Page:Works of Plato his first fifty-five dialogues (Taylor 1804) (Vol 2 of 5) (IA Vol2worksofplato00plat).pdf/430

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INTRODUCTION TO THE TIM^US.

by the extremity of a ſuperior order coalefcing, xaroi o-yj<nv, through habitude or alliance, with the fummit of an order which is proximately inferior. Again, with refped to all beings, it is neceffary that fome fhould move or be motive only, and that others fhould be moved only ; and that between thefe there fhould be two mediums, the felf-motive natures, and thofe which move and at the fame time are moved.

Now that which is motive only, and

confequently effentially immovable, is intelled, which pofTeffes both its effence and energy in eternity ; the whole intelligence of which is firmly eftablifhed in indivifible union, and which though a caufe prior to itfelf participates of deific illumination.

For it pofTeffes, fays Plotinus, twofold

energies ; one kind indeed as intelled, but the other in confequence of becoming as it were intoxicated, and deifying itfelf with nedar.

But

that which is felf-motive is foul, which, on account of poffeffmg its energy in tranfition and a mutation of life, requires the circulations of time to the perfedion of its nature, and depends on intelled as a more antient and con¬ fequently fuperior caufe.

But that which moves and is at the fame time

moved is nature, or that corporeal life which is diffributed about body, and confers generation, nutrition and increafe to its fluduating effence.

And

laftly, that which is moved only is body, which is naturally pafhve, imbecil and inert. Now, in confequence of the profound union fublifting in things, it is neceffary that the higheff beings or intelligibles fhould be wholly fupereffential, xktcc o-yso-iv, according to proximity or alliance ; that the higheff intelleds fhould be beings, the firff of fouls intelleds, and the higheff bodies lives, on account of their being wholly abforbed as it were in a vital nature. Hence, in order that the moff perfed union poffible may take place between the laft of incorporeals and the firff of bodies, it is neceffary that the body of the world fhould be confummately vital; or indeed, according to habitude and alliance, life itfelf.

But it is neceffary that a body of this kind fhould

be perpetually generated, or have a fubfiffence in perpetually becoming to be. For after intelled, which eternally abides the fame both in effence and energy, and foul, which is eternally the fame in effence but mutable in energy, that nature muff fucceed which is perpetually mutable both in effence and energy, and which confequently fubfiffs in a perpetual difperfion of temporal extenfion, and is co-extended with time.

Such a body, there¬ fore^