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For example, in the idea of matter, or rather body, impenetrability necessarily enters. Hence, also, the impossibility that two bodies should ever occupy the same space; which we have shown (page 143) to be more of a logical than a physical necessity. God cannot make matter without this. It is no more irreverent thus to speak, than to say that God cannot make matter or body, which is not body, or in any case go contrary to the idea of anything, and yet have it remain the same. Motion is not a necessary property of matter; and when we say this, we mean that there is no law of our minds, as in the above cases, which compels us to predicate it of matter. Other species of logical necessity (that is, a necessity in the ideas of things) are the mathematical ȧváукaι. Hence, the laws of motion, being partly mathematical and partly physical, are necessary, so far as they partake of the former character. It is not necessary that bodies should attract each other in the inverse ratio of the squares of their distances: had it been the ordinance of God, it would have been in the ratio of their cubes. When, however, the Deity establishes such a motion as a fact, it must conform to all the necessities of numbers involved in, and which grow out of, the first simple formula or statement of the law. So, also, in morals, the idea of good may, perhaps, necessarily include the contingency of evil; sin may be necessarily associated, in idea, with misery. In all such cases, Plato would speak of the Deity not as violently overcoming necessity, but as ruling, directing, controlling it, to bring about the purposes of his moral government, or, in other words, using towards it “a kind of rational persuasion."

ΧΧΧΙΙ.

Platonic Analogy between the Motion of Nous and Ivxn and that of a Sphere, or of the Heavens.

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PAGE 34, LINE 5. Εἰ μὲν ἡ ξύμπασα οὐρανοῦ ὁδὸς ἅμα καὶ φορὰ νοῦ κινήσει καὶ περιφορᾷ καὶ λογισμοῖς ὁμοίαν φύσιν ἔχει καὶ ξυγγενῶς ἔρχεται, κ. τ. λ.— If the whole way and course of the heavens hath a nature similar to the course, and period, and reasonings of mind, and proceeds in a kindred manner, we must certainly affirm that the best soul (τὴν εὐεργέτιδα) takes care of the universe.” We may compare with this the expressions, περίοδος νοῦ περίοδος ψυχῆς, which occur so frequently in the Timæus: Τὰς τῆς ἀθανάτου ψυχῆς περιόδους ἐνέδουν εἰς ἐπίῤῥυτον καὶ ἀπόῤῥυτον σῶμα. Timæus, 43, A. So, also, 39, where there is the same allusion in the expression, ἡ τῆς μιᾶς καὶ φρονιμωτάτης κυκλήσεως περίοδος.

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After the description of the visible animal (ζῶον ὁρατόν), or material universe in which the new-created soul of the world was to reside, he thus says: κίνησιν γὰρ ἀπένειμεν αὐτῷ τὴν τοῦ σώματος μάλιστα οἰκείαν, τῶν ἑπτὰ τὴν περὶ νοῦν καὶ φρόνησιν μάλιστα οὖσαν. διὸ δὴ κατὰ ταὐτὰ, ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ καὶ ἐν αὐτῷ περιαγαγὼν αὐτό, ἐποίησε κύκλῳ κινεῖσθαι στρεφόμενον— For he gave to it a peculiar motion of its own, namely, that one of the seven which has the nearest relation (or analogy) to mind and wisdom. Wherefore, guiding it so as to move always in the same relations, in the same place, and within itself, he made it revolve in a circle." Timaus, 33, P. We have the same idea a little farther on in this tenth book of The Laws, page 35, line 15 : Τὸ κατὰ ταὐτὰ δήπου καὶ ὡσαύτως καὶ ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ, καὶ περὶ τὰ αὐτά, καὶ πρὸς τὰ αὐτά, καὶ ἕνα λόγον καὶ τάξιν μίαν ἄμφω κινεῖσθαι λέγοντες, νοῦν, τήν τε ἐν ἑνὶ φερομένην κίνησιν, σφαίρας ἐντόρνου ἀπεικασμένα φο

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ραῖς, οὐκ ἄν ποτε, κ. τ. λ.—“ If we say this, namely, that mind and motion in one, &c., being both of them capable of being likened to the revolutions of a sphere, do both of them ever move kaтà тavτá, preserving the same relations, in a uniform manner, in the same, around the same, and according to one analogy and one order, we should not institute an inferior or imperfect comparison."

This was one of the favourite speculations of Plato, and is kept prominently in view in the Timæus; so much so, that, without attending to it, it is impossible to understand many passages in that most profound, yet strange and difficult dialogue. He there describes the soul of the world as being constituted of two essences— τῆς ἀμερίστου καὶ ἀεὶ κατὰ ταὐτὰ ἐχούσης οὐσίας καὶ τῆς αὖ περὶ τὰ σώματα YiyvoμÉvηs μEPιoτns—the one conversant with eternal, unchangeable, and necessary truth, νοήσει μετὰ λόγου περιληπтóν; the other, with facts or phenomena, or, as he here styles them in The Laws, the second-working motions of matter, physical laws, or second causes. Corresponding to these, he frequently speaks of two periods, which, in very strange phraseology, he describes as ἡ τῆς ταὐτοῦ φύσεως καὶ τῆς τοῦ ἑτέρου. The first he likens to spherical or circular motion (pepoμévŋv ¿v έví), and finds its symbolical expression in the steady, unvarying, and eternal revolution of the sphere of the fixed stars or highest heavens (whether regarded as phenomenal or not makes, in this respect, no difference). The other, which he elsewhere styles a bas tard reason (vółos λoyɩoμós), is conceived as represented by the irregular, variant, and sometimes retrograde motions of the lower bodies, and especially of the terrestrial phenomena. Matter and the external world being in a continual flux, he regarded sensation, and that exercise of reason which takes sensation and phenomenal facts for its necessary hypotheses, as partaking of all the instability of its ever-flowing foundation. See the Timæus, from 28, A., to 48, B.

There are many things which would suggest this comparison to such a mind as Plato's, combining so much of the imaginative and poetical with the philosophical; and there are also some things to justify it to the soundest reason. Above all other figures, the sphere, in itself, may be regarded as the symbol of perfection, unity, immutability, and eternity. Complete both in sensible and intellectual beauty, its form delights the eye, while its idea perfectly satisfies the mind. In the contemplation of its motion we find the analogy still more striking. If regarded as representing the psychical self-energy of soul, or of God, it presents a perfect resemblance in the fact, that it is motion or energy, without any change of the place which it occupies as a whole, or, in other words, combining simultaneously and harmoniously the opposite phenomena of motion and rest-rest relative throughout, or taken as a whole, and rest absolute in the centre, while yet it is the source from which motion is diffused outward through every part; as Aristotle describes it, διὸ κινεῖται καὶ ἠρεμεῖ πως ἡ σφαῖρα. Physic. Auscult., viii., 9.

By a higher and more perfect analogy, it may be regarded as representing the intellectual energy of vous, or reason, when engaged in the contemplation of immutable truth. Both may be perfectly described by those favourite terms of Plato which occur so often in the Phædon, and that, too, without being regarded as tropical in the one case more than in the other. The everlasting, unchanging motion of the "old rolling heavens," like the perfection, uniformity, and immutability of the eternal ideas, may also be said to be, ἀεὶ κατὰ ταὐτάὡσαύτως—ἐν τῷ αὐτῷπερὶ τὰ αὐτά —πρὸς τὰ αὐτά—ἕνα λόγον καὶ μίαν τάξιν ἔχουσα. The argument here is, that that motion of the heavens, which in so many points is analogous to the intellectual energy of the best soul, must have been its direct and first production, and the object of its continual care. When stripped of its

sublime imagery (if we may so regard it), the sentiment is equivalent to that of the Timæus, already quoted: 'O μèv γὰρ (κόσμος οὐρανὸς) κάλλιστος τῶν γεγονότων, ὁ δὲ (θεὸς) ἄριστος τῶν αἰτίων. Θέμις δὲ οὔτ ̓ ἦν οὔτ ̓ ἔστι τῷ ἀρίστῷ ὁρᾶν ἄλλο πλὴν τὸ κάλλιστον. So, also, in the same dialogue, he represents the soul of the world, after its creation by the "Everlasting Father," as commencing its spiritual and rational life (ἔμφρονος βίου) with the revolution of the heavens: Ἡ δὲ ἐκ μέσου πρὸς τὸν ἔσχατον οὐρανὸν πάντη διαπλακεῖσα, κύκλῳ τε αὐτὸν ἔξωθεν περικαλύψασα, αὐτή τε ἐν αὐτῇ στρεφομένη, θείαν ἀρχὴν ἤρξατο ἀπαύστου καὶ ἔμφρονος βίου πρὸς τὸν ξύμπαντα χρόνον. After this follows that most sublime passage which sets forth the delight of the Eternal Generating Parent at beholding this glorious work of his hands, the ζῶον ὁρατόν, or visible universe, with its informing soul, living and moving on in the most perfect harmony, and the celestial revolutions taking place with all the order and exactness of a creation fresh from the hands of its Maker; at sight of which he is said to have admired, even with astonishment, this image of the eternal powers, and to have rejoiced in it as exceedingly fair and good: Ως δὲ κινηθέν τε αὐτὸ καὶ ζῶν ἐνενόησε τῶν ἀϊδίων θεῶν γεγονὸς ἄγαλμα Ὁ ΓΕΝΝΗΣΑΣ ΠΑΤΗΡ, ἠγάσθη τε καὶ εὐφρανθεὶς ἔτι δὴ μᾶλ λον ὅμοιον πρὸς τὸ παράδειγμα ἐπενόησεν ἀπεργάσασθαι. On reading this passage, one can hardly help feeling that some of the Christian fathers were right in supposing that Plato, in his travels, had had access to the books of Moses; so strongly does it call to mind the declaration, Genesis, i., 31 : And God looked upon all which he had made, and behold, it was good, very good. Perhaps in some such view as this may we take that remarkable expression of Aristotle, κινεῖ δὲ ὡς ἐρώμενον, on which we have remarked, page 194. If there were any proof that he held to Plato's soul of the world, we might, with Cudworth, suppose him to

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