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Timaeus

by Plato, translated by B. Jowett.

December, 1998  [Etext #1572]

*******The Project Gutenberg Etext of Timaeus, by Plato*******
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TIMAEUS:  All men who have any right feeling, at the beginning of any
enterprise, call upon the Gods; and he who is about to speak of the origin
of the universe has a special need of their aid.  May my words be
acceptable to them, and may I speak in the manner which will be most
intelligible to you and will best express my own meaning!

First, I must distinguish between that which always is and never becomes
and which is apprehended by reason and reflection, and that which always
becomes and never is and is conceived by opinion with the help of sense.
All that becomes and is created is the work of a cause, and that is fair
which the artificer makes after an eternal pattern, but whatever is
fashioned after a created pattern is not fair.  Is the world created or
uncreated?--that is the first question.  Created, I reply, being visible
and tangible and having a body, and therefore sensible; and if sensible,
then created; and if created, made by a cause, and the cause is the
ineffable father of all things, who had before him an eternal archetype.
For to imagine that the archetype was created would be blasphemy, seeing
that the world is the noblest of creations, and God is the best of causes.
And the world being thus created according to the eternal pattern is the
copy of something; and we may assume that words are akin to the matter of
which they speak.  What is spoken of the unchanging or intelligible must be
certain and true; but what is spoken of the created image can only be
probable; being is to becoming what truth is to belief.  And amid the
variety of opinions which have arisen about God and the nature of the world
we must be content to take probability for our rule, considering that I,
who am the speaker, and you, who are the judges, are only men; to
probability we may attain but no further.

SOCRATES:  Excellent, Timaeus, I like your manner of approaching the
subject--proceed.

TIMAEUS:  Why did the Creator make the world?...He was good, and therefore
not jealous, and being free from jealousy he desired that all things should
be like himself.  Wherefore he set in order the visible world, which he
found in disorder.  Now he who is the best could only create the fairest;
and reflecting that of visible things the intelligent is superior to the
unintelligent, he put intelligence in soul and soul in body, and framed the
universe to be the best and fairest work in the order of nature, and the
world became a living soul through the providence of God.

In the likeness of what animal was the world made?--that is the third
question...The form of the perfect animal was a whole, and contained all
intelligible beings, and the visible animal, made after the pattern of
this, included all visible creatures.

Are there many worlds or one only?--that is the fourth question...One only.
For if in the original there had been more than one they would have been
the parts of a third, which would have been the true pattern of the world;
and therefore there is, and will ever be, but one created world.  Now that
which is created is of necessity corporeal and visible and tangible,--
visible and therefore made of fire,--tangible and therefore solid and made
of earth.  But two terms must be united by a third, which is a mean between
them; and had the earth been a surface only, one mean would have sufficed,
but two means are required to unite solid bodies.  And as the world was
composed of solids, between the elements of fire and earth God placed two
other elements of air and water, and arranged them in a continuous
proportion--

fire:air::air:water, and air:water::water:earth,

and so put together a visible and palpable heaven, having harmony and
friendship in the union of the four elements; and being at unity with
itself it was indissoluble except by the hand of the framer.  Each of the
elements was taken into the universe whole and entire; for he considered
that the animal should be perfect and one, leaving no remnants out of which
another animal could be created, and should also be free from old age and
disease, which are produced by the action of external forces.  And as he
was to contain all things, he was made in the all-containing form of a
sphere, round as from a lathe and every way equidistant from the centre, as
was natural and suitable to him.  He was finished and smooth, having
neither eyes nor ears, for there was nothing without him which he could see
or hear; and he had no need to carry food to his mouth, nor was there air
for him to breathe; and he did not require hands, for there was nothing of
which he could take hold, nor feet, with which to walk.  All that he did
was done rationally in and by himself, and he moved in a circle turning
within himself, which is the most intellectual of motions; but the other
six motions were wanting to him; wherefore the universe had no feet or
legs.

And so the thought of God made a God in the image of a perfect body, having
intercourse with himself and needing no other, but in every part harmonious
and self-contained and truly blessed.  The soul was first made by him--the
elder to rule the younger; not in the order in which our wayward fancy has
led us to describe them, but the soul first and afterwards the body.  God
took of the unchangeable and indivisible and also of the divisible and
corporeal, and out of the two he made a third nature, essence, which was in
a mean between them, and partook of the same and the other, the intractable
nature of the other being compressed into the same.  Having made a compound
of all the three, he proceeded to divide the entire mass into portions
related to one another in the ratios of 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 8, 27, and proceeded
to fill up the double and triple intervals thus--

- over 1, 4/3, 3/2, - over 2, 8/3, 3, - over 4, 16/3, 6,  - over 8:
- over 1, 3/2, 2,   - over 3, 9/2, 6, - over 9, 27/2, 18, - over 27;

in which double series of numbers are two kinds of means; the one exceeds
and is exceeded by equal parts of the extremes, e.g. 1, 4/3, 2; the other
kind of mean is one which is equidistant from the extremes--2, 4, 6.  In
this manner there were formed intervals of thirds, 3:2, of fourths, 4:3,
and of ninths, 9:8.  And next he filled up the intervals of a fourth with
ninths, leaving a remnant which is in the ratio of 256:243.  The entire
compound was divided by him lengthways into two parts, which he united at
the centre like the letter X, and bent into an inner and outer circle or
sphere, cutting one another again at a point over against the point at
which they cross.  The outer circle or sphere was named the sphere of the
same--the inner, the sphere of the other or diverse; and the one revolved
horizontally to the right, the other diagonally to the left.  To the sphere
of the same which was undivided he gave dominion, but the sphere of the
other or diverse was distributed into seven unequal orbits, having
intervals in ratios of twos and threes, three of either sort, and he bade
the orbits move in opposite directions to one another--three of them, the
Sun, Mercury, Venus, with equal swiftness, and the remaining four--the
Moon, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter, with unequal swiftness to the three and to one
another, but all in due proportion.

When the Creator had made the soul he made the body within her; and the
soul interfused everywhere from the centre to the circumference of heaven,
herself turning in herself, began a divine life of rational and everlasting
motion.  The body of heaven is visible, but the soul is invisible, and
partakes of reason and harmony, and is the best of creations, being the
work of the best.  And being composed of the same, the other, and the
essence, these three, and also divided and bound in harmonical proportion,
and revolving within herself--the soul when touching anything which has
essence, whether divided or undivided, is stirred to utter the sameness or
diversity of that and some other thing, and to tell how and when and where
individuals are affected or related, whether in the world of change or of
essence.  When reason is in the neighbourhood of sense, and the circle of
the other or diverse is moving truly, then arise true opinions and beliefs;
when reason is in the sphere of thought, and the circle of the same runs
smoothly, then intelligence is perfected.

When the Father who begat the world saw the image which he had made of the
Eternal Gods moving and living, he rejoiced; and in his joy resolved, since
the archetype was eternal, to make the creature eternal as far as this was
possible.  Wherefore he made an image of eternity which is time, having an
uniform motion according to number, parted into months and days and years,
and also having greater divisions of past, present, and future.  These all
apply to becoming in time, and have no meaning in relation to the eternal
nature, which ever is and never was or will be; for the unchangeable is
never older or younger, and when we say that he 'was' or 'will be,' we are
mistaken, for these words are applicable only to becoming, and not to true
being; and equally wrong are we in saying that what has become IS become
and that what becomes IS becoming, and that the non-existent IS non-
existent...These are the forms of time which imitate eternity and move in a
circle measured by number.

Thus was time made in the image of the eternal nature; and it was created
together with the heavens, in order that if they were dissolved, it might
perish with them.  And God made the sun and moon and five other wanderers,
as they are called, seven in all, and to each of them he gave a body moving
in an orbit, being one of the seven orbits into which the circle of the
other was divided.  He put the moon in the orbit which was nearest to the
earth, the sun in that next, the morning star and Mercury in the orbits
which move opposite to the sun but with equal swiftness--this being the
reason why they overtake and are overtaken by one another.  All these
bodies became living creatures, and learnt their appointed tasks, and began
to move, the nearer more swiftly, the remoter more slowly, according to the
diagonal movement of the other.  And since this was controlled by the
movement of the same, the seven planets in their courses appeared to
describe spirals; and that appeared fastest which was slowest, and that
which overtook others appeared to be overtaken by them.  And God lighted a
fire in the second orbit from the earth which is called the sun, to give
light over the whole heaven, and to teach intelligent beings that knowledge
of number which is derived from the revolution of the same.  Thus arose day
and night, which are the periods of the most intelligent nature; a month is
created by the revolution of the moon, a year by that of the sun.  Other
periods of wonderful length and complexity are not observed by men in
general; there is moreover a cycle or perfect year at the completion of
which they all meet and coincide...To this end the stars came into being,
that the created heaven might imitate the eternal nature.

Thus far the universal animal was made in the divine image, but the other
animals were not as yet included in him.  And God created them according to
the patterns or species of them which existed in the divine original.
There are four of them:  one of gods, another of birds, a third of fishes,
and a fourth of animals.  The gods were made in the form of a circle, which
is the most perfect figure and the figure of the universe.  They were
created chiefly of fire, that they might be bright, and were made to know
and follow the best, and to be scattered over the heavens, of which they
were to be the glory.  Two kinds of motion were assigned to them--first,
the revolution in the same and around the same, in peaceful unchanging
thought of the same; and to this was added a forward motion which was under
the control of the same.  Thus then the fixed stars were created, being
divine and eternal animals, revolving on the same spot, and the wandering
stars, in their courses, were created in the manner already described.  The
earth, which is our nurse, clinging around the pole extended through the
universe, he made to be the guardian and artificer of night and day, first
and eldest of gods that are in the interior of heaven.  Vain would be the
labour of telling all the figures of them, moving as in dance, and their
juxta-positions and approximations, and when and where and behind what
other stars they appear to disappear--to tell of all this without looking
at a plan of them would be labour in vain.

The knowledge of the other gods is beyond us, and we can only accept the
traditions of the ancients, who were the children of the gods, as they
said; for surely they must have known their own ancestors.  Although they
give no proof, we must believe them as is customary.  They tell us that
Oceanus and Tethys were the children of Earth and Heaven; that Phoreys,
Cronos, and Rhea came in the next generation, and were followed by Zeus and
Here, whose brothers and children are known to everybody.

When all of them, both those who show themselves in the sky, and those who
retire from view, had come into being, the Creator addressed them thus:--
'Gods, sons of gods, my works, if I will, are indissoluble.  That which is
bound may be dissolved, but only an evil being would dissolve that which is
harmonious and happy.  And although you are not immortal you shall not die,
for I will hold you together.  Hear me, then:--Three tribes of mortal
beings have still to be created, but if created by me they would be like
gods.  Do ye therefore make them; I will implant in them the seed of
immortality, and you shall weave together the mortal and immortal, and
provide food for them, and receive them again in death.'  Thus he spake,
and poured the remains of the elements into the cup in which he had mingled
the soul of the universe.  They were no longer pure as before, but diluted;
and the mixture he distributed into souls equal in number to the stars, and
assigned each to a star--then having mounted them, as in a chariot, he
showed them the nature of the universe, and told them of their future birth
and human lot.  They were to be sown in the planets, and out of them was to
come forth the most religious of animals, which would hereafter be called
man.  The souls were to be implanted in bodies, which were in a perpetual
flux, whence, he said, would arise, first, sensation; secondly, love, which
is a mixture of pleasure and pain; thirdly, fear and anger, and the
opposite affections:  and if they conquered these, they would live
righteously, but if they were conquered by them, unrighteously.  He who
lived well would return to his native star, and would there have a blessed
existence; but, if he lived ill, he would pass into the nature of a woman,
and if he did not then alter his evil ways, into the likeness of some
animal, until the reason which was in him reasserted her sway over the
elements of fire, air, earth, water, which had engrossed her, and he
regained his first and better nature.  Having given this law to his
creatures, that he might be guiltless of their future evil, he sowed them,
some in the earth, some in the moon, and some in the other planets; and he
ordered the younger gods to frame human bodies for them and to make the
necessary additions to them, and to avert from them all but self-inflicted
evil.

Having given these commands, the Creator remained in his own nature.  And
his children, receiving from him the immortal principle, borrowed from the
world portions of earth, air, fire, water, hereafter to be returned, which
they fastened together, not with the adamantine bonds which bound
themselves, but by little invisible pegs, making each separate body out of
all the elements, subject to influx and efflux, and containing the courses
of the soul.  These swelling and surging as in a river moved irregularly
and irrationally in all the six possible ways, forwards, backwards, right,
left, up and down.  But violent as were the internal and alimentary fluids,
the tide became still more violent when the body came into contact with
flaming fire, or the solid earth, or gliding waters, or the stormy wind;
the motions produced by these impulses pass through the body to the soul
and have the name of sensations.  Uniting with the ever-flowing current,
they shake the courses of the soul, stopping the revolution of the same and
twisting in all sorts of ways the nature of the other, and the harmonical
ratios of twos and threes and the mean terms which connect them, until the
circles are bent and disordered and their motion becomes irregular.  You
may imagine a position of the body in which the head is resting upon the
ground, and the legs are in the air, and the top is bottom and the left
right.  And something similar happens when the disordered motions of the
soul come into contact with any external thing; they say the same or the
other in a manner which is the very opposite of the truth, and they are
false and foolish, and have no guiding principle in them.  And when
external impressions enter in, they are really conquered, though they seem
to conquer.

By reason of these affections the soul is at first without intelligence,
but as time goes on the stream of nutriment abates, and the courses of the
soul regain their proper motion, and apprehend the same and the other
rightly, and become rational.  The soul of him who has education is whole
and perfect and escapes the worst disease, but, if a man's education be
neglected, he walks lamely through life and returns good for nothing to the
world below.  This, however, is an after-stage--at present, we are only
concerned with the creation of the body and soul.

The two divine courses were encased by the gods in a sphere which is called
the head, and is the god and lord of us.  And to this they gave the body to
be a vehicle, and the members to be instruments, having the power of
flexion and extension.  Such was the origin of legs and arms.  In the next
place, the gods gave a forward motion to the human body, because the front
part of man was the more honourable and had authority.  And they put in a
face in which they inserted organs to minister in all things to the
providence of the soul.  They first contrived the eyes, into which they
conveyed a light akin to the light of day, making it flow through the
pupils.  When the light of the eye is surrounded by the light of day, then
like falls upon like, and they unite and form one body which conveys to the
soul the motions of visible objects.  But when the visual ray goes forth
into the darkness, then unlike falls upon unlike--the eye no longer sees,
and we go to sleep.  The fire or light, when kept in by the eyelids,
equalizes the inward motions, and there is rest accompanied by few dreams;
only when the greater motions remain they engender in us corresponding
visions of the night.  And now we shall be able to understand the nature of
reflections in mirrors.  The fires from within and from without meet about
the smooth and bright surface of the mirror; and because they meet in a
manner contrary to the usual mode, the right and left sides of the object
are transposed.  In a concave mirror the top and bottom are inverted, but
this is no transposition.

These are the second causes which God used as his ministers in fashioning
the world.  They are thought by many to be the prime causes, but they are
not so; for they are destitute of mind and reason, and the lover of mind
will not allow that there are any prime causes other than the rational and
invisible ones--these he investigates first, and afterwards the causes of
things which are moved by others, and which work by chance and without
order.  Of the second or concurrent causes of sight I have already spoken,
and I will now speak of the higher purpose of God in giving us eyes.  Sight
is the source of the greatest benefits to us; for if our eyes had never
seen the sun, stars, and heavens, the words which we have spoken would not
have been uttered.  The sight of them and their revolutions has given us
the knowledge of number and time, the power of enquiry, and philosophy,
which is the great blessing of human life; not to speak of the lesser
benefits which even the vulgar can appreciate.  God gave us the faculty of
sight that we might behold the order of the heavens and create a
corresponding order in our own erring minds.  To the like end the gifts of
speech and hearing were bestowed upon us; not for the sake of irrational
pleasure, but in order that we might harmonize the courses of the soul by
sympathy with the harmony of sound, and cure ourselves of our irregular and
graceless ways.

Thus far we have spoken of the works of mind; and there are other works
done from necessity, which we must now place beside them; for the creation
is made up of both, mind persuading 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--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 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 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 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:  Is there an
essence of fire and the other elements, or are there 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, immovable, 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 without reason and
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 solids, and solids are contained
in planes, and plane rectilinear figures are made up of triangles.  Of
triangles there are two 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 of resolution into one
another...Of the two kinds of triangles the equal-sided has but one form,
the unequal-sided has 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.

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 hypotenuse is twice the lesser side the three 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 twelvefold 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 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 elements are not seen by reason of their smallness; they only become
visible when collected.  The ratios of their motions, numbers, and other
properties, are ordered by the God, who harmonized them as far as necessity
permitted.

The probable conclusion is as follows:--Earth, when dissolved by the more
penetrating element of fire, whether acting immediately or through the
medium of air or water, is decomposed but not transformed.  Water, when
divided by fire or air, becomes one part fire, and two parts air.  A volume
of air divided becomes two of fire.  On the other hand, when condensed, two
volumes of fire make a volume of air; and two and a half parts of air
condense into one of water.  Any element which is fastened upon by fire is
cut by the sharpness of the triangles, until at length, coalescing with the
fire, it is at rest; for similars are not affected by similars.  When two
kinds of bodies quarrel with one another, then the tendency to
decomposition continues until the smaller either escapes to its kindred
element or becomes one with its conqueror.  And this tendency in bodies to
condense or escape is a source of motion...Where there is motion there must
be a mover, and where there is a mover there must be something to move.
These cannot exist in what is uniform, and therefore motion is due to want
of uniformity.  But then why, when things are divided after their kinds, do
they not cease from motion?  The answer is, that the circular motion of all
things compresses them, and as 'nature abhors a vacuum,' the finer and more
subtle particles of the lighter elements, such as fire and air, are thrust
into the interstices of the larger, each of them penetrating according to
their rarity, and thus all the elements are on their way up and down
everywhere and always into their own places.  Hence there is a principle of
inequality, and therefore of motion, in all time.

In the next place, we may observe that there are different kinds of fire--
(1) flame, (2) light that burns not, (3) the red heat of the embers of
fire.  And there are varieties of air, as for example, the pure aether, the
opaque mist, and other nameless forms.  Water, again, is of two kinds,
liquid and fusile.  The liquid is composed of small and unequal particles,
the fusile of large and uniform particles and is more solid, but
nevertheless melts at the approach of fire, and then spreads upon the
earth.  When the substance cools, the fire passes into the air, which is
displaced, and forces together and condenses the liquid mass.  This process
is called cooling and congealment.  Of the fusile kinds the fairest and
heaviest is gold; this is hardened by filtration through rock, and is of a
bright yellow colour.  A shoot of gold which is darker and denser than the
rest is called adamant.  Another kind is called copper, which is harder and
yet lighter because the interstices are larger than in gold.  There is
mingled with it a fine and small portion of earth which comes out in the
form of rust.  These are a few of the conjectures which philosophy forms,
when, leaving the eternal nature, she turns for innocent recreation to
consider the truths of generation.

Water which is mingled with fire is called liquid because it rolls upon the
earth, and soft because its bases give way.  This becomes more equable when
separated from fire and air, and then congeals into hail or ice, or the
looser forms of hoar frost or snow.  There are other waters which are
called juices and are distilled through plants.  Of these we may mention,
first, wine, which warms the soul as well as the body; secondly, oily
substances, as for example, oil or pitch; thirdly, honey, which relaxes the
contracted parts of the mouth and so produces sweetness; fourthly,
vegetable acid, which is frothy and has a burning quality and dissolves the
flesh.  Of the kinds of earth, that which is filtered through water passes
into stone; the water is broken up by the earth and escapes in the form of
air--this in turn presses upon the mass of earth, and the earth, compressed
into an indissoluble union with the remaining water, becomes rock.  Rock,
when it is made up of equal particles, is fair and transparent, but the
reverse when of unequal.  Earth is converted into pottery when the watery
part is suddenly drawn away; or if moisture remains, the earth, when fused
by fire, becomes, on cooling, a stone of a black colour.  When the earth is
finer and of a briny nature then two half-solid bodies are formed by
separating the water,--soda and salt.  The strong compounds of earth and
water are not soluble by water, but only by fire.  Earth itself, when not
consolidated, is dissolved by water; when consolidated, by fire only.  The
cohesion of water, when strong, is dissolved by fire only; when weak,
either by air or fire, the former entering the interstices, the latter
penetrating even the triangles.  Air when strongly condensed is
indissoluble by any power which does not reach the triangles, and even when
not strongly condensed is only resolved by fire.  Compounds of earth and
water are unaffected by water while the water occupies the interstices in
them, but begin to liquefy when fire enters into the interstices of the
water.  They are of two kinds, some of them, like glass, having more earth,
others, like wax, having more water in them.

Having considered objects of sense, we now pass on to sensation.  But we
cannot explain sensation without explaining the nature of flesh and of the
mortal soul; and as we cannot treat of both together, in order that we may
proceed at once to the sensations we must assume the existence of body and
soul.

What makes fire burn?  The fineness of the sides, the sharpness of the
angles, the smallness of the particles, the quickness of the motion.
Moreover, the pyramid, which is the figure of fire, is more cutting than
any other.  The feeling of cold is produced by the larger particles of
moisture outside the body trying to eject the smaller ones in the body
which they compress.  The struggle which arises between elements thus
unnaturally brought together causes shivering.  That is hard to which the
flesh yields, and soft which yields to the flesh, and these two terms are
also relative to one another.  The yielding matter is that which has the
slenderest base, whereas that which has a rectangular base is compact and
repellent.  Light and heavy are wrongly explained with reference to a lower
and higher in place.  For in the universe, which is a sphere, there is no
opposition of above or below, and that which is to us above would be below
to a man standing at the antipodes.  The greater or less difficulty in
detaching any element from its like is the real cause of heaviness or of
lightness.  If you draw the earth into the dissimilar air, the particles of
earth cling to their native element, and you more easily detach a small
portion than a large.  There would be the same difficulty in moving any of
the upper elements towards the lower.  The smooth and the rough are
severally produced by the union of evenness with compactness, and of
hardness with inequality.

Pleasure and pain are the most important of the affections common to the
whole body.  According to our general doctrine of sensation, parts of the
body which are easily moved readily transmit the motion to the mind; but
parts which are not easily moved have no effect upon the patient.  The
bones and hair are of the latter kind, sight and hearing of the former.
Ordinary affections are neither pleasant nor painful.  The impressions of
sight afford an example of these, and are neither violent nor sudden.  But
sudden replenishments of the body cause pleasure, and sudden disturbances,
as for example cuttings and burnings, have the opposite effect.

>From sensations common to the whole body, we proceed to those of particular
parts.  The affections of the tongue appear to be caused by contraction and
dilation, but they have more of roughness or smoothness than is found in
other affections.  Earthy particles, entering into the small veins of the
tongue which reach to the heart, when they melt into and dry up the little
veins are astringent if they are rough; or if not so rough, they are only
harsh, and if excessively abstergent, like potash and soda, bitter.
Purgatives of a weaker sort are called salt and, having no bitterness, are
rather agreeable.  Inflammatory bodies, which by their lightness are
carried up into the head, cutting all that comes in their way, are termed
pungent.  But when these are refined by putrefaction, and enter the narrow
veins of the tongue, and meet there particles of earth and air, two kinds
of globules are formed--one of earthy and impure liquid, which boils and
ferments, the other of pure and transparent water, which are called
bubbles; of all these affections the cause is termed acid.  When, on the
other hand, the composition of the deliquescent particles is congenial to
the tongue, and disposes the parts according to their nature, this remedial
power in them is called sweet.

Smells are not divided into kinds; all of them are transitional, and arise
out of the decomposition of one element into another, for the simple air or
water is without smell.  They are vapours or mists, thinner than water and
thicker than air:  and hence in drawing in the breath, when there is an
obstruction, the air passes, but there is no smell.  They have no names,
but are distinguished as pleasant and unpleasant, and their influence
extends over the whole region from the head to the navel.

Hearing is the effect of a stroke which is transmitted through the ears by
means of the air, brain, and blood to the soul, beginning at the head and
extending to the liver.  The sound which moves swiftly is acute; that which
moves slowly is grave; that which is uniform is smooth, and the opposite is
harsh.  Loudness depends on the quantity of the sound.  Of the harmony of
sounds I will hereafter speak.

Colours are flames which emanate from all bodies, having particles
corresponding to the sense of sight.  Some of the particles are less and
some larger, and some are equal to the parts of the sight.  The equal
particles appear transparent; the larger contract, and the lesser dilate
the sight.  White is produced by the dilation, black by the contraction, of
the particles of sight.  There is also a swifter motion of another sort of
fire which forces a way through the passages of the eyes, and elicits from
them a union of fire and water which we call tears.  The inner fire flashes
forth, and the outer finds a way in and is extinguished in the moisture,
and all sorts of colours are generated by the mixture.  This affection is
termed by us dazzling, and the object which produces it is called bright.
There is yet another sort of fire which mingles with the moisture of the
eye without flashing, and produces a colour like blood--to this we give the
name of red.  A bright element mingling with red and white produces a
colour which we call auburn.  The law of proportion, however, according to
which compound colours are formed, cannot be determined scientifically or
even probably.  Red, when mingled with black and white, gives a purple hue,
which becomes umber when the colours are burnt and there is a larger
admixture of black.  Flame-colour is a mixture of auburn and dun; dun of
white and black; yellow of white and auburn.  White and bright meeting, and
falling upon a full black, become dark blue; dark blue mingling with white
becomes a light blue; the union of flame-colour and black makes leek-green.
There is no difficulty in seeing how other colours are probably composed.
But he who should attempt to test the truth of this by experiment, would
forget the difference of the human and divine nature.  God only is able to
compound and resolve substances; such experiments are impossible to man.

These are the elements of necessity which the Creator received in the world
of generation when he made the all-sufficient and perfect creature, using
the secondary causes as his ministers, but himself fashioning the good in
all things.  For there are two sorts of causes, the one divine, the other
necessary; and we should seek to discover the divine above all, and, for
their sake, the necessary, because without them the higher cannot be
attained by us.

Having now before us the causes out of which the rest of our discourse is
to be framed, let us go back to the point at which we began, and add a fair
ending to our tale.  As I said at first, all things were originally a chaos
in which there was no order or proportion.  The elements of this chaos were
arranged by the Creator, and out of them he made the world.  Of the divine
he himself was the author, but he committed to his offspring the creation
of the mortal.  From him they received the immortal soul, but themselves
made the body to be its vehicle, and constructed within another soul which
was mortal, and subject to terrible affections--pleasure, the inciter of
evil; pain, which deters from good; rashness and fear, foolish counsellors;
anger hard to be appeased; hope easily led astray.  These they mingled with
irrational sense and all-daring love according to necessary laws and so
framed man.  And, fearing to pollute the divine element, they gave the
mortal soul a separate habitation in the breast, parted off from the head
by a narrow isthmus.  And as in a house the women's apartments are divided
from the men's, the cavity of the thorax was divided into two parts, a
higher and a lower.  The higher of the two, which is the seat of courage
and anger, lies nearer to the head, between the midriff and the neck, and
assists reason in restraining the desires.  The heart is the house of guard
in which all the veins meet, and through them reason sends her commands to
the extremity of her kingdom.  When the passions are in revolt, or danger
approaches from without, then the heart beats and swells; and the creating
powers, knowing this, implanted in the body the soft and bloodless
substance of the lung, having a porous and springy nature like a sponge,
and being kept cool by drink and air which enters through the trachea.