Timaeus — Plato

You, I replied, have in your mind a truly sublime conception of our knowledge of the things above. And I dare say that if a person were to throw his head back and study the fretted ceiling, you would still think that his mind was the percipient, and not his eyes.

And you are very likely right, and I may be a simpleton : but, in my opinion, that knowledge only which is of being and of the unseen can make the soul look upwards, and whether a man gapes at the heavens or blinks on the ground, seeking to learn some particular of sense, I would deny that he can learn, for nothing of that sort is matter of science ; his soul is looking downwards, not upwards, whether his way to knowledge is by water or by land, w^hether he floats, or only hes on his back.

I acknowledge, he said, the justice of your rebuke. Still, I should like to ascertain how astronomy can be learned in any manner more conducive to that knowledge of which we are speaking?

I will tell you, I said : The starry heaven which we behold is wrought upon a visible ground, and therefore, although the fairest and most perfect of visible things, must necessarily be deemed inferior far to the true motions of absolute swiftness and absolute slowness, which are relative to each other, and carry with them that which is contained in them, in the true number and in every true figure.

Now, these are to be apprehended by reason and intelHgence, but not by sight. True, he rephed.

The spangled heavens should be used as a pattern and with a view to that higher knowledge ; their beauty is like the beauty of figures or pictures excellently wrought by the hand of Daedalus, or some other great artist, which we may chance to behold ; any geometrician who saw them would appreciate the exquisiteness of their workmanship, but he would never dream of thinking that in them he could find the true equal or the true double, or the truth of any other proportion.

No, he replied, such an idea would be ridiculous. And will not a true astronomer have the same feeling when he looks at the movements of the stars? Will he not think that heaven and the things in heaven are framed by the

5) Harmonics, another form. 233 Creator of them in the most perfect manner?

Rut he will Republic vii. never imagine that the proportions of night and clay, or of Socrates, both to the month, or of the month to the year, or of the ^^^^'•^°nstars to these and to one another, and any other things that are material and visible can also be eternal and subject to no deviation — that would be absurd ; and it is e(iually absurd to take so much pains in investigating their exact truth.

I quite agree, though I never thought of this before. Then, I said, in astronomy, as in geometry, we should The real employ problems, and let the heavens alone if we would ^"trmionf^or approach the subject in the right way and so make the geometry is to natural gift of reason to be of any real use. the^?se of ^ That, he said, is a work infinitely beyond our present abstractions, astronomers.

Yes, I said ; and there are many other things which must also have a similar extension given to them, if our legislation is to be of any value. But can you tell me of any other suitable study? No, he said, not without thinking. Motion, I said, has many forms, and not one only ; two of them are obvious enough even to wits no better than ours ; and there are others, as I imagine, which may be left to wiser persons. But where are the two?

There is a second, I said, which is the counterpart of the one already named. And what may that be?

The second, I said, would seem relatively to the ears to be whataswhat the first is to the eyes ; for I conceive that as the eyes ^['^""'"y '"^ ^^ -' ^ the eye, harare designed to look up at the stars, so are the ears to hear monies are harmonious motions ; and these are sister sciences — as the *° *^^ ^^^' Pythagoreans say, and we, Glaucon, agree with them? Yes, he replied.

But this, I said, is a laborious study, and therefore we had better go and learn of them ; and they will tell us whether there are any other applications of these sciences. At the same time, we must not lose sight of our own higher object. What is that? There is a perfection which all knowledge ought to reach,

p. 234

Harmonics : empirical^ Pythagorean, ideal.

Republic VII. Socrates, Glaucon. They must be studied with a view to the good and not after the fashion of the empirics or even of the Pythagoreans.

All these studies must be correlated with one another.