would forget the difference of the human and
divine nature. For God only has the knowledge and also the power which
are able to combine many things into one and again resolve the one
into many. But no man either is or ever will be able to accomplish
either the one or the other operation.
These are the elements, thus of necessity then subsisting, which the
creator of the fairest and best of created things associated with
himself, when he made the self-sufficing and most perfect God, using
the necessary causes as his ministers in the accomplishment of his
work, but himself contriving the good in all his creations.
Wherefore we may distinguish two sorts of causes, the one divine and
the other necessary, and may seek for the divine in all things, as far
as our nature admits, with a view to the blessed life; but the
necessary kind only for the sake of the divine, considering that
without them and when isolated from them, these higher things for
which we look cannot be apprehended or received or in any way shared
by us.
Seeing, then, that we have now prepared for our use the various
classes of causes which are the material out of which the remainder of
our discourse must be woven, just as wood is the material of the
carpenter, let us revert in a few words to the point at which we
began, and then endeavour to add on a suitable ending to the beginning
of our tale.
As I said at first, when all things were in disorder God created
in each thing in relation to itself, and in all things in relation
to each other, all the measures and harmonies which they could
possibly receive. For in those days nothing had any proportion
except by accident; nor did any of the things which now have names
deserve to be named at all-as, for example, fire, water, and the
rest of the elements. All these the creator first set in order, and
out of them he constructed the universe, which was a single animal
comprehending in itself all other animals, mortal and immortal. Now of
the divine, he himself was the creator, but the creation of the mortal
he committed to his offspring. And they, imitating him, received
from him the immortal principle of the soul; and around this they
proceeded to fashion a mortal body, and. made it to be the vehicle
of the so and constructed within the body a soul of another nature
which was mortal, subject to terrible and irresistible
affections-first of all, pleasure, the greatest incitement to evil;
then, pain, which deters from good; also rashness and fear, two
foolish counsellors, anger hard to be appeased, and hope easily led
astray-these they mingled with irrational sense and with all-daring
love according to necessary laws, and so framed man. Wherefore,
fearing to pollute the divine any more than was absolutely
unavoidable, they gave to the mortal nature a separate habitation in
another part of the body, placing the neck between them to be the
isthmus and boundary, which they constructed between the head and
breast, to keep them apart. And in the breast, and in what is termed
the thorax, they encased the mortal soul; and as the one part of
this was superior and the other inferior they divided the cavity of
the thorax into two parts, as the women's and men's apartments are
divided in houses, and placed the midriff to be a wall of partition
between them. That part of the inferior soul which is endowed with
courage and passion and loves contention they settled nearer the head,
midway between the midriff and the neck, in order that it might be
under the rule of reason and might join with it in controlling and
restraining the desires when they are no longer willing of their own
accord to obey the word of command issuing from the citadel.
The heart, the knot of the veins and the fountain of the blood which
races through all the limbs was set in the place of guard, that when
the might of passion was roused by reason making proclamation of any
wrong assailing them from without or being perpetrated by the
desires within, quickly the whole power of feeling in the body,
perceiving these commands and threats, might obey and follow through
every turn and alley, and thus allow the principle of the best to have
the command in all of them. But the gods, foreknowing that the
palpitation of the heart in the expectation of danger and the swelling
and excitement of passion was caused by fire, formed and implanted
as a supporter to the heart the lung, which was, in the first place,
soft and bloodless, and also had within hollows like the pores of a
sponge, in order that by receiving the breath and the drink, it
might give coolness and the power of respiration and alleviate the
heat. Wherefore they cut the air-channels leading to the lung, and
placed the lung about the heart as a soft spring, that, when passion
was rife within, the heart, beating against a yielding body, might
be cooled and suffer less, and might thus become more ready to join
with passion in the service of reason.
The part of the soul which desires meats and drinks and the other
things of which it has need by reason of the bodily nature, they
placed between the midriff and the boundary of the navel, contriving
in all this region a sort of manger for the food of the body; and
there they bound it down like a wild animal which was chained up
with man, and must be nourished if man was to exist. They appointed
this lower creation his place here in order that he might be always
feeding at the manger, and have his dwelling as far as might be from
the council-chamber, making as little noise and disturbance as
possible, and permitting the best part to advise quietly for the
good of the whole. And knowing that this lower principle in man
would not comprehend reason, and even if attaining to some degree of
perception would never naturally care for rational notions, but that
it would be led away by phantoms and visions night and day-to be a
remedy for this, God combined with it the liver, and placed it in
the house of the lower nature, contriving that it should be solid
and smooth, and bright and sweet, and should also have a bitter
quality, in order that the power of thought, which proceeds from the
mind, might be reflected as in a mirror which receives likenesses of
objects and gives back images of them to the sight; and so might
strike terror into the desires, when, making use of the bitter part of
the liver, to which it is akin, it comes threatening and invading, and
diffusing this bitter element swiftly through the whole liver produces
colours like bile, and contracting every part makes it wrinkled and
rough; and twisting out of its right place and contorting the lobe and
closing and shutting up the vessels and gates, causes pain and
loathing. And the converse happens when some gentle inspiration of the
understanding pictures images of an opposite character, and allays the
bile and bitterness by refusing to stir or touch the nature opposed to
itself, but by making use of the natural sweetness of the liver,
corrects all things and makes them to be right and smooth and free,
and renders the portion of the soul which resides about the liver
happy and joyful, enabling it to pass the night in peace, and to
practise divination in sleep, inasmuch as it has no share in mind
and reason. For the authors of our being, remembering the command of
their father when he bade them create the human race as good as they
could, that they might correct our inferior parts and make them to
attain a measure of truth, placed in the liver the seat of divination.
And herein is a proof that God has given the art of divination not
to the wisdom, but to the foolishness of man. No man, when in his
wits, attains prophetic truth and inspiration; but when he receives
the inspired word, either his intelligence is enthralled in sleep,
or he is demented by some distemper or possession. And he who would
understand what he remembers to have been said, whether in a dream
or when he was awake, by the prophetic and inspired nature, or would
determine by reason the meaning of the apparitions which he has
seen, and what indications they afford to this man or that, of past,
present or future good and evil, must first recover his wits. But,
while he continues demented, he cannot judge of the visions which he
sees or the words which he utters; the ancient saying is very true,
that "only a man who has his wits can act or judge about himself and
his own affairs." And for this reason it is customary to appoint
interpreters to be judges of the true inspiration. Some persons call
them prophets; they are quite unaware that they are only the
expositors of dark sayings and visions, and are not to be called
prophets at all, but only interpreters of prophecy.
Such is the nature of the liver, which is placed as we have
described in order that it may give prophetic intimations. During
the life of each individual these intimations are plainer, but after
his death the liver becomes blind, and delivers oracles too obscure to
be intelligible. The neighbouring organ [the spleen] is situated on
the left-hand side, and is constructed with a view of keeping the
liver bright and pure-like a napkin, always ready prepared and at hand
to clean the mirror. And hence, when any impurities arise in the
region of the liver by reason of disorders of the body, the loose
nature of the spleen, which is composed of a hollow and bloodless
tissue, receives them all and dears them away, and when filled with
the unclean matter, swells and festers, but, again, when the body is
purged, settles down into the same place as before, and is humbled.
Concerning the soul, as to which part is mortal and which divine,
and how and why they are separated, and where located, if God
acknowledges that we have spoken the truth, then, and then only, can
we be confident; still, we may venture to assert that what has been
said by us is probable, and will be rendered more probable by
investigation. Let us assume thus much.
The creation of the rest of follows next in order, and this we may
investigate in a similar manner. And it appears to be very meet that
the body should be framed on the following principles:-
The authors of our race were aware that we should be intemperate
in eating and drinking, and take a good deal more than was necessary
or proper, by reason of gluttony. In order then that disease might not
quickly destroy us, and lest our mortal race should perish without
fulfilling its end-intending to provide against this, the gods made
what is called the lower belly, to be a receptacle for the superfluous
meat and drink, and formed the convolution of the bowels, so that
the food might be prevented from passing quickly through and
compelling the body to require more food, thus producing insatiable
gluttony, and making the whole race an enemy to philosophy and
music, and rebellious against the divinest element within us.
The bones and flesh, and other similar parts of us, were made as
follows. The first principle of all of them was the generation of
the marrow. For the bonds of life which unite the soul with the body
are made fast there, and they are the root and foundation of the human
race. The marrow itself is created out of other materials: God took
such of the primary triangles as were straight and smooth, and were
adapted by their perfection to produce fire and water, and air and
earth-these, I say, he separated from their kinds, and mingling them
in due proportions with one another, made the marrow out of them to be
a universal seed of the whole race of mankind; and in this seed he
then planted and enclosed the souls, and in the original
distribution gave to the marrow as many and various forms as the
different kinds of souls were hereafter to receive. That which, like a
field, was to receive the divine seed, he made round every way, and
called that portion of the marrow, brain, intending that, when an
animal was perfected, the vessel containing this substance should be
the head; but that which was intended to contain the remaining and
mortal part of the soul he distributed into figures at once around and
elongated, and he called them all by the name "marrow"; and to
these, as to anchors, fastening the bonds of the whole soul, he
proceeded to fashion around them the entire framework of our body,
constructing for the marrow, first of all a complete covering of bone.
Bone was composed by him in the following manner. Having sifted pure
and smooth earth he kneaded it and wetted it with marrow, and after
that he put it into fire and then into water, and once more into
fire and again into water-in this way by frequent transfers from one
to the other he made it insoluble by either. Out of this he fashioned,
as in a lathe, a globe made of bone, which he placed around the brain,
and in this he left a narrow opening; and around the marrow of the
neck and back he formed vertebrae which he placed under one another
like pivots, beginning at the head and extending through the whole
of the trunk. Thus wishing to preserve the entire seed, he enclosed it
in a stone-like casing, inserting joints, and using in the formation
of them the power of the other or diverse as an intermediate nature,
that they might have motion and flexure. Then again, considering
that the bone would be too brittle and inflexible, and when heated and
again cooled would soon mortify and destroy the seed within-having
this in view, he contrived the sinews and the flesh, that so binding
all the members together by the sinews, which admitted of being
stretched and relaxed about the vertebrae, he might thus make the body
capable of flexion and extension, while the flesh would serve as a
protection against the summer heat and against the winter cold, and
also against falls, softly and easily yielding to external bodies,
like articles made of felt; and containing in itself a warm moisture
which in summer exudes and makes the surface damp, would impart a
nature coolness to the whole body; and again in winter by the help
of this internal warmth would form a very tolerable defence against
the frost which surrounds it and attacks it from without. He who
modelled us, considering these things, mixed earth with fire and water
and blended them; and making a ferment of acid and salt, he mingled it
with them and formed soft and succulent flesh. As for the sinews, he
made them of a mixture of bone and unfermented flesh, attempered so as
to be in a mean, and gave them a yellow colour; wherefore the sinews
have a firmer and more glutinous nature than flesh, but a softer and
moister nature than the bones. With these God covered the bones and
marrow, binding them together by sinews, and then enshrouded them
all in an upper covering of flesh. The more living and sensitive of
the bones he enclosed in the thinnest film of flesh, and those which
had the least life within them in the thickest and most solid flesh.
So again on the joints of the bones, where reason indicated that no
more was required, he placed only a thin covering of flesh, that it
might not interfere with the flexion of our bodies and make them
unwieldy because difficult to move; and also that it might not, by
being crowded and pressed and matted together, destroy sensation by
reason of its hardness, and impair the memory and dull the edge of
intelligence. Wherefore also the thighs and the shanks and the hips,
and the bones of the arms and the forearms, and other parts which have
no joints, and the inner bones, which on account of the rarity of
the soul in the marrow are destitute of reason-all these are
abundantly provided with flesh; but such as have mind in them are in
general less fleshy, except where the creator has made some part
solely of flesh in order to give sensation-as, for example, the
tongue. But commonly this is not the case. For the nature which
comes into being and grows up in us by a law of necessity, does not
admit of the combination of solid bone and much flesh with acute
perceptions. More than any other part the framework of the head
would have had them, if they could have co-existed, and the human
race, having a strong and fleshy and sinewy head, would have had a
life twice or many times as long as it now has, and also more
healthy and free from pain.
But our creators, considering whether they should make a
longer-lived race which was worse, or a shorter-lived race which was
better, came to the conclusion that every one ought to prefer a
shorter span of life, which was better, to a longer one, which was
worse; and therefore they covered the head with thin bone, but not
with flesh and sinews, since it had no joints; and thus the head was
added, having more wisdom and sensation than the rest of the body, but
also being in every man far weaker. For these reasons and after this
manner God placed the sinews at the extremity of the head, in a circle
round the neck, and glued them together by the principle of likeness
and fastened the extremities of the jawbones to them below the face,
and the other sinews he dispersed throughout the body, fastening
limb to limb. The framers of us framed the mouth, as now arranged,
having teeth and tongue and lips, with a view to the necessary and the
good, contriving the way in for necessary purposes, the way out for
the best purposes; for that is necessary which enters in and gives
food to the body; but the river of speech, which flows out of a man
and ministers to the intelligence, is the fairest and noblest of all
streams. Still the head could neither be left a bare frame of bones,
on account of the extremes of heat and cold in the different
seasons, nor yet be allowed to be wholly covered, and so become dull
and senseless by reason of an overgrowth of flesh. The fleshy nature
was not therefore wholly dried up, but a large sort of peel was parted
off and remained over, which is now called the skin. This met and grew
by the help of the cerebral moisture, and became the circular
envelopment of the head. And the moisture, rising up under the
sutures, watered and closed in the skin upon the crown, forming a sort
of knot. The diversity of the sutures was caused by the power of the
courses of the soul and of the food, and the more these struggled
against one another the more numerous they became, and fewer if the
struggle were less violent. This skin the divine power pierced all
round with fire, and out of the punctures which were thus made the
moisture issued forth, and the liquid and heat which was pure came
away, and a mixed part which was composed of the same material as
the skin, and had a fineness equal to the punctures, was borne up by
its own impulse and extended far outside the head, but being too
slow to escape, was thrust back by the external air, and rolled up
underneath the skin, where it took root. Thus the hair sprang up in
the skin, being akin to it because it is like threads of leather,
but rendered harder and closer through the pressure of the cold, by
which each hair, while in process of separation from the skin, is
compressed and cooled. Wherefore the creator formed the head hairy,
making use of the causes which I have mentioned, and reflecting also
that instead of flesh the brain needed the hair to be a light covering
or guard, which would give shade in summer and shelter in winter,
and at the same time would not impede our quickness of perception.
From the combination of sinew, skin, and bone, in the structure of the
finger, there arises a triple compound, which, when dried up, takes
the form of one hard skin partaking of all three natures, and was
fabricated by these second causes, but designed by mind which is the
principal cause with an eye to the future. For our creators well
knew that women and other animals would some day be framed out of men,
and they further knew that many animals would require the use of nails
for many purposes; wherefore they fashioned in men at their first
creation the rudiments of nails. For this purpose and for these
reasons they caused skin, hair, and nails to grow at the extremities
of the limbs. And now that all the parts and members of the mortal
animal had come together, since its life of necessity consisted of
fire and breath, and it therefore wasted away by dissolution and
depletion, the gods contrived the following remedy: They mingled a
nature akin to that of man with other forms and perceptions, and
thus created another kind of animal. These are the trees and plants
and seeds which have been improved by cultivation and are now
domesticated among us; anciently there were only the will kinds, which
are older than the cultivated. For everything that partakes of life
may be truly called a living being, and the animal of which we are now
speaking partakes of the third kind of soul, which is said to be
seated between the midriff and the navel, having no part in opinion or
reason or mind, but only in feelings of pleasure and pain and the
desires which accompany them. For this nature is always in a passive
state, revolving in and about itself, repelling the motion from
without and using its own, and accordingly is not endowed by nature
with the power of observing or reflecting on its own concerns.
Wherefore it lives and does not differ from a living being, but is
fixed and rooted in the same spot, having no power of self-motion.
Now after the superior powers had created all these natures to be
food for us who are of the inferior nature, they cut various
channels through the body as through a garden, that it might be
watered as from a running stream. In the first place, they cut two
hidden channels or veins down the back where the skin and the flesh
join, which answered severally to the right and left side of the body.
These they let down along the backbone, so as to have the marrow of
generation between them, where it was most likely to flourish, and
in order that the stream coming down from above might flow freely to
the other parts, and equalise the irrigation. In the next place,
they divided the veins about the head, and interlacing them, they sent
them in opposite directions; those coming from the right side they
sent to the left of the body, and those from the left they diverted
towards the right, so that they and the skin might together form a
bond which should fasten the head to the body, since the crown of
the head was not encircled by sinews; and also in order that the
sensations from both sides might be distributed over the whole body.
And next, they ordered the water-courses of the body in a manner which
I will describe, and which will be more easily understood if we
begin by admitting that all things which have lesser parts retain
the greater, but the greater cannot retain the lesser. Now of all
natures fire has the smallest parts, and therefore penetrates
through earth and water and air and their compounds, nor can
anything hold it. And a similar principle applies to the human
belly; for when meats and drinks enter it, it holds them, but it
cannot hold air and fire, because the particles of which they
consist are smaller than its own structure.
These elements, therefore, God employed for the sake of distributing
moisture from the belly into the veins, weaving together network of
fire and air like a weel, having at the entrance two lesser weels;
further he constructed one of these with two openings, and from the
lesser weels he extended cords reaching all round to the extremities
of the network. All the interior of the net he made of fire, but the
lesser weels and their cavity, of air. The network he took and
spread over the newly-formed animal in the following manner:-He let
the lesser weels pass into the mouth; there were two of them, and
one he let down by the air-pipes into the lungs, the other by the side
of the air-pipes into the belly. The former he divided into two
branches, both of which he made to meet at the channels of the nose,
so that when the way through the mouth did not act, the streams of the
mouth as well were replenished through the nose. With the other cavity
(i.e. of the greater weel) he enveloped the hollow parts of the
body, and at one time he made all this to flow into the lesser
weels, quite gently, for they are composed of air, and at another time
he caused the lesser weels to flow back again; and the net he made
to find a way in and out through the pores of the body, and the rays
of fire which are bound fast within followed the passage of the air
either way, never at any time ceasing so long as the mortal being
holds together. This process, as we affirm, the name-giver named
inspiration and expiration. And all this movement, active as well as
passive, takes place in order that the body, being watered and cooled,
may receive nourishment and life; for when the respiration is going in
and out, and the fire, which is fast bound within, follows it, and
ever and anon moving to and fro, enters through the belly and
reaches the meat and drink, it dissolves them, and dividing them
into small portions and guiding them through the passages where it
goes, pumps them as from a fountain into the channels of the veins,
and makes the stream of the veins flow through the body as through a
conduit.
Let us once more consider the phenomena of respiration, and
enquire into the causes which have made it what it is. They are as
follows:-Seeing that there is no such thing as a vacuum into which any
of those things which are moved can enter, and the breath is carried
from us into the external air, the next point is, as will be dear to
every one, that it does not go into a vacant space, but pushes its
neighbour out of its place, and that which is thrust out in turn
drives out its neighbour; and in this everything of necessity at
last comes round to that place from whence the breath came forth,
and enters in there, and following the breath, fills up the vacant
space; and this goes on like the rotation of a wheel, because there
can be no such thing as a vacuum. Wherefore also the breast and the
lungs, when they emit the breath, are replenished by the air which
surrounds the body and which enters in through the pores of the
flesh and is driven round in a circle; and again, the air which is
sent away and passes out through the body forces the breath inwards
through the passage of the mouth and the nostrils. Now the origin of
this movement may be supposed to be as follows. In the interior of
every animal the hottest part is that which is around the blood and
veins; it is in a manner on internal fountain of fire, which we
compare to the network of a creel, being woven all of fire and
extended through the centre of the body, while the-outer parts are
composed of air. Now we must admit that heat naturally proceeds
outward to its own place and to its kindred element; and as there
are two exits for the heat, the out through the body, and the other
through the mouth and nostrils, when it moves towards the one, it
drives round the air at the other, and that which is driven round
falls into the fire and becomes warm, and that which goes forth is
cooled. But when the heat changes its place, and the particles at
the other exit grow warmer, the hotter air inclining in that direction
and carried towards its native element, fire, pushes round the air
at the other; and this being affected in the same way and
communicating the same impulse, a circular motion swaying to and
from is produced by the double process, which we call inspiration
and expiration.
The phenomena of medical cupping-glasses and of the swallowing of
drink and of the projection of bodies, whether discharged in the air
or bowled along the ground, are to be investigated on a similar
principle; and swift and slow sounds, which appear to be high and low,
and are sometimes discordant on account of their inequality, and
then again harmonical on account of the equality of the motion which
they excite in us. For when the motions of the antecedent swifter
sounds begin to pause and the two are equalised, the slower sounds
overtake the swifter and then propel them. When they overtake them
they do not intrude a new and discordant motion, but introduce the
beginnings of a slower, which answers to the swifter as it dies
away, thus producing a single mixed expression out of high and low,
whence arises a pleasure which even the unwise feel, and which to
the wise becomes a higher sort of delight, being an imitation of
divine harmony in mortal motions. Moreover, as to the flowing of
water, the fall of the thunderbolt, and the marvels that are
observed about the attraction of amber and the Heraclean stones,-in
none of these cases is there any attraction; but he who investigates
rightly, will find that such wonderful phenomena are attributable to
the combination of certain conditions-the non-existence of a vacuum,
the fact that objects push one another round, and that they change
places, passing severally into their proper positions as they are
divided or combined
Such as we have seen, is the nature and such are the causes of
respiration-the subject in which this discussion originated. For the
fire cuts the food and following the breath surges up within, fire and
breath rising together and filling the veins by drawing up out of
the belly and pouring into them the cut portions of the food; and so
the streams of food are kept flowing through the whole body in all
animals. And fresh cuttings from kindred substances, whether the
fruits of the earth or herb of the field, which God planted to be
our daily food, acquire all sorts of colours by their inter-mixture;
but red is the most pervading of them, being created by the cutting
action of fire and by the impression which it makes on a moist
substance; and hence the liquid which circulates in the body has a
colour such as we have described. The liquid itself we call blood,
which nourishes the flesh and the whole body, whence all parts are
watered and empty places filled.
Now the process of repletion and evacuation is effected after the
manner of the universal motion by which all kindred substances are
drawn towards one another. For the external elements which surround us
are always causing us to consume away, and distributing and sending
off like to like; the particles of blood, too, which are divided and
contained within the frame of the animal as in a sort of heaven, are
compelled to imitate the motion of the universe. Each, therefore, of
the divided parts within us, being carried to its kindred nature,
replenishes the void. When more is taken away than flows in, then we
decay, and when less, we grow and increase.
The frame of the entire creature when young has the triangles of
each kind new, and may be compared to the keel of a vessel which is
just off the stocks; they are locked firmly together and yet the whole
mass is soft and delicate, being freshly formed of marrow and nurtured
on milk. Now when the triangles out of which meats and drinks are
composed come in from without, and are comprehended in the body, being
older and weaker than the triangles already there, the frame of the
body gets the better of them and its newer triangles cut them up,
and so the animal grows great, being nourished by a multitude of
similar particles. But when the roots of the triangles are loosened by
having undergone many conflicts with many things in the course of
time, they are no longer able to cut or assimilate the food which
enters, but are themselves easily divided by the bodies which come
in from without. In this way every animal is overcome and decays,
and this affection is called old age. And at last, when the bonds by
which the triangles of the marrow are united no longer hold, and are
parted by the strain of existence, they in turn loosen the bonds of
the soul, and she, obtaining a natural release, flies away with joy.
For that which takes place according to nature is pleasant, but that
which is contrary to nature is painful. And thus death, if caused by
disease or produced by wounds, is painful and violent; but that sort
of death which comes with old age and fulfils the debt of nature is
the easiest of deaths, and is accompanied with pleasure rather than
with pain.
Now every one can see whence diseases arise. There are four
natures out of which the body is compacted, earth and fire and water
and air, and the unnatural excess or defect of these, or the change of
any of them from its own natural place into another, or-since there
are more kinds than one of fire and of the other elements-the
assumption by any of these of a wrong kind, or any similar
irregularity, produces disorders and diseases; for when any of them is
produced or changed in a manner contrary to nature, the parts which
were previously cool grow warm, and those which were dry become moist,
and the light become heavy, and the heavy light; all sorts of
changes occur. For, as we affirm, a thing can only remain the same
with itself, whole and sound, when the same is added to it, or
subtracted from it, in the same respect and in the same manner and
in due proportion; and whatever comes or goes away in violation of
these laws causes all manner of changes and infinite diseases and
corruptions. Now there is a second class of structures which are
also natural, and this affords a second opportunity of observing
diseases to him who would understand them. For whereas marrow and bone
and flesh and sinews are composed of the four elements, and the blood,
though after another manner, is likewise formed out of them, most
diseases originate in the way which I have described; but the worst of
all owe their severity to the fact that the generation of these
substances stances in a wrong order; they are then destroyed. For
the natural order is that the flesh and sinews should be made of
blood, the sinews out of the fibres to which they are akin, and the
flesh out of the dots which are formed when the fibres are
separated. And the glutinous and rich matter which comes away from the
sinews and the flesh, not only glues the flesh to the bones, but
nourishes and imparts growth to the bone which surrounds the marrow;
and by reason of the solidity of the bones, that which filters through
consists of the purest and smoothest and oiliest sort of triangles,
dropping like dew from the bones and watering the marrow.
Now when each process takes place in this order, health commonly
results; when in the opposite order, disease. For when the flesh
becomes decomposed and sends back the wasting substance into the
veins, then an over-supply of blood of diverse kinds, mingling with
air in the veins, having variegated colours and bitter properties,
as well as acid and saline qualities, contains all sorts of bile and
serum and phlegm. For all things go the wrong way, and having become
corrupted, first they taint the blood itself, and then ceasing to give
nourishment the body they are carried along the veins in all
directions, no longer preserving the order of their natural courses,
but at war with themselves, because they receive no good from one
another, and are hostile to the abiding constitution of the body,
which they corrupt and dissolve. The oldest part of the flesh which is
corrupted, being hard to decompose, from long burning grows black, and
from being everywhere corroded becomes bitter, and is injurious to
every part of the body which is still uncorrupted. Sometimes, when the
bitter element is refined away, the black part assumes an acidity
which takes the place of the bitterness; at other times the bitterness
being tinged with blood has a redder colour; and this, when mixed with
black, takes the hue of grass; and again, an auburn colour mingles
with the bitter matter when new flesh is decomposed by the fire
which surrounds the internal flame-to all which symptoms some
physician perhaps, or rather some philosopher, who had the power of
seeing in many dissimilar things one nature deserving of a name, has
assigned the common name of bile. But the other kinds of bile are
variously distinguished by their colours. As for serum, that sort
which is the watery part of blood is innocent, but that which is a
secretion of black and acid bile is malignant when mingled by the
power of heat with any salt substance, and is then called acid phlegm.
Again, the substance which is formed by the liquefaction of new and
tender flesh when air is present, if inflated and encased in liquid so
as to form bubbles, which separately are invisible owing to their
small size, but when collected are of a bulk which is visible, and
have a white colour arising out of the generation of foam-all this
decomposition of tender flesh when inter-mingled with air is termed by
us white phlegm. And the whey or sediment of newly-formed phlegm is
sweat and tears, and includes the various daily discharges by which
the body is purified. Now all these become causes of disease when
the blood is not replenished in a natural manner by food and drink but
gains bulk from opposite sources in violation of the laws of nature.
When the several parts of the flesh are separated by disease, if the
foundation remains, the power of the disorder is only half as great,
and there is still a prospect of an easy recovery; but when that which
binds the flesh to the bones is diseased, and no longer being
separated from the muscles and sinews, ceases to give nourishment to
the bone and to unite flesh and bone, and from being oily and smooth
and glutinous becomes rough and salt and dry, owing to bad regimen,
then all the substance thus corrupted crumbles away under the flesh
and the sinews, and separates from the bone, and the fleshy parts fall
away from their foundation and leave the sinews bare and full of
brine, and the flesh again gets into the circulation of the blood
and makes the previously-mentioned disorders still greater. And if
these bodily affections be severe, still worse are the prior
disorders; as when the bone itself, by reason of the density of the
flesh, does not obtain sufficient air, but becomes mouldy and hot
and gangrened and receives no nutriment, and the natural process is
inverted, and the bone crumbling passes into the food, and the food
into the flesh, and the flesh again falling into the blood makes all
maladies that may occur more virulent than those already mentioned.
But the worst case of all is when the marrow is diseased, either
from excess or defect; and this is the cause of the very greatest
and most fatal disorders, in which the whole course of the body is
reversed.
There is a third class of diseases which may be conceived of as
arising in three ways; for they are produced sometimes by wind, and
sometimes by phlegm, and sometimes by bile. When the lung, which is
the dispenser of the air to the body, is obstructed by rheums and
its passages are not free, some of them not acting, while through
others too much air enters, then the parts which are unrefreshed by
air corrode, while in other parts the excess of air forcing its way
through the veins distorts them and decomposing the body is enclosed
in the midst of it and occupies the midriff thus numberless painful
diseases are produced, accompanied by copious sweats. And oftentimes
when the flesh is dissolved in the body, wind, generated within and
unable to escape, is the source of quite as much pain as the air
coming in from without; but the greatest pain is felt when the wind
gets about the sinews and the veins of the shoulders, and swells
them up, so twists back the great tendons and the sinews which are
connected with them. These disorders are called tetanus and
opisthotonus, by reason of the tension which accompanies them. The
cure of them is difficult; relief is in most cases given by fever
supervening. The white phlegm, though dangerous when detained within
by reason of the air-bubbles, yet if it can communicate with the
outside air, is less severe, and only discolours the body,
generating leprous eruptions and similar diseases. When it is
mingled with black bile and dispersed about the courses of the head,
which are the divinest part of us, the attack if coming on in sleep,
is not so severe; but when assailing those who are awake it is hard to
be got rid of, and being an affection of a sacred part, is most justly
called sacred. An acid and salt phlegm, again, is the source of all
those diseases which take the form of catarrh, but they have many
names because the places into which they flow are manifold.
Inflammations of the body come from burnings and inflamings, and all
of them originate in bile. When bile finds a means of discharge, it
boils up and sends forth all sorts of tumours; but when imprisoned
within, it generates many inflammatory diseases, above all when
mingled with pure blood; since it then displaces the fibres which
are scattered about in the blood and are designed to maintain the
balance of rare and dense, in order that the blood may not be so
liquefied by heat as to exude from the pores of the body, nor again
become too dense and thus find a difficulty in circulating through the
veins. The fibres are so constituted as to maintain this balance;
and if any one brings them all together when the blood is dead and
in process of cooling, then the blood which remains becomes fluid, but
if they are left alone, they soon congeal by reason of the surrounding
cold. The fibres having this power over the blood, bile, which is only
stale blood, and which from being flesh is dissolved again into blood,
at the first influx coming in little by little, hot and liquid, is
congealed by the power of the fibres; and so congealing and made to
cool, it produces internal cold and shuddering. When it enters with
more of a flood and overcomes the fibres by its heat, and boiling up
throws them into disorder, if it have power enough to maintain its
supremacy, it penetrates the marrow and burns up what may be termed
the cables of the soul, and sets her free; but when there is not so
much of it, and the body though wasted still holds out, the bile is
itself mastered, and is either utterly banished, or is thrust
through the veins into the lower or upper-belly, and is driven out
of the body like an exile from a state in which there has been civil
war; whence arise diarrhoeas and dysenteries, and all such
disorders. When the constitution is disordered by excess of fire,
continuous heat and fever are the result; when excess of air is the
cause, then the fever is quotidian; when of water, which is a more
sluggish element than either fire or air, then the fever is a tertian;
when of earth, which is the most sluggish of the four, and is only
purged away in a four-fold period, the result is a quartan fever,
which can with difficulty be shaken off.
Such is the manner in which diseases of the body arise; the
disorders of the soul, which depend upon the body, originate as
follows. We must acknowledge disease of the mind to be a want of
intelligence; and of this there are two kinds; to wit, madness and
ignorance. In whatever state a man experiences either of them, that
state may be called disease; and excessive pains and pleasures are
justly to be regarded as the greatest diseases to which the soul is
liable. For a man who is in great joy or in great pain, in his
unseasonable eagerness to attain the one and to avoid the other, is
not able to see or to hear anything rightly; but he is mad, and is
at the time utterly incapable of any participation in reason. He who
has the seed about the spinal marrow too plentiful and overflowing,
like a tree overladen with fruit, has many throes, and also obtains
many pleasures in his desires and their offspring, and is for the most
part of his life deranged, because his pleasures and pains are so very
great; his soul is rendered foolish and disordered by his body; yet he
is regarded not as one diseased, but as one who is voluntarily bad,
which is a mistake. The truth is that the intemperance of love is a
disease of the soul due chiefly to the moisture and fluidity which
is produced in one of the elements by the loose consistency of the
bones. And in general, all that which is termed the incontinence of
pleasure and is deemed a reproach under the idea that the wicked
voluntarily do wrong is not justly a matter for reproach. For no man
is voluntarily bad; but the bad become bad by reason of an ill
disposition of the body and bad education, things which are hateful to
every man and happen to him against his will. And in the case of
pain too in like manner the soul suffers much evil from the body.
For where the acid and briny phlegm and other bitter and bilious
humours wander about in the body, and find no exit or escape, but
are pent up within and mingle their own vapours with the motions of
the soul, and are blended, with them, they produce all sorts of
diseases, more or fewer, and in every degree of intensity; and being
carried to the three places of the soul, whichever they may
severally assail, they create infinite varieties of ill-temper and
melancholy, of rashness and cowardice, and also of forgetfulness and
stupidity. Further, when to this evil constitution of body evil
forms of government are added and evil discourses are uttered in
private as well as in public, and no sort of instruction is given in
youth to cure these evils, then all of us who are bad become bad
from two causes which are entirely beyond our control. In such cases
the planters are to blame rather than the plants, the educators rather
than the educated. But however that may be, we should endeavour as far
as we can by education, and studies, and learning, to avoid vice and
attain virtue; this, however, is part of another subject.
There is a corresponding enquiry concerning the mode of treatment by
which the mind and the body are to be preserved, about which it is
meet and right that I should say a word in turn; for it is more our
duty to speak of the good than of the evil. Everything that is good is
fair, and the animal fair is not without proportion, and the animal
which is to be fair must have due proportion. Now we perceive lesser
symmetries or proportions and reason about them, but of the highest
and greatest we take no heed; for there is no proportion or
disproportion more productive of health and disease, and virtue and
vice, than that between soul and body. This however we do not
perceive, nor do we reflect that when a weak or small frame is the
vehicle of a great and mighty soul, or conversely, when a little
soul is encased in a large body, then the whole animal is not fair,
for it lacks the most important of all symmetries; but the due
proportion of mind and body is the fairest and loveliest of all sights
to him who has the seeing eye. Just as a body which has a leg too
long, or which is unsymmetrical in some other respect, is an
unpleasant sight, and also, when doing its share of work, is much
distressed and makes convulsive efforts, and often stumbles through
awkwardness, and is the cause of infinite evil to its own self-in like
manner we should conceive of the double nature which we call the
living being; and when in this compound there is an impassioned soul
more powerful than the body, that soul, I say, convulses and fills
with disorders the whole inner nature of man; and when eager in the
pursuit of some sort of learning or study, causes wasting; or again,
when teaching or disputing in private or in public, and strifes and
controversies arise, inflames and dissolves the composite frame of man
and introduces rheums; and the nature of this phenomenon is not
understood by most professors of medicine, who ascribe it to the
opposite of the real cause. And once more, when body large and too
strong for the soul is united to a small and weak intelligence, then
inasmuch as there are two desires natural to man,-one of food for
the sake of the body, and one of wisdom for the sake of the diviner
part of us-then, I say, the motions of the stronger, getting the
better and increasing their own power, but making the soul dull, and
stupid, and forgetful, engender ignorance, which is the greatest of
diseases. There is one protection against both kinds of
disproportion:-that we should not move the body without the soul or
the soul without the body, and thus they will be on their guard
against each other, and be healthy and well balanced. And therefore
the mathematician or any one else whose thoughts are much absorbed
in some intellectual pursuit, must allow his body also to have due
exercise, and practise gymnastic; and he who is careful to fashion the
body, should in turn impart to the soul its proper motions, and should
cultivate music and all philosophy, if he would deserve to be called
truly fair and truly good. And the separate parts should be treated in
the same manner, in imitation of the pattern of the universe; for as
the body is heated and also cooled within by the elements which
enter into it, and is again dried up and moistened by external things,
and experiences these and the like affections from both kinds of
motions, the result is that the body if given up to motion when in a
state of quiescence is overmastered and perishes; but if any one, in
imitation of that which we call the foster-mother and nurse of the
universe, will not allow the body ever to be inactive, but is always
producing motions and agitations through its whole extent, which
form the natural defence against other motions both internal and
external, and by moderate exercise reduces to order according to their
affinities the particles and affections which are wandering about
the body, as we have already said when speaking of the universe, he
will not allow enemy placed by the side of enemy to stir up wars and
disorders in the body, but he will place friend by the side of friend,
so as to create health.
Now of all motions that is the best which is produced in a thing
by itself, for it is most akin to the motion of thought and of the
universe; but that motion which is caused by others is not so good,
and worst of all is that which moves the body, when at rest, in
parts only and by some external agency. Wherefore of all modes of
purifying and reuniting the body the best is gymnastic; the next
best is a surging motion, as in sailing or any other mode of
conveyance which is not fatiguing; the third sort of motion may be
of use in a case of extreme necessity, but in any other will be
adopted by no man of sense: I mean the purgative treatment of
physicians; for diseases unless they are very dangerous should not
be irritated by medicines, since every form of disease is in a
manner akin to the living being, whose complex frame has an
appointed term of life. For not the whole race only, but each
individual-barring inevitable accidents-comes into the world having
a fixed span, and the triangles in us are originally framed with power
to last for a certain time, beyond which no man prolong his life.
And this holds also of the constitution of diseases; if any one
regardless of the appointed time tries to subdue them by medicine,
he only aggravates and multiplies them. Wherefore we ought always to
manage them by regimen, as far as a man can spare the time, and not
provoke a disagreeable enemy by medicines.
Enough of the composite animal, and of the body which is a part of
him, and of the manner in which a man may train and be trained by
himself so as to live most according to reason: and we must above
and before all provide that the element which is to train him shall be
the fairest and best adapted to that purpose. A minute discussion of
this subject would be a serious task; but if, as before, I am to
give only an outline, the subject may not unfitly be summed up as
follows.
I have often remarked that there are three kinds of soul located
within us, having each of them motions, and I must now repeat in the
fewest words possible, that one part, if remaining inactive and
ceasing from its natural motion, must necessarily become very weak,
but that which is trained and exercised, very strong. Wherefore we
should take care that the movements of the different parts of the soul
should be in due proportion.
And we should consider that God gave the sovereign part of the human
soul to be the divinity of each one, being that part which, as we say,
dwells at the top of the body, inasmuch as we are a plant not of an
earthly but of a heavenly growth, raises us from earth to our
kindred who are in heaven. And in this we say truly; for the divine
power suspended the head and root of us from that place where the
generation of the soul first began, and thus made the whole body
upright. When a man is always occupied with the cravings of desire and
ambition, and is eagerly striving to satisfy them, all his thoughts
must be mortal, and, as far as it is possible altogether to become
such, he must be mortal every whit, because he has cherished his
mortal part. But he who has been earnest in the love of knowledge
and of true wisdom, and has exercised his intellect more than any
other part of him, must have thoughts immortal and divine, if he
attain truth, and in so far as human nature is capable of sharing in
immortality, he must altogether be immortal; and since he is ever
cherishing the divine power, and has the divinity within him in
perfect order, he will be perfectly happy. Now there is only one way
of taking care of things, and this is to give to each the food and
motion which are natural to it. And the motions which are naturally
akin to the divine principle within us are the thoughts and
revolutions of the universe. These each man should follow, and correct
the courses of the head which were corrupted at our birth, and by
learning the harmonies and revolutions of the universe, should
assimilate the thinking being to the thought, renewing his original
nature, and having assimilated them should attain to that perfect life
which the gods have set before mankind, both for the present and the
future.
Thus our original design of discoursing about the universe down to
the creation of man is nearly completed. A brief mention may be made
of the generation of other animals, so far as the subject admits of
brevity; in this manner our argument will best attain a due
proportion. On the subject of animals, then, the following remarks may
be offered. Of the men who came into the world, those who were cowards
or led unrighteous lives may with reason be supposed to have changed
into the nature of women in the second generation. And this was the
reason why at that time the gods created in us the desire of sexual
intercourse, contriving in man one animated substance, and in woman
another, which they formed respectively in the following manner. The
outlet for drink by which liquids pass through the lung under the
kidneys and into the bladder, which receives then by the pressure of
the air emits them, was so fashioned by them as to penetrate also into
the body of the marrow, which passes from the head along the neck
and through the back, and which in the preceding discourse we have
named the seed. And the seed having life, and becoming endowed with
respiration, produces in that part in which it respires a lively
desire of emission, and thus creates in us the love of procreation.
Wherefore also in men the organ of generation becoming rebellious
and masterful, like an animal disobedient to reason, and maddened with
the sting of lust, seeks to gain absolute sway; and the same is the
case with the so-called womb or matrix of women; the animal within
them is desirous of procreating children, and when remaining
unfruitful long beyond its proper time, gets discontented and angry,
and wandering in every direction through the body, closes up the
passages of the breath, and, by obstructing respiration, drives them
to extremity, causing all varieties of disease, until at length the
desire and love of the man and the woman, bringing them together and
as it were plucking the fruit from the tree, sow in the womb, as in
a field, animals unseen by reason of their smallness and without form;
these again are separated and matured within; they are then finally
brought out into the light, and thus the generation of animals is
completed.
Thus were created women and the female sex in general. But the
race of birds was created out of innocent light-minded men, who,
although their minds were directed toward heaven, imagined, in their
simplicity, that the clearest demonstration of the things above was to
be obtained by sight; these were remodelled and transformed into
birds, and they grew feathers instead of hair. The race of wild
pedestrian animals, again, came from those who had no philosophy in
any of their thoughts, and never considered at all about the nature of
the heavens, because they had ceased to use the courses of the head,
but followed the guidance of those parts of the soul which are in
the breast. In consequence of these habits of theirs they had their
front-legs and their heads resting upon the earth to which they were
drawn by natural affinity; and the crowns of their heads were
elongated and of all sorts of shapes, into which the courses of the
soul were crushed by reason of disuse. And this was the reason why
they were created quadrupeds and polypods: God gave the more senseless
of them the more support that they might be more attracted to the
earth. And the most foolish of them, who trail their bodies entirely
upon the ground and have no longer any need of feet, he made without
feet to crawl upon the earth. The fourth class were the inhabitants of
the water: these were made out of the most entirely senseless and
ignorant of all, whom the transformers did not think any longer worthy
of pure respiration, because they possessed a soul which was made
impure by all sorts of transgression; and instead of the subtle and
pure medium of air, they gave them the deep and muddy sea to be
their element of respiration; and hence arose the race of fishes and
oysters, and other aquatic animals, which have received the most
remote habitations as a punishment of their outlandish ignorance.
These are the laws by which animals pass into one another, now, as
ever, changing as they lose or gain wisdom and folly.
We may now say that our discourse about the nature of the universe
has an end. The world has received animals, mortal and immortal, and
is fulfilled with them, and has become a visible animal containing the
visible-the sensible God who is the image of the intellectual, the
greatest, best, fairest, most perfect-the one only begotten heaven.
-THE END-