Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/220

Rh 210 PLATO the created form, a third kind, dim and hard to conceive, a sort of limbec or matrix of creation,&quot; if not to fill up the triangles which are elements of elements, and to be the vehicle of the forms com pounded of them ? It has been supposed that this &quot; nurse of generation &quot; is identical with &quot; space, and it cannot be said that they are clearly kept apart by Plato. But he had a distinct nomenclature for either, and, although gravity is explained away (so that his molecules, unlike Clerk Maxwell s, may be called imponderable), yet extension, or the property of filling space, is sufficiently implied. 2. The difference of size in the triangles and varying sharpness of their outlines are ingenious though inadequate expedients, adopted in order to account for qualitative difference and physical change. 3. In criticizing the illusory notion of up and down Plato broaches the conception of antipodes. 4. More distinctly than in the Philcbus, bodily pleasure is explained by &quot;a sudden and sensible return to nature&quot; (comp. Ar., lihet., i. 11, 1 ; N. E., vii. 10). 5. Natural philosophers are warned against experimenting on the mixture of colours, which is a divine process and forbidden to man. (C) 1. Plato tends more and more in his later writings to account for moraj evil by physical conditions, thus arriving at the Socratic principle of the involuntariness of vice by a different road. Hence in the Timseus not the body only is made by the inferior gods, but they also create the lower and mortal parts of the human soul : the principle of anger which is planted in the breast, within hearing of reason, and that of appetite which is lodged below the diaphragm like an animal tied in a stall, with the stomach for a crib and the liver for a &quot; soothsaying &quot; looking-glass to soothe or terrify it when tempted to break loose. 2. The brain-pan was left bare of protecting flesh &quot; because the sons of God who framed us deliberately chose for us a precarious life with capability of reason, in preference to a long secure existence with obstruction of thought. &quot; 3. The nails are a rudimentary provision for the lower animals, into which degenerate souls were afterwards to be transformed. 4. Vegetables have sensation but not motion. 5. By way of illustrating the very curious account here given of respiration, it is asserted that what is commonly thought to be the attraction of the magnet is really due to rotatory motion and displacement. 6. &quot;When the original particles wear out, and the bonds of soul and body in the marrow give way, the soul escapes delightedly and flies away. This is the painless death of natural decay. (D) 1. The dependence of mental disease on bodily conditions is more fully recognized in the Timseus than elsewhere in Plato (con trast the Charmidcs, for example). 2. He has also changed his mind abo.ut the treatment of disease, and shows more respect for regimen and diet than in the Republic. Diseases are a kind of second nature, and should be treated accord ingly- 3. It is also a remark in contrast with the Republic, that over- study leads to head complications, which physicians ascribe to chill and find intractable. Lastly, it is one of the strange irregularities in the composition of the Timxus that the creation of woman and the relation of the sexes l to each other are subjects reserved to the end, because this is the place given to the lower animals, and woman (compare the Phsedrus) is the first transmigration from the form of man. This order is probably not to be attributed to Plato s own thought, but to some peculiarity of Pythagorean or Orphic tradition. VIII. The Laws. The two series of dialogues, the dialectical and the imaginative, Sopkistes, Politicus, Philosophw, TimiKUS, Critias, Hermocrates, were left incomplete. For Plato had concentrated his declining powers, in the evening of his life, 2 upon a different task. He was resolved to leave behind him, if he could so far overcome the infirmities of age, 3 a code of laws, conceived in a spirit of concession, and such as he still hoped that some Hellenic state might sanction. The motive for this great work may be gathered from the Politicus. The physician in departing is to give a written prescription, adapted as far as possible to the condition of those from whom he goes away. This is the second-best course, in the absence of the philosopher-king. And, as the Hellenic world will not listen to Plato s heroic remedy, he accom- 1 There is an anticipation of microscopic observation in the words adpara virb &amp;lt;rfj.iKp6rT]TOs Kal aSidirXaffra &amp;lt;fa spermatozoa. a r/^elj 5* tv SixTjual? rov fiiov, Leyy., vi. 770 A. 3 Uv. . . yjipus 4iriKpa.Tuij.fv -ye -roaovTov, Leyy., vi. 752 A. modates his counsel to their preconceptions. He returns Laws, once more from abstract discussions to study the applica tion of ideas to life, and though, by the conditions of the problem, his course is &quot; nearer earth and less in light,&quot; this long writing, which is said to have been posthumous, 4 has a peculiar interest. The ripeness of accumulated experience and the mellowness of wise contemplation make up for the loss of prophetic insight and poetic charm. The form of dialogue is still retained, and an aged Athenian is imagined as discoursing of legislation with the Lacedaemonian Megillus and the Cretan Clinias, who has in view the foundation of a new colony, and is on his way with his two companions from Cnossus to the temple and oracle of Zeus. Plato now aims at moderating between Dorian and Ionian law, freely criticizing both, and refining on them from a higher point of view. &quot; The praise of obedience, the authority assigned to elders, the prohibition of dowries, the enforcement of marriage, the common meals, the distribution and inalienability of land, the institution of the Crypteia,, the freedom of bequest to a favourite son, the dislike of city walls all reflect the custom of Sparta.&quot; . . . &quot; The use of the lot, the scrutiny of magistrates, the monthly courses of the council, the pardon of the forgiven homicide, most of the regulations about testaments and the guardianship of orphans, the degrees of consanguinity recognized by law, correspond to Atheiiian laws and customs&quot; (Jowett). The philosopher s own thoughts come out most strongly in the &quot; preludes &quot; to the laws, 5 and in the regulations concerning education, marriage, and the punishment of impiety (i.e., 1st, atheism, 2d, denial of providence, 3d and worst, immoral superstition). The difficulty which is met in the Politicus by the abandonment of the world for a time, and in the Timseus by the lieutenancy of lower gods, here leads to the hypothesis of an evil soul. The priority of mind (often before asserted) and the increased importance attached to numbers are the chief indications of Plato s latest thoughts about the intelligible world. But it must be remembered that the higher education (answering to Rep., vi., vii.) is expressly reserved. 6 Had Plato written his own ^nnomis, the proportions of the whole work (not then &quot;acephalous&quot;) might have been vastly changed. The severity of the penalties attached to the three forms of heresy, especially to the third and worst of them, has led to the remark that Plato, after asserting &quot; liberty of pro phesying,&quot; had become intolerant and bigoted in his old age. But the idea of toleration in the modern sense was never distinctly present to the mind of any ancient philo sopher. And, if in the Laivs the lines of thought have in one way hardened, there are other ways in which experience has softened them. Plato s &quot; second-best &quot; constitution contains a provision, which was not admissible in the &quot;perfect state,&quot; for possible changes and readaptations in the future. The power of self -reformation is hedged round indeed with extreme precautions ; and no young or middle- aged citizen is ever to hear a word said in depreciation of any jot or tittle of the existing law. But that it should be provided, however guardedly, that select com missioners, after travelling far and wide, should bring back of the fruit of their observations for the consideration of the nocturnal council, and that a power of constitutionally 4 Published by Philippus the Opuntian. 5 See especially iv. 716 sq. ; v. 727 sq., 735 sq. ; vi. 766 ; vii. 773 sq., 777, 794, 803 -sq., 811, 817 ; viii. 835 sq.; ix. 875; x. 887 sq., 897 sq., 904s//. 6 Leyy., xii. 968 E. (Ath.) &quot;I am willing to share with you the danger of stating to you my views about education and nurture, which is the question coming to the surface again.&quot;