Chapter XXXVIII: Timæus and Kritias (3)

It is by such transitions (concludes the Platonic Timæus) that the different races of animals passed originally, and still continue to pass, into each other. The interchange is determined by the acquisition or loss of reason or irrationality.[118]

[Footnote 118: Plato, Timæus, p. 92 B. [Greek: kai\ kata\ tau=ta dê\ pa/nta _to/te kai\ nu=n diamei/betai ta\ zô=a ei)s a)/llêla_, nou= kai\ a)noi/as a)pobolê=| kai\ ktê/sei metaballo/mena.]]

* * * * *

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

The vast range of topics, included in this curious exposition, is truly remarkable: Kosmogony or Theogony, First Philosophy, Physics (resting upon Geometry and Arithmetic), Zoology, Physiology, Anatomy, Pathology, Therapeutics, mental as well as physical. Of all these, I have not been able to furnish more than scanty illustrations; but the whole are well worthy of study, as the conjectures of a great and ingenious mind in the existing state of knowledge and belief among the Greeks: and all the more worthy, because they form in many respects a striking contrast with the points of view prevalent in more recent times.

[Side-note: The Demiurgus of the Platonic Timæus--how conceived by other philosophers of the same century.]

The position and functions of the Demiurgus, in the Timæus, form a peculiar phase in Grecian Philosophy, and even in the doctrine of Plato himself: for the theology and kosmology of the Timæus differ considerably from what we read in the Phædrus, Politikus, Republic, Leges, &c. The Demiurgus is presented in Timæus as a personal agent, pre-kosmical and extra-kosmical: but he appears only as initiating; he begets or fabricates, once for all, a most beautiful Kosmos (employing all the available material, so that nothing more could afterwards be added). The Kosmos having body and soul, is itself a God, but with many separate Gods resident within it, or attached to it. The Demiurgus then retires, leaving it to be peopled and administered by the Gods thus generated, or by its own soul. His acting and speaking is recounted in the manner of the ancient mythes: and many critics, ancient as well as modern, have supposed that he is intended by Plato only as a mythical personification of the Idea Boni: the construction described being only an ideal process, like the generation of a geometrical figure.[119] Whatever may have been Plato's own intention, in this last sense his hypothesis was interpreted by his immediate successors, Speusippus and Xenokrates, as well as by Eudêmus.[120] Aristotle in his comments upon Plato takes little notice of the Demiurgus: the hypothesis (of a distinct personal constructive agent) did not fit into his _principia_ of the Kosmos, and he probably ranked it among those mythical modes of philosophising which he expressly pronounces to be unworthy of serious criticism.[121] Various succeeding philosophers also, especially the Stoics, while they insisted much upon Providence, conceived this as residing in the Kosmos itself, and in the divine intra-kosmical agencies.

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

Zeller, Platonische Studien, pp. 207-215; also his Gesch. d. Phil. d. Griech. vol. ii. p. 508 seq. ed. 2nd; and Susemihl, Genetische Entwicklung der Platon. Philosophie, vol. ii. pp. 322-340. Ueberweg, Ueber die Platon. Welt-seele, p. 69; Brandis, Gesch. der Griech. Philos. ii. cx. pp. 357-365.

A good note of Ast (Platon's Leben und Schriften, p. 363 seq.) illustrates the analogy between the Platonic Timæus and the old Greek cosmogonic poems.]

[Footnote 120: Respecting Speusippus and Xenokrates, see Aristotel. De Coelo, i. 10, pp. 279-280, with Scholia, 487, b. 37, 488, b. 15, 489, a. 10, Brandis. Respecting Eudemus, Krantor, Eudorus, and the majority of the Platonic followers, see Plutarch, De Animæ Procreatione in Timæo, 1012 D, 1013 A, 1015 D, 1017 B, 1028 B.

Plutarch reasons against them; but he recognises their interpretation as the predominant one.

See also the view ascribed to Speusippus and the Pythagoreans by Aristotle (Metaphys. A. 1072, a. 1, b. 30).]

[Footnote 121: Proklus ad Platon. Tim. ii. pp. 138 E, 328, ed. Schn.: [Greek: ê)\ ga\r mo/nos ê)\ ma/lista, Pla/tôn tê=| a)po\ tou= pronoou=ntos ai)ti/a| katechrê/sato, phêsi\n o( Theo/phrastos, tou=to/ ge kalô=s au)tô=| marturô=n.] And another reference to Theophrastus, in Proklus, pp. 117, 417 Schn. Also pp. 118 E-F, 279 Schn.: [Greek: A)ristote/lês me\n ou)=n tê\n e)n tô=| dêmiourgô=| ta/xin ou)k oi)=den . . . o( de\ Pla/tôn O)rphei= sunepo/menos e)n tô=| dêmiourgô=| prô=ton ei)=nai phêsi tê\n ta/xin, kai\ to\ pro\ tô=n merô=n o(/lon.] For further coincidences between the Platonic Timæus and Orpheus ([Greek: o( theolo/gos]) see Proklus ad Timæ. pp. 233-235, Schn. The passage of Aristotle respecting those who blended mythe and philosophy is remarkable, Metaphys. B. 1000, a. 9-20. [Greek: Oi( me\n ou)=n peri\ Ê(si/odon, kai\ pa/ntes o(/soi theolo/goi, mo/non e)phro/ntisan tou= pithanou= tou= pro\s au)tou/s, ê(mô=n d' ô)ligô/rêsan . . . A)lla\ peri\ me\n tô=n muthikô=s sophizome/nôn ou)k a)/xion meta\ spoudê=s skopei=n; para\ de\ tô=n di' a)podei/xeôs lego/ntôn dei= puntha/nesthai dierôtô=ntas], &c. About those whom Aristotle calls [Greek: oi( memigme/noi] (partly mythe, partly philosophy), see Metaphys. N. 1091, b. 8.

Compare, on Aristotle's non-recognition of the Platonic Demiurgus, a remarkable note of Prantl, ad Aristot. Physica, viii. p. 524, also p. 478, in his edition of that treatise, Leipsic, 1854. Weisse speaks to the same effect in his translation of the Physica of Aristotle, pp. 350-356, Leips. 1829.

Lichtenstädt, in his ingenious work, (Ueber Platon's Lehren auf dem Gebiete der Natur-Forschung und der Heilkunde, Leipsic, 1826), ranks several of the characteristic tenets of the Timæus as only mythical: the pre-existent Chaos, the divinity of the entire Kosmos, even the metempsychosis, though it is affirmed most directly,--see pp. 24, 46, 48, 86, &c. How much of all this Plato intended as purely mythical, appears to me impossible to determine. I agree with the opinion of Ueberweg, that Plato did not draw any clear line in his own mind between the mythical and the real (Ueber die Platon. Weltseele, pp. 70-71).]

[Side-note: Adopted and welcomed by the Alexandrine Jews, as a parallel to the Mosaic Genesis.]

But though the idea of a pre-kosmic Demiurgus found little favour among the Grecian schools of philosophy, before the Christian era--it was greatly welcomed among the Hellenising Jews at Alexandria, from Aristobulus (about B. C. 150) down to Philo. It formed the suitable point of conjunction, between Hellenic and Judaic speculation. The marked distinction drawn by Plato between the Demiurgus, and the constructed or generated Kosmos, with its in-dwelling Gods--provided a suitable place for the Supreme God of the Jews, degrading the Pagan Gods in comparison. The Timæus was compared with the book of Genesis, from which it was even affirmed that Plato had copied. He received the denomination of the atticising Moses: Moses writing in Attic Greek.[122] It was thus that the Platonic Timæus became the medium of transition, from the Polytheistic theology which served as philosophy among the early ages of Greece, to the omnipotent Monotheism to which philosophy became subordinated after the Christian era.]

[Footnote 122: The learned work of Gfrörer--Philo und die Jüdisch-Alexandrin. Theosophie--illustrates well this coalescence of Platonism with the Pentateuch in the minds of the Hellenising Jews at Alexandria. "Aristobulus maintained, 150 years earlier than Philo, that not only the oldest Grecian poets, Homer, Hesiod, Orpheus, &c., but also the most celebrated thinkers, especially Plato, had acquired all their wisdom from a very old translation of the Pentateuch" (Gfrörer, i. p. 308, also ii. 111-118). The first form of Grecian philosophy which found favour among the Alexandrine Jews was the Platonic:--"since a Jew could not fail to be pleased--besides the magnificent style and high moral tone--with a certain likeness between the Oriental Kosmogonies and the Timæus, the favourite treatise of all Theosophists," see p. 72. Compare the same work, pp. 78-80-167-184-314.

Philo calls Sokrates [Greek: a)nê\r para\ Môu+sei= ta\ prote/leia tê=s sophi/as a)nadidachthei/s]: he refers to the terminology of the Platonic Timæus (Gfrörer, 308-327-328).

Eusebius (Præp. Ev. ix. 6, xi. 10), citing Aristobulus and Numenius, says [Greek: Ti/ ga\r e)/sti Pla/tôn, ê)\ Môu+sê\s a)ttiki/zôn?] Compare also the same work, xi. 16-25-29, and xiii. 18, where the harmony between Plato and Moses, and the preference of the author for Plato over other Greek philosophers, are earnestly declared.

See also Vacherot, Histoire Critique de l'École d'Alexandrie, vol. i. pp. 110-163-319-335.]

[Side-note: Physiology of the Platonic Timæus--subordinate to Plato's views of ethical teleology. Triple soul--each soul at once material and mental.]

Of the vast outline sketched in the Timæus, no part illustrates better the point of view of the author, than what is said about human anatomy and physiology. The human body is conceived altogether as subservient to an ethical and æsthetical teleology: it is (like the Praxitelean statue of Eros[123]) a work adapted to an archetypal model in Plato's own heart--his emotions, preferences, antipathies.[124] The leading idea in his mind is, What purposes would be most suitable to the presumed character of the Demiurgus, and to those generated Gods who are assumed to act as his ministers? The purposes which Plato ascribes, both to the one and to the others, emanate from his own feelings: they are such as he would himself have aimed at accomplishing, if he had possessed demiurgic power: just as the Republic describes the principles on which he would have constituted a Commonwealth, had he been lawgiver or Oekist. His inventive fancy depicts the interior structure, both of the great Kosmos and of its little human miniature, in a way corresponding to these sublime purposes. The three souls, each with its appropriate place and functions, form the cardinal principle of the organism:[125] the unity of which is maintained by the spinal marrow in continuity with, the brain; all the three souls having their roots in different parts of this continuous line. Neither of these three souls is immaterial, in the sense which that word now bears: even the encephalic rational soul--the most exalted in function, and commander of the other two--has its own extension and rotatory motion: as the kosmical soul has also, though yet more exalted in its endowments. All these souls have material properties, and are implicated essentially with other material agents:[126] all are at once material and mental. The encephalic or rational soul has its share in material properties, while the abdominal or appetitive soul also has its share in mental properties: even the liver has for its function to exhibit images impressed by the rational soul, and to serve as the theatre of prophetic representations.[127]

[Footnote 123: [Greek: Praxite/lês o(\n e)/pasche diêkri/bôsen E)/rôta e)x i)di/ês e(/lkôn a)rche/tupon kradi/ês]--(Anthologia).]

[Footnote 124: Plato says (Tim. p. 53 E) that in investigating the fundamental configuration of the elements you must search for the most beautiful: these will of course be the true ones. Again, p. 72 E, [Greek: e)k dê\ logismou= toi/oude xuni/stasthai ma/list' a)\n au(tô=| pa/ntôn pre/poi.] Galen applies an analogous principle of reasoning to explain the structure of apes, whom he pronounces to be a caricature of man. Man having a rational and intelligent soul, Nature has properly attached to it an admirable bodily organism: with equal propriety she has assigned to the ape a ridiculous bodily organism, because he has a ridiculous soul--[Greek: le/xeien a)\n ê( phu/sis, geloi/ô| tê\n psuchê\n zô/ô| geloi/an e)chrê=n dothê=nai sô/matos kataskeuê/n] (De Usu Partium, i. c. 13, pp. 80-81, iii. 16, p. 284, xiii. 2, p. 126, xv. 8, p. 252, Kühn).]

[Footnote 125: Respecting a view analogous to that of Plato, M. Littré observes, in his Proleg. to the Hippokratic treatise [Greek: Peri\ Kardi/ês] (OEuvres d'Hippocrate T. ix. p. 77):--"Deux fois l'auteur s'occupe des fins de la structure (du coeur) et admire avec quelle habileté elles sont atteintes. La première, c'est à propos des valvules sigmöides: il est instruit de leur usage, qui est de fermer le coeur du côté de l'artère; et dès-lors, son admiration ne se méprend pas, quand il fait remarquer avec quelle exactitude ils accomplissent leur office. Mais elle se méprend quand, se tournant vers les oreillettes, elle loue la main de l'artiste habile qui les a si bien arrangées pour souffler l'air dans le coeur. Ces déceptions de la téléologie sont perpétuelles dans l'histoire de la science; à chaque instant, on s'est extasié devant des structures que l'imagination seule appropriait à certaines fonctions. 'Cet optimisme' (dit Condorcet dans son Fragment sur l'Atlantide) 'qui consiste à trouver tout à merveille dans la nature telle qu'on l'invente, à condition d'admirer également sa sagesse, si par malheur on avait découvert qu'elle a suivi d'autres combinaisons; cet optimisme de détail doit être banni de la philosophie, dont le but n'est pas d'admirer, mais de connaître; qui, dans l'étude, cherche la vérité, et non des motifs de reconnaissance.'"]

[Footnote 126: Proklus could hardly make out that Plato recognised any [Greek: psuchê\n a)me/thekton], ad Tim. ii. pp. 220, 94 A.]

[Footnote 127: Plat. Tim. p. 71 B-C. The criticism of Aristotle (De Partibus Animal. iv. 2, 676, b. 21) is directed against this doctrine, but without naming Plato. But when Aristotle says [Greek: Oi( le/gontes tê\n phu/sin tê=s cholê=s ai)sthê/seôs tino\s ei)=nai sêmei=on, ou) kalô=s le/gousin], he substitutes the _bile_ in place of the liver. In Aristotle's mind the two are intimately associated.]

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

The Platonic doctrine, of three souls in one organism, derives a peculiar interest from the earnest way in which it is espoused afterwards by Galen. This last author represents Plato as agreeing in main doctrines with Hippokrates. He has composed nine distinct Dissertations or Books, for the purpose of upholding their joint doctrines. But the agreement which he shows between Hippokrates and Plato is very vague, and his own agreement with Plato is rather ethical than physiological. What is the essence of the three souls, and whether they are immortal or not, Galen leaves undecided:[128] but that there must be three distinct souls in each human body, and that the supposition of one soul only is an absurdity--he considers Plato to have positively demonstrated. He rejects the doctrine of Aristotle, Theophrastus, Poseidonius, and others, who acknowledged only one soul, lodged in the heart, but with distinct co-existent powers.[129]

[Footnote 128: Galen, De Foetuum Formatione, p. 701, Kühn. [Greek: Peri\ Ou)si/as tô=n phusikô=n duna/meôn], p. 763. [Greek: Peri\ tô=n tê=s psuchê=s Ê)thô=n], p. 773.]

[Footnote 129: Galen, De Hipp. et Plat. Dogm. iii. pp. 337-347, Kühn, vi. pp. 515-516, i. p. 200, iv. p. 363, ix. p. 727.]

[Side-note: Admiration of Galen for Plato--his agreement with Plato, and his dissension from Plato--his improved physiology.]

So far Galen concurs with Plato. But he connects this triplicity of soul with a physiological theory of his own, which he professes to derive from, or at least to hold in common with, Hippokrates and Plato. Galen recognises three [Greek: a)rcha\s]--_principia_, beginnings, originating and governing organs--in the body: the brain, which is the origin of all the nerves, both of sensation and motion: the heart, the origin of the arteries: the liver, the sanguifacient organ, and the origin of the veins which distribute nourishment to all parts of the body. These three are respectively the organs of the rational, the energetic, and the appetitive soul.[130]

[Footnote 130: Galen, Hipp. et Plat. Dogm. viii. pp. 656-657, Kühn. [Greek: e)x ô(=n e)perai/neto ê( tô=n phlebô=n a)rchê\ to\ ê(=par u(pa/rchein; ô(=| pa/lin ei(/peto, kai\ tê=s koinê=s pro\s ta\ phuta\ duna/meôs a)rchê\n ei)=nai tou=to to\ spla/gchnon, ê(/ntina du/namin o( Pla/tôn e)pithumêtikê\n o)noma/zei.] Compare vi. 519-572, vii. 600-601.

The same triplicity of [Greek: a)rchai\] in the organism had been recognised by Erasistratus, later than Aristotle, though long before Galen. [Greek: Kai\ E)rasi/stratos de\ ô(s a)rcha\s kai\ stoichei=a o(/lou sô/matos u(potithe/menos tê\n triploki/an tô=n a)ggei/ôn, neu=ra, kai\ phle/bas, kai\ a)rtêri/as] (Galen, T. iv. p. 375, ed. Basil). See Littré, Introduction aux Oeuvres d'Hippocrate, T. i. p. 203.

Plato does not say, as Galen declares him to say, that the appetitive soul has its primary seat or [Greek: a)rchê\] in the liver. It has its seat between the diaphragm and the navel; the liver is placed in this region as an outlying fort, occupied by the rational soul, and used for the purpose of controuling the rebellious tendencies of the appetitive soul. Chrysippus (ap. Galen, Hipp. et Plat. Dogm. iii. p. 288, Kühn) stated Plato's doctrine about the [Greek: trimerê\s psuchê\] more simply and faithfully than Galen himself. Compare his words ib. viii. p. 651, vi. p. 519. Galen represents Plato as saying that nourishment is furnished by the stomach first to the liver, to be there made into blood and sent round the body through the veins (pp. 576-578). This is Galen's own theory (De Usu Partium, iv. p. 268, Kühn), but it is not to be found in Plato. Whoever reads the Timæus, pp. 77-78, will see that Plato's theory of the conversion of food into blood, and its transmission as blood through the veins, is altogether different. It is here that he propounds his singular hypothesis--the interior network of air and fire, and the oscillating ebb and flow of these intense agencies in the cavity of the abdomen. The liver has nothing to do with the process.

So again Galen (p. 573) puts upon the words of Plato about the heart--[Greek: pêgê\n tou= peripherome/nou sphodrô=s ai(/matos]--an interpretation conformable to the Galenian theory, but noway consistent with the statements of the Timæus itself. And he treats the comparison of the cranium and the rotations of the brain within, to the rotations of the spherical Kosmos--which comparison weighed greatly in Plato's mind--as an illustrative simile without any philosophical value (Galen, H. et P. D. ii. 4, p. 230, Kühn; Plato, Tim. pp. 41 B, 90 A).]

The Galenian theory here propounded (which held its place in physiology until Harvey's great discovery of the circulation of the blood in the seventeenth century), though proved by fuller investigation to be altogether erroneous as to the liver--and partially erroneous as to the heart--is nevertheless made by its author to rest upon plausible reasons, as well as upon many anatomical facts, and results of experiments on the animal body, by tying or cutting nerves and arteries.[131] Its resemblance with the Platonic theory is altogether superficial: while the Galenian reasoning, so far from resembling the Platonic, stands in striking contrast with it. Anxious as Galen is to extol Plato, his manner of expounding and defending the Platonic thesis is such as to mark the scientific progress realised during the five centuries intervening between the two. Plato himself, in the Timæus, displays little interest or curiosity about the facts of physiology: the connecting principles, whereby he explains to himself the mechanism of the organs as known by ordinary experience, are altogether psychological, ethical, teleological. In the praise which Galen, with his very superior knowledge of the human organism, bestows upon the Timæus, he unconsciously substitutes a new doctrine of his own, differing materially from that of Plato.

[Footnote 131: Galen (Hipp. et Plat. Dogm. ii. p. 233, Kühn). [Greek: kai/toi ge ê(mei=s, a(/per e)paggello/metha lo/gô|, tau=ta e)pi\ tai=s tô=n zô=ôn a)natomai=s e)pidei/knumen], &c. P. 220: [Greek: Po/then ou)=n tou=to deichthê/setai? po/then a)/llothen ê)\ e)k tô=n a)natomô=n?]]

[Side-note: Physiology and pathology of Plato--compared with that of Aristotle and the Hippokratic treatises.]

I have no space here to touch on the interesting comparisons which might be made between the physiology and pathology of the Timæus--and that which we read in other authors of the same century--Aristotle and the Hippokratic treatises. More than one allusion is made in the Timæus to physicians: and Plato cites Hippokrates in other dialogues with respect.[132] The study and practice of medicine was at that time greatly affected by the current speculations respecting Nature as a whole: accomplished physicians combined both lines of study, implicating kosmical and biological theories:[133] and in the Platonic Timæus, the former might properly be comprised in the latter, since the entire Kosmos is regarded as one animated and rational being. Among the sixty treatises in the Hippokratic collection, composed by different authors, there are material differences--sometimes even positive opposition--both of doctrine and spirit. Some of them are the work of practitioners, familiar with the details of sickness and bodily injuries, as well as with the various modes of treatment: others again proceed from pure theorists, following out some speculative dogmas more or less plausible, but usually vague and indeterminate. It is to one of this last class of treatises that Galen chiefly refers, when he dwells upon the agreement between Plato and Hippokrates.[134] This is the point which the Platonic Timæus has in common with both Hippokrates and Aristotle. But on the other hand, Timæus appears entirely wanting in that element of observation, and special care about matters of fact, which these two last-mentioned authors very frequently display, even while confusing themselves by much vagueness of dogmatising theory. The Timæus evinces no special study of matters of fact: it contains ingenious and fanciful combinations, dictated chiefly from the ethical and theological point of view, but brought to bear upon such limited amount of knowledge as an accomplished man of Plato's day could hardly fail to acquire without special study. In the extreme importance which it assigns to diet, regimen, and bodily discipline, it agrees generally with Hippokrates: but for the most part, the points of contrast are more notable than those of agreement.

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

[Footnote 133: See a remarkable passage, Aristotel. De Sensu, 436, a. 21, [Greek: tô=n i)atrô=n oi( philosophôte/rôs tê\n te/chnên metio/ntes], &c.: also De Respiratione, ad finem, 480, b. 21, and [Greek: Peri\ tê=s kath' u(/pnon mantikê=s], i. p. 463, a. 5. [Greek: tô=n i)atrô=n oi( charie/ntes]. Compare Hippokrat. De Aere, Locis, &c., c. 2.

M. Littré observes:--

"La science antique, et par conséquent la médecine qui en formait une branche, était essentiellement synthétique. Platon, dans le Charmide, dit qu'on ne peut guérir la partie sans le tout. Le philosophe avait pris cette idée à l'enseignement médical qui se donnait de son temps: cet enseignement partait donc du tout, de l'ensemble; nous en avons la preuve dans le livre même du Pronostic, qui nous montre d'une manière frappante comment la composition des écrits particuliers se subordonne à la conception générale de la science; ce livre, tel qu'Hippocrate l'a composé, ne pouvait se faire qu'à une époque où la médecine conservait encore l'empreinte des doctrines encyclopédiques qui avaient constitué le fond de tout l'enseignement oriental." (Littré, OEuvres D'Hippocrate, T. ii. p. 96. Argument prefixed to the Prognostikon.)]

[Footnote 134: He alludes especially to the Hippokratic treatise [Greek: Peri\ Phu/sios a)nthrô/pou], see De Hipp. et Plat. Dogm. viii. pp. 674-710, ed. Kühn.

In the valuable Hippokratic composition--[Greek: Peri\ A)rchai/ês I)êtrikê=s]--(vol. i. pp. 570-636, ed. Littré) the author distinguished [Greek: i)êtroi/], properly so-called, from [Greek: sophistai/], who merely laid down general principles about medicine. He enters a protest against the employment, in reference to medicine, of those large and indefinite assumptions which characterised the works of Sophists or physical philosophers such as Empedokles (pp. 570-620, Littré). "Such compositions," he says, "belong less to the medical art than to the art of literary composition"--[Greek: e)gô\ de\ toute/ôn me\n o(/sa tini\ ei)/rêtai sophistê=| ê)\ i)êtrô=|, ê)\ ge/graptai peri\ phu/sios, ê(=sson nomi/zô tê=| i)êtrikê=| te/chnê| prosê/kein ê)\ tê=| graphikê=|] (p. 620). Such men cannot (he says) deal with a case of actual sickness: they ought to speak intelligible language--[Greek: gnôsta\ le/gein toi=si dêmo/tê|si] (p. 572). Again, in the Treatise De Aere, Locis, et Aquis, Hippokrates defends himself against the charge of entering upon topics which are [Greek: meteôrolo/ga] (vol. ii. p. 14, Littré).

The Platonic Timæus would have been considered by Hippokrates as the work of a [Greek: sophistê/s]. It was composed not for professional readers alone, but for the public--[Greek: e)pi/stasthai e)s o(/son ei)ko\s i)diô/tên]--(Hippokrat. [Greek: Peri\ Pathô=n], vol. vi. p. 208, Littré).

The Hippokratic treatises afford evidence of an established art, with traditions of tolerably long standing, a considerable medical literature, and even much oral debate on medical subjects--[Greek: e)nanti/on a)kroate/ôn] (Hipp. [Greek: Peri\ Nou/sôn], vol. vi. pp 140-142-150, Littré). [Greek: O(\s a)\n peri\ i)ê/sios e)the/lê| e)rôta=|n te o)rthô=s, kai\ e)rôtô=nti a)pokri/nesthai, kai\ a)ntile/gein o)rthô=s, e)nthume/esthai chrê\ ta/de] (p. 140) . . . [Greek: Tau=ta e)nthumêthe/nta diaphula/ssein dei= e)n toi=si lo/goisin; o(/, ti a)\n de/ tis tou/tôn a(marta/nê|, ê)\ le/gôn ê)\ e)rôtô=n ê)\ a)pokrino/menos, . . . tau/tê| phula/ssonta chrê\ e)piti/thesthai e)n tê=| a)ntilogi/ê|] (p. 142).

The method, which Sokrates and Plato applied to ethical topics was thus applied by others to medicine and medical dogmas. How the dogmas of the Platonic Timæus would have fared, if scrutinised with oral interrogations in this spirit, by men even far inferior to Sokrates himself in acuteness--I will not say.]

[Side-note: Contrast between the admiration of Plato for the constructors of the Kosmos, and the defective results which he describes.]

From the glowing terms in which Plato describes the architectonic skill and foresight of those Gods who put together the three souls and the body of man, we should anticipate that the fabric would be perfect, and efficacious for all intended purposes, in spite of interruptions or accidents. But Plato, when he passes from purposes to results, is constrained to draw a far darker picture. He tells us that the mechanism of the human body will work well, only so long as the juncture of the constituent triangles is fresh and tight: after that period of freshness has passed, it begins to fail.[135] But besides this, there exist a formidable catalogue of diseases, attacking both body and mind: the cause of which (Plato says) "is plain to every one": they proceed from excess, or deficiency, or displacement, of some one among the four constituent elements of the human body.[136] If we enquire why the wise Constructors put together their materials in so faulty a manner, the only reply to be made is, that the counteracting hand of Necessity was too strong for them. In the Hesiodic and other legends respecting anthropogony we find at least a happy commencement, and the deterioration gradually supervening after it. But Plato opens the scene at once with all the suffering reality of the iron age--

[Greek: Plei/ê me\n ga\r gai=a kakô=n, plei/ê de\ tha/lassa; Nou=soi d' a)nthrô/poisin e)ph' ê(me/rê| ê)\d' e)pi\ nukti\ Au)to/matoi phoitô=si]--[137]

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

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

[Footnote 137: Compare what Plato says in Republic, ii. p. 379 C, about the prodigious preponderance of [Greek: kaka\] over [Greek: a)gatha\] in the life of man.]

[Side-note: Degeneration of the real tenants of Earth from their primitive type.]

When Plato tells us that most part of the tenants of earth, air, and water--all women, birds, quadrupeds, reptiles, and fishes--are the deteriorated representatives of primitive men, constructed at the beginning with the most provident skill, but debased by degeneracy in various directions--this doctrine (something analogous to the theory of Darwin with its steps inverted) indicates that the original scheme of the Demiurgus, though magnificent in its _ensemble_ with reference to the entire Kosmos, was certain from the beginning to fail in its details. For we are told that the introduction of birds, quadrupeds, &c., as among the constituents of the Auto-zôon, was an essential part of the original scheme.[138] The constructing Gods, while forming men upon a pure non-sexual type (such as that invoked by the austere Hippolytus) exempt from the temptations of the most violent appetite,[139] foresaw that such an angelic type could not maintain itself:--that they would be obliged to reconstruct the whole human organism upon the bi-sexual principle, introducing the comparatively lower type of woman:--and that they must make preparation for the still more degenerate varieties of birds and quadrupeds, into which the corrupt and stupid portion of mankind would sink.[140] Plato does indeed tell us, that the primitive non-sexual type had the option of maintaining itself; and that it perished by its own fault alone.[141] But since we find that not one representative of it has been able to hold his ground:--and since we also read in Plato, that no man is willingly corrupt, but that corruption and stupidity of mind are like fevers and other diseases, under which a man suffers against his own consent[142]:--we see that the option was surrounded with insurmountable difficulties: and that the steady and continued degradation, under which the human race has sunk from its original perfection into the lower endowments of the animal world, can be ascribed only to the impracticability of the original scheme: that is, in other words, to the obstacles interposed by implacable Necessity, frustrating the benevolent purposes of the Constructors.

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

[Footnote 139: Eurip. Hippol. 615; Medea, 573; Milton, Paradise Lost, x. 888.

[Greek: chrê\n a)/r' a)/llothe/n pothen brotou\s pai=das teknou=sthai, thê=lu d' ou)k ei)=nai ge/nos; chou(/tôs a)\n ou)k ê)=n ou)de\n a)nthrô/pois kako/n.]]

[Footnote 140: Plat. Tim. p. 76 D. [Greek: ô(s ga/r pote e)x a)ndrô=n gunai=kes kai\ ta)/lla thêri/a genê/sointo, ê)pi/stanto oi( xunista/ntes ê(ma=s], &c. Compare pp. 90 E, 91.]

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

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

[Side-note: Close of the Timæus. Plato turns away from the shameful results, and reverts to the glorification of the primitive types.]

However, all these details, attesting the low and poor actual condition of the tenants of earth, water, and air--and forming so marked a contrast to the magnificent description of the Kosmos as a whole, with the splendid type of men who were established at first alone in its central region--all these are hurried over by Plato, as unwelcome accompaniments which he cannot put out of sight. They have their analogies even in the kosmical agencies: there are destructive kosmical forces, earthquakes, deluges, conflagrations, &c., noticed as occurring periodically, and as causing the almost total extinction of different communities.[143] Though they must not be altogether omitted, he will nevertheless touch them as briefly as possible.[144] He turns aside from this, the shameful side of the Kosmos, to the sublime conception of it with which he had begun, and which he now builds up again in the following poetical doxology the concluding words of the Timæus:--

"Let us now declare that the discourse respecting the Universe is brought to its close. This Kosmos, having received its complement of animals, mortal and immortal, has become greatest, best, most beautiful and most perfect: a visible animal comprehending all things visible--a perceivable God the image of the cogitable God: this Uranus, one and only begotten."[145]

[Footnote 143: Plato, Timæus, pp. 22, 23. Legg. iii. 677. Politikus, pp. 272, 273.]

[Footnote 144: Plat. Tim. p. 90 E. [Greek: ta\ ga\r a)/lla zô=a ê(=| ge/gonen au)=, dia\ brache/ôn e)pimnêste/on, o(/, ti mê/ tis a)na/gkê mêku/nein; ou(/tô ga\r e)mmetro/tero/s tis a)\n au)tô=| do/xeie peri\ tou\s tou/tôn lo/gous ei)=nai.]]

[Footnote 145: Plat. Tim. p. 92 C. [Greek: Kai\ dê\ kai\ te/los peri\ tou= panto\s nu=n ê)/dê to\n lo/gon ê(mi=n phô=men e)/chein; thnêta\ ga\r kai\ a)tha/nata zô=a labô\n kai\ xumplêrôthei\s o(/de o( ko/smos, ou(/tô zô=on o(rato\n ta\ o(rata\ perie/chon, ei)kô\n tou= noêtou= theo\s ai)sthêto/s, me/gistos kai\ a)/ristos ka/llisto/s te kai\ teleô/tatos ge/gonen,--ei(=s ou)rano\s o(/de, monogenê\s ô)/n.]

Weh! Weh! Du hast sie zerstört, Die schöne Welt, Mit mächtiger Faust; Sie stürzt, sie zerfällt! Ein Halb-Gott hat sie zerschlagen! Wir tragen Die Trümmern ins Nichts hinüber, Und klagen Ueber die verlorne Schöne! Mächtiger Der Erdensöhne, Prächtiger Baue sie wieder, In deinem Busen baue sie auf!

(The response of the Geister-Chor, in Goethe's Faust, after the accumulated imprecations uttered by Faust in his despair.)]

KRITIAS.

[Side-note: Kritias: a fragment.]

The dialogue Kritias exists only as a fragment, breaking off abruptly in the middle of a sentence. The ancient Platonists found it in the same condition, and it probably was never finished. We know, however, the general scheme and purpose for which it was destined.

[Side-note: Prooemium to Timæus. Intended Tetralogy for the Republic. The Kritias was third piece in that Tetralogy.]

The prooemium to the Timæus introduces us to three persons[146]: Kritias and Hermokrates, along with Sokrates. It is to them (as we now learn) that Sokrates had on the preceding day recited the Republic: a fourth hearer having been present besides, whom Sokrates expects to see now, but does not see--and who is said to be absent from illness. In requital for the intellectual treat received from Sokrates, Timæus delivers the discourse which we have just passed in review: Kritias next enters upon his narrative or exposition, now lying before us as a fragment: and Hermokrates was intended to follow it up with a fourth discourse, upon some other topic not specified. It appears as if Plato, after having finished the Republic as a distinct dialogue, conceived subsequently the idea of making it the basis of a Tetralogy, to be composed as follows: 1. _Timæus_: describing the construction of the divine Kosmos, soul and body--with its tenants divine and human; "the diapason ending full in man"--but having its harmony spoiled by the degeneration of man, and the partial substitution of inferior animals. 2. _Republic_: Man in a constituted society, administered by a few skilful professional Rulers, subject to perfect ethical training, and fortified by the most tutelary habits. 3. _Kritias_: this perfect society, exhibited in energetic action, and under pressure of terrible enemies. 4. _Hermokrates_--subject unknown: perhaps the same society, exhibited under circumstances calculated to try their justice and temperance, rather than their courage. Of this intended tetralogy the first two members alone exist: the third was left unfinished: and the fourth was never commenced. But the Republic appears to me to have been originally a distinct composition. An afterthought of Plato induced him to rank it as second piece in a projected tetralogy.[147]

[Footnote 146: Plato, Tim. p. 17 A. [Greek: ei(=s, du/o, trei=s; o( de\ dê\ te/tartos ê(mi=n, ô)= phi/le Ti/maie, pou=, tô=n chthe\s me\n daitumo/nôn, ta\ nu=n d' e(stiato/rôn?]

These are the words with which the Platonic Sokrates opens this dialogue. Proklus, in his Commentary on the Timæus (i. pp. 5-10-14, ed. Schneider), notices a multiplicity of insignificant questions raised by the ancient Platonic critics upon this exordium. The earliest whom he notices is Praxiphanes, the friend of Theophrastus, who blamed Plato for the absurdity of making Sokrates count aloud one, two, three, &c. Porphyry replied to him at length.

We see here that the habit of commenting on the Platonic dialogues began in the generation immediately after Plato's death, that is, the generation of Demetrius Phalereus.

Whom does Plato intend for the fourth person, unnamed and absent? Upon this point the Platonic critics indulged in a variety of conjectures, suggesting several different persons as intended. Proklus (p. 14, Schn.) remarks upon these critics justly--[Greek: ô(s ou)/te a)/xia zêtê/seôs zêtou=ntas, ou)/t' a)sphale/s ti le/gontas.] But the comments which he proceeds to cite from his master Syrianus are not at all more instructive (pp. 15-16, Schn.).]

[Footnote 147: Socher (Ueber Platon's Schriften, pp. 370-371) declares the fragment of the Kritias now existing to be spurious and altogether unworthy of Plato. His opinion appears to me unfounded, and has not obtained assent; but his arguments are as good as those upon which other critics reject so many other dialogues. He thinks the Kritias an inferior production: therefore it cannot have been composed by Plato. Socher also thinks that the whole allusion, made by Plato in this dialogue to Solon, is a fiction by Plato himself. That the intended epic about Atlantis would have been Plato's own fiction, I do not doubt, but it appears to me that Solon's poems (as they then existed, though fragmentary) must have contained allusions to Egyptian priests with whom he had conversed in Egypt, and to their abundance of historical anecdote (Plutarch, Solon, c. 26-31). It is not improbable that Solon did leave an unfinished Egyptian poem.]

[Side-note: Subject of the Kritias. Solon and the Egyptian priests. Citizens of Platonic Republic are identified with ancient Athenians.]

The subject embraced by the Kritias is traced back to an unfinished epic poem of Solon, intended by that poet and lawgiver to celebrate a memorable exploit of Athenian antiquity, which he had heard from the Priests of the Goddess Neith or Athênê at Sais in Egypt. These priests (Plato tells us) treated the Greeks as children, compared with the venerable antiquity of their own ancestors; they despised the short backward reckoning of the heroic genealogies at Athens or Argos. There were in the temple of Athênê at Sais records of past time for 9000 years back: and among these records was one, of that date, commemorating a glorious exploit, of the Athenians as they then had been, unknown to Solon or any of his countrymen.[148] The Athens, of 9000 years anterior to Solon, had been great, powerful, courageous, admirably governed, and distinguished for every kind of virtue.[149] Athênê, the presiding Goddess both of Athens and of Sais, had bestowed upon the Athenians a salubrious climate, fertile soil, a healthy breed of citizens, and highly endowed intelligence. Under her auspices, they were excellent alike in war and in philosophy.[150] The separation of professions was fully realised among them, according to the principle laid down in the Republic as the only foundation for a good commonwealth. The military class, composed of both sexes, was quartered in barrack on the akropolis; which was at that time more spacious than it had since become--and which possessed then, in common with the whole surface of Attica, a rich soil covering that rocky bottom to which it had been reduced in the Platonic age, through successive deluges.[151] These soldiers, male and female, were maintained by contributions from the remaining community: they lived in perpetual drill, having neither separate property, nor separate families, nor gold nor silver: lastly, their procreation was strictly regulated, and their numbers kept from either increase or diminution.[152] The husbandmen and the artizans were alike excellent in their respective professions, to which they were exclusively confined:[153] Hephæstus being the partner of Athênê in joint tutelary presidency, and joint occupation of the central temple on the akropolis. Thus admirably administered, the Athenians were not only powerful at home, but also chiefs or leaders of all the cities comprised under the Hellenic name: chiefs by the voluntary choice and consent of the subordinates. But the old Attic race by whom these achievements had been performed, belonged to a former geological period: they had perished, nearly all, by violent catastrophe--leaving the actual Athenians as imperfect representatives.

[Footnote 148: Plato, Timæus, pp. 22-23. The great knowledge of past history (real or supposed) possessed by the Egyptian priests, and the length of their back chronology, alleged by themselves to depend upon records preserved from a period of 17,000 years, are well known from the interesting narrative of Herodotus (ii. 37-43-77-145)--[Greek: mnê/mên a)nthrô/pôn pa/ntôn e)paske/ontes] (the priests of Egypt) [Greek: ma/lista, logiô/tatoi/ ei)si makrô=| tô=n e)gô\ e)s dia/peiran a)phiko/mên] (ii. 77) . . . [Greek: kai\ tau=ta a)treke/ôs phasi\n e)pi/stasthai, ai)ei/ te logizo/menoi, kai\ ai)ei\ a)pographo/menoi ta\ e)/tea] (ii. 145). Herodotus (ii. 143) tells us that the Egyptian priests at Thebes held the same language to the historian Hekatæus, as Plato here says that they held to Solon, when he talked about Grecian antiquity in the persons of Phorôneus and Niobê. Hekatæus laid before them his own genealogy--a dignified list of sixteen ancestors, beginning from a God--upon which they out-bid him with a counter-genealogy ([Greek: a)ntegenealo/gêsan]) of 345 chief priests, who had succeeded each other from father to son. Plato appears to have contracted great reverence for this long duration of unchanged regulations in Egypt, and for the fixed, consecrated, customs, with minute subdivision of professional castes and employments: the hymns, psalmody, and music, having continued without alteration for 10,000 years (_literally_ 10,000--[Greek: ou)ch ô(s e)/pos ei)pei=n muriosto/n, a)ll' o)/ntôs], Plat. Legg. ii. p. 656 E).]

[Footnote 149: Plato, Timæus, p. 23 C-D.]

[Footnote 150: Plato, Tim. p. 24 D. [Greek: a(/te ou)=n philopo/lemo/s te kai\ philo/sophos ê( theo\s ou)=sa], &c. Also p. 23 C.]

[Footnote 151: Plato, Krit. pp. 110 C, 112 B-D.]

[Footnote 152: Plato, Krit. p. 112 D. [Greek: plê=thos de\ diaphula/ttontes o(/, ti ma/lista tau)to\n e(autô=n ei)=nai pro\s to\n a)ei\ chro/non a)ndrô=n kai\ gunaikô=n], &c.]

[Footnote 153: Plato, Krit. p. 111 E. [Greek: u(po\ geôrgô=n me\n a)lêthinô=n kai\ pratto/ntôn au)to\ tou=to, gê=n de\ a)ri/stên kai\ u(/dôr a)phthonô/taton e)cho/ntôn], &c. Also p. 110 C.]

[Side-note: Plato professes that what he is about to recount is matter of history, recorded by Egyptian priests.]

Such was the enviable condition of Athens and Attica, at a period 9400 years before the Christian era. The Platonic Kritias takes pains to assure us that the statement was true, both as to facts and as to dates: that he had heard it himself when a boy of ten years old, from his grandfather Kritias, then ninety years old, whose father Dropides had been the intimate friend of Solon: and that Solon had heard it from the priests at Sais, who offered to show him the contemporary record of all its details in their temple archives.[154] Kritias now proposes to repeat this narrative to Sokrates, as a fulfilment of the wish expressed by the latter to see the citizens of the Platonic Republic exhibited in full action and movement. For the Athenians of 9000 years before, having been organised on the principles of that Republic, may fairly be taken as representing its citizens. And it will be more satisfactory to Sokrates to hear a recital of real history than a series of imagined exploits.[155]

[Footnote 154: Plat. Tim. pp. 23 E, 24 A-D. [Greek: to\ d' a)kribe\s peri\ pa/ntôn e)phexê=s ei)sau=this kata\ scholê/n, au)ta\ ta\ gra/mmata labo/ntes die/ximen] (24 A).]

[Footnote 155: Plat. Tim. p. 26 D-E.]

[Side-note: Description of the vast island of Atlantis and its powerful kings.]

Accordingly, Kritias proceeds to describe, in some detail, the formidable invaders against whom these old Athenians had successfully contended: the inhabitants of the vast island Atlantis (larger than Libya and Asia united), which once occupied most of the space now filled by the great ocean westward of Gades and the pillars of Heraklês. This prodigious island was governed by ten kings of a common ancestry: descending respectively from ten sons (among whom Atlas was first-born and chief) of the God Poseidon by the indigenous Nymph Kleito.[156] We read an imposing description of its large population and abundant produce of every kind: grain for man, pasture for animals, elephants being abundant among them:[157] timber and metals of all varieties: besides which the central city, with its works for defence, and its artificial canals, bridges, and harbour, is depicted as a wonder to behold.[158] The temple of Poseidon was magnificent and of vast dimensions, though in barbaric style.[159] The harbour, surrounded by a dense and industrious population, was full of trading vessels arriving with merchandise from all quarters.[160]

[Footnote 156: Plat. Krit. pp. 113-114.]

[Footnote 157: Plat. Krit. p. 114 E.]

[Footnote 158: Plat. Krit. p. 115 D. [Greek: ei)s e)/kplêxin mege/thesi ka/llesi/ te e)/rgôn i)dei=n], &c.]

[Footnote 159: Plat. Krit. p. 116 D-E.]

[Footnote 160: Plat. Krit. p. 117 E.]

[Side-note: Corruption and wickedness of the Atlantid people.]

The Atlantid kings, besides this great power and prosperity at home, exercised dominion over all Libya as far as Egypt, and over all Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. The corrupting influence of such vast power was at first counteracted by their divine descent and the attributes attached to it: but the divine attributes became more and more adulterated at each successive generation, so that the breed was no longer qualified to contend against corruption. The kings came to be intoxicated with wealth, full of exorbitant ambition and rapacity, reckless of temperance or justice. The measure of their iniquity at length became full; and Zeus was constrained to take notice of it, for the purpose of inflicting the chastisement which the case required.[161] He summoned a meeting of the Gods, at his own Panoptikon in the centre of the Kosmos and there addressed them.

[Footnote 161: Plat. Krit. p. 121.]

[Side-note: Conjectures as to what the Platonic Kritias would have been--an ethical epic in prose.]

At this critical moment the fragment called Kritias breaks off. We do not know what was the plan which Plato (in the true spirit of the ancient epic) was about to put into the mouth of Zeus, for the information of the divine agora. We learn only that Plato intended to recount an invasion of Attica, by an army of Atlantids almost irresistible: and the glorious repulse thereof by Athens and her allies, with very inferior forces. The tale would have borne much resemblance to the Persian invasion of Greece, as recounted by Herodotus: but Plato, while employing the same religious agencies which that historian puts in the foreground, would probably have invested them with a more ethical character, and would have arranged the narrative so as to illustrate the triumph of philosophical Reason and disciplined Energy, over gigantic, impetuous, and reckless Strength. He would have described in detail the heroic valour and endurance of the trained Athenian Soldiers, women as well as men: and he would have embodied the superior Reason of the philosophical Chiefs not merely in prudent orders given to subordinates, but also in wise discourses[162] and deliberations such as we read in the Cyropædia of Xenophon. We should have had an edifying epic in prose, if Plato had completed his project. Unfortunately we know only two small fractions of it: first the introductory prologue (which I have already noticed)--lastly, the concluding catastrophe. The conclusion was, that both the victors and the vanquished disappeared altogether, and became extinct. Terrific earthquakes, and not less terrific deluges, shook and overspread the earth. The whole military caste of Attica were, in one day and night, swallowed up into the bowels of the earth (the same release as Zeus granted to the just Amphiaraus)[163] and no more heard of: while not only the population of Atlantis, but that entire island itself, was submerged beneath the ocean. The subsidence of this vast island has rendered navigation impossible; there is nothing in the Atlantic Ocean but shallow water and mud.[164]

[Footnote 162: Plat. Tim. p. 19 C-E. [Greek: kata/ te ta\s e)n toi=s e)/rgois pra/xeis kai\ kata\ ta\s e)n toi=s lo/gois diermêneu/seis] (19 C).]

[Footnote 163: Apollodorus, iii. 6, 6; Pausanias, ix. 8, 2.]

[Footnote 164: Plat. Tim. p. 25 C-D. [Greek: seismô=n e)xaisi/ôn kai\ kataklusmô=n genome/nôn, mia=s ê(me/ras kai\ nukto\s chalepê=s e)pelthou/sês . . . a)/poron kai\ a)diereu/nêton ge/gone to\ e)kei= pe/lagos], &c.

Respecting the shallow and muddy water of the Atlantic and its unnavigable character, as believed in the age of Plato, see a long note in my 'History of Greece' (ch. xviii. vol. iii. p. 381).]

[Side-note: Plato represents the epic Kritias as matter of recorded history.]

The epic of Plato would thus have concluded with an appalling catastrophe of physical agencies or divine prodigies (such as that which we read at the close of the Æschylean Prometheus[165]), under which both the contending parties perished. These gigantic outbursts of kosmical forces, along with the other facts, Plato affirms to have been recorded in the archives of the Egyptian priests. He wishes us to believe that the whole transaction is historical. As to particular narratives, the line between truth and fiction was obscurely drawn in his mind.

[Footnote 165: Æschyl. Prom. 1086.]

Another remark here deserving of notice is, That in this epic of the Kritias, Plato introduces the violent and destructive kosmical agencies (earthquakes, deluges, and the like) as frequently occurring, and as one cause of the periodical destruction of many races or communities. It is in this way that the Egyptian priest is made to explain to Solon the reason why no long-continued past records were preserved in Attica, or anywhere else, except in Egypt.[166] This last-mentioned country was exempt from such calamities: but in other countries, the thread of tradition was frequently broken, because the whole race (except a few) were periodically destroyed by deluges or conflagrations, leaving only a few survivors miserably poor, without arts or letters. The affirmation of these frequent destructions stands in marked contradiction with the chief thesis announced at the beginning of the Timæus--_viz._, the beauty and perfection of the Kosmos.

[Footnote 166: Plato, Tim. pp. 22 C-D, 23 B-C.]