prodosis having been, in a measure, lost sight of in consequence of the length of the intervening parenthesis.

XVI.

Argument for the Existence of a God from Motion. PAGE 18, LINE 22. 'Αηθεστέρων λόγων. "Unusual, or out of the common track." Reference is had to those subtle disquisitions respecting motion which are soon to follow. They are so called, because differing from the common and more obvious arguments generally made use of, such as those arising from evidence of design, and the more striking phenomena of the visible world, to which Clinias had so readily alluded in the commencement of the discussion. Plato thinks it best to begin at the beginning, or, as he elsewhere styles it, the fountain-head of the error: Tǹv πηγὴν ἀνοήτου δόξης. If the least power or property of motion is conceded to matter, or to the least particle of matter per se, all is given up to the atheist, at least as far as the physical world is concerned. The whole cause is surrendered to the enemy. If this is granted, or not denied, then it would not be hard to admit that matter may also have an adaptive as well as a moving property, a tendency to an accommodation of itself to the circumstances in which it is placed, or, according to the doctrine just taught, a disposition to fit itself to those conditions in the universe into which it may be thrown by its own selfmoving power, acting only under the direction of Túxŋ, or chance: ή ξυμπέπτωκεν πάντα ἁρμόττοντα οἰκείως πως, μαλακὰ πρὸς σκληρὰ, κ. τ. λ. Here we are in the dark region of occult qualities, and we can as well conceive of the one property as of the other. In fact, it is easier for the mind to admit this doctrine of an adaptive power, after conceding that of motion, than to receive the latter first as

an independent starting-point. In this view, then, all arguments from fitness fall to the ground, unless the first motion is shown to be the offspring of τέχνη, and not of τύχη, or even of púois. If we only give the atheist time enough —and eternity is very long-he may fancy that, on his theory, everything will at last fall into its proper place (ξυμπίπτει οἰκείως πως), and commence the natural discharge of its only and long-sought appropriate office

Plato, therefore, takes his stand on the first position, namely, that the mere motion of matter implies the existence of Spirit as an older and higher essence, or, in other words, that Spirit alone is self-moving, because it alone possesses that duality which resolves itself at the same time into subject and object. The term avтokívŋois is not to be confined to local motion, but may refer to any change in the state or condition of a thing. It may, therefore, be predicated of mind, or pure spirit, independent of space. In this sense volition is avтokívηois, or self-motion, even although it may never be exhibited outwardly. That matter cannot possess this, in either acceptation of the term, is an affirmation rendered necessary by the very laws of mind. It is involved in the term itself, or rather in the idea of which the term is the real, and not merely arbitrary representative, and may therefore be called a logical necessity. Although the argument may have something of the a posteriori form, it is nevertheless strictly a priori. It is a conclusion not derived from experience; for in truth, aside from the essential idea which the laws of our minds compel us to create, all our mere experience of matter is directly opposed to it. As presented to our senses, it seems to be ever in motion, and this phenomenon exhibits itself more constantly the more closely and minutely it is examined; so that if experience alone were to be consulted, or, to use the language of some of our Baconians, if nature alone were to be interrogated, motion would appear to be the law, and rest

(if absolute rest were ever to be discovered) the exception. Notwithstanding all this, the mind cannot divest itself of that idea (whether innate, or acquired, or suggested) which it hath of body, as distinguished from space; and whenever this idea is clearly called out, the soul doth affirm of necessity, and in spite of all the phenomena of experience to the contrary, that matter cannot move itself. The same necessity compels it, also, to declare that matter cannot continue motion by virtue of any inherent power, any more than it can commence it, and this, too, notwithstanding the opposing dogma so confidently laid down in all our books of natural philosophy. We have the constant observation of ten thousand motions, commenced and continued without the visible intervention of any spiritual agent, and apparently the result of innate properties, and yet, when the mind remains sound and true to itself, all this does not at all weaken the innate conviction, that every kívηois implies the existence of an originating will or spirit somewhere, however many the impulsive forces that may seem to have intervened between that will and its ultimate object. When the mind is in a healthy state, we say it is compelled to affirm, and does affirm this, with the same confidence as the proposition that the three angles of every triangle are equal to two right angles, or that two bodies cannot occupy the same space. Even this, notwithstanding it lies at the foundation of mechanical and dynamical physics, is ultimately to be resolved into a logical necessity, that is, a necessary affirmation into which the mind is driven by those laws of its own, that form not only our bighest, but our only idea of truth. Hence, having the idea, or that notion under which it is forced to think of matter, the soul affirms that two bodies occupying the same space are one body, because the last differentia, or έTepolóτηs, is destroyed.

XVII.

Soul Older than Body.

PAGE 19, LINE 16. Σωμάτων ἔμπροσθεν πάντων γενομένη. Compare with this Timæus, 34, Β.: Τὴν δὲ δὴ ψυχὴν οὐχ ὡς νῦν ὑστέραν ἐπιχειροῦμεν λέγειν, οὕτως ἐμηχανήσατο καὶ ὁ θεὸς νεωτέραν. οὐ γὰρ ἂν ἄρχεσθαι πρεσβύτερον ὑπὸ νεωτέρου συνέρξας εἴασεν. ὁ δὲ καὶ γενέσει καὶ ἀρετῇ προτέραν καὶ πρεσβυτέραν ψυχὴν σώματος, ὡς δεσπότιν καὶ ἄρξουσαν ἀρξομένου συνεστήσατο. God did not create soul, as we now speak of it (in the order of our argument), posterior and junior ; for he would not have suffered an elder thing to be ruled by a younger. Wherefore he constituted soul, both by virtue and by birth, to be prior to and older than body, as the mistress and ruler thereof." The term vx is used here in a less sense than in the tenth of the Laws, where it includes all that is immaterial, and is employed in a peculiar manner for God as distinguished from φύσις. It, however, means much more, in this passage of the Timæus, than the soul of man. The philosopher is speaking of soul collectively, the animus mundi, or Soul of the Universe, as distinct from, inferior to, and dependent upon, the Deity who had constituted it (συνεστήσατο, ἐμηχανήσατο), and yet as the source and fountain from which all other souls emanate or are generated, whether of men or of the inferior Divinities, according to that verse of Pindar, Nem., Carm. vi., Σ., α., 1,

Ἓν ἀνδρῶν, ἓν θεῶν γένος· ἐκ

μιᾶς δὲ πνέομεν

ματρὸς ἀμφότεροι.

2:

If soul is older than body or matter, then the properties or innate powers (συγγενῆ) of the former must be also before those of the latter. Wherefore, as he says below, δόξα δὴ καὶ ἐπιμέλεια καὶ νοῦς καὶ τέχνη καὶ νόμος (τὰ

συγγενῆ ψυχῆς), πρότερα ἂν εἴη σκληρῶν καὶ μαλακῶν καὶ βαρέων καὶ κούφων (τῶν προσηκόντων σώματι). “Thought, and providence, and reason, and art, and law, must have been before hard, and soft, and heavy, and light." It is evident that the term owua here is not taken for organized substances, but is in all respects equivalent to our word matter; for he mentions only those elementary properties which belong to it, or were supposed to belong to it as matter, such as hardness or resistance, weight, &c. So that there is nothing in this word against the inference we have drawn respecting Plato's opinion on the eternity of the material world, whether regarded as organized or unorganized. It seems to us perfectly clear that in every sense of the word, as used by the modern philosophy, he held matter to be junior to soul.

The order of the argument, it should be observed here, is the direct opposite of what is commonly styled the a posteriori. In the latter, we proceed from evidences of fitness in matter to a soul or art, which, for all that this method can oppose to the contrary, may have been the offspring of an older púσiç, of whose adaptations its designs may be only an imperfect imitation, whether regarded as proceeding from the soul of man, or of some superhuman being. In the other, the older existence of spirit is first established, and then it is inferred, even before experimental induction, that there must be such evidences of design, because art and law, which are properties of soul, must be older than the material structures in which they are exhibited. On the scheme of the atheist, or the naturalist (the worshipper of púois), only some of the smaller and latest productions were the work of Tέxvŋ making its appearance in the latter cycles of the universe. In the other view, which the author here presents, τὰ μεγάλα καὶ πρῶτα ἔργα καὶ πράξε εις τέχνης ἂν γίγνοιτο, ὄντα ἐν πρώτοις, τὰ δὲ φύσει καὶ φύσις ὕστερα καὶ ἀρχόμενα ἂν ἐκ τέχνης εἴη καὶ νοῦ,

N