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Atlantis - Main Page
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
Then listen, Socrates, to a tale which, though strange,
is certainly true, having been attested by Solon, who was the
wisest of the seven sages....
by Plato
SOCRATES -- One, two, three; but where, my dear Timaeus, is the
fourth of those who were yesterday my guests and are to be my
entertainers today?
TIMAEUS -- He has been taken ill, Socrates; for he would not
willingly have been absent from this gathering.
SOCRATES -- Then, if he is not coming, you and the two others
must supply his place.
TIMAEUS -- Certainly, and we will do all that we can; having been
handsomely entertained by you yesterday, those of us who remain
should be only too glad to return your hospitality.
SOCRATES -- Do you remember what were the points of which I
required you to speak?
TIMAEUS -- We remember some of them, and you will be here to
remind us of anything which we have forgotten: or rather, if we are
not troubling you, will you briefly recapitulate the whole, and then
the particulars will be more firmly fixed in our memories?
SOCRATES -- To be sure I will: the chief theme of my yesterday's
discourse was the State-how constituted and of what citizens
composed it would seem likely to be most perfect.
TIMAEUS -- Yes, Socrates; and what you said of it was very much
to our mind.
SOCRATES -- Did we not begin by separating the husbandmen and the
artisans from the class of defenders of the State?
TIMAEUS -- Yes.
SOCRATES -- And when we had given to each one that single
employment and particular art which was suited to his nature, we
spoke of those who were intended to be our warriors, and said that
they were to be guardians of the city against attacks from within as
well as from without, and to have no other employment; they were to
be merciful in judging their subjects, of whom they were by nature
friends, but fierce to their enemies, when they came across them in
battle.
TIMAEUS -- Exactly.
SOCRATES -- We said, if I am not mistaken, that the guardians
should be gifted with a temperament in a high degree both passionate
and philosophical; and that then they would be as they ought to be,
gentle to their friends and fierce with their enemies.
TIMAEUS -- Certainly.
SOCRATES -- And what did we say of their education? Were they not
to be trained in gymnastic, and music, and all other sorts of
knowledge which were proper for them?
TIMAEUS -- Very true.
SOCRATES -- And being thus trained they were not to consider gold
or silver or anything else to be their own private property; they
were to be like hired troops, receiving pay for keeping guard from
those who were protected by them-the pay was to be no more than
would suffice for men of simple life; and they were to spend in
common, and to live together in the continual practice of virtue,
which was to be their sole pursuit.
TIMAEUS -- That was also said.
SOCRATES -- Neither did we forget the women; of whom we declared,
that their natures should be assimilated and brought into harmony
with those of the men, and that common pursuits should be assigned
to them both in time of war and in their ordinary life.
TIMAEUS -- That, again, was as you say.
SOCRATES -- And what about the procreation of children? Or rather
not the proposal too singular to be forgotten? for all wives and
children were to be in common, to the intent that no one should ever
know his own child, but they were to imagine that they were all one
family; those who were within a suitable limit of age were to be
brothers and sisters, those who were of an elder generation parents
and grandparents, and those of a younger children and grandchildren.
TIMAEUS -- Yes, and the proposal is easy to remember, as you say.
SOCRATES -- And do you also remember how, with a view of securing
as far as we could the best breed, we said that the chief
magistrates, male and female, should contrive secretly, by the use
of certain lots, so to arrange the nuptial meeting, that the bad of
either sex and the good of either sex might pair with their like;
and there was to be no quarrelling on this account, for they would
imagine that the union was a mere accident, and was to be attributed
to the lot?
TIMAEUS -- I remember.
SOCRATES -- And you remember how we said that the children of the
good parents were to be educated, and the children of the bad
secretly dispersed among the inferior citizens; and while they were
all growing up the rulers were to be on the look-out, and to bring
up from below in their turn those who were worthy, and those among
themselves who were unworthy were to take the places of those who
came up?
TIMAEUS -- True.
SOCRATES -- Then have I now given you all the heads of our
yesterday's discussion? Or is there anything more, my dear Timaeus,
which has been omitted?
TIMAEUS -- Nothing, Socrates; it was just as you have said.
SOCRATES -- I should like, before proceeding further, to tell you
how I feel about the State which we have described. I might compare
myself to a person who, on beholding beautiful animals either
created by the painter's art, or, better still, alive but at rest,
is seized with a desire of seeing them in motion or engaged in some
struggle or conflict to which their forms appear suited; this is my
feeling about the State which we have been describing. There are
conflicts which all cities undergo, and I should like to hear some
one tell of our own city carrying on a struggle against her
neighbours, and how she went out to war in a becoming manner, and
when at war showed by the greatness of her actions and the
magnanimity of her words in dealing with other cities a result
worthy of her training and education. Now I, Critias and Hermocrates,
am conscious that I myself should never be able to celebrate the
city and her citizens in a befitting manner, and I am not surprised
at my own incapacity; to me the wonder is rather that the poets
present as well as past are no better-not that I mean to depreciate
them; but every one can see that they are a tribe of imitators, and
will imitate best and most easily the life in which they have been
brought up; while that which is beyond the range of a man's
education he finds hard to carry out in action, and still harder
adequately to represent in language. I am aware that the Sophists
have plenty of brave words and fair conceits, but I am afraid that
being only wanderers from one city to another, and having never had
habitations of their own, they may fail in their conception of
philosophers and statesmen, and may not know what they do and say in
time of war, when they are fighting or holding parley with their
enemies. And thus people of your class are the only ones remaining
who are fitted by nature and education to take part at once both in
politics and philosophy. Here is Timaeus, of Locris in Italy, a city
which has admirable laws, and who is himself in wealth and rank the
equal of any of his fellow-citizens; he has held the most important
and honourable offices in his own state, and, as I believe, has
scaled the heights of all philosophy; and here is Critias, whom
every Athenian knows to be no novice in the matters of which we are
speaking; and as to, Hermocrates, I am assured by many witnesses
that his genius and education qualify him to take part in any
speculation of the kind. And therefore yesterday when I saw that you
wanted me to describe the formation of the State, I readily
assented, being very well aware, that, if you only would, none were
better qualified to carry the discussion further, and that when you
had engaged our city in a suitable war, you of all men living could
best exhibit her playing a fitting part. When I had completed my
task, I in return imposed this other task upon you. You conferred
together and agreed to entertain me to-day, as I had entertained
you, with a feast of discourse. Here am I in festive array, and no
man can be more ready for the promised banquet.
HERMOCRATES -- And we too, Socrates, as Timaeus says, will not be
wanting in enthusiasm; and there is no excuse for not complying with
your request. As soon as we arrived yesterday at the guest-chamber
of Critias, with whom we are staying, or rather on our way thither,
we talked the matter over, and he told us an ancient tradition,
which I wish, Critias, that you would repeat to Socrates, so that he
may help us to judge whether it will satisfy his requirements or
not.
CRITIAS -- I will, if Timaeus, who is our other partner,
approves.
TIMAEUS -- I quite approve.
CRITIAS -- Then listen, Socrates, to a tale which, though
strange, is certainly true, having been attested by Solon, who was
the wisest of the seven sages. He was a relative and a dear friend
of my great-grandfather, Dropides, as he himself says in many
passages of his poems; and he told the story to Critias, my
grandfather, who remembered and repeated it to us. There were of
old, he said, great and marvellous actions of the Athenian city,
which have passed into oblivion through lapse of time and the
destruction of mankind, and one in particular, greater than all the
rest. This we will now rehearse. It will be a fitting monument of
our gratitude to you, and a hymn of praise true and worthy of the
goddess, on this her day of festival.
SOCRATES -- Very good. And what is this ancient famous action of
the Athenians, which Critias declared, on the authority of Solon, to
be not a mere legend, but an actual fact?
CRITIAS -- I will tell an old-world story which I heard from an
aged man; for Critias, at the time of telling it, was as he said,
nearly ninety years of age, and I was about ten. Now the day was
that day of the Apaturia which is called the Registration of Youth,
at which, according to custom, our parents gave prizes for
recitations, and the poems of several poets were recited by us boys,
and many of us sang the poems of Solon, which at that time had not
gone out of fashion. One of our tribe, either because he thought so
or to please Critias, said that in his judgment Solon was not only
the wisest of men, but also the noblest of poets. The old man, as I
very well remember, brightened up at hearing this and said, smiling:
Yes, Amynander, if Solon had only, like other poets, made poetry the
business of his life, and had completed the tale which he brought
with him from Egypt, and had not been compelled, by reason of the
factions and troubles which he found stirring in his own country
when he came home, to attend to other matters, in my opinion he
would have been as famous as Homer or Hesiod, or any poet.
And what was the tale about, Critias? said Amynander.
About the greatest action which the Athenians ever did, and which
ought to have been the most famous, but, through the lapse of time
and the destruction of the actors, it has not come down to us.
Tell us, said the other, the whole story, and how and from whom
Solon heard this veritable tradition.
He replied -- In the Egyptian Delta, at the head of which the
river Nile divides, there is a certain district which is called the
district of Sais, and the great city of the district is also called
Sais, and is the city from which King Amasis came. The citizens have
a deity for their foundress; she is called in the Egyptian tongue
Neith, and is asserted by them to be the same whom the Hellenes call
Athene; they are great lovers of the Athenians, and say that they
are in some way related to them. To this city came Solon, and was
received there with great honour; he asked the priests who were most
skilful in such matters, about antiquity, and made the discovery
that neither he nor any other Hellene knew anything worth mentioning
about the times of old. On one occasion, wishing to draw them on to
speak of antiquity, he began to tell about the most ancient things
in our part of the world-about Phoroneus, who is called "the
first man," and about Niobe; and after the Deluge, of the
survival of Deucalion and Pyrrha; and he traced the genealogy of
their descendants, and reckoning up the dates, tried to compute how
many years ago the events of which he was speaking happened.
Thereupon one of the priests, who was of a very great age, said: O
Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are never anything but children, and
there is not an old man among you. Solon in return asked him what he
meant. I mean to say, he replied, that in mind you are all young;
there is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition,
nor any science which is hoary with age. And I will tell you why.
There have been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind
arising out of many causes; the greatest have been brought about by
the agencies of fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable
other causes. There is a story, which even you have preserved, that
once upon a time Paethon, the son of Helios, having yoked the steeds
in his father's chariot, because he was not able to drive them in
the path of his father, burnt up all that was upon the earth, and
was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt. Now this has the form of a
myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving in the
heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of things upon
the earth, which recurs after long intervals; at such times those
who live upon the mountains and in dry and lofty places are more
liable to destruction than those who dwell by rivers or on the
seashore. And from this calamity the Nile, who is our never-failing
saviour, delivers and preserves us. When, on the other hand, the
gods purge the earth with a deluge of water, the survivors in your
country are herdsmen and shepherds who dwell on the mountains, but
those who, like you, live in cities are carried by the rivers into
the sea. Whereas in this land, neither then nor at any other time,
does the water come down from above on the fields, having always a
tendency to come up from below; for which reason the traditions
preserved here are the most ancient.
The fact is, that wherever the extremity of winter frost or of
summer does not prevent, mankind exist, sometimes in greater,
sometimes in lesser numbers. And whatever happened either in your
country or in ours, or in any other region of which we are
informed-if there were any actions noble or great or in any other
way remarkable, they have all been written down by us of old, and
are preserved in our temples. Whereas just when you and other
nations are beginning to be provided with letters and the other
requisites of civilized life, after the usual interval, the stream
from heaven, like a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only
those of you who are destitute of letters and education; and so you
have to begin all over again like children, and know nothing of what
happened in ancient times, either among us or among yourselves. As
for those genealogies of yours which you just now recounted to us,
Solon, they are no better than the tales of children. In the first
place you remember a single deluge only, but there were many
previous ones; in the next place, you do not know that there
formerly dwelt in your land the fairest and noblest race of men
which ever lived, and that you and your whole city are descended
from a small seed or remnant of them which survived. And this was
unknown to you, because, for many generations, the survivors of that
destruction died, leaving no written word. For there was a time,
Solon, before the great deluge of all, when the city which now is
Athens was first in war and in every way the best governed of all
cities, is said to have performed the noblest deeds and to have had
the fairest constitution of any of which tradition tells, under the
face of heaven.
Solon marvelled at his words, and earnestly requested the priests
to inform him exactly and in order about these former citizens. You
are welcome to hear about them, Solon, said the priest, both for
your own sake and for that of your city, and above all, for the sake
of the goddess who is the common patron and parent and educator of
both our cities. She founded your city a thousand years before ours,
receiving from the Earth and Hephaestus the seed of your race, and
afterwards she founded ours, of which the constitution is recorded
in our sacred registers to be eight thousand years old. As touching
your citizens of nine thousand years ago, I will briefly inform you
of their laws and of their most famous action; the exact particulars
of the whole we will hereafter go through at our leisure in the
sacred registers themselves. If you compare these very laws with
ours you will find that many of ours are the counterpart of yours as
they were in the olden time. In the first place, there is the caste
of priests, which is separated from all the others; next, there are
the artificers, who ply their several crafts by themselves and do
not intermix; and also there is the class of shepherds and of
hunters, as well as that of husbandmen; and you will observe, too,
that the warriors in Egypt are distinct from all the other classes,
and are commanded by the law to devote themselves solely to military
pursuits; moreover, the weapons which they carry are shields and
spears, a style of equipment which the goddess taught of Asiatics
first to us, as in your part of the world first to you. Then as to
wisdom, do you observe how our law from the very first made a study
of the whole order of things, extending even to prophecy and
medicine which gives health, out of these divine elements deriving
what was needful for human life, and adding every sort of knowledge
which was akin to them. All this order and arrangement the goddess
first imparted to you when establishing your city; and she chose the
spot of earth in which you were born, because she saw that the happy
temperament of the seasons in that land would produce the wisest of
men. Wherefore the goddess, who was a lover both of war and of
wisdom, selected and first of all settled that spot which was the
most likely to produce men likest herself. And there you dwelt,
having such laws as these and still better ones, and excelled all
mankind in all virtue, as became the children and disciples of the
gods.
Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded of your state in our
histories. But one of them exceeds all the rest in greatness and
valour. For these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked
made an expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to
which your city put an end. This power came forth out of the
Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable; and
there was an island situated in front of the straits which are by
you called the Pillars of Heracles; the island was larger than Libya
and Asia put together, and was the way to other islands, and from
these you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent which
surrounded the true ocean; for this sea which is within the Straits
of Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow entrance, but that
other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly
called a boundless continent. Now in this island of Atlantis there
was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole
island and several others, and over parts of the continent, and,
furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya
within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far
as Tyrrhenia. This vast power, gathered into one, endeavoured to
subdue at a blow our country and yours and the whole of the region
within the straits; and then, Solon, your country shone forth, in
the excellence of her virtue and strength, among all mankind. She
was pre-eminent in courage and military skill, and was the leader of
the Hellenes. And when the rest fell off from her, being compelled
to stand alone, after having undergone the very extremity of danger,
she defeated and triumphed over the invaders, and preserved from
slavery those who were not yet subjugated, and generously liberated
all the rest of us who dwell within the pillars. But afterwards
there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day
and night of misfortune all your warlike men in a body sank into the
earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the
depths of the sea. For which reason the sea in those parts is
impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the
way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island.
I have told you briefly, Socrates, what the aged Critias heard
from Solon and related to us. And when you were speaking yesterday
about your city and citizens, the tale which I have just been
repeating to you came into my mind, and I remarked with astonishment
how, by some mysterious coincidence, you agreed in almost every
particular with the narrative of Solon; but I did not like to speak
at the moment. For a long time had elapsed, and I had forgotten too
much; I thought that I must first of all run over the narrative in
my own mind, and then I would speak. And so I readily assented to
your request yesterday, considering that in all such cases the chief
difficulty is to find a tale suitable to our purpose, and that with
such a tale we should be fairly well provided.
And therefore, as Hermocrates has told you, on my way home
yesterday I at once communicated the tale to my companions as I
remembered it; and after I left them, during the night by thinking I
recovered nearly the whole it. Truly, as is often said, the lessons
of our childhood make wonderful impression on our memories; for I am
not sure that I could remember all the discourse of yesterday, but I
should be much surprised if I forgot any of these things which I
have heard very long ago. I listened at the time with childlike
interest to the old man's narrative; he was very ready to teach me,
and I asked him again and again to repeat his words, so that like an
indelible picture they were branded into my mind. As soon as the day
broke, I rehearsed them as he spoke them to my companions, that
they, as well as myself, might have something to say. And now,
Socrates, to make an end my preface, I am ready to tell you the
whole tale. I will give you not only the general heads, but the
particulars, as they were told to me. The city and citizens, which
you yesterday described to us in fiction, we will now transfer to
the world of reality. It shall be the ancient city of Athens, and we
will suppose that the citizens whom you imagined, were our veritable
ancestors, of whom the priest spoke; they will perfectly harmonise,
and there will be no inconsistency in saying that the citizens of
your republic are these ancient Athenians. Let us divide the subject
among us, and all endeavour according to our ability gracefully to
execute the task which you have imposed upon us. Consider then,
Socrates, if this narrative is suited to the purpose, or whether we
should seek for some other instead.
SOCRATES -- And what other, Critias, can we find that will be
better than this, which is natural and suitable to the festival of
the goddess, and has the very great advantage of being a fact and
not a fiction? How or where shall we find another if we abandon
this? We cannot, and therefore you must tell the tale, and good luck
to you; and I in return for my yesterday's discourse will now rest
and be a listener.
CRITIAS -- Let me proceed to explain to you, Socrates, the order
in which we have arranged our entertainment. Our intention is, that
Timaeus, who is the most of an astronomer amongst us, and has made
the nature of the universe his special study, should speak first,
beginning with the generation of the world and going down to the
creation of man; next, I am to receive the men whom he has created
of whom some will have profited by the excellent education which you
have given them; and then, in accordance with the tale of Solon, and
equally with his law, we will bring them into court and make them
citizens, as if they were those very Athenians whom the sacred
Egyptian record has recovered from oblivion, and thenceforward we
will speak of them as Athenians and fellow-citizens.
SOCRATES -- I see that I shall receive in my turn a perfect and
splendid feast of reason. And now, Timaeus, you, I suppose, should
speak next, after duly calling upon the Gods.
TIMAEUS -- All men, Socrates, who have any degree of right
feeling, at the beginning of every enterprise, whether small or
great, always call upon God. And we, too, who are going to discourse
of the nature of the universe, how created or how existing without
creation, if we be not altogether out of our wits, must invoke the
aid of Gods and Goddesses and pray that our words may be acceptable
to them and consistent with themselves. Let this, then, be our
invocation of the Gods, to which I add an exhortation of myself to
speak in such manner as will be most intelligible to you, and will
most accord with my own intent.
First then, in my judgment, we must make a distinction and ask,
What is that which always is and has no becoming; and what is that
which is always becoming and never is? That which is apprehended by
intelligence and reason is always in the same state; but that which
is conceived by opinion with the help of sensation and without
reason, is always in a process of becoming and perishing and never
really is. Now everything that becomes or is created must of
necessity be created by some cause, for without a cause nothing can
be created. The work of the creator, whenever he looks to the
unchangeable and fashions the form and nature of his work after an
unchangeable pattern, must necessarily be made fair and perfect; but
when he looks to the created only, and uses a created pattern, it is
not fair or perfect. Was the heaven then or the world, whether
called by this or by any other more appropriate name-assuming the
name, I am asking a question which has to be asked at the beginning
of an enquiry about anything-was the world, I say, always in
existence and without beginning? or created, and had it a beginning?
Created, I reply, being visible and tangible and having a body, and
therefore sensible; and all sensible things are apprehended by
opinion and sense and are in a process of creation and created. Now
that which is created must, as we affirm, of necessity be created by
a cause. But the father and maker of all this universe is past
finding out; and even if we found him, to tell of him to all men
would be impossible. And there is still a question to be asked about
him: Which of the patterns had the artificer in view when he made
the world-the pattern of the unchangeable, or of that which is
created? If the world be indeed fair and the artificer good, it is
manifest that he must have looked to that which is eternal; but if
what cannot be said without blasphemy is true, then to the created
pattern. Every one will see that he must have looked to, the
eternal; for the world is the fairest of creations and he is the
best of causes. And having been created in this way, the world has
been framed in the likeness of that which is apprehended by reason
and mind and is unchangeable, and must therefore of necessity, if
this is admitted, be a copy of something. Now it is all-important
that the beginning of everything should be according to nature. And
in speaking of the copy and the original we may assume that words
are akin to the matter which they describe; when they relate to the
lasting and permanent and intelligible, they ought to be lasting and
unalterable, and, as far as their nature allows, irrefutable and
immovable-nothing less. But when they express only the copy or
likeness and not the eternal things themselves, they need only be
likely and analogous to the real words. As being is to becoming, so
is truth to belief. If then, Socrates, amid the many opinions about
the gods and the generation of the universe, we are not able to give
notions which are altogether and in every respect exact and
consistent with one another, do not be surprised. Enough, if we
adduce probabilities as likely as any others; for we must remember
that I who am the speaker, and you who are the judges, are only
mortal men, and we ought to accept the tale which is probable and
enquire no further.
SOCRATES -- Excellent, Timaeus; and we will do precisely as you
bid us. The prelude is charming, and is already accepted by us --
may we beg of you to proceed to the strain?
TIMAEUS -- Let me tell you then why the creator made this world
of generation. He was good, and the good can never have any jealousy
of anything. And being free from jealousy, he desired that all
things should be as like himself as they could be. This is in the
truest sense the origin of creation and of the world, as we shall do
well in believing on the testimony of wise men: God desired that all
things should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was
attainable. Wherefore also finding the whole visible sphere not at
rest, but moving in an irregular and disorderly fashion, out of
disorder he brought order, considering that this was in every way
better than the other. Now the deeds of the best could never be or
have been other than the fairest; and the creator, reflecting on the
things which are by nature visible, found that no unintelligent
creature taken as a whole was fairer than the intelligent taken as a
whole; and that intelligence could not be present in anything which
was devoid of soul. For which reason, when he was framing the
universe, he put intelligence in soul, and soul in body, that he
might be the creator of a work which was by nature fairest and best.
Wherefore, using the language of probability, we may say that the
world became a living creature truly endowed with soul and
intelligence by the providence of God.
This being supposed, let us proceed to the next stage: In the
likeness of what animal did the Creator make the world? It would be
an unworthy thing to liken it to any nature which exists as a part
only; for nothing can be beautiful which is like any imperfect
thing; but let us suppose the world to be the very image of that
whole of which all other animals both individually and in their
tribes are portions. For the original of the universe contains in
itself all intelligible beings, just as this world comprehends us
and all other visible creatures. For the Deity, intending to make
this world like the fairest and most perfect of intelligible beings,
framed one visible animal comprehending within itself all other
animals of a kindred nature. Are we right in saying that there is
one world, or that they are many and infinite? There must be one
only, if the created copy is to accord with 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 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 harmonised 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.
Now the creation took up the whole of each of the four elements;
for the Creator compounded the world out of all the fire 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 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 waste away-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 around
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 of feet, nor of the whole
apparatus of walking; but the movement suited to his spherical form
was assigned to him, being of all the seven that which is most
appropriate to mind and intelligence; and he was made to move in the
same manner and on the same spot, within his own limits revolving in
a circle. All the other six motions were taken away from him, and he
was made not to partake of their deviations. And as this circular
movement required no feet, the universe was created without legs and
without feet.
Such was the whole plan of the eternal God about the god that was
to be, to whom for this reason he gave a body, smooth and even,
having a surface in every direction equidistant from the centre, a
body entire and perfect, and formed out of perfect bodies. And in
the centre he put the soul, which he diffused throughout the body,
making it also to be the exterior environment of it; and he made the
universe a circle moving in a circle, one and solitary, yet by
reason of its excellence able to converse with itself, and needing
no other friendship or acquaintance. Having these purposes in view
he created the world a blessed god.
Now God did not make the soul after the body, although we are
speaking of them in this order; for having brought them together he
would never have allowed that the elder should be ruled by the
younger; but this is a random manner of speaking which we have,
because somehow we ourselves too are very much under the dominion of
chance. Whereas he made the soul in origin and excellence prior to
and older than the body, to be the ruler and mistress, of whom the
body was to be the subject. And he made her out of the following
elements and on this wise: Out of the indivisible and unchangeable,
and also out of that which is divisible and has to do with material
bodies, he compounded a third and intermediate kind of essence,
partaking of the nature of the same and of the other, and this
compound he placed accordingly in a mean between the indivisible,
and the divisible and material. He took the three elements of the
same, the other, and the essence, and mingled them into one form,
compressing by force the reluctant and unsociable nature of the
other into the same. When he had mingled them with the essence and
out of three made one, he again divided this whole into as many
portions as was fitting, each portion being a compound of the same,
the other, and the essence. And he proceeded to divide after this
manner:-First of all, he took away one part of the whole [1], and
then he separated a second part which was double the first [2], and
then he took away a third part which was half as much again as the
second and three times as much as the first [3], and then he took a
fourth part which was twice as much as the second [4], and a fifth
part which was three times the third [9], and a sixth part which was
eight times the first [8], and a seventh part which was twenty-seven
times the first [27]. After this he filled up the double intervals
[i.e. between 1, 2, 4, 8] and the triple [i.e. between 1, 3, 9, 27]
cutting off yet other portions from the mixture and placing them in
the intervals, so that in each interval there were two kinds of
means, the one exceeding and exceeded by equal parts of its extremes
[as for example 1, 4/3, 2, in which the mean 4/3 is one-third of 1
more than 1, and one-third of 2 less than 2], the other being that
kind of mean which exceeds and is exceeded by an equal number. Where
there were intervals of 3/2 and of 4/3 and of 9/8, made by the
connecting terms in the former intervals, he filled up all the
intervals of 4/3 with the interval of 9/8, leaving a fraction over;
and the interval which this fraction expressed was in the ratio of
256 to 243. And thus the whole mixture out of which he cut these
portions was all exhausted by him. This entire compound he divided
lengthways into two parts, which he joined to one another at the
centre like the letter X, and bent them into a circular form,
connecting them with themselves and each other at the point opposite
to their original meeting-point; and, comprehending them in a
uniform revolution upon the same axis, he made the one the outer and
the other the inner circle. Now the motion of the outer circle he
called the motion of the same, and the motion of the inner circle
the motion of the other or diverse. The motion of the same he
carried round by the side to the right, and the motion of the
diverse diagonally to the left. And he gave dominion to the motion
of the same and like, for that he left single and undivided; but the
inner motion he divided in six places and made seven unequal circles
having their intervals in ratios of two-and three, three of each,
and bade the orbits proceed in a direction opposite to one another;
and three [Sun, Mercury, Venus] he made to move with equal
swiftness, and the remaining four [Moon, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter] to
move with unequal swiftness to the three and to one another, but in
due proportion.
Now when the Creator had framed the soul according to his will,
he formed within her the corporeal universe, and brought the two
together, and united them centre to centre. The soul, interfused
everywhere from the centre to the circumference of heaven, of which
also she is the external envelopment, herself turning in herself,
began a divine beginning of never ceasing and rational life enduring
throughout all time. The body of heaven is visible, but the soul is
invisible, and partakes of reason and harmony, and being made by the
best of intellectual and everlasting natures, is the best of things
created. And because she is composed of the same and of the other
and of the essence, these three, and is divided and united in due
proportion, and in her revolutions returns upon herself, the soul,
when touching anything which has essence, whether dispersed in parts
or undivided, is stirred through all her powers, to declare the
sameness or difference of that thing and some other; and to what
individuals are related, and by what affected, and in what way and
how and when, both in the world of generation and in the world of
immutable being. And when reason, which works with equal truth,
whether she be in the circle of the diverse or of the same-in
voiceless silence holding her onward course in the sphere of the
self-moved-when reason, I say, is hovering around the sensible world
and when the circle of the diverse also moving truly imparts the
intimations of sense to the whole soul, then arise opinions and
beliefs sure and certain. But when reason is concerned with the
rational, and the circle of the same moving smoothly declares it,
then intelligence and knowledge are necessarily perfected. And if
any one affirms that in which these two are found to be other than
the soul, he will say the very opposite of the truth.
When the father creator saw the creature which he had made moving
and living, the created image of the eternal gods, he rejoiced, and
in his joy determined to make the copy still more like the original;
and as this was eternal, he sought to make the universe eternal, so
far as might be. Now the nature of the ideal being was everlasting,
but to bestow this attribute in its fulness upon a creature was
impossible. Wherefore he resolved to have a moving image of
eternity, and when he set in order the heaven, he made this image
eternal but moving according to number, while eternity itself rests
in unity; and this image we call time. For there were no days and
nights and months and years before the heaven was created, but when
he constructed the heaven he created them also. They are all parts
of time, and the past and future are created species of time, which
we unconsciously but wrongly transfer to the eternal essence; for we
say that he "was," he "is," he "will
be," but the truth is that "is" alone is properly
attributed to him, and that "was" and "will be"
only to be spoken of becoming in time, for they are motions, but
that which is immovably the same cannot become older or younger by
time, nor ever did or has become, or hereafter will be, older or
younger, nor is subject at all to any of those states which affect
moving and sensible things and of which generation is the cause.
These are the forms of time, which imitates eternity and revolves
according to a law of number. Moreover, when we say that what has
become is become and what becomes is becoming, and that what will
become is about to become and that the non-existent is
non-existent-all these are inaccurate modes of expression. But
perhaps this whole subject will be more suitably discussed on some
other occasion.
Time, then, and the heaven came into being at the same instant in
order that, having been created together, if ever there was to be a
dissolution of them, they might be dissolved together. It was framed
after the pattern of the eternal nature, that it might resemble this
as far as was possible; for the pattern exists from eternity, and
the created heaven has been, and is, and will be, in all time. Such
was the mind and thought of God in the creation of time. The sun and
moon and five other stars, which are called the planets, were
created by him in order to distinguish and preserve the numbers of
time; and when he had made-their several bodies, he placed them in
the orbits in which the circle of the other was revolving-in seven
orbits seven stars. First, there was the moon in the orbit nearest
the earth, and next the sun, in the second orbit above the earth;
then came the morning star and the star sacred to Hermes, moving in
orbits which have an equal swiftness with the sun, but in an
opposite direction; and this is the reason why the sun and Hermes
and Lucifer overtake and are overtaken by each other. To enumerate
the places which he assigned to the other stars, and to give all the
reasons why he assigned them, although a secondary matter, would
give more trouble than the primary. These things at some future
time, when we are at leisure, may have the consideration which they
deserve, but not at present.
Now, when all the stars which were necessary to the creation of
time had attained a motion suitable to them,-and had become living
creatures having bodies fastened by vital chains, and learnt their
appointed task, moving in the motion of the diverse, which is
diagonal, and passes through and is governed by the motion of the
same, they revolved, some in a larger and some in a lesser
orbit-those which had the lesser orbit revolving faster, and those
which had the larger more slowly. Now by reason of the motion of the
same, those which revolved fastest appeared to be overtaken by those
which moved slower although they really overtook them; for the
motion of the same made them all turn in a spiral, and, because some
went one way and some another, that which receded most slowly from
the sphere of the same, which was the swiftest, appeared to follow
it most nearly. That there might be some visible measure of their
relative swiftness and slowness as they proceeded in their eight
courses, God lighted a fire, which we now call the sun, in the
second from the earth of these orbits, that it might give light to
the whole of heaven, and that the animals, as many as nature
intended, might participate in number, learning arithmetic from the
revolution of the same and the like. Thus then, and for this reason
the night and the day were created, being the period of the one most
intelligent revolution. And the month is accomplished when the moon
has completed her orbit and overtaken the sun, and the year when the
sun has completed his own orbit. Mankind, with hardly an exception,
have not remarked the periods of the other stars, and they have no
name for them, and do not measure them against one another by the
help of number, and hence they can scarcely be said to know that
their wanderings, being infinite in number and admirable for their
variety, make up time. And yet there is no difficulty in seeing that
the perfect number of time fulfils the perfect year when all the
eight revolutions, having their relative degrees of swiftness, are
accomplished together and attain their completion at the same time,
measured by the rotation of the same and equally moving. After this
manner, and for these reasons, came into being such of the stars as
in their heavenly progress received reversals of motion, to the end
that the created heaven might imitate the eternal nature, and be as
like as possible to the perfect and intelligible animal.
Thus far and until the birth of time the created universe was
made in the likeness of the original, but inasmuch as all animals
were not yet comprehended therein, it was still unlike. What
remained, the creator then proceeded to fashion after the nature of
the pattern. Now as in the ideal animal the mind perceives ideas or
species of a certain nature and number, he thought that this created
animal ought to have species of a like nature and number. There are
four such; one of them is the heavenly race of the gods; another,
the race of birds whose way is in the air; the third, the watery
species; and the fourth, the pedestrian and land creatures. Of the
heavenly and divine, he created the greater part out of fire, that
they might be the brightest of all things and fairest to behold, and
he fashioned them after the likeness of the universe in the figure
of a circle, and made them follow the intelligent motion of the
supreme, distributing them over the whole circumference of heaven,
which was to be a true cosmos or glorious world spangled with them
all over. And he gave to each of them two movements: the first, a
movement on the same spot after the same manner, whereby they ever
continue to think consistently the same thoughts about the same
things; the second, a forward movement, in which they are controlled
by the revolution of the same and the like; but by the other five
motions they were unaffected, in order that each of them might
attain the highest perfection. And for this reason the fixed stars
were created, to be divine and eternal animals, ever-abiding and
revolving after the same manner and on the same spot; and the other
stars which reverse their motion and are subject to deviations of
this kind, were created in the manner already described. The earth,
which is our nurse, clinging around the pole which is extended
through the universe, he framed 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 attempt to tell all the figures of them
circling as in dance, and their juxtapositions, and the return of
them in their revolutions upon themselves, and their approximations,
and to say which of these deities in their conjunctions meet, and
which of them are in opposition, and in what order they get behind
and before one another, and when they are severally eclipsed to our
sight and again reappear, sending terrors and intimations of the
future to those who cannot calculate their movements-to attempt to
tell of all this without a visible representation of the heavenly
system would be labour in vain. Enough on this head; and now let
what we have said about the nature of the created and visible gods
have an end.
To know or tell the origin of the other divinities is beyond us,
and we must accept the traditions of the men of old time who affirm
themselves to be the offspring of the gods-that is what they say-and
they must surely have known their own ancestors. How can we doubt
the word of the children of the gods? Although they give no probable
or certain proofs, still, as they declare that they are speaking of
what took place in their own family, we must conform to custom and
believe them. In this manner, then, according to them, the genealogy
of these gods is to be received and set forth.
Oceanus and Tethys were the children of Earth and Heaven, and
from these sprang Phorcys and Cronos and Rhea, and all that
generation; and from Cronos and Rhea sprang Zeus and Here, and all
those who are said to be their brethren, and others who were the
children of these.
Now, when all of them, both those who visibly appear in their
revolutions as well as those other gods who are of a more retiring
nature, had come into being, the creator of the universe addressed
them in these words: "Gods, children of gods, who are my works,
and of whom I am the artificer and father, my creations are
indissoluble, if so I will. All that is bound may be undone, but
only an evil being would wish to undo that which is harmonious and
happy. Wherefore, since ye are but creatures, ye are not altogether
immortal and indissoluble, but ye shall certainly not be dissolved,
nor be liable to the fate of death, having in my will a greater and
mightier bond than those with which ye were bound at the time of
your birth. And now listen to my instructions:-Three tribes of
mortal beings remain to be created-without them the universe will be
incomplete, for it will not contain every kind of animal which it
ought to contain, if it is to be perfect. On the other hand, if they
were created by me and received life at my hands, they would be on
an equality with the gods. In order then that they may be mortal,
and that this universe may be truly universal, do ye, according to
your natures, betake yourselves to the formation of animals,
imitating the power which was shown by me in creating you. The part
of them worthy of the name immortal, which is called divine and is
the guiding principle of those who are willing to follow justice and
you-of that divine part I will myself sow the seed, and having made
a beginning, I will hand the work over to you. And do ye then
interweave the mortal with the immortal, and make and beget living
creatures, and give them food, and make them to grow, and receive
them again in death."
Thus he spake, and once more into the cup in which he had
previously mingled the soul of the universe he poured the remains of
the elements, and mingled them in much the same manner; they were
not, however, pure as before, but diluted to the second and third
degree. And having made it he divided the whole mixture into souls
equal in number to the stars, and assigned each soul to a star; and
having there placed them as in a chariot, he showed them the nature
of the universe, and declared to them the laws of destiny, according
to which their first birth would be one and the same for all,-no one
should suffer a disadvantage at his hands; they were to be sown in
the instruments of time severally adapted to them, and to come forth
the most religious of animals; and as human nature was of two kinds,
the superior race would here after be called man. Now, when they
should be implanted in bodies by necessity, and be always gaining or
losing some part of their bodily substance, then in the first place
it would be necessary that they should all have in them one and the
same faculty of sensation, arising out of irresistible impressions;
in the second place, they must have love, in which pleasure and pain
mingle; also fear and anger, and the feelings which are akin or
opposite to them; if they conquered these they would live
righteously, and if they were conquered by them, unrighteously. He
who lived well during his appointed time was to return and dwell in
his native star, and there he would have a blessed and congenial
existence. But if he failed in attaining this, at the second birth
he would pass into a woman, and if, when in that state of being, he
did not desist from evil, he would continually be changed into some
brute who resembled him in the evil nature which he had acquired,
and would not cease from his toils and transformations until he
followed the revolution of the same and the like within him, and
overcame by the help of reason the turbulent and irrational mob of
later accretions, made up of fire and air and water and earth, and
returned to the form of his first and better state. Having given all
these laws to his creatures, that he might be guiltless of future
evil in any of them, the creator sowed some of them in the earth,
and some in the moon, and some in the other instruments of time; and
when he had sown them he committed to the younger gods the
fashioning of their mortal bodies, and desired them to furnish what
was still lacking to the human soul, and having made all the
suitable additions, to rule over them, and to pilot the mortal
animal in the best and wisest manner which they could, and avert
from him all but self-inflicted evils.
When the creator had made all these ordinances he remained in his
own accustomed nature, and his children heard and were obedient to
their father's word, and receiving from him the immortal principle
of a mortal creature, in imitation of their own creator they
borrowed portions of fire, and earth, and water, and air from the
world, which were hereafter to be restored-these they took and
welded them together, not with the indissoluble chains by which they
were themselves bound, but with little pegs too small to be visible,
making up out of all the four elements each separate body, and
fastening the courses of the immortal soul in a body which was in a
state of perpetual influx and efflux. Now these courses, detained as
in a vast river, neither overcame nor were overcome; but were
hurrying and hurried to and fro, so that the whole animal was moved
and progressed, irregularly however and irrationally and anyhow, in
all the six directions of motion, wandering backwards and forwards,
and right and left, and up and down, and in all the six directions.
For great as was the advancing and retiring flood which provided
nourishment, the affections produced by external contact caused
still greater tumult-when the body of any one met and came into
collision with some external fire, or with the solid earth or the
gliding waters, or was caught in the tempest borne on the air, and
the motions produced by any of these impulses were carried through
the body to the soul. All such motions have consequently received
the general name of "sensations," which they still retain.
And they did in fact at that time create a very great and mighty
movement; uniting with the ever flowing stream in stirring up and
violently shaking the courses of the soul, they completely stopped
the revolution of the same by their opposing current, and hindered
it from predominating and advancing; and they so disturbed the
nature of the other or diverse, that the three double intervals
[i.e. between 1, 2, 4, 8], and the three triple intervals [i.e.
between 1, 3, 9, 27], together with the mean terms and connecting
links which are expressed by the ratios of 3 : 2, and 4 : 3, and of
9 : 8-these, although they cannot be wholly undone except by him who
united them, were twisted by them in all sorts of ways, and the
circles were broken and disordered in every possible manner, so that
when they moved they were tumbling to pieces, and moved
irrationally, at one time in a reverse direction, and then again
obliquely, and then upside down, as you might imagine a person who
is upside down and has his head leaning upon the ground and his feet
up against something in the air; and when he is in such a position,
both he and the spectator fancy that the right of either is his
left, and left right. If, when powerfully experiencing these and
similar effects, the revolutions of the soul come in contact with
some external thing, either of the class of the same or of the
other, they speak of the same or of the other in a manner the very
opposite of the truth; and they become false and foolish, and there
is no course or revolution in them which has a guiding or directing
power; and if again any sensations enter in violently from without
and drag after them the whole vessel of the soul, then the courses
of the soul, though they seem to conquer, are really conquered.
And by reason of all these affections, the soul, when encased in
a mortal body, now, as in the beginning, is at first without
intelligence; but when the flood of growth and nutriment abates, and
the courses of the soul, calming down, go their own way and become
steadier as time goes on, then the several circles return to their
natural form, and their revolutions are corrected, and they call the
same and the other by their right names, and make the possessor of
them to become a rational being. And if these combine in him with
any true nurture or education, he attains the fulness and health of
the perfect man, and escapes the worst disease of all; but if he
neglects education he walks lame to the end of his life, and returns
imperfect and good for nothing to the world below. This, however, is
a later stage; at present we must treat more exactly the subject
before us, which involves a preliminary enquiry into the generation
of the body and its members, and as to how the soul was created-for
what reason and by what providence of the gods; and holding fast to
probability, we must pursue our way.
First, then, the gods, imitating the spherical shape of the
universe, enclosed the two divine courses in a spherical body, that,
namely, which we now term the head, being the most divine part of us
and the lord of all that is in us: to this the gods, when they put
together the body, gave all the other members to be servants,
considering that it partook of every sort of motion. In order then
that it might not tumble about among the high and deep places of the
earth, but might be able to get over the one and out of the other,
they provided the body to be its vehicle and means of locomotion;
which consequently had length and was furnished with four limbs
extended and flexible; these God contrived to be instruments of
locomotion with which it might take hold and find support, and so be
able to pass through all places, carrying on high the dwelling-place
of the most sacred and divine part of us. Such was the origin of
legs and hands, which for this reason were attached to every man;
and the gods, deeming the front part of man to be more honourable
and more fit to command than the hinder part, made us to move mostly
in a forward direction. Wherefore man must needs have his front part
unlike and distinguished from the rest of his body.
And so in the vessel of the head, they first of all put a face in
which they inserted organs to minister in all things to the
providence of the soul, and they appointed this part, which has
authority, to be by nature the part which is in front. And of the
organs they first contrived the eyes to give light, and the
principle according to which they were inserted was as follows: So
much of fire as would not burn, but gave a gentle light, they formed
into a substance akin to the light of every-day life; and the pure
fire which is within us and related thereto they made to flow
through the eyes in a stream smooth and dense, compressing the whole
eye, and especially the centre part, so that it kept out everything
of a coarser nature, and allowed to pass only this pure element.
When the light of day surrounds the stream of vision, then like
falls upon like, and they coalesce, and one body is formed by
natural affinity in the line of vision, wherever the light that
falls from within meets with an external object. And the whole
stream of vision, being similarly affected in virtue of similarity,
diffuses the motions of what it touches or what touches it over the
whole body, until they reach the soul, causing that perception which
we call sight. But when night comes on and the external and kindred
fire departs, then the stream of vision is cut off; for going forth
to an unlike element it is changed and extinguished, being no longer
of one nature with the surrounding atmosphere which is now deprived
of fire: and so the eye no longer sees, and we feel disposed to
sleep. For when the eyelids, which the gods invented for the
preservation of sight, are closed, they keep in the internal fire;
and the power of the fire diffuses and equalises the inward motions;
when they are equalised, there is rest, and when the rest is
profound, sleep comes over us scarce disturbed by dreams; but where
the greater motions still remain, of whatever nature and in whatever
locality, they engender corresponding visions in dreams, which are
remembered by us when we are awake and in the external world. And
now there is no longer any difficulty in understanding the creation
of images in mirrors and all smooth and bright surfaces. For from
the communion of the internal and external fires, and again from the
union of them and their numerous transformations when they meet in
the mirror, all these appearances of necessity arise, when the fire
from the face coalesces with the fire from the eye on the bright and
smooth surface. And right appears left and left right, because the
visual rays come into contact with the rays emitted by the object in
a manner contrary to the usual mode of meeting; but the right
appears right, and the left left, when the position of one of the
two concurring lights is reversed; and this happens when the mirror
is concave and its smooth surface repels the right stream of vision
to the left side, and the left to the right. Or if the mirror be
turned vertically, then the concavity makes the countenance appear
to be all upside down, and the lower rays are driven upwards and the
upper downwards.
All these are to be reckoned among the second and co-operative
causes which God, carrying into execution the idea of the best as
far as possible, uses as his ministers. They are thought by most men
not to be the second, but the prime causes of all things, because
they freeze and heat, and contract and dilate, and the like. But
they are not so, for they are incapable of reason or intellect; the
only being which can properly have mind is the invisible soul,
whereas fire and water, and earth and air, are all of them visible
bodies. The lover of intellect and knowledge ought to explore causes
of intelligent nature first of all, and, secondly, of those things
which, being moved by others, are compelled to move others. And this
is what we too must do. Both kinds of causes should be acknowledged
by us, but a distinction should be made between those which are
endowed with mind and are the workers of things fair and good, and
those which are deprived of intelligence and always produce chance
effects without order or design. Of the second or co-operative
causes of sight, which help to give to the eyes the power which they
now possess, enough has been said. I will therefore now proceed to
speak of the higher use and purpose for which God has given them to
us. The sight in my opinion is the source of the greatest benefit to
us, for had we never seen the stars, and the sun, and the heaven,
none of the words which we have spoken about the universe would ever
have been uttered. But now the sight of day and night, and the
months and the revolutions of the years, have created number, and
have given us a conception of time, and the power of enquiring about
the nature of the universe; and from this source we have derived
philosophy, than which no greater good ever was or will be given by
the gods to mortal man. This is the greatest boon of sight: and of
the lesser benefits why should I speak? even the ordinary man if he
were deprived of them would bewail his loss, but in vain. Thus much
let me say however: God invented and gave us sight to the end that
we might behold the courses of intelligence in the heaven, and apply
them to the courses of our own intelligence which are akin to them,
the unperturbed to the perturbed; and that we, learning them and
partaking of the natural truth of reason, might imitate the
absolutely unerring courses of God and regulate our own vagaries.
The same may be affirmed of speech and hearing: they have been given
by the gods to the same end and for a like reason. For this is the
principal end of speech, whereto it most contributes. Moreover, so
much of music as is adapted to the sound of the voice and to the
sense of hearing is granted to us for the sake of harmony; and
harmony, which has motions akin to the revolutions of our souls, is
not regarded by the intelligent votary of the Muses as given by them
with a view to irrational pleasure, which is deemed to be the
purpose of it in our day, but as meant to correct any discord which
may have arisen in the courses of the soul, and to be our ally in
bringing her into harmony and agreement with herself; and rhythm too
was given by them for the same reason, on account of the irregular
and graceless ways which prevail among mankind generally, and to
help us against them.
Thus far in what we have been saying, with small exception, the
works of intelligence have been set forth; and now we must place by
the side of them in our discourse the things which come into being
through necessity-for the creation is mixed, being made up of
necessity and mind. Mind, the ruling power, persuaded necessity to
bring the greater part of created things to perfection, and thus and
after this manner in the beginning, when the influence of reason got
the better of necessity, the universe was created. But if a person
will truly tell of the way in which the work was accomplished, he
must include the other influence of the variable cause as well.
Wherefore, we must return again and find another suitable beginning,
as about the former matters, so also about these. To which end we
must consider the nature of fire, and water, and air, and earth,
such as they were prior to the creation of the heaven, and what was
happening to them in this previous state; for no one has as yet
explained the manner of their generation, but we speak of fire and
the rest of them, whatever they mean, as though men knew their
natures, and we maintain them to be the first principles and letters
or elements of the whole, when they cannot reasonably be compared by
a man of any sense even to syllables or first compounds. And let me
say thus much: I will not now speak of the first principle or
principles of all things, or by whatever name they are to be called,
for this reason-because it is difficult to set forth my opinion
according to the method of discussion which we are at present
employing. Do not imagine, any more than I can bring myself to
imagine, that I should be right in undertaking so great and
difficult a task. Remembering what I said at first about
probability, I will do my best to give as probable an explanation as
any other-or rather, more probable; and I will first go back to the
beginning and try to speak of each thing and of all. Once more,
then, at the commencement of my discourse, I call upon God, and beg
him to be our saviour out of a strange and unwonted enquiry, and to
bring us to the haven of probability. So now let us begin again.
This new beginning of our discussion of the universe requires a
fuller division than the former; for then we made two classes, now a
third must be revealed. The two sufficed for the former discussion:
one, which we assumed, was a pattern intelligible and always the
same; and the second was only the imitation of the pattern,
generated and visible. There is also a third kind which we did not
distinguish at the time, conceiving that the two would be enough.
But now the argument seems to require that we should set forth in
words another kind, which is difficult of explanation and dimly
seen. What nature are we to attribute to this new kind of being? We
reply, that it is the receptacle, and in a manner the nurse, of all
generation. I have spoken the truth; but I must express myself in
clearer language, and this will be an arduous task for many reasons,
and in particular because I must first raise questions concerning
fire and the other elements, and determine what each of them is; for
to say, with any probability or certitude, which of them should be
called water rather than fire, and which should be called any of
them rather than all or some one of them, is a difficult matter.
How, then, shall we settle this point, and what questions about the
elements may be fairly raised?
In the first place, we see that what we just now called water, by
condensation, I suppose, becomes stone and earth; and this same
element, when melted and dispersed, passes into vapour and air. Air,
again, when inflamed, becomes fire; and again fire, when condensed
and extinguished, passes once more into the form of air; and once
more, air, when collected and condensed, produces cloud and mist;
and from these, when still more compressed, comes flowing water, and
from water comes earth and stones once more; and thus generation
appears to be transmitted from one to the other in a circle. Thus,
then, as the several elements never present themselves in the same
form, how can any one have the assurance to assert positively that
any of them, whatever it may be, is one thing rather than another?
No one can. But much the safest plan is to speak of them as
follows:-Anything which we see to be continually changing, as, for
example, fire, we must not call "this" or
"that," but rather say that it is "of such a
nature"; nor let us speak of water as "this"; but
always as "such"; nor must we imply that there is any
stability in any of those things which we indicate by the use of the
words "this" and "that," supposing ourselves to
signify something thereby; for they are too volatile to be detained
in any such expressions as "this," or "that," or
"relative to this," or any other mode of speaking which
represents them as permanent. We ought not to apply "this"
to any of them, but rather the word "such"; which
expresses the similar principle circulating in each and all of them;
for example, that should be called "fire" which is of such
a nature always, and so of everything that has generation. That in
which the elements severally grow up, and appear, and decay, is
alone to be called by the name "this" or "that";
but that which is of a certain nature, hot or white, or anything
which admits of opposite equalities, and all things that are
compounded of them, ought not to be so denominated. Let me make
another attempt to explain my meaning more clearly. Suppose a person
to make all kinds of figures of gold and to be always transmuting
one form into all the rest-somebody points to one of them and asks
what it is. By far the safest and truest answer is, That is gold;
and not to call the triangle or any other figures which are formed
in the gold "these," as though they had existence, since
they are in process of change while he is making the assertion; but
if the questioner be willing to take the safe and indefinite
expression, "such," we should be satisfied. And the same
argument applies to the universal nature which receives all
bodies-that must be always called the same; for, while receiving all
things, she never departs at all from her own nature, and never in
any way, or at any time, assumes a form like that of any of the
things which enter into her; she is the natural recipient of all
impressions, and is stirred and informed by them, and appears
different from time to time by reason of them. But the forms which
enter into and go out of her are the likenesses of real existences
modelled after their patterns in wonderful and inexplicable manner,
which we will hereafter investigate. For the present we have only to
conceive of three natures: first, that which is in process of
generation; secondly, that in which the generation takes place; and
thirdly, that of which the thing generated is a resemblance. And we
may liken the receiving principle to a mother, and the source or
spring to a father, and the intermediate nature to a child; and may
remark further, that if the model is to take every variety of form,
then the matter in which the model is fashioned will not be duly
prepared, unless it is formless, and free from the impress of any of
these shapes which it is hereafter to receive from without. For if
the matter were like any of the supervening forms, then whenever any
opposite or entirely different nature was stamped upon its surface,
it would take the impression badly, because it would intrude its own
shape. Wherefore, that which is to receive all forms should have no
form; as in making perfumes they first contrive that the liquid
substance which is to receive the scent shall be as inodorous as
possible; or as those who wish to impress figures on soft substances
do not allow any previous impression to remain, but begin by making
the surface as even and smooth as possible. In the same way that
which is to receive perpetually and through its whole extent the
resemblances of all eternal beings ought to be devoid of any
particular form. Wherefore, the mother and receptacle of all created
and visible and in any way sensible things, is not to be termed
earth, or air, or fire, or water, or any of their compounds or any
of the elements from which these are derived, but is an invisible
and formless being which receives all things and in some mysterious
way partakes of the intelligible, and is most incomprehensible. In
saying this we shall not be far wrong; as far, however, as we can
attain to a knowledge of her from the previous considerations, we
may truly say that fire is that part of her nature which from time
to time is inflamed, and water that which is moistened, and that the
mother substance becomes earth and air, in so far as she receives
the impressions of them.
Let us consider this question more precisely. Is there any
self-existent fire? and do all those things which we call
self-existent exist? or are only those things which we see, or in
some way perceive through the bodily organs, truly existent, and
nothing whatever besides them? And is all that which, we call an
intelligible essence nothing at all, and only a name? Here is a
question which we must not leave unexamined or undetermined, nor
must we affirm too confidently that there can be no decision;
neither must we interpolate in our present long discourse a
digression equally long, but if it is possible to set forth a great
principle in a few words, that is just what we want.
Thus I state my view:-If mind and true opinion are two distinct
classes, then I say that there certainly are these self-existent
ideas unperceived by sense, and apprehended only by the mind; if,
however, as some say, true opinion differs in no respect from mind,
then everything that we perceive through the body is to be regarded
as most real and certain. But we must affirm that to be distinct,
for they have a distinct origin and are of a different nature; the
one is implanted in us by instruction, the other by persuasion; the
one is always accompanied by true reason, the other is without
reason; the one cannot be overcome by persuasion, but the other can:
and lastly, every man may be said to share in true opinion, but mind
is the attribute of the gods and of very few men. Wherefore also we
must acknowledge that there is one kind of being which is always the
same, uncreated and indestructible, never receiving anything into
itself from without, nor itself going out to any other, but
invisible and imperceptible by any sense, and of which the
contemplation is granted to intelligence only. And there is another
nature of the same name with it, and like to it, perceived by sense,
created, always in motion, becoming in place and again vanishing out
of place, which is apprehended by opinion and sense. And there is a
third nature, which is space, and is eternal, and admits not of
destruction and provides a home for all created things, and is
apprehended without the help of sense, by a kind of spurious reason,
and is hardly real; which we beholding as in a dream, say of all
existence that it must of necessity be in some place and occupy a
space, but that what is neither in heaven nor in earth has no
existence. Of these and other things of the same kind, relating to
the true and waking reality of nature, we have only this dreamlike
sense, and we are unable to cast off sleep and determine the truth
about them. For an image, since the reality, after which it is
modelled, does not belong to it, and it exists ever as the fleeting
shadow of some other, must be inferred to be in another [i.e. in
space ], grasping existence in some way or other, or it could not be
at all. But true and exact reason, vindicating the nature of true
being, maintains that while two things [i.e. the image and space]
are different they cannot exist one of them in the other and so be
one and also two at the same time.
Thus have I concisely given the result of my thoughts; and my
verdict is that being and space and generation, these three, existed
in their three ways before the heaven; and that the nurse of
generation, moistened by water and inflamed by fire, and receiving
the forms of earth and air, and experiencing all the affections
which accompany these, presented a strange variety of appearances;
and being full of powers which were neither similar nor equally
balanced, was never in any part in a state of equipoise, but swaying
unevenly hither and thither, was shaken by them, and by its motion
again shook them; and the elements when moved were separated and
carried continually, some one way, some another; as, when rain is
shaken and winnowed by fans and other instruments used in the
threshing of corn, the close and heavy particles are borne away and
settle in one direction, and the loose and light particles in
another. In this manner, the four kinds or elements were then shaken
by the receiving vessel, which, moving like a winnowing machine,
scattered far away from one another the elements most unlike, and
forced the most similar elements into dose contact. Wherefore also
the various elements had different places before they were arranged
so as to form the universe. At first, they were all without reason
and measure. But when the world began to get into order, fire and
water and earth and air had only certain faint traces of themselves,
and were altogether such as everything might be expected to be in
the absence of God; this, I say, was their nature at that time, and
God fashioned them by form and number. Let it be consistently
maintained by us in all that we say that God made them as far as
possible the fairest and best, out of things which were not fair and
good. And now I will endeavour to show you the disposition and
generation of them by an unaccustomed argument, which am compelled
to use; but I believe that you will be able to follow me, for your
education has made you familiar with the methods of science.
In the first place, then, as is evident to all, fire and earth
and water and air are bodies. And every sort of body possesses
solidity, and every solid must necessarily be contained in planes;
and every plane rectilinear figure is composed of triangles; and all
triangles are originally of two kinds, both of which are made up of
one right and two acute angles; one of them has at either end of the
base the half of a divided right angle, having equal sides, while in
the other the right angle is divided into unequal parts, having
unequal sides. These, then, proceeding by a combination of
probability with demonstration, we assume to be the original
elements of fire and the other bodies; but the principles which are
prior to these God only knows, and he of men who is the friend God.
And next we have to determine what are the four most beautiful
bodies which are unlike one another, and of which some are capable
of resolution into one another; for having discovered thus much, we
shall know the true origin of earth and fire and of the
proportionate and intermediate elements. And then we shall not be
willing to allow that there are any distinct kinds of visible bodies
fairer than these. Wherefore we must endeavour to construct the four
forms of bodies which excel in beauty, and then we shall be able to
say that we have sufficiently apprehended their nature. Now of the
two triangles, the isosceles has one form only; the scalene or
unequal-sided has an infinite number. Of the infinite forms we must
select the most beautiful, if we are to proceed in due order, and
any one who can point out a more beautiful form than ours for the
construction of these bodies, shall carry off the palm, not as an
enemy, but as a friend. Now, the one which we maintain to be the
most beautiful of all the many triangles (and we need not speak of
the others) is that of which the double forms a third triangle which
is equilateral; the reason of this would be long to tell; he who
disproves what we are saying, and shows that we are mistaken, may
claim a friendly victory. Then let us choose two triangles, out of
which fire and the other elements have been constructed, one
isosceles, the other having the square of the longer side equal to
three times the square of the lesser side.
Now is the time to explain what was before obscurely said: there
was an error in imagining that all the four elements might be
generated by and into one another; this, I say, was an erroneous
supposition, for there are generated from the triangles which we
have selected four kinds-three from the one which has the sides
unequal; the fourth alone is framed out of the isosceles triangle.
Hence they cannot all be resolved into one another, a great number
of small bodies being combined into a few large ones, or the
converse. But three of them can be thus resolved and compounded, for
they all spring from one, and when the greater bodies are broken up,
many small bodies will spring up out of them and take their own
proper figures; or, again, when many small bodies are dissolved into
their triangles, if they become one, they will form one large mass
of another kind. So much for their passage into one another. I have
now to speak of their several kinds, and show out of what
combinations of numbers each of them was formed. The first will be
the simplest and smallest construction, and its element is that
triangle which has its hypotenuse twice the lesser side. When two
such triangles are joined at the diagonal, and this is repeated
three times, and the triangles rest their diagonals and shorter
sides on the same point as a centre, a single equilateral triangle
is formed out of six triangles; and four equilateral triangles, if
put together, make out of every three plane angles one solid angle,
being that which is nearest to the most obtuse of plane angles; and
out of the combination of these four angles arises the first solid
form which distributes into equal and similar parts the whole circle
in which it is inscribed. The second species of solid is formed out
of the same triangles, which unite as eight equilateral triangles
and form one solid angle out of four plane angles, and out of six
such angles the second body is completed. And the third body is made
up of 120 triangular elements, forming twelve solid angles, each of
them included in five plane equilateral triangles, having altogether
twenty bases, each of which is an equilateral triangle. The one
element [that is, the triangle which has its hypotenuse twice the
lesser side] having generated these figures, generated no more; but
the isosceles triangle produced the fourth elementary figure, which
is compounded of four such triangles, joining their right angles in
a centre, and forming one equilateral quadrangle. Six of these
united form eight solid angles, each of which is made by the
combination of three plane right angles; the figure of the body thus
composed is a cube, having six plane quadrangular equilateral bases.
There was yet a fifth combination which God used in the delineation
of the universe.
Now, he who, duly reflecting on all this, enquires whether the
worlds are to be regarded as indefinite or definite in number, will
be of opinion that the notion of their indefiniteness is
characteristic of a sadly indefinite and ignorant mind. He, however,
who raises the question whether they are to be truly regarded as one
or five, takes up a more reasonable position. Arguing from
probabilities, I am of opinion that they are one; another, regarding
the question from another point of view, will be of another mind.
But, leaving this enquiry, let us proceed to distribute the
elementary forms, which have now been created in idea, among the
four elements.
To earth, then, let us assign the cubical form; for earth is the
most immoveable of the four and the most plastic of all bodies, and
that which has the most stable bases must of necessity be of such a
nature. Now, of the triangles which we assumed at first, that which
has two equal sides is by nature more firmly based than that which
has unequal sides; and of the compound figures which are formed out
of either, the plane equilateral quadrangle has necessarily, a more
stable basis than the equilateral triangle, both in the whole and in
the parts. Wherefore, in assigning this figure to earth, we adhere
to probability; and to water we assign that one of the remaining
forms which is the least moveable; and the most moveable of them to
fire; and to air that which is intermediate. Also we assign the
smallest body to fire, and the greatest to water, and the
intermediate in size to air; and, again, the acutest body to fire,
and the next in acuteness to, air, and the third to water. Of all
these elements, that which has the fewest bases must necessarily be
the most moveable, for it must be the acutest and most penetrating
in every way, and also the lightest as being composed of the
smallest number of similar particles: and the second body has
similar properties in a second degree, and the third body in the
third degree. Let it be agreed, then, both according to strict
reason and according to probability, that the pyramid is the solid
which is the original element and seed of fire; and let us assign
the element which was next in the order of generation to air, and
the third to water. We must imagine all these to be so small that no
single particle of any of the four kinds is seen by us on account of
their smallness: but when many of them are collected together their
aggregates are seen. And the ratios of their numbers, motions, and
other properties, everywhere God, as far as necessity allowed or
gave consent, has exactly perfected, and harmonised in due
proportion.
From all that we have just been saying about the elements or
kinds, the most probable conclusion is as follows:-earth, when
meeting with fire and dissolved by its sharpness, whether the
dissolution take place in the fire itself or perhaps in some mass of
air or water, is borne hither and thither, until its parts, meeting
together and mutually harmonising, again become earth; for they can
never take any other form. But water, when divided by fire or by
air, on reforming, may become one part fire and two parts air; and a
single volume of air divided becomes two of fire. Again, when a
small body of fire is contained in a larger body of air or water or
earth, and both are moving, and the fire struggling is overcome and
broken up, then two volumes of fire form one volume of air; and when
air is overcome and cut up into small pieces, two and a half parts
of air are condensed into one part of water. Let us consider the
matter in another way. When one of the other elements is fastened
upon by fire, and is cut by the sharpness of its angles and sides,
it coalesces with the fire, and then ceases to be cut by them any
longer. For no element which is one and the same with itself can be
changed by or change another of the same kind and in the same state.
But so long as in the process of transition the weaker is fighting
against the stronger, the dissolution continues. Again, when a few
small particles, enclosed in many larger ones, are in process of
decomposition and extinction, they only cease from their tendency to
extinction when they consent to pass into the conquering nature, and
fire becomes air and air water. But if bodies of another kind go and
attack them [i.e. the small particles], the latter continue to be
dissolved until, being completely forced back and dispersed, they
make their escape to their own kindred, or else, being overcome and
assimilated to the conquering power, they remain where they are and
dwell with their victors, and from being many become one. And owing
to these affections, all things are changing their place, for by the
motion of the receiving vessel the bulk of each class is distributed
into its proper place; but those things which become unlike
themselves and like other things, are hurried by the shaking into
the place of the things to which they grow like.
Now all unmixed and primary bodies are produced by such causes as
these. As to the subordinate species which are included in the
greater kinds, they are to be attributed to the varieties in the
structure of the two original triangles. For either structure did
not originally produce the triangle of one size only, but some
larger and some smaller, and there are as many sizes as there are
species of the four elements. Hence when they are mingled with
themselves and with one another there is an endless variety of them,
which those who would arrive at the probable truth of nature ought
duly to consider.
Unless a person comes to an understanding about the nature and
conditions of rest and motion, he will meet with many difficulties
in the discussion which follows. Something has been said of this
matter already, and something more remains to be said, which is,
that motion never exists in what is uniform. For to conceive that
anything can be moved without a mover is hard or indeed impossible,
and equally impossible to conceive that there can be a mover unless
there be something which can be moved-motion cannot exist where
either of these are wanting, and for these to be uniform is
impossible; wherefore we must assign rest to uniformity and motion
to the want of uniformity. Now inequality is the cause of the nature
which is wanting in uniformity; and of this we have already
described the origin. But there still remains the further point-why
things when divided after their kinds do not cease to pass through
one another and to change their place-which we will now proceed to
explain. In the revolution of the universe are comprehended all the
four elements, and this being circular and having a tendency to come
together, compresses everything and will not allow any place to be
left void. Wherefore, also, fire above all things penetrates
everywhere, and air next, as being next in rarity of the elements;
and the two other elements in like manner penetrate according to
their degrees of rarity. For those things which are composed of the
largest particles have the largest void left in their compositions,
and those which are composed of the smallest particles have the
least. And the contraction caused by the compression thrusts the
smaller particles into the interstices of the larger. And thus, when
the small parts are placed side by side with the larger, and the
lesser divide the greater and the greater unite the lesser, all the
elements are borne up and down and hither and thither towards their
own places; for the change in the size of each changes its position
in space. And these causes generate an inequality which is always
maintained, and is continually creating a perpetual motion of the
elements in all time.
In the next place we have to consider that there are divers kinds
of fire. There are, for example, first, flame; and secondly, those
emanations of flame which do not burn but only give light to the
eyes; thirdly, the remains of fire, which are seen in red-hot embers
after the flame has been extinguished. There are similar differences
in the air; of which the brightest part is called the aether, and
the most turbid sort mist and darkness; and there are various other
nameless kinds which arise from the inequality of the triangles.
Water, again, admits in the first place of a division into two
kinds; the one liquid and the other fusile. The liquid kind is
composed of the small and unequal particles of water; and moves
itself and is moved by other bodies owing to the want of uniformity
and the shape of its particles; whereas the fusile kind, being
formed of large and uniform particles, is more stable than the
other, and is heavy and compact by reason of its uniformity. But
when fire gets in and dissolves the particles and destroys the
uniformity, it has greater mobility, and becoming fluid is thrust
forth by the neighbouring air and spreads upon the earth; and this
dissolution of the solid masses is called melting, and their
spreading out upon the earth flowing. Again, when the fire goes out
of the fusile substance, it does not pass into vacuum, but into the
neighbouring air; and the air which is displaced forces together the
liquid and still moveable mass into the place which was occupied by
the fire, and unites it with itself. Thus compressed the mass
resumes its equability, and is again at unity with itself, because
the fire which was the author of the inequality has retreated; and
this departure of the fire is called cooling, and the coming
together which follows upon it is termed congealment. Of all the
kinds termed fusile, that which is the densest and is formed out of
the finest and most uniform parts is that most precious possession
called gold, which is hardened by filtration through rock; this is
unique in kind, and has both a glittering and a yellow colour. A
shoot of gold, which is so dense as to be very hard, and takes a
black colour, is termed adamant. There is also another kind which
has parts nearly like gold, and of which there are several species;
it is denser than gold, and it contains a small and fine portion of
earth, and is therefore harder, yet also lighter because of the
great interstices which it has within itself; and this substance,
which is one of the bright and denser kinds of water, when
solidified is called copper. There is an alloy of earth mingled with
it, which, when the two parts grow old and are disunited, shows
itself separately and is called rust. The remaining phenomena of the
same kind there will be no difficulty in reasoning out by the method
of probabilities. A man may sometimes set aside meditations about
eternal things, and for recreation turn to consider the truths of
generation which are probable only; he will thus gain a pleasure not
to be repented of, and secure for himself while he lives a wise and
moderate pastime. Let us grant ourselves this indulgence, and go
through the probabilities relating to the same subjects which follow
next in order.
Water which is mingled with fire, so much as is fine and liquid
(being so called by reason of its motion and the way in which it
rolls along the ground), and soft, because its bases give way are
less stable than those of earth, when separated from fire and air
and isolated, becomes more uniform, and by their retirement is
compressed into itself; and if the condensation be very great, the
water above the earth becomes hail, but on the earth, ice; and that
which is congealed in a less degree and is only half solid, when
above the earth is called snow, and when upon the earth, and
condensed from dew, hoarfrost. Then, again, there are the numerous
kinds of water which have been mingled with one another, and are
distilled through plants which grow in the earth; and this whole
class is called by the name of juices or saps. The unequal admixture
of these fluids creates a variety of species; most of them are
nameless, but four which are of a fiery nature are clearly
distinguished and have names. First there is wine, which warms the
soul as well as the body: secondly, there is the oily nature, which
is smooth and divides the visual ray, and for this reason is bright
and shining and of a glistening appearance, including pitch, the
juice of the castor berry, oil itself, and other things of a like
kind: thirdly, there is the class of substances which expand the
contracted parts of the mouth, until they return to their natural
state, and by reason of this property create sweetness;-these are
included under the general name of honey: and, lastly, there is a
frothy nature, which differs from all juices, having a burning
quality which dissolves the flesh; it is called opos (a vegetable
acid).
As to the kinds of earth, that which is filtered through water
passes into stone in the following manner:-The water which mixes
with the earth and is broken up in the process changes into air, and
taking this form mounts into its own place. But as there is no
surrounding vacuum it thrusts away the neighbouring air, and this
being rendered heavy, and, when it is displaced, having been poured
around the mass of earth, forcibly compresses it and drives it into
the vacant space whence the new air had come up; and the earth when
compressed by the air into an indissoluble union with water becomes
rock. The fairer sort is that which is made up of equal and similar
parts and is transparent; that which has the opposite qualities is
inferior. But when all the watery part is suddenly drawn out by
fire, a more brittle substance is formed, to which we give the name
of pottery. Sometimes also moisture may remain, and the earth which
has been fused by fire becomes, when cool, a certain stone of a
black colour. A like separation of the water which had been
copiously mingled with them may occur in two substances composed of
finer particles of earth and of a briny nature; out of either of
them a half solid body is then formed, soluble in water-the one,
soda, which is used for purging away oil and earth, and other, salt,
which harmonizes so well in combinations pleasing to the palate, and
is, as the law testifies, a substance dear to the gods. The
compounds of earth and water are not soluble by water, but by fire
only, and for this reason:-Neither fire nor air melt masses of
earth; for their particles, being smaller than the interstices in
its structure, have plenty of room to move without forcing their
way, and so they leave the earth unmelted and undissolved; but
particles of water, which are larger, force a passage, and dissolve
and melt the earth. Wherefore earth when not consolidated by force
is dissolved by water only; when consolidated, by nothing but fire;
for this is the only body which can find an entrance. The cohesion
of water again, when very strong, is dissolved by fire only-when
weaker, then either by air or fire-the former entering the
interstices, and the latter penetrating even the triangles. But
nothing can dissolve air, when strongly condensed, which does not
reach the elements or triangles; or if not strongly condensed, then
only fire can dissolve it. As to bodies composed of earth and water,
while the water occupies the vacant interstices of the earth in them
which are compressed by force, the particles of water which approach
them from without, finding no entrance, flow around the entire mass
and leave it undissolved; but the particles of fire, entering into
the interstices of the water, do to the water what water does to
earth and fire to air, and are the sole causes of the compound body
of earth and water liquefying and becoming fluid. Now these bodies
are of two kinds; some of them, such as glass and the fusible sort
of stones, have less water than they have earth; on the other hand,
substances of the nature of wax and incense have more of water
entering into their composition.
I have thus shown the various classes of bodies as they are
diversified by their forms and combinations and changes into one
another, and now I must endeavour to set forth their affections and
the causes of them. In the first place, the bodies which I have been
describing are necessarily objects of sense. But we have not yet
considered the origin of flesh, or what belongs to flesh, or of that
part of the soul which is mortal. And these things cannot be
adequately explained without also explaining the affections which
are concerned with sensation, nor the latter without the former: and
yet to explain them together is hardly possible; for which reason we
must assume first one or the other and afterwards examine the nature
of our hypothesis. In order, then, that the affections may follow
regularly after the elements, let us presuppose the existence of
body and soul.
First, let us enquire what we mean by saying that fire is hot;
and about this we may reason from the dividing or cutting power
which it exercises on our bodies. We all of us feel that fire is
sharp; and we may further consider the fineness of the sides, and
the sharpness of the angles, and the smallness of the particles, and
the swiftness of the motion-all this makes the action of fire
violent and sharp, so that it cuts whatever it meets. And we must
not forget that the original figure of fire [i.e. the pyramid], more
than any other form, has a dividing power which cuts our bodies into
small pieces (Kepmatizei), and thus naturally produces that
affection which we call heat; and hence the origin of the name (thepmos,
Kepma). Now, the opposite of this is sufficiently manifest;
nevertheless we will not fail to describe it. For the larger
particles of moisture which surround the body, entering in and
driving out the lesser, but not being able to take their places,
compress the moist principle in us; and this from being unequal and
disturbed, is forced by them into a state of rest, which is due to
equability and compression. But things which are contracted contrary
to nature are by nature at war, and force themselves apart; and to
this war and convulsion the name of shivering and trembling is
given; and the whole affection and the cause of the affection are
both termed cold. That is called hard to which our flesh yields, and
soft which yields to our flesh; and things are also termed hard and
soft relatively to one another. That which yields has a small base;
but that which rests on quadrangular bases is firmly posed and
belongs to the class which offers the greatest resistance; so too
does that which is the most compact and therefore most repellent.
The nature of the light and the heavy will be best understood when
examined in connexion with our notions of above and below; for it is
quite a mistake to suppose that the universe is parted into two
regions, separate from and opposite to each other, the one a lower
to which all things tend which have any bulk, and an upper to which
things only ascend against their will. For as the universe is in the
form of a sphere, all the extremities, being equidistant from the
centre, are equally extremities, and the centre, which is
equidistant from them, is equally to be regarded as the opposite of
them all. Such being the nature of the world, when a person says
that any of these points is above or below, may he not be justly
charged with using an improper expression? For the centre of the
world cannot be rightly called either above or below, but is the
centre and nothing else; and the circumference is not the centre,
and has in no one part of itself a different relation to the centre
from what it has in any of the opposite parts. Indeed, when it is in
every direction similar, how can one rightly give to it names which
imply opposition? For if there were any solid body in equipoise at
the centre of the universe, there would be nothing to draw it to
this extreme rather than to that, for they are all perfectly
similar; and if a person were to go round the world in a circle, he
would often, when standing at the antipodes of his former position,
speak of the same point as above and below; for, as I was saying
just now, to speak of the whole which is in the form of a globe as
having one part above and another below is not like a sensible man.
The reason why these names are used, and the circumstances under
which they are ordinarily applied by us to the division of the
heavens, may be elucidated by the following supposition:-if a person
were to stand in that part of the universe which is the appointed
place of fire, and where there is the great mass of fire to which
fiery bodies gather-if, I say, he were to ascend thither, and,
having the power to do this, were to abstract particles of fire and
put them in scales and weigh them, and then, raising the balance,
were to draw the fire by force towards the uncongenial element of
the air, it would be very evident that he could compel the smaller
mass more readily than the larger; for when two things are
simultaneously raised by one and the same power, the smaller body
must necessarily yield to the superior power with less reluctance
than the larger; and the larger body is called heavy and said to
tend downwards, and the smaller body is called light and said to
tend upwards. And we may detect ourselves who are upon the earth
doing precisely the same thing. For we of separate earthy natures,
and sometimes earth itself, and draw them into the uncongenial
element of air by force and contrary to nature, both clinging to
their kindred elements. But that which is smaller yields to the
impulse given by us towards the dissimilar element more easily than
the larger; and so we call the former light, and the place towards
which it is impelled we call above, and the contrary state and place
we call heavy and below respectively. Now the relations of these
must necessarily vary, because the principal masses of the different
elements hold opposite positions; for that which is light, heavy,
below or above in one place will be found to be and become contrary
and transverse and every way diverse in relation to that which is
light, heavy, below or above in an opposite place. And about all of
them this has to be considered:-that the tendency of each towards
its kindred element makes the body which is moved heavy, and the
place towards which the motion tends below, but things which have an
opposite tendency we call by an opposite name. Such are the causes
which we assign to these phenomena. As to the smooth and the rough,
any one who sees them can explain the reason of them to another. For
roughness is hardness mingled with irregularity, and smoothness is
produced by the joint effect of uniformity and density.
The most important of the affections which concern the whole body
remains to be considered-that is, the cause of pleasure and pain in
the perceptions of which I have been speaking, and in all other
things which are perceived by sense through the parts of the body,
and have both pains and pleasures attendant on them. Let us imagine
the causes of every affection, whether of sense or not, to be of the
following nature, remembering that we have already distinguished
between the nature which is easy and which is hard to move; for this
is the direction in which we must hunt the prey which we mean to
take. A body which is of a nature to be easily moved, on receiving
an impression however slight, spreads abroad the motion in a circle,
the parts communicating with each other, until at last, reaching the
principle of mind, they announce the quality of the agent. But a
body of the opposite kind, being immobile, and not extending to the
surrounding region, merely receives the impression, and does not
stir any of the neighbouring parts; and since the parts do not
distribute the original impression to other parts, it has no effect
of motion on the whole animal, and therefore produces no effect on
the patient. This is true of the bones and hair and other more
earthy parts of the human body; whereas what was said above relates
mainly to sight and hearing, because they have in them the greatest
amount of fire and air. Now we must conceive of pleasure and pain in
this way. An impression produced in us contrary to nature and
violent, if sudden, is painful; and, again, the sudden return to
nature is pleasant; but a gentle and gradual return is imperceptible
and vice versa. On the other hand the impression of sense which is
most easily produced is most readily felt, but is not accompanied by
Pleasure or pain; such, for example, are the affections of the
sight, which, as we said above, is a body naturally uniting with our
body in the day-time; for cuttings and burnings and other affections
which happen to the sight do not give pain, nor is there pleasure
when the sight returns to its natural state; but the sensations are
dearest and strongest according to the manner in which the eye is
affected by the object, and itself strikes and touches it; there is
no violence either in the contraction or dilation of the eye. But
bodies formed of larger particles yield to the agent only with a
struggle; and then they impart their motions to the whole and cause
pleasure and pain-pain when alienated from their natural conditions,
and pleasure when restored to them. Things which experience gradual
withdrawings and emptyings of their nature, and great and sudden
replenishments, fail to perceive the emptying, but are sensible of
the replenishment; and so they occasion no pain, but the greatest
pleasure, to the mortal part of the soul, as is manifest in the case
of perfumes. But things which are changed all of a sudden, and only
gradually and with difficulty return to their own nature, have
effects in every way opposite to the former, as is evident in the
case of burnings and cuttings of the body.
Thus have we discussed the general affections of the whole body,
and the names of the agents which produce them. And now I will
endeavour to speak of the affections of particular parts, and the
causes and agents of them, as far as I am able. In the first place
let us set forth what was omitted when we were speaking of juices,
concerning the affections peculiar to the tongue. These too, like
most of the other affections, appear to be caused by certain
contractions and dilations, but they have besides more of roughness
and smoothness than is found in other affections; for whenever
earthy particles enter into the small veins which are the testing of
the tongue, reaching to the heart, and fall upon the moist, delicate
portions of flesh-when, as they are dissolved, they contract and dry
up the little veins, they are astringent if they are rougher, but if
not so rough, then only harsh. Those of them which are of an
abstergent nature, and purge the whole surface of the tongue, if
they do it in excess, and so encroach as to consume some part of the
flesh itself, like potash and soda, are all termed bitter. But the
particles which are deficient in the alkaline quality, and which
cleanse only moderately, are called salt, and having no bitterness
or roughness, are regarded as rather agreeable than otherwise.
Bodies which share in and are made smooth by the heat of the mouth,
and which are inflamed, and again in turn inflame that which heats
them, and which are so light that they are carried upwards to the
sensations of the head, and cut all that comes in their way, by
reason of these qualities in them, are all termed pungent. But when
these same particles, refined by putrefaction, enter into the narrow
veins, and are duly proportioned to the particles of earth and air
which are there, they set them whirling about one another, and while
they are in a whirl cause them to dash against and enter into one
another, and so form hollows surrounding the particles that
enter-which watery vessels of air (for a film of moisture, sometimes
earthy, sometimes pure, is spread around the air) are hollow spheres
of water; and those of them which are pure, are transparent, and are
called bubbles, while those composed of the earthy liquid, which is
in a state of general agitation and effervescence, are said to boil
or ferment-of all these affections the cause is termed acid. And
there is the opposite affection arising from an opposite cause, when
the mass of entering particles, immersed in the moisture of the
mouth, is congenial to the tongue, and smooths and oils over the
roughness, and relaxes the parts which are unnaturally contracted,
and contracts the parts which are relaxed, and disposes them all
according to their nature-that sort of remedy of violent affections
is pleasant and agreeable to every man, and has the name sweet. But
enough of this.
The faculty of smell does not admit of differences of kind; for
all smells are of a half formed nature, and no element is so
proportioned as to have any smell. The veins about the nose are too
narrow to admit earth and water, and too wide to detain fire and
air; and for this reason no one ever perceives the smell of any of
them; but smells always proceed from bodies that are damp, or
putrefying, or liquefying, or evaporating, and are perceptible only
in the intermediate state, when water is changing into air and air
into water; and all of them are either vapor or mist. That which is
passing out of air into water is mist, and that which is passing
from water into air is vapour; and hence all smells are thinner than
water and thicker than air. The proof of this is, that when there is
any obstruction to the respiration, and a man draws in his breath by
force, then no smell filters through, but the air without the smell
alone penetrates. Wherefore the varieties of smell have no name, and
they have not many, or definite and simple kinds; but they are
distinguished only painful and pleasant, the one sort irritating and
disturbing the whole cavity which is situated between the head and
the navel, the other having a soothing influence, and restoring this
same region to an agreeable and natural condition.
In considering the third kind of sense, hearing, we must speak of
the causes in which it originates. We may in general assume sound to
be a blow which passes through the ears, and is transmitted by means
of the air, the brain, and the blood, to the soul, and that hearing
is the vibration of this blow, which begins in the head and ends in
the region of the liver. The sound which moves swiftly is acute, and
the sound which moves slowly is grave, and that which is regular is
equable and smooth, and the reverse is harsh. A great body of sound
is loud, and a small body of sound the reverse. Respecting the
harmonies of sound I must hereafter speak.
There is a fourth class of sensible things, having many intricate
varieties, which must now be distinguished. They are called by the
general name of colours, and are a flame which emanates from every
sort of body, and has particles corresponding to the sense of sight.
I have spoken already, in what has preceded, of the causes which
generate sight, and in this place it will be natural and suitable to
give a rational theory of colours.
Of the particles coming from other bodies which fall upon the
sight, some are smaller and some are larger, and some are equal to
the parts of the sight itself. Those which are equal are
imperceptible, and we call them transparent. The larger produce
contraction, the smaller dilation, in the sight, exercising a power
akin to that of hot and cold bodies on the flesh, or of astringent
bodies on the tongue, or of those heating bodies which we termed
pungent. White and black are similar effects of contraction and
dilation in another sphere, and for this reason have a different
appearance. Wherefore, we ought to term white that which dilates the
visual ray, and the opposite of this is black. There is also a
swifter motion of a different sort of fire which strikes and dilates
the ray of sight until it reaches the eyes, forcing a way through
their passages and melting them, and eliciting from them a union of
fire and water which we call tears, being itself an opposite fire
which comes to them from an opposite direction-the inner fire
flashes forth like lightning, 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 dazzling, and the object
which produces it is called bright and flashing. There is another
sort of fire which is intermediate, and which reaches and mingles
with the moisture of the eye without flashing; and in this, the fire
mingling with the ray of the moisture, produces a colour like blood,
to which we give the name of red. A bright hue mingled with red and
white gives the colour called auburn. The law of proportion,
however, according to which the several colours are formed, even if
a man knew he would be foolish in telling, for he could not give any
necessary reason, nor indeed any tolerable or probable explanation
of them. Again, red, when mingled with black and white, becomes
purple, but it becomes umber when the colours are burnt as well as
mingled and the black is more thoroughly mixed with them. Flame
colour is produced by a union of auburn and dun, and dun by an
admixture of black and white; pale yellow, by an admixture of white
and auburn. White and bright meeting, and falling upon a full black,
become dark blue, and when dark blue mingles with white, a light
blue colour is formed, as flame-colour with black makes leek green.
There will be no difficulty in seeing how and by what mixtures the
colours derived from these are made according to the rules of
probability. He, however, who should attempt to verify all this by
experiment, would forget the difference of the human and divine
nature. For God only has the knowledge and also the power which are
able to combine many things into one and again resolve the one into
many. But no man either is or ever will be able to accomplish either
the one or the other operation.
These are the elements, thus of necessity then subsisting, which
the creator of the fairest and best of created things associated
with himself, when he made the self-sufficing and most perfect God,
using the necessary causes as his ministers in the accomplishment of
his work, but himself contriving the good in all his creations.
Wherefore we may distinguish two sorts of causes, the one divine and
the other necessary, and may seek for the divine in all things, as
far as our nature admits, with a view to the blessed life; but the
necessary kind only for the sake of the divine, considering that
without them and when isolated from them, these higher things for
which we look cannot be apprehended or received or in any way shared
by us.
Seeing, then, that we have now prepared for our use the various
classes of causes which are the material out of which the remainder
of our discourse must be woven, just as wood is the material of the
carpenter, let us revert in a few words to the point at which we
began, and then endeavour to add on a suitable ending to the
beginning of our tale.
As I said at first, when all things were in disorder God created
in each thing in relation to itself, and in all things in relation
to each other, all the measures and harmonies which they could
possibly receive. For in those days nothing had any proportion
except by accident; nor did any of the things which now have names
deserve to be named at all-as, for example, fire, water, and the
rest of the elements. All these the creator first set in order, and
out of them he constructed the universe, which was a single animal
comprehending in itself all other animals, mortal and immortal. Now
of the divine, he himself was the creator, but the creation of the
mortal he committed to his offspring. And they, imitating him,
received from him the immortal principle of the soul; and around
this they proceeded to fashion a mortal body, and. made it to be the
vehicle of the so and constructed within the body a soul of another
nature which was mortal, subject to terrible and irresistible
affections-first of all, pleasure, the greatest incitement to evil;
then, pain, which deters from good; also rashness and fear, two
foolish counsellors, anger hard to be appeased, and hope easily led
astray-these they mingled with irrational sense and with all-daring
love according to necessary laws, and so framed man. Wherefore,
fearing to pollute the divine any more than was absolutely
unavoidable, they gave to the mortal nature a separate habitation in
another part of the body, placing the neck between them to be the
isthmus and boundary, which they constructed between the head and
breast, to keep them apart. And in the breast, and in what is termed
the thorax, they encased the mortal soul; and as the one part of
this was superior and the other inferior they divided the cavity of
the thorax into two parts, as the women's and men's apartments are
divided in houses, and placed the midriff to be a wall of partition
between them. That part of the inferior soul which is endowed with
courage and passion and loves contention they settled nearer the
head, midway between the midriff and the neck, in order that it
might be under the rule of reason and might join with it in
controlling and restraining the desires when they are no longer
willing of their own accord to obey the word of command issuing from
the citadel.
The heart, the knot of the veins and the fountain of the blood
which races through all the limbs was set in the place of guard,
that when the might of passion was roused by reason making
proclamation of any wrong assailing them from without or being
perpetrated by the desires within, quickly the whole power of
feeling in the body, perceiving these commands and threats, might
obey and follow through every turn and alley, and thus allow the
principle of the best to have the command in all of them. But the
gods, foreknowing that the palpitation of the heart in the
expectation of danger and the swelling and excitement of passion was
caused by fire, formed and implanted as a supporter to the heart the
lung, which was, in the first place, soft and bloodless, and also
had within hollows like the pores of a sponge, in order that by
receiving the breath and the drink, it might give coolness and the
power of respiration and alleviate the heat. Wherefore they cut the
air-channels leading to the lung, and placed the lung about the
heart as a soft spring, that, when passion was rife within, the
heart, beating against a yielding body, might be cooled and suffer
less, and might thus become more ready to join with passion in the
service of reason.
The part of the soul which desires meats and drinks and the other
things of which it has need by reason of the bodily nature, they
placed between the midriff and the boundary of the navel, contriving
in all this region a sort of manger for the food of the body; and
there they bound it down like a wild animal which was chained up
with man, and must be nourished if man was to exist. They appointed
this lower creation his place here in order that he might be always
feeding at the manger, and have his dwelling as far as might be from
the council-chamber, making as little noise and disturbance as
possible, and permitting the best part to advise quietly for the
good of the whole. And knowing that this lower principle in man
would not comprehend reason, and even if attaining to some degree of
perception would never naturally care for rational notions, but that
it would be led away by phantoms and visions night and day-to be a
remedy for this, God combined with it the liver, and placed it in
the house of the lower nature, contriving that it should be solid
and smooth, and bright and sweet, and should also have a bitter
quality, in order that the power of thought, which proceeds from the
mind, might be reflected as in a mirror which receives likenesses of
objects and gives back images of them to the sight; and so might
strike terror into the desires, when, making use of the bitter part
of the liver, to which it is akin, it comes threatening and
invading, and diffusing this bitter element swiftly through the
whole liver produces colours like bile, and contracting every part
makes it wrinkled and rough; and twisting out of its right place and
contorting the lobe and closing and shutting up the vessels and
gates, causes pain and loathing. And the converse happens when some
gentle inspiration of the understanding pictures images of an
opposite character, and allays the bile and bitterness by refusing
to stir or touch the nature opposed to itself, but by making use of
the natural sweetness of the liver, corrects all things and makes
them to be right and smooth and free, and renders the portion of the
soul which resides about the liver happy and joyful, enabling it to
pass the night in peace, and to practise divination in sleep,
inasmuch as it has no share in mind and reason. For the authors of
our being, remembering the command of their father when he bade them
create the human race as good as they could, that they might correct
our inferior parts and make them to attain a measure of truth,
placed in the liver the seat of divination. And herein is a proof
that God has given the art of divination not to the wisdom, but to
the foolishness of man. No man, when in his wits, attains prophetic
truth and inspiration; but when he receives the inspired word,
either his intelligence is enthralled in sleep, or he is demented by
some distemper or possession. And he who would understand what he
remembers to have been said, whether in a dream or when he was
awake, by the prophetic and inspired nature, or would determine by
reason the meaning of the apparitions which he has seen, and what
indications they afford to this man or that, of past, present or
future good and evil, must first recover his wits. But, while he
continues demented, he cannot judge of the visions which he sees or
the words which he utters; the ancient saying is very true, that
"only a man who has his wits can act or judge about himself and
his own affairs." And for this reason it is customary to
appoint interpreters to be judges of the true inspiration. Some
persons call them prophets; they are quite unaware that they are
only the expositors of dark sayings and visions, and are not to be
called prophets at all, but only interpreters of prophecy.
Such is the nature of the liver, which is placed as we have
described in order that it may give prophetic intimations. During
the life of each individual these intimations are plainer, but after
his death the liver becomes blind, and delivers oracles too obscure
to be intelligible. The neighbouring organ [the spleen] is situated
on the left-hand side, and is constructed with a view of keeping the
liver bright and pure-like a napkin, always ready prepared and at
hand to clean the mirror. And hence, when any impurities arise in
the region of the liver by reason of disorders of the body, the
loose nature of the spleen, which is composed of a hollow and
bloodless tissue, receives them all and dears them away, and when
filled with the unclean matter, swells and festers, but, again, when
the body is purged, settles down into the same place as before, and
is humbled.
Concerning the soul, as to which part is mortal and which divine,
and how and why they are separated, and where located, if God
acknowledges that we have spoken the truth, then, and then only, can
we be confident; still, we may venture to assert that what has been
said by us is probable, and will be rendered more probable by
investigation. Let us assume thus much.
The creation of the rest of follows next in order, and this we
may investigate in a similar manner. And it appears to be very meet
that the body should be framed on the following principles:
The authors of our race were aware that we should be intemperate
in eating and drinking, and take a good deal more than was necessary
or proper, by reason of gluttony. In order then that disease might
not quickly destroy us, and lest our mortal race should perish
without fulfilling its end-intending to provide against this, the
gods made what is called the lower belly, to be a receptacle for the
superfluous meat and drink, and formed the convolution of the
bowels, so that the food might be prevented from passing quickly
through and compelling the body to require more food, thus producing
insatiable gluttony, and making the whole race an enemy to
philosophy and music, and rebellious against the divinest element
within us.
The bones and flesh, and other similar parts of us, were made as
follows. The first principle of all of them was the generation of
the marrow. For the bonds of life which unite the soul with the body
are made fast there, and they are the root and foundation of the
human race. The marrow itself is created out of other materials: God
took such of the primary triangles as were straight and smooth, and
were adapted by their perfection to produce fire and water, and air
and earth-these, I say, he separated from their kinds, and mingling
them in due proportions with one another, made the marrow out of
them to be a universal seed of the whole race of mankind; and in
this seed he then planted and enclosed the souls, and in the
original distribution gave to the marrow as many and various forms
as the different kinds of souls were hereafter to receive. That
which, like a field, was to receive the divine seed, he made round
every way, and called that portion of the marrow, brain, intending
that, when an animal was perfected, the vessel containing this
substance should be the head; but that which was intended to contain
the remaining and mortal part of the soul he distributed into
figures at once around and elongated, and he called them all by the
name "marrow"; and to these, as to anchors, fastening the
bonds of the whole soul, he proceeded to fashion around them the
entire framework of our body, constructing for the marrow, first of
all a complete covering of bone.
Bone was composed by him in the following manner. Having sifted
pure and smooth earth he kneaded it and wetted it with marrow, and
after that he put it into fire and then into water, and once more
into fire and again into water-in this way by frequent transfers
from one to the other he made it insoluble by either. Out of this he
fashioned, as in a lathe, a globe made of bone, which he placed
around the brain, and in this he left a narrow opening; and around
the marrow of the neck and back he formed vertebrae which he placed
under one another like pivots, beginning at the head and extending
through the whole of the trunk. Thus wishing to preserve the entire
seed, he enclosed it in a stone-like casing, inserting joints, and
using in the formation of them the power of the other or diverse as
an intermediate nature, that they might have motion and flexure.
Then again, considering that the bone would be too brittle and
inflexible, and when heated and again cooled would soon mortify and
destroy the seed within-having this in view, he contrived the sinews
and the flesh, that so binding all the members together by the
sinews, which admitted of being stretched and relaxed about the
vertebrae, he might thus make the body capable of flexion and
extension, while the flesh would serve as a protection against the
summer heat and against the winter cold, and also against falls,
softly and easily yielding to external bodies, like articles made of
felt; and containing in itself a warm moisture which in summer
exudes and makes the surface damp, would impart a nature coolness to
the whole body; and again in winter by the help of this internal
warmth would form a very tolerable defence against the frost which
surrounds it and attacks it from without. He who modelled us,
considering these things, mixed earth with fire and water and
blended them; and making a ferment of acid and salt, he mingled it
with them and formed soft and succulent flesh. As for the sinews, he
made them of a mixture of bone and unfermented flesh, attempered so
as to be in a mean, and gave them a yellow colour; wherefore the
sinews have a firmer and more glutinous nature than flesh, but a
softer and moister nature than the bones. With these God covered the
bones and marrow, binding them together by sinews, and then
enshrouded them all in an upper covering of flesh. The more living
and sensitive of the bones he enclosed in the thinnest film of
flesh, and those which had the least life within them in the
thickest and most solid flesh. So again on the joints of the bones,
where reason indicated that no more was required, he placed only a
thin covering of flesh, that it might not interfere with the flexion
of our bodies and make them unwieldy because difficult to move; and
also that it might not, by being crowded and pressed and matted
together, destroy sensation by reason of its hardness, and impair
the memory and dull the edge of intelligence. Wherefore also the
thighs and the shanks and the hips, and the bones of the arms and
the forearms, and other parts which have no joints, and the inner
bones, which on account of the rarity of the soul in the marrow are
destitute of reason-all these are abundantly provided with flesh;
but such as have mind in them are in general less fleshy, except
where the creator has made some part solely of flesh in order to
give sensation-as, for example, the tongue. But commonly this is not
the case. For the nature which comes into being and grows up in us
by a law of necessity, does not admit of the combination of solid
bone and much flesh with acute perceptions. More than any other part
the framework of the head would have had them, if they could have
co-existed, and the human race, having a strong and fleshy and
sinewy head, would have had a life twice or many times as long as it
now has, and also more healthy and free from pain.
But our creators, considering whether they should make a
longer-lived race which was worse, or a shorter-lived race which was
better, came to the conclusion that every one ought to prefer a
shorter span of life, which was better, to a longer one, which was
worse; and therefore they covered the head with thin bone, but not
with flesh and sinews, since it had no joints; and thus the head was
added, having more wisdom and sensation than the rest of the body,
but also being in every man far weaker. For these reasons and after
this manner God placed the sinews at the extremity of the head, in a
circle round the neck, and glued them together by the principle of
likeness and fastened the extremities of the jawbones to them below
the face, and the other sinews he dispersed throughout the body,
fastening limb to limb. The framers of us framed the mouth, as now
arranged, having teeth and tongue and lips, with a view to the
necessary and the good, contriving the way in for necessary
purposes, the way out for the best purposes; for that is necessary
which enters in and gives food to the body; but the river of speech,
which flows out of a man and ministers to the intelligence, is the
fairest and noblest of all streams. Still the head could neither be
left a bare frame of bones, on account of the extremes of heat and
cold in the different seasons, nor yet be allowed to be wholly
covered, and so become dull and senseless by reason of an overgrowth
of flesh. The fleshy nature was not therefore wholly dried up, but a
large sort of peel was parted off and remained over, which is now
called the skin. This met and grew by the help of the cerebral
moisture, and became the circular envelopment of the head. And the
moisture, rising up under the sutures, watered and closed in the
skin upon the crown, forming a sort of knot. The diversity of the
sutures was caused by the power of the courses of the soul and of
the food, and the more these struggled against one another the more
numerous they became, and fewer if the struggle were less violent.
This skin the divine power pierced all round with fire, and out of
the punctures which were thus made the moisture issued forth, and
the liquid and heat which was pure came away, and a mixed part which
was composed of the same material as the skin, and had a fineness
equal to the punctures, was borne up by its own impulse and extended
far outside the head, but being too slow to escape, was thrust back
by the external air, and rolled up underneath the skin, where it
took root. Thus the hair sprang up in the skin, being akin to it
because it is like threads of leather, but rendered harder and
closer through the pressure of the cold, by which each hair, while
in process of separation from the skin, is compressed and cooled.
Wherefore the creator formed the head hairy, making use of the
causes which I have mentioned, and reflecting also that instead of
flesh the brain needed the hair to be a light covering or guard,
which would give shade in summer and shelter in winter, and at the
same time would not impede our quickness of perception. From the
combination of sinew, skin, and bone, in the structure of the
finger, there arises a triple compound, which, when dried up, takes
the form of one hard skin partaking of all three natures, and was
fabricated by these second causes, but designed by mind which is the
principal cause with an eye to the future. For our creators well
knew that women and other animals would some day be framed out of
men, and they further knew that many animals would require the use
of nails for many purposes; wherefore they fashioned in men at their
first creation the rudiments of nails. For this purpose and for
these reasons they caused skin, hair, and nails to grow at the
extremities of the limbs. And now that all the parts and members of
the mortal animal had come together, since its life of necessity
consisted of fire and breath, and it therefore wasted away by
dissolution and depletion, the gods contrived the following remedy:
They mingled a nature akin to that of man with other forms and
perceptions, and thus created another kind of animal. These are the
trees and plants and seeds which have been improved by cultivation
and are now domesticated among us; anciently there were only the
will kinds, which are older than the cultivated. For everything that
partakes of life may be truly called a living being, and the animal
of which we are now speaking partakes of the third kind of soul,
which is said to be seated between the midriff and the navel, having
no part in opinion or reason or mind, but only in feelings of
pleasure and pain and the desires which accompany them. For this
nature is always in a passive state, revolving in and about itself,
repelling the motion from without and using its own, and accordingly
is not endowed by nature with the power of observing or reflecting
on its own concerns. Wherefore it lives and does not differ from a
living being, but is fixed and rooted in the same spot, having no
power of self-motion.
Now after the superior powers had created all these natures to be
food for us who are of the inferior nature, they cut various
channels through the body as through a garden, that it might be
watered as from a running stream. In the first place, they cut two
hidden channels or veins down the back where the skin and the flesh
join, which answered severally to the right and left side of the
body. These they let down along the backbone, so as to have the
marrow of generation between them, where it was most likely to
flourish, and in order that the stream coming down from above might
flow freely to the other parts, and equalise the irrigation. In the
next place, they divided the veins about the head, and interlacing
them, they sent them in opposite directions; those coming from the
right side they sent to the left of the body, and those from the
left they diverted towards the right, so that they and the skin
might together form a bond which should fasten the head to the body,
since the crown of the head was not encircled by sinews; and also in
order that the sensations from both sides might be distributed over
the whole body. And next, they ordered the water-courses of the body
in a manner which I will describe, and which will be more easily
understood if we begin by admitting that all things which have
lesser parts retain the greater, but the greater cannot retain the
lesser. Now of all natures fire has the smallest parts, and
therefore penetrates through earth and water and air and their
compounds, nor can anything hold it. And a similar principle applies
to the human belly; for when meats and drinks enter it, it holds
them, but it cannot hold air and fire, because the particles of
which they consist are smaller than its own structure.
These elements, therefore, God employed for the sake of
distributing moisture from the belly into the veins, weaving
together network of fire and air like a weel, having at the entrance
two lesser weels; further he constructed one of these with two
openings, and from the lesser weels he extended cords reaching all
round to the extremities of the network. All the interior of the net
he made of fire, but the lesser weels and their cavity, of air. The
network he took and spread over the newly-formed animal in the
following manner:-He let the lesser weels pass into the mouth; there
were two of them, and one he let down by the air-pipes into the
lungs, the other by the side of the air-pipes into the belly. The
former he divided into two branches, both of which he made to meet
at the channels of the nose, so that when the way through the mouth
did not act, the streams of the mouth as well were replenished
through the nose. With the other cavity (i.e. of the greater weel)
he enveloped the hollow parts of the body, and at one time he made
all this to flow into the lesser weels, quite gently, for they are
composed of air, and at another time he caused the lesser weels to
flow back again; and the net he made to find a way in and out
through the pores of the body, and the rays of fire which are bound
fast within followed the passage of the air either way, never at any
time ceasing so long as the mortal being holds together. This
process, as we affirm, the name-giver named inspiration and
expiration. And all this movement, active as well as passive, takes
place in order that the body, being watered and cooled, may receive
nourishment and life; for when the respiration is going in and out,
and the fire, which is fast bound within, follows it, and ever and
anon moving to and fro, enters through the belly and reaches the
meat and drink, it dissolves them, and dividing them into small
portions and guiding them through the passages where it goes, pumps
them as from a fountain into the channels of the veins, and makes
the stream of the veins flow through the body as through a conduit.
Let us once more consider the phenomena of respiration, and
enquire into the causes which have made it what it is. They are as
follows:-Seeing that there is no such thing as a vacuum into which
any of those things which are moved can enter, and the breath is
carried from us into the external air, the next point is, as will be
dear to every one, that it does not go into a vacant space, but
pushes its neighbour out of its place, and that which is thrust out
in turn drives out its neighbour; and in this everything of
necessity at last comes round to that place from whence the breath
came forth, and enters in there, and following the breath, fills up
the vacant space; and this goes on like the rotation of a wheel,
because there can be no such thing as a vacuum. Wherefore also the
breast and the lungs, when they emit the breath, are replenished by
the air which surrounds the body and which enters in through the
pores of the flesh and is driven round in a circle; and again, the
air which is sent away and passes out through the body forces the
breath inwards through the passage of the mouth and the nostrils.
Now the origin of this movement may be supposed to be as follows. In
the interior of every animal the hottest part is that which is
around the blood and veins; it is in a manner on internal fountain
of fire, which we compare to the network of a creel, being woven all
of fire and extended through the centre of the body, while the-outer
parts are composed of air. Now we must admit that heat naturally
proceeds outward to its own place and to its kindred element; and as
there are two exits for the heat, the out through the body, and the
other through the mouth and nostrils, when it moves towards the one,
it drives round the air at the other, and that which is driven round
falls into the fire and becomes warm, and that which goes forth is
cooled. But when the heat changes its place, and the particles at
the other exit grow warmer, the hotter air inclining in that
direction and carried towards its native element, fire, pushes round
the air at the other; and this being affected in the same way and
communicating the same impulse, a circular motion swaying to and
from is produced by the double process, which we call inspiration
and expiration.
The phenomena of medical cupping-glasses and of the swallowing of
drink and of the projection of bodies, whether discharged in the air
or bowled along the ground, are to be investigated on a similar
principle; and swift and slow sounds, which appear to be high and
low, and are sometimes discordant on account of their inequality,
and then again harmonical on account of the equality of the motion
which they excite in us. For when the motions of the antecedent
swifter sounds begin to pause and the two are equalised, the slower
sounds overtake the swifter and then propel them. When they overtake
them they do not intrude a new and discordant motion, but introduce
the beginnings of a slower, which answers to the swifter as it dies
away, thus producing a single mixed expression out of high and low,
whence arises a pleasure which even the unwise feel, and which to
the wise becomes a higher sort of delight, being an imitation of
divine harmony in mortal motions. Moreover, as to the flowing of
water, the fall of the thunderbolt, and the marvels that are
observed about the attraction of amber and the Heraclean stones,-in
none of these cases is there any attraction; but he who investigates
rightly, will find that such wonderful phenomena are attributable to
the combination of certain conditions-the non-existence of a vacuum,
the fact that objects push one another round, and that they change
places, passing severally into their proper positions as they are
divided or combined
Such as we have seen, is the nature and such are the causes of
respiration-the subject in which this discussion originated. For the
fire cuts the food and following the breath surges up within, fire
and breath rising together and filling the veins by drawing up out
of the belly and pouring into them the cut portions of the food; and
so the streams of food are kept flowing through the whole body in
all animals. And fresh cuttings from kindred substances, whether the
fruits of the earth or herb of the field, which God planted to be
our daily food, acquire all sorts of colours by their inter-mixture;
but red is the most pervading of them, being created by the cutting
action of fire and by the impression which it makes on a moist
substance; and hence the liquid which circulates in the body has a
colour such as we have described. The liquid itself we call blood,
which nourishes the flesh and the whole body, whence all parts are
watered and empty places filled.
Now the process of repletion and evacuation is effected after the
manner of the universal motion by which all kindred substances are
drawn towards one another. For the external elements which surround
us are always causing us to consume away, and distributing and
sending off like to like; the particles of blood, too, which are
divided and contained within the frame of the animal as in a sort of
heaven, are compelled to imitate the motion of the universe. Each,
therefore, of the divided parts within us, being carried to its
kindred nature, replenishes the void. When more is taken away than
flows in, then we decay, and when less, we grow and increase.
The frame of the entire creature when young has the triangles of
each kind new, and may be compared to the keel of a vessel which is
just off the stocks; they are locked firmly together and yet the
whole mass is soft and delicate, being freshly formed of marrow and
nurtured on milk. Now when the triangles out of which meats and
drinks are composed come in from without, and are comprehended in
the body, being older and weaker than the triangles already there,
the frame of the body gets the better of them and its newer
triangles cut them up, and so the animal grows great, being
nourished by a multitude of similar particles. But when the roots of
the triangles are loosened by having undergone many conflicts with
many things in the course of time, they are no longer able to cut or
assimilate the food which enters, but are themselves easily divided
by the bodies which come in from without. In this way every animal
is overcome and decays, and this affection is called old age. And at
last, when the bonds by which the triangles of the marrow are united
no longer hold, and are parted by the strain of existence, they in
turn loosen the bonds of the soul, and she, obtaining a natural
release, flies away with joy. For that which takes place according
to nature is pleasant, but that which is contrary to nature is
painful. And thus death, if caused by disease or produced by wounds,
is painful and violent; but that sort of death which comes with old
age and fulfils the debt of nature is the easiest of deaths, and is
accompanied with pleasure rather than with pain.
Now every one can see whence diseases arise. There are four
natures out of which the body is compacted, earth and fire and water
and air, and the unnatural excess or defect of these, or the change
of any of them from its own natural place into another, or-since
there are more kinds than one of fire and of the other elements-the
assumption by any of these of a wrong kind, or any similar
irregularity, produces disorders and diseases; for when any of them
is produced or changed in a manner contrary to nature, the parts
which were previously cool grow warm, and those which were dry
become moist, and the light become heavy, and the heavy light; all
sorts of changes occur. For, as we affirm, a thing can only remain
the same with itself, whole and sound, when the same is added to it,
or subtracted from it, in the same respect and in the same manner
and in due proportion; and whatever comes or goes away in violation
of these laws causes all manner of changes and infinite diseases and
corruptions. Now there is a second class of structures which are
also natural, and this affords a second opportunity of observing
diseases to him who would understand them. For whereas marrow and
bone and flesh and sinews are composed of the four elements, and the
blood, though after another manner, is likewise formed out of them,
most diseases originate in the way which I have described; but the
worst of all owe their severity to the fact that the generation of
these substances stances in a wrong order; they are then destroyed.
For the natural order is that the flesh and sinews should be made of
blood, the sinews out of the fibres to which they are akin, and the
flesh out of the dots which are formed when the fibres are
separated. And the glutinous and rich matter which comes away from
the sinews and the flesh, not only glues the flesh to the bones, but
nourishes and imparts growth to the bone which surrounds the marrow;
and by reason of the solidity of the bones, that which filters
through consists of the purest and smoothest and oiliest sort of
triangles, dropping like dew from the bones and watering the marrow.
Now when each process takes place in this order, health commonly
results; when in the opposite order, disease. For when the flesh
becomes decomposed and sends back the wasting substance into the
veins, then an over-supply of blood of diverse kinds, mingling with
air in the veins, having variegated colours and bitter properties,
as well as acid and saline qualities, contains all sorts of bile and
serum and phlegm. For all things go the wrong way, and having become
corrupted, first they taint the blood itself, and then ceasing to
give nourishment the body they are carried along the veins in all
directions, no longer preserving the order of their natural courses,
but at war with themselves, because they receive no good from one
another, and are hostile to the abiding constitution of the body,
which they corrupt and dissolve. The oldest part of the flesh which
is corrupted, being hard to decompose, from long burning grows
black, and from being everywhere corroded becomes bitter, and is
injurious to every part of the body which is still uncorrupted.
Sometimes, when the bitter element is refined away, the black part
assumes an acidity which takes the place of the bitterness; at other
times the bitterness being tinged with blood has a redder colour;
and this, when mixed with black, takes the hue of grass; and again,
an auburn colour mingles with the bitter matter when new flesh is
decomposed by the fire which surrounds the internal flame-to all
which symptoms some physician perhaps, or rather some philosopher,
who had the power of seeing in many dissimilar things one nature
deserving of a name, has assigned the common name of bile. But the
other kinds of bile are variously distinguished by their colours. As
for serum, that sort which is the watery part of blood is innocent,
but that which is a secretion of black and acid bile is malignant
when mingled by the power of heat with any salt substance, and is
then called acid phlegm. Again, the substance which is formed by the
liquefaction of new and tender flesh when air is present, if
inflated and encased in liquid so as to form bubbles, which
separately are invisible owing to their small size, but when
collected are of a bulk which is visible, and have a white colour
arising out of the generation of foam-all this decomposition of
tender flesh when inter-mingled with air is termed by us white
phlegm. And the whey or sediment of newly-formed phlegm is sweat and
tears, and includes the various daily discharges by which the body
is purified. Now all these become causes of disease when the blood
is not replenished in a natural manner by food and drink but gains
bulk from opposite sources in violation of the laws of nature. When
the several parts of the flesh are separated by disease, if the
foundation remains, the power of the disorder is only half as great,
and there is still a prospect of an easy recovery; but when that
which binds the flesh to the bones is diseased, and no longer being
separated from the muscles and sinews, ceases to give nourishment to
the bone and to unite flesh and bone, and from being oily and smooth
and glutinous becomes rough and salt and dry, owing to bad regimen,
then all the substance thus corrupted crumbles away under the flesh
and the sinews, and separates from the bone, and the fleshy parts
fall away from their foundation and leave the sinews bare and full
of brine, and the flesh again gets into the circulation of the blood
and makes the previously-mentioned disorders still greater. And if
these bodily affections be severe, still worse are the prior
disorders; as when the bone itself, by reason of the density of the
flesh, does not obtain sufficient air, but becomes mouldy and hot
and gangrened and receives no nutriment, and the natural process is
inverted, and the bone crumbling passes into the food, and the food
into the flesh, and the flesh again falling into the blood makes all
maladies that may occur more virulent than those already mentioned.
But the worst case of all is when the marrow is diseased, either
from excess or defect; and this is the cause of the very greatest
and most fatal disorders, in which the whole course of the body is
reversed.
There is a third class of diseases which may be conceived of as
arising in three ways; for they are produced sometimes by wind, and
sometimes by phlegm, and sometimes by bile. When the lung, which is
the dispenser of the air to the body, is obstructed by rheums and
its passages are not free, some of them not acting, while through
others too much air enters, then the parts which are unrefreshed by
air corrode, while in other parts the excess of air forcing its way
through the veins distorts them and decomposing the body is enclosed
in the midst of it and occupies the midriff thus numberless painful
diseases are produced, accompanied by copious sweats. And oftentimes
when the flesh is dissolved in the body, wind, generated within and
unable to escape, is the source of quite as much pain as the air
coming in from without; but the greatest pain is felt when the wind
gets about the sinews and the veins of the shoulders, and swells
them up, so twists back the great tendons and the sinews which are
connected with them. These disorders are called tetanus and
opisthotonus, by reason of the tension which accompanies them. The
cure of them is difficult; relief is in most cases given by fever
supervening. The white phlegm, though dangerous when detained within
by reason of the air-bubbles, yet if it can communicate with the
outside air, is less severe, and only discolours the body,
generating leprous eruptions and similar diseases. When it is
mingled with black bile and dispersed about the courses of the head,
which are the divinest part of us, the attack if coming on in sleep,
is not so severe; but when assailing those who are awake it is hard
to be got rid of, and being an affection of a sacred part, is most
justly called sacred. An acid and salt phlegm, again, is the source
of all those diseases which take the form of catarrh, but they have
many names because the places into which they flow are manifold.
Inflammations of the body come from burnings and inflamings, and
all of them originate in bile. When bile finds a means of discharge,
it boils up and sends forth all sorts of tumours; but when
imprisoned within, it generates many inflammatory diseases, above
all when mingled with pure blood; since it then displaces the fibres
which are scattered about in the blood and are designed to maintain
the balance of rare and dense, in order that the blood may not be so
liquefied by heat as to exude from the pores of the body, nor again
become too dense and thus find a difficulty in circulating through
the veins. The fibres are so constituted as to maintain this
balance; and if any one brings them all together when the blood is
dead and in process of cooling, then the blood which remains becomes
fluid, but if they are left alone, they soon congeal by reason of
the surrounding cold. The fibres having this power over the blood,
bile, which is only stale blood, and which from being flesh is
dissolved again into blood, at the first influx coming in little by
little, hot and liquid, is congealed by the power of the fibres; and
so congealing and made to cool, it produces internal cold and
shuddering. When it enters with more of a flood and overcomes the
fibres by its heat, and boiling up throws them into disorder, if it
have power enough to maintain its supremacy, it penetrates the
marrow and burns up what may be termed the cables of the soul, and
sets her free; but when there is not so much of it, and the body
though wasted still holds out, the bile is itself mastered, and is
either utterly banished, or is thrust through the veins into the
lower or upper-belly, and is driven out of the body like an exile
from a state in which there has been civil war; whence arise
diarrhoeas and dysenteries, and all such disorders. When the
constitution is disordered by excess of fire, continuous heat and
fever are the result; when excess of air is the cause, then the
fever is quotidian; when of water, which is a more sluggish element
than either fire or air, then the fever is a tertian; when of earth,
which is the most sluggish of the four, and is only purged away in a
four-fold period, the result is a quartan fever, which can with
difficulty be shaken off.
Such is the manner in which diseases of the body arise; the
disorders of the soul, which depend upon the body, originate as
follows. We must acknowledge disease of the mind to be a want of
intelligence; and of this there are two kinds; to wit, madness and
ignorance. In whatever state a man experiences either of them, that
state may be called disease; and excessive pains and pleasures are
justly to be regarded as the greatest diseases to which the soul is
liable. For a man who is in great joy or in great pain, in his
unseasonable eagerness to attain the one and to avoid the other, is
not able to see or to hear anything rightly; but he is mad, and is
at the time utterly incapable of any participation in reason. He who
has the seed about the spinal marrow too plentiful and overflowing,
like a tree overladen with fruit, has many throes, and also obtains
many pleasures in his desires and their offspring, and is for the
most part of his life deranged, because his pleasures and pains are
so very great; his soul is rendered foolish and disordered by his
body; yet he is regarded not as one diseased, but as one who is
voluntarily bad, which is a mistake. The truth is that the
intemperance of love is a disease of the soul due chiefly to the
moisture and fluidity which is produced in one of the elements by
the loose consistency of the bones. And in general, all that which
is termed the incontinence of pleasure and is deemed a reproach
under the idea that the wicked voluntarily do wrong is not justly a
matter for reproach. For no man is voluntarily bad; but the bad
become bad by reason of an ill disposition of the body and bad
education, things which are hateful to every man and happen to him
against his will. And in the case of pain too in like manner the
soul suffers much evil from the body. For where the acid and briny
phlegm and other bitter and bilious humours wander about in the
body, and find no exit or escape, but are pent up within and mingle
their own vapours with the motions of the soul, and are blended,
with them, they produce all sorts of diseases, more or fewer, and in
every degree of intensity; and being carried to the three places of
the soul, whichever they may severally assail, they create infinite
varieties of ill-temper and melancholy, of rashness and cowardice,
and also of forgetfulness and stupidity. Further, when to this evil
constitution of body evil forms of government are added and evil
discourses are uttered in private as well as in public, and no sort
of instruction is given in youth to cure these evils, then all of us
who are bad become bad from two causes which are entirely beyond our
control. In such cases the planters are to blame rather than the
plants, the educators rather than the educated. But however that may
be, we should endeavour as far as we can by education, and studies,
and learning, to avoid vice and attain virtue; this, however, is
part of another subject.
There is a corresponding enquiry concerning the mode of treatment
by which the mind and the body are to be preserved, about which it
is meet and right that I should say a word in turn; for it is more
our duty to speak of the good than of the evil. Everything that is
good is fair, and the animal fair is not without proportion, and the
animal which is to be fair must have due proportion. Now we perceive
lesser symmetries or proportions and reason about them, but of the
highest and greatest we take no heed; for there is no proportion or
disproportion more productive of health and disease, and virtue and
vice, than that between soul and body. This however we do not
perceive, nor do we reflect that when a weak or small frame is the
vehicle of a great and mighty soul, or conversely, when a little
soul is encased in a large body, then the whole animal is not fair,
for it lacks the most important of all symmetries; but the due
proportion of mind and body is the fairest and loveliest of all
sights to him who has the seeing eye. Just as a body which has a leg
too long, or which is unsymmetrical in some other respect, is an
unpleasant sight, and also, when doing its share of work, is much
distressed and makes convulsive efforts, and often stumbles through
awkwardness, and is the cause of infinite evil to its own self-in
like manner we should conceive of the double nature which we call
the living being; and when in this compound there is an impassioned
soul more powerful than the body, that soul, I say, convulses and
fills with disorders the whole inner nature of man; and when eager
in the pursuit of some sort of learning or study, causes wasting; or
again, when teaching or disputing in private or in public, and
strifes and controversies arise, inflames and dissolves the
composite frame of man and introduces rheums; and the nature of this
phenomenon is not understood by most professors of medicine, who
ascribe it to the opposite of the real cause. And once more, when
body large and too strong for the soul is united to a small and weak
intelligence, then inasmuch as there are two desires natural to
man,-one of food for the sake of the body, and one of wisdom for the
sake of the diviner part of us-then, I say, the motions of the
stronger, getting the better and increasing their own power, but
making the soul dull, and stupid, and forgetful, engender ignorance,
which is the greatest of diseases. There is one protection against
both kinds of disproportion:-that we should not move the body
without the soul or the soul without the body, and thus they will be
on their guard against each other, and be healthy and well balanced.
And therefore the mathematician or any one else whose thoughts are
much absorbed in some intellectual pursuit, must allow his body also
to have due exercise, and practise gymnastic; and he who is careful
to fashion the body, should in turn impart to the soul its proper
motions, and should cultivate music and all philosophy, if he would
deserve to be called truly fair and truly good. And the separate
parts should be treated in the same manner, in imitation of the
pattern of the universe; for as the body is heated and also cooled
within by the elements which enter into it, and is again dried up
and moistened by external things, and experiences these and the like
affections from both kinds of motions, the result is that the body
if given up to motion when in a state of quiescence is overmastered
and perishes; but if any one, in imitation of that which we call the
foster-mother and nurse of the universe, will not allow the body
ever to be inactive, but is always producing motions and agitations
through its whole extent, which form the natural defence against
other motions both internal and external, and by moderate exercise
reduces to order according to their affinities the particles and
affections which are wandering about the body, as we have already
said when speaking of the universe, he will not allow enemy placed
by the side of enemy to stir up wars and disorders in the body, but
he will place friend by the side of friend, so as to create health.
Now of all motions that is the best which is produced in a thing
by itself, for it is most akin to the motion of thought and of the
universe; but that motion which is caused by others is not so good,
and worst of all is that which moves the body, when at rest, in
parts only and by some external agency. Wherefore of all modes of
purifying and reuniting the body the best is gymnastic; the next
best is a surging motion, as in sailing or any other mode of
conveyance which is not fatiguing; the third sort of motion may be
of use in a case of extreme necessity, but in any other will be
adopted by no man of sense: I mean the purgative treatment of
physicians; for diseases unless they are very dangerous should not
be irritated by medicines, since every form of disease is in a
manner akin to the living being, whose complex frame has an
appointed term of life. For not the whole race only, but each
individual-barring inevitable accidents-comes into the world having
a fixed span, and the triangles in us are originally framed with
power to last for a certain time, beyond which no man prolong his
life. And this holds also of the constitution of diseases; if any
one regardless of the appointed time tries to subdue them by
medicine, he only aggravates and multiplies them. Wherefore we ought
always to manage them by regimen, as far as a man can spare the
time, and not provoke a disagreeable enemy by medicines.
Enough of the composite animal, and of the body which is a part
of him, and of the manner in which a man may train and be trained by
himself so as to live most according to reason: and we must above
and before all provide that the element which is to train him shall
be the fairest and best adapted to that purpose. A minute discussion
of this subject would be a serious task; but if, as before, I am to
give only an outline, the subject may not unfitly be summed up as
follows.
I have often remarked that there are three kinds of soul located
within us, having each of them motions, and I must now repeat in the
fewest words possible, that one part, if remaining inactive and
ceasing from its natural motion, must necessarily become very weak,
but that which is trained and exercised, very strong. Wherefore we
should take care that the movements of the different parts of the
soul should be in due proportion.
And we should consider that God gave the sovereign part of the
human soul to be the divinity of each one, being that part which, as
we say, dwells at the top of the body, 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 happy. 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 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 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 with 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 light-minded 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 of the
head, but followed the guidance of those parts of the soul which are
in the breast. In consequence of these habits of theirs they had
their front-legs and their heads resting upon the earth to which
they were drawn by natural affinity; and the crowns of their heads
were elongated and of all sorts of shapes, into which the courses of
the soul were crushed by reason of disuse. And this was the reason
why they were created quadrupeds and polypods: God gave the more
senseless of them the more support that they might be more attracted
to the earth. And the most foolish of them, who trail their bodies
entirely upon the ground and have no longer any need of feet, he
made without feet to crawl upon the earth. The fourth class were the
inhabitants of the water: these were made out of the most entirely
senseless and ignorant of all, whom the transformers did not think
any longer worthy of pure respiration, because they possessed a soul
which was made impure by all sorts of transgression; and instead of
the subtle and pure medium of air, they gave them the deep and muddy
sea to be their element of respiration; and hence arose the race of
fishes and oysters, and other aquatic animals, which have received
the most remote habitations as a punishment of their outlandish
ignorance. These are the laws by which animals pass into one
another, now, as ever, changing as they lose or gain wisdom and
folly.
We may now say that our discourse about the nature of the
universe has an end. The world has received animals, mortal and
immortal, and is fulfilled with them, and has become a visible
animal containing the visible-the sensible God who is the image of
the intellectual, the greatest, best, fairest, most perfect-the one
only begotten heaven.
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