Page:Works of Plato his first fifty-five dialogues (Taylor 1804) (Vol 2 of 5) (IA Vol2worksofplato00plat).pdf/442

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INTRODUCTION TO THE TIM^US.

The divine nature of the celeſtial bodies cannot be feen through the telefcope, and incorporeals are not to be viewed with a microfcopic eye : but' thefe inftruments are at prelent the great ftandards of truth; and whatever oppofes or cannot be afcertamed by the teftimony of thefe, is confidered as mere conjedture, idle {peculation, and a perverfion of the reafoning power. But let us now proceed to a fummary view of lome of the principle parts of this moft interefting dialogue.

And, in the firft place, with refped to the

hiftory which is related in the beginning, concerning a war between the inhabitants of the Atlantic ifiand and the Athenians :—Grantor, the mod early of Plato’s commentators, confidered this relation (fays Proclus) as a mere hiftory unconnected with allegory ; while other Platonifts, on the con¬ trary, have confidered it as an allegory alone.

But both thefe opinions are

confuted bv Proclus and the belt of the Platonifts; becaufe Plato calls it a very wonderful, but at the fame time true, narration.

So that it is to be

confidered as a true hiftory, exhibiting at the fame time an image of the oppofition of the natures which the univerfe contains.

But according to

Amelius 1 it reprefents the oppofition between the inerratic fphere and the fixed ftars ; according to Origen*, the conteft between daemons of a fuperior and tbofe of an inferior order ; according to Numenius, the difagreement be¬ tween more excellent fouls who are the attendants of Pallas, and fuch as are converfant with generation under Neptune.

Again, according to Porphyry,

it infinuates the conteft between daemons deducing fouls into generation, and fouls afcending to the Gods.

For Porphyry gives a three-fold diftimftion to

daemons; afterting that fome are divine, that others fubfift according to habitude, vmtu a-yjo-iv, among which partial fouls rank when they are allotted a daemoniacal condition, and that others are evil and noxious to louls.

He

afterts, therefore, that this loweft order of daemons always contends with fouls in their afcent and defcent, efpecialiy weftern daemons; for, according to the Egyptian?, the weft is accommodated to daemons of this defcription. But the expofition of Jamblichus, Syrianus and Proclus is donbtlels to be preferred, as more eonfiftent wfith the nature of the dialogue; which refers it to the oppofition perpetually flourifhing in the univerfe between unity and s A difciple of Plotinus contemporary with Porphyry. a Not the father, of that name, hut a difciple of Ammonius Saccas, and contemporary with Plotinus.

multitude,