The Commentaries on the Timaeus of Plato — trans. Thomas Taylor

> For πρὸ των γενήτων in this place, it is obviously necessary to read πέρι τῶν YORT wr.

BOOK 11} ΤΙΜΊΕῦΘ OF PLATO, 249

as we assert conjectural and artificial things tobe, May we not say, that words of a conjectural nature are adapted to these, which words are different from those that are assimilative? For to conjecture is one thing; since this is more obscure than sense; and to assimilate another. For assimilation pertains to the interpreters of the images of being. Artificial, therefore, and conjectural things, are unfolded through conjectural words. Unless other such like words are adapted to things which are truly conjectural; but with respect to artificial things, assimilative or probable words, are adapted to those that are the first from forms, but to those which have a secondary hypostasis, and are the third from truth, such words are adapted as pertain to things conjectural by nature. For conjectural things are the images of sensibles, in the same manner as sensibles are the images of intelligibles. Thus the painted bed is the image of that which is made by the carpenter.

Farther still, this also must be considered, that Plato is now speaking about physical images, and that on this account he gives a twofold division to words. Por things which are assimilated to the intelligible, subsist by nature or naturally ; but this is not the case with things artificial, For the artist does not make that Which he makes, according to certain ideas, though Socrates appears to say this in the Republic. There, however, what is said, is asserted for the sake of the paradigm, and is not concerning ideas themselves. For he says that God is the maker and Demiurgus of things artificial,’ but he is not the Demiurgus of ideas. But in the Protagoras, it is clealy shown by Plato that we do not contain the reasons or productive principles of the arts,* and much less of things artificial,

For he says that God is the maker and Demiurgus of things artificial,’ but he is not the Demiurgus of ideas. But in the Protagoras, it is clealy shown by Plato that we do not contain the reasons or productive principles of the arts,* and much less of things artificial,

' See the 10th book of the Republic, where he speaks of the ideas of a bed and a table. Plato, however, did not intend to signify in what he there says, that there is an idea of each of these in the intellect of the Demiurgus of the universe; or, in short, that there are ideas of things artificial; but he calls by the name of idea, the reason or productive and forming principle which subsists in the dianoctic power of the artificer, This reason also he says, is the offspring of deity, because he conceived, that this very artificial principle itsclf, is imparted to souls from divinity, Proclus, in the Parmenides, well observes, that an argument. of the truth of this may be derived from Β΄ πο, that Piato calls a poet the third from, or with respect to, the truth, placing him analogous to a painter, who does not make a bed, but the image of it. The form of bed, therefore, in the dianoctic part of the artificer, ranks as first with respect to truth; the bed which he makes as second; and that which is printed asthe third. But if there was an idea of bed in the intellect of divinity, the painter would be the fourth, and not the third from truth.

* i.e. The soul dues not essentially contain the reasons of those arts which are solely ministrant to the purposes of the moral life.

Tim. Plat. Vou. I. 20

p. 290

and that neither are the paradigms of them established in the Gods. These therefore were not generated according to the intelligible. Plato, however, now divides words into those which pertain to the discussion of the intelligible, and those which are concerning the image of the intelligible. Hence indicating this he says, that words respecting that which ty assimilated to the permanent and stable, but which is the image of being, should possess probability [alone]. But the works of nature are assimilated to the intelligible, and not the works of art; so. that neither have particulars this assimilation detinitely, but the universals which are in then. We have, however, spoken concerning these things elsewhere.

“The latter words having the same relation to the former [as that of an image to its paradigm]. For what essence is to generation, that truth is to faith.”

We have, however, spoken concerning these things elsewhere.

“The latter words having the same relation to the former [as that of an image to its paradigm]. For what essence is to generation, that truth is to faith.”

Prior to this, Timaus made two things antecedent, the intelligible and the generated, or the paradigm and the image, and assumed two things as analogous to these, science and probability, or truth and faith: so that as truth is to the intelligible paradigm, so is faith to the generated image. But now alternately he says, as truth is to faith, so is the intelligible to that which Is generated. And this perfectly well, For he makes the intelligible and truth to be antecedent, but at the same time begins from that which is generated and faith, that he may mingle that which bas a reference to us with the order which is according to nature, and that he may preserve the proper worth of the things, and may argue from what is μόν ἢ to us. Plato, therefore, clearly divides language and knowledge conformably to the objects of knowledge 3 and Parmenides though obscure on account of his writings being poetical, yet at the same time indicating these things, he says, “that truth ts full of splendor and immutable, but that the opinions of mortals have no real credibility.” And again, “ that there are two paths, one of which has a real existence, so that itis not: possible for it ποῖ to exist. But this is the path of Persuasion, and 15 attended by Trath, The other, necessarily has no true caistence. The former of these paths, however, Clough replete with the most perfect persuasion, is unpleasant.” And again, * Neither can you have any knowledge of non-being; for it is not attainable; nor can you make it the subject of discourse." The philosopher therefore says, that there are ἔν ον

* Owing to the obscurity of the original, | have only given the substance of the verses of Parmenides

ROOK tJ TIM:ALUS OF PLATO. 204

fold knowledges, of twofold things 5 truth which he calls [full of splendor, as shining with intellectual heht; and faith, from which he takes away stable knowledge. The faith, however, which Plato now mentions appears to be diflerent from that spoken of him in the Republic, in the section of a line, For there the faith is an irrational knowledge ; whence also itis divided from eonjecture, but is arranged according to sense, The faith however of which he now speaks is rational, but is mingled with irrational knowledge, as it employs sense and conjecture. Hence itis filled with much of the unstable. For receiving from sense or conjecture the ors, or (hata thing is, it thus explains causes. But these kinds of knowledge, have much of the confused and unstable. Hence Sucrates in the Phado reprehends sense in many respects, because we neither hear nor see any thing accurately.