Timaeus — Plato

Analysis 47-51. 361 I other works done from necessity, which we must now place Timaeus. 48f beside them ; for the creation is made up of both, mind per- analysis. ' suading necessity as far as possible to work out good.

Before the heavens there existed fire, air, water, earth, which we suppose men to know, though no one has explained their nature, and we erroneously maintain them to be the letters or elements of the whole, although they cannot reasonably be compared even to syllables or first compounds. I am not now speaking of the first principles of things, because I cannot discover them by our present mode of enquiry.

But as I observed the rule of probability at first, I will begin anew, seeking by the grace of God to observe it still. In our former discussion I distinguished two kinds of being — 49 the unchanging or invisible, and the visible or changing. But now a third kind is required, which I shall call the receptacle or nurse of generation.

There is a difficulty in arriving at an I exact notion of this third kind, because the four elements themselves are of inexact natures and easily pass into one another, and ' are too transient to be detained by any one name ; wherefore we are compelled to speak of water or fire, not as substances, but as 50, qualities. They may be compared to images made of gold, which are continually assuming new forms.

Somebody asks what they are ; if you do not know, the safest answer is to reply that they are gold. In like manner there is a universal nature out of which all things are made, and which is like none of them ; but they enter into and pass out of her, and are made after patterns of the ' true in a wonderful and inexplicable manner.

The containing principle may be likened to a mother, the source or spring to a father, the intermediate nature to a child ; and we may also remark that the matter which receives every variety of form must be formless, like the inodorous liquids which are prepared to receive scents, or the smooth and soft materials on which figures ri are impressed.

In the same way space or matter is neither earth nor fire nor air nor water, but an invisible and formless being which receives all things, and in an incomprehensible manner partakes of the intelligible. But we may say, speaking generally, that fire is that part of this nature which is inflamed, water that which is moistened, and the like. Let me ask a question in which a great principle is involved :

Timaeus. Is there an essence of fire and the other elements, or are there Analysis. only fires visible to sense ? I answer in a word : If mind is one thing and true opinion another, then there are self-existent essences ; but if mind is the same with opinion, then the visible and corporeal is most real. But they are not the same, and they have a different origin and nature. .

The one comes to us by instruction, the other by persuasion ; the one is rational, the other is irrational ; the one is movable by persuasion, the other immovable ; the one is possessed by every man, the other by the gods and by very few men.

And we must acknowledge that as there are two kinds of knowledge, so there are two kinds of being corresponding to them; the one uncreated, indestructible, im- 52 movable, which is seen by intelligence only ; the other created, which is always becoming in place and vanishing out of place, and is apprehended by opinion and sense.

There is also a third nature — that of space, which is indestructible, and is perceived by a kind of spurious reason without the help of sense. This is presented to us in a dreamy manner, and yet is said to be necessary, for we say that all things must be somewhere in space. For they are the images of other things and must therefore have a separate existence and exist in something (i. e. in space).

But true reason assures us that while two things (i. e. the idea and the image) are different they cannot inhere in one another, so as to be one and two at the same time. To sum up : Being and generation and space, these three, existed before the heavens, and the nurse or vessel of generation, moistened by water and inflamed by fire, and taking the forms of air and earth, assumed various shapes.

By the motion of the vessel, the elements were divided, and like grain winnowed by fans, the close and heavy particles settled in one place, the light and airy ones in another. At first they were ^3 without reason or measure, and had only certain faint traces of themselves, until God fashioned them by figure and number.

In this, as in every other part of creation, I suppose God to have made things, as far as was possible, fair and good, out of things not fair and good. And now I will explain to you the generation of the world by a method with which your scientific training will have made you familiar. Fire, air, earth, and water are bodies and therefore

Analysis 53-56- 3^3 solids, and solids are contained in planes, and plane rectilinear Timaeus. figures are made up of triangles. Of triangles there are two analysis. kinds ; one having the opposite sides equal (isosceles), the other with unequal sides (scalene). These we may fairly assume to be the original elements of fire and the other bodies ; what principles are prior to these God only knows, and he of men whom God loves.

Next, we must determine what are the four most beautiful figures which are unlike one another and yet sometimes capable 54 of resolution into one another. . . . Of the two kinds of triangles the equal-sided has but one form, the unequal-sided he's an infinite variety of forms; and there is none more beautiful than that which forms the half of an equilateral triangle.

Let us then choose two triangles ; one, the isosceles, the other, that form of scalene which has the square of the longer side three times as great as the square of the lesser side; and affirm that, out of these, fire and the other elements have been constructed. j I was wrong in imagining that all the four elements could be generated into and out of one another.

For as they are formed, three of them from the triangle which has the sides unequal, the fourth from the triangle which has equal sides, three can be resolved into one another, but the fourth cannot be resolved into them nor they into it. So much for their passage into one another : I must now speak of their construction.

From the triangle of which the hypothenuse is twice the lesser side the three 55 first regular solids are formed — first, the equilateral pyramid or tetrahedron ; secondly, the octahedron ; thirdly, the icosahedron ; and from the isosceles triangle is formed the cube. And there is a fifth figure [which is made out of twelve pentagons], the dodecahedron — this God used as a model for the t^<'elvefold division of the Zodiac.

Let us now assign the geometrical forms to their respective elements. The cube is the most stable of them because resting on a quadrangular plane surface, and composed of isosceles triangles.

To the earth then, which is the most stable of bodies 56 and the most easily modelled of them, may be assigned the form of a cube ; and the remaining forms to the other elements, — to fire the pyramid, to air the octahedron, and to water the icosahedron, — according to their degrees of lightness or heaviness or power, or want of power, of penetration. The single particles of any of the