Page:Works of Plato his first fifty-five dialogues (Taylor 1804) (Vol 2 of 5) (IA Vol2worksofplato00plat).pdf/446

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INTRODUCTION TO THE TIMÆUS.

and if men of the preſent day had but attended to this fignification of the word, i. e. if any edition of Ariftotle’s works, with a copious index men¬ tioning this fenfe of neceffitv, had fortunately exifted, they would not have ignorantly fuppofed that this word, when applied to divine natures, fignined conftraint, violence, and over-ruling power.

As intelledl, therefore, is

eternal, both according to efTence and energy, and as foul is eternal in efTence, but temporal in energy, fo the world is temporal both in efTence and energy.

Hence, every thing prior to foul always is, and is never gene¬

rated ; but foul both is, and is perpetually generated ; and the world never is, but is always generated : and whatever the world contains in like manner never is ; but inftead of being always generated, like the whole world, is fo at fome particular time.

Becaufe the world therefore is converfant with per¬

petual motion and time, it may be faid to be always generated, or advancing towards being; and therefore never truly is.

So that it refembles the image

of a mountain beheld in a torrent, which has the appearance of a mountain without the reality, and which is continually renewed by the continual re¬ novation of the Bream.

But foul, which is eternal in efTence, and tem¬

poral in energy, may be compared to the image of the fame rock beheld in a pool, and which, of courle, when compared with the image in the torrent, may be faid to be permanently the fame.

In fine, as Proclus well

obferves, Plato means nothing more by generation than the formation of bodies, i. e. a motion or proceffion towards the integrity and perfe&ion of the univerfe. Again, by the demiurgus and father of the world we muft underftand Jupi¬ ter, who fubfifts at the extremity of the irielleElual triad1 ; and amo ifov, or animal itfelf, which is the exemplar of the world, and from the contempla¬ tion of which it was fabricated by Jupiter, is the la ft of the intelligible triad,. and is fame with the Phanes of Orpheus : for the theologift peprefents Phanes as an animal with the heads of various beafts, as may be feen in our Notes to

the

Parmenides.

Nor let the reader be difturbed on

finding that,-

according to Plato, the firft caufe is not the immediate eaufe of the univerfe ; for this is not through any defied: or imbecility of nature, but, on the con¬ trary, is the conference of tranfcendency of power.

For, as the firft caufe

l Seethe Notes on the Cratylus and Parmenides. <y

IS