TIMAEUS LOCRIUS,
The Teacher of Plato, on
THE SOUL AND THE WORLD
1. MIND, NECESSITY, FORM & MATTER
Timaeus the Locrian asserted this:—that of all the things in the Universe, there are two causes, (one) Mind, (the cause) of things existing according to reason; (the other) Necessity, (the cause) of things (existing) by (some) force, according to the power of the bodies; and that the former of these is the nature of the good, and is called god, and the principle of things that are best; but what accessory causes follow, are referred to Necessity. As regards the things in the Universe, there are Form, Matter, and the Perceptible; which is, as it were, a resultance of the two others; and that Form is unproduced, and unmoved, and stationary, and of the nature of the same, and perceptible by the mind, and a pattern of such things produced, as exist by a stay of change; for that some such thing: as this is Form, spoken of and conceived to be.
Matter, however, is a mould, and a mother and a nurse, and procreative of the third kind of being; for receiving upon itself the resemblances, and as it were remoulding them, it perfects these productions. He asserted moreover that matter, though eternal, is not unmoved; and though of itself it is formless and shapeless, yet it receives every kind of form; and that what is around bodies, is divisible, and partakes of the nature of the different; and that matter is called by the twin names of Place and Space.
These two principles, then, are opposite to each other; of which Form relates to a male power, and a father; while matter relates to a female, and a mother. Being three, they are recognizable by three marks: Form, by mind, according to knowledge; Matter by a spurious kind of reasoning, because of its not being mentally perceived directly, but by analogy. and their productions by sensation and opinion.
2. CREATION OF THE WORLD
Before the heavens, then, there existed, through reason, Form and Matter, and the God who develops the best. But since the older surpasses the younger and the ordered surpasses the orderless, the deity being good, on seeing that Matter receives Form, and is altered in every way, but without order, feels the necessity of organizing it, altering the undefined to the defined, so that the differences between bodies might be similarly related, not receiving various turns at hap-hazard. He therefore made this world out of the whole of Matter, laying it down as a limit to the nature of being, through its containing in itself all the rest of things, being one, only-begotten, perfect, endued with soul and reason,—for these qualities are superior to the soulless and the irrational,—and of a sphere-like body; for this is more perfect than the rest of forms.
Desirous then of making a very good production, he made it a deity, created and never to be destroyed by any cause other than the God, who had put it in order, if indeed he should ever wish to dissolve it. But on the part of the good there is no rushing forward to the destruction of a very beautiful production. Such therefore being the world, it continues without corruption and destruction, being blessed. It is the best of things created; since it has been produced by the best cause, that looks not to patterns made by hand, but to Form in the abstract, and to Existence, perceived by the mind to which the created thing, having been carefully adjusted, has become the most beautiful, and to be not wrongly undertaken. It is ever perfect according to the things perceived by sense,
because the pattern perceived by mind contains in itself all the living things perceived by mind; and he left out of itself nothing, as being the limit of the things perceived by mind, as this world is of those perceived by sense.
As being solid, and perceptible by touch and sight, it has a share of earth and fire, and of the things between them, air and water; and it is composed of bodies all perfect, which are in it as wholes, so that no part might ever be left out of it, in order that the body of the Universe might be altogether self-sufficient, uninjured by corruption without or within; for apart from these there is nothing else, for the things combined according to the best proportions and with equal powers, neither rule over, nor are ruled by each other in turn, so that some receive an increase, others a decrease, remaining indissolubly united according to the very best proportions.
3. Proportions of the World-combination.
For whenever there are any three terms, with mutually equal intervals, that are proportionate, we then perceive that, after the manner of an extended string, the middle is to the first, as is the third to it; and this holds true inversely and alternately, interchanging places and order; so that it is impossible to arrange them numerically without producing an equivalence of results. Likewise the world's shape and movement are well arranged; the shape is a sphere self-similar on all sides, able to contain all shapes that are similar; the movement endlessly exhibits the change dependent on a circle. Now as the sphere is on every side equidistant from the centre, it is able to retain its poise whether in movement or at rest; neither leaving its poise, nor assuming another. Its external appearance being exactly smooth, it needs no mortal organs such as are fitted to, and present in all other living beings, because of their wants. The world-souls' element of divinity radiates out from the centre, entirely penetrating the whole world, forming a single mixture of divided substance with undivided form; and this mixture of two forces, the same and the different, became the origin of motion; which indeed was not accomplished in the easiest way, being extremely difficult.
Now all these proportions are combined harmonically according to numbers; which proportions were scientifically divided according to a scale which reveals the elements and the means of the soul's combination. Now seeing that the earlier is more honorable in power and time than the later, the deity did not rank the soul after the substance of the body, but made it older, by taking the first of unities, 384 (12x16). Knowing this first, we can easily reckon the double and the triple; and all the terms together, with the complements and eighths, must amount to 114,695 and likewise the divisions (sum of the tone-sequences of 36 tones, amounting to 384x27, the perfect cube).
4. Planetary Revolutions and Time.
God the eternal, the chief ruler of the Universe, and its creator is beheld alone by the mind; but we may behold by sight all that is produced in this world and its parts, how many soever they are in heaven; which, as being ethereal, must be divided into kinds, some relating to sameness, and others to difference. Sameness draws toward all that is without, along the general eastward movement from the west. Difference draws from within all self-moved portions from west to east, fortuitously rolling around and along by the superior power of sameness.
The different's movement, being divided in harmonical proportion, assumes the order of seven circles. Nearest to the earth, the Moon revolves in a month; while beyond her the Sun completes his revolution in a year. Two planets run a course equal with that of the Sun: Mercury, and Juno, also called Venus and Lucifer, because shepherds and people generally are not skilful in sacred astronomy, confusing the western and eastern risings. The same star may shine in the west when following the Sun at a distance great enough to be visible in spite of solar splendor; and at another time in the east, when, as herald of the day it rises before the Sun, leading it. Because of its running together with the sun, Venus is Lucifer frequently but not always; for there are planets and stars of any magnitude seen above the horizon before sunrise, herald the day. But the three other planets, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn have their peculiar velocities and different years, completing their course while making their periods of effulgence, of visibility, of obscuration and eclipse, causing accurate rising and settings. Moreover they complete their appearances conspicuously in east or west according to their position relative to the Sun, who during the day speeds westward, which during the night it reverses, under the influence of sameness; while its annual revolution is due to its inherent motion. In resultance of these two kinds of motion it rolls out a spiral, creeping according to one portion, in the time of a day, but, whirled around under the sphere of the fixed stars, according to each revolution of darkness and day.
Now these revolutions are by men called portions of time, which the deity arranged together with the world. For before the world the stars did not exist; and hence there was neither year, nor periods of seasons, by which this generated time is measured, and which is the representation of the ungenerated time called eternity. For as this heaven has been produced according to an eternal pattern,—the world of ideas,—so according to the pattern of eternity was our world-time created simultaneously with the world.
5. The Earth's Creation by Geometric Figures.
The Earth, fixed at the centre, becomes the hearth of the gods, and the boundary of darkness and day, producing both settings and risings, according to the occultations produced by the things that form the boundary, just as we improve our sight by making a tube with our closed hand, to exclude refraction. The Earth is the oldest body in the heavens. Water was not produced without earth, nor air without moisture; nor could fire continue without moisture and the materials that are inflammable; so that the Earth is fixed upon its balance as the root and base of all other substances. Of produced things, the substratum is Matter, while the reason of each shape is abstract Form; of these two the resultance is Earth, and Water, Air and Fire.
This is how they were created. Every body is composed of surfaces, whose elements are triangles; of which one is right-angled, and the other has all unequal sides, with the greater angle thrice the size of the lesser; while its least angle is the the third of a right angle, and the middle one is the double of the least; for it is two parts out of three; while the greatest is a right angle, being one and a half greater than the middle one, and the triple of the least. Now this unequal sides triangle is the half of an equilateral triangle, cut into two equal parts by a line let down from the apex to that base. Now in each of these triangles there is a right angle; but in the one the two sides about the right angle are equal, and in the other all the sides are unequal. Now let this be called a scalene triangle; while the other, the half of the square, is the principle of the constitution of the Earth. For the square produced from this scalene triangle is composed of four half-squares and from such a square is produced the cube, a body the most stationary and steady in every way; having six sides and eight angles, and on this account the Earth is a body the heaviest and most difficult to be moved, and its substance is inconvertible, because it has no affinity with a triangle of another kind. Only the Earth has as peculiar element the half-square and this is the element of the three other substances, Fire, Air and Water. For when the half-triangle is put together six times, it produces a solid equilateral triangle; the exemplar of the pyramid, which has four faces with equal angles, which is the form of Fire, as the easiest to be moved, and composed of the finest particles. After this ranks the octohedron, with eight faces and six angles, the element of Air, and the third is the icosahedron, with twenty faces and twelve angles the element of Water, composed of the most numerous and heaviest particles.
These then, as being composed of the same element, are transmuted. But the deity has made the dodecahedron, as being the nearest to the sphere, the image of the Universe. Fire then, by the fineness of its particles, passes through all things; and air through the rest of things, with the exception of Fire; and Water through the Earth. All things are therefore full, and have no vacuum. They cohere by the revolving movement of the Universe, and are pressed against, and rubbed by, each other in turn, and produce the never-failing change from production to destruction.
6. Concretion of the Elements.
By making use of these the deity put together this world, sensible to touch through the particles of Earth, and to sight through those of Fire; which two are the extremes. Through the particles of Air and Water he has conjoined the world by the strongest chain, namely, proportion; which restrains not only itself but all its subjects. Now if the conjoined object is a plane surface, one middle term is sufficient; but if a solid, there will be need of two. With two middle terms; therefore, he combined two extremes; so that as Fire is to Air, Air might be to Water, and Water to Earth; and by alternation, as Fire is to Water, Air might be to Earth; and by inversion as Earth is to Water, Water might be to Air, and Air to Fire; and by alternation, as Earth is to to Air, so Water might be to Fire. Now since all are equal in power, their ratios are in a state of of equality. This world is then one, through the bond of the deity, made according to proportion.
Now each of these substances possesses many forms; Fire, those of Flame, and Burning and Luminousness, through the inequality of the triangles in each of them. In the same manner, Air is partly clear and dry, and partly turbid and foggy; and Water partly flowing and partly congealed, according as it is Snow, Hoar-frost, Hail or Ice; and that which is Moist, is in one respect flowing as honey and oil; but in another is compact, as pitch and wax; and of compact-forms there are some fusible, as gold, silver, copper, tin, lead and steel; and some friable, as sulphur, pitch, nitre, salt, alum, and similar metals.
7. Composition of the Soul.
After putting together the world, the deity planned the creation of living beings, subject to death, so that, himself being perfect, he might perfectly work it out according to his image. Therefore he mixed up the soul of man out of the same proportions and powers, and after taking the particles and distributing them, he delivered them over to Nature, whose office is to effect change. She then took up the task of working out mortal and ephemeral living beings, whose souls were drawn in from different sources, some from the Moon, others from the Sun, and others from various planets, that cycle within the Difference,—with the exception of one single power which was derived from Sameness, which she mixed up in the rational portion of the soul, as the image of wisdom in those of a happy fate.
Now of the soul of man one portion is rational and intellectual; and another irrational and unintellectual. Of the logical part the best portion is derived from Sameness, while the worse comes from Difference; and each is situated around the head, so that the other portions of the soul and body may minister to it, as the uppermost of the whole tabernacle. Of the irrational portion, that which represents passion hangs around the heart, while desire inhabits the liver. The principle of the body, and root of the marrow, is the brain, wherein inheres leadership; and from this, like an effusion, through the back-bone flows what remains, from which are separated the particles for seed and reason; while the marrow's surrounding defences are the bones, of which the flesh is the covering and congealment. To the nerves he united joints by ligatures, suitable for their movement.
Of the internal organs, some exist for the sake of nourishment, and others for safety; of communications, some convey outside movements to the interior intelligent planes of perception, while others, not falling under the power of apprehension, are unperceived, either because the affected bodies are too earth-like, or because the movements are too feeble; the painful movements tend to arouse Nature, while the pleasurable lull Nature into remaining within itself.
8. Sensations.
Amongst the senses, the deity has in us lit sight to view the objects in the heavens, and for the reception of knowledge; while to make us capable to receive speech and melody, he has in us implanted hearing, of which he who is deprived thereof from birth will become dumb, nor be able to utter any speech; and that is why this sense is said to be related closest to speech.
As many affections of the body as have a name are so called with reference to touch; and others from relation to their seat. Touch judges of the properties connected with life, such as warmth, coldness, dryness, moisture, smoothness, roughness, and of things, that they are yielding, opposing, hard, or soft. Touch also decides of heaviness or lightness. Reason defines these affections as being centripetal and centrifugal; which men mean to express when they say below, and middle. For the centre of a sphere is below, and that part lying above it and stretching to the circumference, is called upwardness.
Now what is warm appears to consist of fine particles, causing bodies to separate; while coldress consists of the grossness of the particles, causing a tendency to condense.
The circumstances connected with the sense of taste are similar to those of touch. For substances grow either smooth or rough by concretion and secretion, by entering the pores, and assuming shapes. For those that cause the tongue to melt away, or that scrape it, appear to be rough; while those that act moderately in scraping appear brackish; while those that inflame or separate the skin are acrid; while their opposites, the smooth and sweet, are reduced to a juicy state.
Of smelling, the kinds have not been defined; for, because of their percolating through narrow pores, that are too stiff to be closed or separated, things seem to be sweet-smelling or bad-smelling from the putrfaction or concoction of the earth and similar substances.
A vocal sound is a percussion in the air, arriving at the soul through the ears; the pores (or communications) of which reach to the liver; and among them is breath, by the movement of which hearing exists. Now of the voice and hearing, that portion which is quick is acute; while that which is slow, is grave; the medium being the most harmonious. What is much and diffused, is great; what is little and compressed, is small; what is arranged according to musical proportions is in tune; while that which is unarranged, and unproportionate, is out of tune, and not properly adjusted.
The fourth kind of things relating to the senses is the most multiform and various, and they are called objects of sight, in which are all kinds of colors, and an infinity of colored substances. The principle are four: white, black, brilliant (blue) and red, out of a mixture of which all other colors are prepared. What is white causes the vision to expand, and what is black causes it to contract; just as warmth expands, and cold contracts, and what is rough contracts the tasting, and what is sharp dilates it.
9. RESPIRATION
It is natural for the covering of animals that live in the air to be nourished and kept together by the food being distributed by the veins through the whole mass, in the manner of a stream, conveyed as it were by channels, and moistened by the breath, which diffuses it, and carries it to the extremities. Respiration is produced through there being no vacuum in nature; while the air, as it flows in, is inhaled in place of that which is exhaled, through unseen pores, such as those through which perspiration-drops appear on the skin; but a portion is excreted by the natural warmth of the body. Then it becomes necessary for an equivalent portion to be reintroduced, to avoid a vacuum, which is impossible, for the animal would no longer be concentrating, and single, when the covering had been separated by the vacuum.
Now in lifeless substances, according to the analogy of respiration, the same organization occurs. The gourd, and the amber, for instance, bear resemblance to respiration.
Now the breath flows through the body to an orifice outwards, and is in turn introduced through respiration by the mouth and nostrils, and again after the manner of the Euripus, is in turn carried to the body which is extended according to the expiration. Also the gourd, when the air within is expelled by fire, attracts moisture to itself; and amber, when the air is separated from it, received an equal substance. Now all nourishment comes as from a root from the heart; and from the stomach; as a fountain; and is conveyed to the body, to which, if it be moistened by more than what flows out, there is said to be an increase; but if less, by a decay; but the point of perfection is the boundary between these two, and is considered to exist in an equality of efflux and influx; but when the joints of the system are broken, should there no longer exist any passage for the breath, or the nourishment not be distributed, then the animal dies.
10. DISORDERS.
There are many things hurtful to life, which are causes of death. One kind is disease. Its beginning is disharmony of the functions, when the simple powers, such as heat, cold, moisture or dryness are excessive or deficient. The come turns and alterations in the blood, from corruption, and the deterioration of the flesh, when wasting away, should the turns take place according to the changes, to what is acid, or brackish, or bitter, in the blood, or wasting away of the flesh. Hence arise the production of bile, and of phlegm, diseased juices, and the rottenness of liquids, weak indeed, unless deeply seated; but difficult to cure, when their commencement is generated from the bones, and painful, if in a state of inflammation of the marrow. The last of disorders are those of the breath, bile and phlegm, when they increase and flow into situations foreign to them, or into places inappropriate for them, by laying hold of the situation, belonging to what is better, and be driving away what is congenial, they fix themselves there, injuring the bodies, and resolving them into the very things.
These then are the sufferings of the body; and hence arise many diseases of the soul; some from one faculty, and some from another. Of the perceptive soul the disease is a difficulty of perception, of the recollecting, a forgetfulness of the appetitive part, a deficiency of desire and eagerness; of the affective, a violent suffering and excited madness; of the rational, an indisposition to learn and think.
But of wickedness the beginnings are pleasures and pains; desires and fears, inflamed by the body, mingled with the mind, and called by different names. For there loves and regrets, desires let loose, and passions on the stretch, heavy resentments, and appetites of various kinds, and pleasures immoderate. Plainly, to be unreasonably disposed towards the affections is the limit of virtue, and to be under their rule is that of vice; for to abound in them, or to be superior to them, places us in a good or bad position. Against such impulses the temperaments of our bodies is greatly able to cooperate, whether quick or hot, or various, by leading us to melancholy or violent lewdness; and certain parts, when affected by a catarrh, produce itching and forms of body more similar to a state of inflammation than one of health; through which sinking of the spirits and a forgetfulness, silliness and a state of fear are witnessed.
11. Discipline.
Important, too, are the habits in which persons are trained, in the city or at home, and their daily food, by luxury enervating the soul, or fortifying it for strength, For the living out of doors, and simple fare, and gymnastic exercises, and the morals of companions, produce the greatest effect in the way of vice and virtue. These causes are derived from our parents and the elements, rather than ourselves, provided that on our part there be no remissness, keeping aloof from acts of duty. The animal cannot be in good condition unless the body possesses the better properties under its control; namely, health and correct perception, and strength and beauty. Now the principles of beauty are a symmetry as regards its parts, and as regards the soul. For nature has arranged the body, like an instrument, to be subservient to, and in harmony with, the subjects of life. The soul must likewise be brought into harmony with its analogous good qualities, namely, in the case of temperance, as the body is in the case of health; and in that of prudence, as in the case of correct perception; and in that of fortitude, as in the case of vigor and strength; and in that of justice, as in the case of beauty.
Nature, of course, furnishes their beginnings; but their continuation and maturation result from carefulness; those relating to the body, through the gymnastic and medical arts; those to the soul, through instruction and philosophy. For these are the powers that nourish and give a tone to the body and soul by means of labor and gymnastic exercise, and pureness of diet; some through drug medication applied to the body, and others through discipline applied to the soul by means of punishments and reproaches; for by the encouragement they give strength and excite to an onward movement, and exhort to beneficial deeds. The art of the gymnasium trainer, and its nearest approach, that of the medical man, do, on application to the body, reduce their powers to the utmost symmetry, purifying the blood, and equalizing the breath, so that, if there were there any diseased virulence, the powers of blood and breath may be vigorous; but music, and its leader, philosophy, which the laws and the gods ordained as regulators for the soul, accustom, persuade and partly compel the irrational to obey reason, and the two irrational, passion and desire, to become, the one mild, and the other quiet, so as not to be moved without reason, nor to be unmoved when the mind incites either to desire or enjoy something; for this is the definition of temperance, namely, docility and firmness. Intelligence and philosophy the highest in honor, after cleansing the soul from false opinions, have introduced knowledge, recalling the mind from excessive ignorance, and setting it free for the contemplation of divine things; in which to occupy oneself with self-sufficiency, as regards the affairs of a man, and with an abundance, for the commensurate period of life, is a happy state.
12. Human Destiny.
Now he to whom the deity has happened to assign somewhat of a good fate, is, through opinion, led to the happiest life. But if he be morose and indocile, let the punishment that comes from law and reason follow him; bringing with it the fears ever on the stretch, both those that originate in heaven or Hades; how that punishments inexorable, are below laid up for the unhappy, as well as those ancient Homeric threats of retaliation for the wickedness of those defiled by crime (Odyssey, xii: 571-599). For as we sometimes restore bodies to health by means of diseased substances, if they will not yield to the more healthy, so if the soul will not be led by true reasoning, we restrain it by false. Strange indeed would those punishments be called since, by a change, the souls of cowards enter into bodies of women, who are inclined to insulting conduct; and those of the blood-stained would be punished by being introduced into the bodies of wild beasts; of the lascivious, into the bodies of sows and boars; of the light-minded and frivolous into shaper of aeronautic birds; and of those who neither do learn or think of nothing, into the bodies of idle fish.
On all these matters, however, there has, at a second period, been delivered a judgment by Nemesis, or Fate, together with the avenging deities that preside over murderers, and those under the earth in Hades, and the inspectors of human affairs, to whom God, the leader of all, has intrusted the administration of the world which is filled with gods and men, and the rest of the living beings which by the demiurgic creator according to the best model of an unbegotten, eternal and mentally-perceived form.
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