Plato, Timaeus (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Pl. Ti.].
<<Pl. Ti. 51a Pl. Ti. 53a (Greek) >>Pl. Ti. 54e

52bwhich admits not of destruction, and provides room for all things that have birth, itself being apprehensible by a kind of bastard reasoning by the aid of non-sensation, barely an object of belief; for when we regard this we dimly dream and affirm that it is somehow necessary that all that exists should exist in some spot and occupying some place, and that that which is neither on earth nor anywhere in the Heaven is nothing. So because of all these and other kindred notions, we are unable also on waking up to distinguish clearly the unsleeping and truly subsisting substance, owing to our dreamy condition, 52cor to state the truth—how that it belongs to a copy—seeing that it has not for its own even that substance for which it came into being, but fleets ever as a phantom of something else—to come into existence in some other thing, clinging to existence as best it may, on pain of being nothing at all; whereas to the aid of the really existent there comes the accurately true argument, that so long as one thing is one thing, and another something different, neither of the two will ever come to exist in the other so that the same thing becomes simultaneously 52dboth one and two.

Let this, then, be, according to my verdict, a reasoned account of the matter summarily stated,—that Being and Place and Becoming were existing, three distinct things, even before the Heaven came into existence; and that the Nurse of Becoming, being liquefied and ignified and receiving also the forms of earth and of air, and submitting to all the other affections which accompany these, 52eexhibits every variety of appearance; but owing to being filled with potencies that are neither similar nor balanced, in no part of herself is she equally balanced, but sways unevenly in every part, and is herself shaken by these forms and shakes them in turn as she is moved. And the forms, as they are moved, fly continually in various directions and are dissipated; just as the particles that are shaken and winnowed by the sieves and other instruments used for the cleansing of corn fall in one place if they are solid and heavy, 53abut fly off and settle elsewhere if they are spongy and light. So it was also with the Four Kinds when shaken by the Recipient: her motion, like an instrument which causes shaking, was separating farthest from one another the dissimilar, and pushing most closely together the similar; wherefore also these Kinds occupied different places even before that the Universe was organized and generated out of them.

Before that time, in truth, all these things were in a state devoid of reason or measure, but when the work of setting in order this Universe was being undertaken, 53bfire and water and earth and air, although possessing some traces of their own nature, were yet so disposed as everything is likely to be in the absence of God; and inasmuch as this was then their natural condition, God began by first marking them out into shapes by means of forms and numbers. And that God constructed them, so far as He could, to be as fair and good as possible, whereas they had been otherwise,—this above all else must always be postulated in our account. Now, however, it is the disposition and origin 53cof each of these Kinds which I must endeavor to explain to you in an exposition of an unusual type; yet, inasmuch as you have some acquaintance with the technical method which I must necessarily employ in my exposition, you will follow me.

In the first place, then, it is plain I presume to everyone that fire and earth and water and air are solid bodies; and the form of a body, in every case, possesses depth also. Further, it is absolutely necessary that depth should be bounded by a plane surface; and the rectilinear plane is composed of triangles. 53dNow all triangles derive their origin from two triangles, each having one angle right and the others acute note; and the one of these triangles has on each side half a right angle marked off by equal sides, while the other has the right angle divided into unequal parts by unequal sides. These we lay down as the principles of fire and all the other bodies, proceeding according to a method in which the probable is combined with the necessary; but the principles which are still higher than these are known only to God and the man who is dear to God. 53eWe must now declare what will be the four fairest bodies, dissimilar to one another, but capable in part of being produced out of one another by means of dissolution; for if we succeed herein we shall grasp the truth concerning the generation of earth and fire and the mean proportionals. For to no one will we concede that fairer bodies than these, each distinct of its kind, are anywhere to be seen. Wherefore we must earnestly endeavor to frame together these four kinds of bodies which excel in beauty, and to maintain that we have apprehended 54atheir nature adequately. Now of the two triangles, the isosceles possesses one single nature, but the scalene an infinite number; and of these infinite natures we must select the fairest, if we mean to make a suitable beginning. If, then, anyone can claim that he has chosen one that is fairer for the construction of these bodies, he, as friend rather than foe, is the victor. We, however, shall pass over all the rest and postulate as the fairest of the triangles that triangle out of which, when two are conjoined,



Plato, Timaeus (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Pl. Ti.].
<<Pl. Ti. 51a Pl. Ti. 53a (Greek) >>Pl. Ti. 54e

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