Page:The works of Plato, A new and literal version, (vol 6) (Burges, 1854).djvu/32

20 would be the method of any nature in causing so great a bulk to revolve for ever for the same time that it revolves at present. Now I assert that a god would be the cause, and that it could not be possible otherwise. For it would not otherwise become animated than through a god, as we have shown. But since a god is able in this respect, to him there has been every facility for every animal, in the first place, to be produced, and every body, and every bulk; and next, to cause them to move in that way, which he conceived to be the best. And now upon all these points we will make one true assertion. It is impossible for the earth and heavens and all the stars and all the bulky bodies made from them to subsist, unless a soul were present to each, or in each, so that they proceed with such accuracy according to years, and months, and days, and for every good, which is produced, to be produced for us all. But it is requisite that, by how much the more vile is man, (the less) ought he to be seen to trifle, but to assert something clear concerning them. Should then any one assert that certain violent motions of bodies or natures or any thing of this kind are the causes, he will say nothing that is clear.

[7.] It is however requisite to reconsider seriously what we have said, whether our discourse has a reason for it, or altogether comes after it. In the first place then, (we said,) there are two things, the one, soul, and the other, body, and that many things pertain to each; but that all are different from one another, and each from each; and that there is no other third thing common to any one; and that soul differs from body; and that the former is intellectual, but the latter unintellectual; and that the one rules, but the other is ruled; and that the one is the cause of all (that happens), but the other is not the cause of any accident; so that to assert that the things in