Timaeus — Plato

Plato ^ Aristotle, and Mr. Grote. ,407 might be expected to speak of the rotation of the earth, is more rimaeus. favourable to the doctrine of its immobility than to the opposite.

Introduc- If he had meant to say that the earth revolves on its axis, he would have said so in distinct words, and have explained the relation of its movements to those of the other heavenly bodies. (5) The meaning of the words 'artificer of day and night' is literally true according to Plato's view.

For the alternation of day and night is not produced by the motion of the heavens alone, or by the immobility of the earth alone, but by both together ; and that which has the inherent force or energy to remain at rest when all other bodies are moving, may be truly said to act, equally with them. (6) We should not lay too much stress on Aristotle having adopted the other interpretation of the words, although Alexander of Aphrodisias thinks that he could not have been ignorant either of the doctrine of Plato or of the sense which he intended to give to the word IXkofievriv.

For the citations of Plato in Aristotle are frequently misinterpreted by him; and he seems hardly ever to have had in his mind the connection in which they occur. In this instance the allusion is very slight, and there is no reason to suppose that the diurnal revolution of the heavens was present to his mind. Hence we need not attribute to him the error from which we are defending Plato.

After weighing one against the other all these complicated probabilities, the final conclusion at which we arrive is that there is nearly as much to be said on the one side of the question as on the other, and that we are not perfectly certain, whether, as Bockh and the majority of commentators, ancient as well as modern, are inclined to believe, Plato thought that the earth was at rest in the centre of the universe, or, as Aristotle and Mr. Grote suppose, that it revolved on its axis.

Whether we assume the earth to be stationary in the centre of the universe, or to revolve with the heavens, no explanation is given of the variation in the length of days and nights at different times of the year.

The relations of the earth and heavens are so indistinct in the Timaeus and so figurative in the Phaedo, Phaedrus and Republic, that we must give up the hope of ascertaining how they were imagined by Plato, if he had any fixed or scientific conception of them at all.

The soul of the world is framed on the analogy of the soul of man, and many traces of anthropomorphism blend with Plato's highest flights of idealism. The heavenly bodies are endowed with thought ; the principles of the same and other exist in the universe as v^ell as in the human mind.

The soul of man is made out of the remains of the elements which had been used in creating the soul of the world; these remains, however, are diluted to the third degree ; by this Plato expresses the measure of the difference between the soul human and divine.

The human soul, like the cosmical, is framed before the body, as the mind is before the soul of either (30 B) — this is the order of the divine work — and the finer parts of the body, which are more akin to the soul, such as the spinal marrow, are prior to the bones and flesh. The brain, the containing vessel of the divine part of the soul, is (nearly) in the form of a globe, which is the image of the gods, who are the stars, and of the universe.

There is, however, an inconsistency in Plato's manner of conceiving the soul of man; he cannot get rid of the element of necessity which is allowed to enter. He does not, like Kant, attempt to vindicate for men a freedom out of space and time ; but he acknowledges him to be subject to the influence of external causes, and leaves hardly any place for freedom of the will.

The lusts of men are caused by their bodily constitution (86 C), though they may be increased by bad education and bad laws, which implies that they may be decreased by good education and good laws. He appears to have an inkling of the truth that to the higher nature of man evil is involuntary. This is mixed up with the view which, while apparently agreeing with it, is in reality the opposite of it, that vice is due to physical causes (86 D).

In the Timaeus, as well as in the Laws, he also regards vices and crimes as simply involuntary ; they are diseases analogous to the diseases of the body, and arising out of the same causes. If we draw together the opposite poles of Plato's system, we find that, like Spinoza, he combines idealism with fatalism (see infra, p. 425).

The soul of man is divided by him into three parts, answering roughly to the charioteer and steeds of the Phaedrus, and to the Myoq, 6vfi6g, and iTriOvfiia of the Republic and Nicomachean Ethics.

Tripartite division of soul and body. 409 First, there is the immortal nature of which the brain is the scat, Timaeus. and which is akin to the soul of the universe. This alone thinks Introducand knows and is the ruler of the whole. Secondly, there is the ^'°'^" higher mortal .soul which, though liable to perturbations of her own, takes the side of reason against the lower appetites.

The seat of this is the heart, in which courage, anger, and all the nobler affections are suppospd to reside. There the veins all meet ; it is their centre or house of guard whence they carry the orders of the thinking being to the extremities of his kingdom.

There is also a third or appetitive soul, which receives the commands of the immortal part, not immediately but mediately, through the liver, which reflects on its surface the admonitions and threats of the reason. * The liver is imagined by Plato to be a smooth and bright substance, having a store of sweetness and also of bitterness, which reason freely uses in the execution of her mandates.

In this region, as ancient superstition told, were to be found intimations of the future. But Plato is careful to observe that although such knowledge is given to the inferior parts of man, it requires to be interpreted by the superior. Reason, and not enthusiasm, is the true guide of man : he is only inspired when he is demented by some distemper or possession.

The ancient saying, that ' only a man in his senses can judge of his own actions,' is approved by modern philosophy too. The same irony which appears in Plato's remark, that 'the men of old time must surely have known the gods who were their ancestors, and we should believe them as custom requires,' is also manifest in his account of divination.

The appetitive soul is seated in the belly, and there imprisoned like a wild beast, far away from the council chamber, as Plato graphically calls the head, in order that the animal passions may not interfere with the deliberations of reason.

Though the soul is said by him to be prior to the body, yet we cannot help seeing that it is constructed on the model of the body — the threefold division into the rational, passionate, and appetitive corresponding to the head, heart and belly.

The human soul differs from the soul of the world in this respect, that it is enveloped and finds its expression in matter, whereas the soul of the world is not only enveloped or diffused in matter, but is the element in which matter moves. The breath of man is within him, but the air