Timaeus — Plato

part which, as we say, dwells at the top of the body, and inasmuch as we are a plant not of an earthly but of a heavenly growth, raises us from earth to our kindred who are in heaven. And in this we say truly ; for the divine power suspended the head and root of us from that place where the generation of the soul first began, and thus made the whole body upright.

When a man is always occupied with the cravings of desire and ambition, and is eagerly striving to satisfy them, all his thoughts must be mortal, and, as far as it is possible altogether to become such, he must be mortal every whit, because he has cherished his mortal part.

But he who has been earnest in the love of knowledge and of true wisdom, and has exercised his intellect more than any other part of him, must have thoughts immortal and divine, if he attain truth, and in so far as human nature is capable of sharing in immortality, he must altogether be immortal ; and since he is ever cherishing the divine power, and has the divinity within him in perfect order, he will be perfectly happyj)' ' Now there is only one way of taking care of things, and this is to give to each the food and motion which are natural to it.

And the motions which are naturally akin to the divine principle within us are the thoughts and revolutions of the universe.

These each man should follow, and correct the courses of the head which were corrupted at our birth, and by learning the harmonies and revolutions of the universe, should assimilate the thinking being to the thought, renewing his original nature, and having assimilated them should attain to that perfect life which the gods have set before mankind, both for the present and the future.

Thus our original design of discoursing about the universe down to the creation of man is nearly completed. A brief mention may be made of the generation of other animals, so far as the subject admits of brevity ; in this manner our argument will best attain a due proportion. On the subject of animals, then, the following remarks may be offered.

Of the men who came into the world, those who were cowards or led unrighteous lives may with reason be supposed to have changed into the nature of women in the second generation. And this was the reason why at that time the gods created in us the desire of sexual intercourse, contriving in man one VOL. III. — 48

Timaeus. TiMAKUS. For if a man ncRlccts it .and is the slave of desire and ambitiun, he cannot attain to immortality.

The motions of reason are akin to the thoughts and revolutions of the universe.

We have spoken of the origin of man. Women and the other animals were generated on this wise. Cowardly and unjust men became women in the second generation.

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The origin of women and the animals.

Timaeus. TiMAEUS.

Simpleminded men passed into birds ;

those who were the slaves of passion into beasts ;

animated substance, and in woman another, which they formed respectively in the following manner.

The outlet for drink by which liquids pass through the lung under the kidneys and into the bladder, which receives and then by the pressure of the air emits them, was so fashioned by them as to penetrate also into the body of the marrow, which passes from the head along the neck and through the back, and which in the preceding discourse we have named the seed.

And the seed having life, and becoming endowed with respiration, produces in that part in which it respires a lively desire of emission, and thus creates in us the love of procreation.

Wherefore also in men the organ of generation becoming rebellious and masterful, like an animal disobedient to reason, and maddened with the sting of lust, seeks to gain absolute sway ; and the same is the case v/ith the so-called womb or matrix of women ; the animal within them is desirous of procreating children, and when remaining unfruitful long beyond its proper time, gets discontented and angry, and wandering in every direction through the body, closes up the passages of the breath, and, by obstructing respiration, drives them to extremity, causing all varieties of disease, until at length the desire and love of the man and the woman, bringing them together ^ and as it were plucking the fruit from the tree, sow in the womb, as in a field, animals unseen by reason of their smallness and without form ; these again are separated and matured within ; they are then finally brought out into the light, and thus the generation of animals is completed.

Thus were created women and the female sex in general. But the race of birds was created out of innocent lightminded men, who, although their minds were directed toward heaven, imagined, in their simplicity, that the clearest demonstration of the things above was to be obtained by sight ; these were remodelled and transformed into birds, and they grew feathers instead of hair.

The race of wild pedestrian animals, again, came from those who had no philosophy in any of their thoughts, and never considered at all about the nature of the heavens, because they had ceased to use the courses