Page:Works of Plato his first fifty-five dialogues (Taylor 1804) (Vol 2 of 5) (IA Vol2worksofplato00plat).pdf/428

 things, and generating and vivifying every part of the viſible world. For nature verges towards bodies, and is inſeparable from their fluctuating empire. But ſoul is ſeparate from body, is eſtabliſhed in herſelf, and ſubſiſts both from herſelf and another; from another, that is, from intellect through participation, and from herſelf on account of her not verging to body, but abiding in her own eſſence, and at the ſame time illuminating the obſcure nature of matter with a ſecondary life. Nature, therefore, is the laſt of the cauſes which fabricate this corporeal and ſenſible world, bounds the progreſſions of incorporeal eſſences, and is full of reaſons and powers through which ſhe governs mundane affairs. And ſhe is a goddeſs indeed, conſidered as deified; but not according to the primary ſignification of the word. For the word God is attributed by Plato, as well as by the antient theologiſts, to beings which participate of the Gods. Hence every pure intellect is, according to the Platonic philoſophy, a God according to union; every divine ſoul according to participation; every divine dæmon according to contact; divine bodies are Gods as ſtatues of the Gods; and even the ſouls of the moſt exalted men are Gods according to ſimilitude; while in the mean time ſupereſſential natures only are primarily and properly Gods. But nature governs the whole world by her powers, by her ſummit comprehending the heavens, but through theſe ruling over the fluctuating empire of generation, and every where weaving together partial natures in amicable conjunction with wholes.

But as the whole of Plato’s philoſophy is diſtributed into the contemplation of intelligibles and ſenſibles, and this very properly, ſince there is both an intelligible and ſenſible world, as Plato himſelf aſſerts in the courſe of the dialogue; hence in the Parmenides he comprehends the doctrine of intelligibles, but in the Timæus of mundane natures. And in the former of theſe dialogues he ſcientifically exhibits all the divine orders, but in the latter all the progreſſions of ſuch as are mundane. Nor does the former entirely neglect the ſpeculation of what the univerſe contains, nor the latter of intelligibles themſelves. And this becauſe ſenſibles are contained in intelligibles paradigmatically, and intelligibles in ſenſibles according to ſimilitude. But the latter abounds more with phyſical ſpeculations, and the former with ſuch as are theological; and this in a manner adapted to the perſons after whom the dialogues are called: to Timæus on the one hand,