Timaeus — Plato

the original. For that which includes all other intelligible creatures cannot have a second or companion ; in that case there would be need of another living being which would include both, and of which they would be parts, and the likeness would be more truly said to resemble not them, but that other which included them.

In order then that the world might be solitary, like the perfect animal, the creator made not two worlds or an infinite number of them ; but there is and ever will be one only-begotten and created heaven. Now that which is created is of necessity corporeal, and also visible and tangible. And nothing is visible where there is no fire, or tangible which has no solidity, and nothing is solid without earth.

Wherefore also God in the beginning of creation made the body of the universe to consist of fire and earth. But two things cannot be rightly put together without a third ; there must be some bond of union between them. And the fairest bond is that which makes the most complete fusion of itself and the things which it combines ; and proportion is best adapted to effect such a union.

For whenever in any three numbers, whether cube or square, there is a mean, which is to the last term what the first term 32 is to it ; and again, when the mean is to the first term as the last term is to the mean, — then the mean becoming first and last, and the first and last both becoming means, they will all of them of necessity come to be the same, and having become the same with one another will be all one.

If the universal frame had been created a surface only and having no depth, a single mean would have sufficed to bind together itself and the other terms ; but now, as the world must be solid, and solid bodies are always compacted not by one mean but by two, God placed water and air in the mean between fire and earth, and made them to have the same proportion so far as was possible (as fire is to air so is air to water, and as air is to water so is water to earth) ; and thus he bound and put together a visible and tangible heaven.

And for these reasons, and out of such elements which are in number four, the body of the world was created, and it was harmonized by proportion, and therefore has the spirit of friendship ; and having been reconciled to itself, it was indissoluble by the hand of any other than the framer.

Tintaeus. TiMAEUS.

Y.

The world is visible and tangible, and therefore composed of fire and earth. These elements, being solids, required two means to unite them, water and air.

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TJie circular or perfect figure of the world.

'J'imaeus. TiMAEUS. All the four elements were included entire in the composition of the world, which was therefore perfect and not subject to decay ; for nothing was left outside which could hurt or destroy it.

It received a spherical form, — without eyes, ears, mouth, hands, feet, and was made to revolve in a circle on the same spot.

fi

Now the creation took up the whole of each of the four elements ; for the Creator compounded the world out of all the lire and all the water and all the air and all the earth, leaving no part of any of them nor any power of them outside.

His intention was, in the first place, that the animal should be as far as possible a perfect whole and of perfect parts : secondly, that it should be one, leaving no remnants 33 out of which another such world might be created : and also that it should be free from old age and unaffected by disease.

Considering that if heat and cold and other powerful forces which unite bodies surround and attack them from without when they are unprepared, they decompose them, and by ' bringing diseases and old age upon them, make them wasteaway — for this cause and on these grounds he made the world one whole, having every part entire, and being therefore perfect and not liable to old age and disease.

And he gave to the world the figure which was suitable and also natural. Now to the animal which was to comprehend all animals, that figure was suitable which comprehends within itself all other figures.

Wherefore he made the world in the form of a globe, round as from a lathe, having its extremes in every direction equidistant from the centre, the most perfect and the most like itself of all figures ; for he considered that the like is infinitely fairer than the unlike.

This he finished off, making the surface smooth all round for many reasons ; in the first place, because the living being had no need of eyes when there was nothing remaining outside him to be seen ; nor of ears when there was nothing to be heard ; and there was no surrounding atmosphere to be breathed ; nor would there have been any use of organs by the help of which he might receive his food or get rid of what he had already digested, since there was nothing which went from him or came into him : for there was nothing beside him.

Of design he was created thus, his own waste providing his own food, and all that he did or suffered taking place in and by himself. For the Creator conceived that a being which was self-sufficient would be far more excellent than one which lacked anything ; and, as he had no need to take anything or defend himself against any one, the Creator did not think it necessary to bestow upon him hands : nor had he any need