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

"This opinion, therefore, introduces a multitude of finite worlds, and makes the intelligible to be one of them. Unless, indeed, you arrange the intelligible world in the middle, as the

' The words, ovée xara μέρος are omitted in the original; but, as it. appears to me, ought to be inverted.

* These arguments, which possess an invincible strength, fully show the futility of that very popular theory of the moderns, that there are infinite worlds. For like most other modern dogmas, it is unscientific aud rambling.

4 See Plutarch’s Treatise on the Sileuce of the Oracles.

p. 284

For like most other modern dogmas, it is unscientific aud rambling.

4 See Plutarch’s Treatise on the Sileuce of the Oracles.

p. 284

root of all things, but the three angular worlds as connective of all things, and causing all things to be one, according to one mundane intellect, one soul, and one nature. Or according to the empyrean, etherial, and material world, For an angle is connective of the sides. But the three sixty worlds may be said to be the multitude according to each sphere of these. For the spheres are twelve in number; and the multitude in each is spherical, of which the pentad is a symbol, being the first spherical number. Hence there are thrice sixty worlds, because there is an intellectual, a psychical, and a physical series, accord - ing to each sphere of which the pentad is a symbol; or because there is an empyrean, etherial, and material multitude of Gods. If, however, some one shomld not admit that these things are obscurely signified (in this narration of Plutarch}, but should assert that the worlds are truly divided according to number, we ask him, whether it is better to make one world comprehensive of all things, or many worlds separated from each other? Por the former makes multitude to be connectedly contained by the monad, and parts by the whole ; but the latter dissipates production into an unco-ordinate multitude; though nature, and every cause of this kind, makes amonad prior to multitude, and a whole connective of parts. Jf likewise the worlds being spherical, touch each other, they will touch according toa point, but in the whole they will be separated from each other, and will be more unsympathetic than sympathetic. Itis necessary however that things which proceed from one cause, should be co-passive with each other, and give completion to one lite. Butif they do not at all touch each other, they will be [entirely] separated. How also, Aristotle would say, will things which are upward be downward, and things which are duwnward be upward, interval being external to the worlds?) And how will this thing pertain. ing to the worlds be arranged here, but another there? For that which is upward to us, will be to others downward. Will not the earth therefore of the other worlds, and every thing there which is heavy, be impelled to this world, if the motion of that which is heavy tends downward? But at one and the same time, a body which in one of those worlds tends upward, will, as proceeding to this world, tend downward. And there will not be an order of motions, or powers, or of things which are co-ordinate in the universe. Unless some one should say in answer to this, that there is a different middle in each of the worlds : for the middle isnot the middle of a vacuum, but of a world. Each part therefore of a world tends cither to the middle, or to the circumference of that world, but not to that which is foreign to it. All the things, however, that are in other worlds, are

Each part therefore of a world tends cither to the middle, or to the circumference of that world, but not to that which is foreign to it. All the things, however, that are in other worlds, arep. 335 foreign to each other. If therefore, some one should think that these assertions are worthy of belief, let them remain as such.

Plato however, has chosen the most principal and proper cause of their being but one world, viz. that which is derived from the paradigm of the universe ; but has omitted as concauses the above, and such-like causes. A demonstration also of this kind is definite. For it does not separately confute those who say there is a multitude of worlds, and separately those who introduce an infinite number, dispersed in different places, and intercepted by a vacuum, but at one and the same time he shows that the assertions both of the former and the latter are false, directly proving that the world is one from the onlyness of the paradigm. And farther still, he avoids the modes of argument which are derived from matter. Lor he neither demonstrates, as Aristotle docs, from matter being one, nor from places being definite according to nature, nor from essence, i.e. matter which is a body, being united, according to the doctrine of the Stoics. For Plato alone or especially employed, says Theophrastus, the cause which is derived from prooidential inspection ; beautifully testifying this of Plato. As we have said therefore, he ascribes the onlyness of the world to the paradigm. For if the paradigm is one, and the Demiurgus is one, it is necessary that the world should be one. -Or rather, if the paradigm is one, and the world adumbrates the onlyness of the paradigm, the world is onc. But the antecedent is true, and therefore the consequent. For the paradigm is one, as he before demonstrated, and constituted the world conformably to the onlyness of itself, For as the intelligible paradigm was generated one from the one which is the good, so likewise with reference to itself being one, it constituted the world only-begotten. Hence the world is one. And neither are there many worlds ; for there are not many first paradigms ; nor infinite worlds ; for the infinite according to multitude, does not even exist in mortal natures, so far is it from having a subsistence in perpetual beings.