Page:Works of Plato his first fifty-five dialogues (Taylor 1804) (Vol 2 of 5) (IA Vol2worksofplato00plat).pdf/464

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INTRODUCTION TO THE TIM^US.

and, in the third place, that inherent reaſon of the foul enfues, which ger¬ minates from the fenfitive foul, is accommodated to fpecies of this kind, and is that through which fenfitive judgment and cogitation fubfift. But further, the Platonifts admit, with Democritus and Empedocles, that certain material images of things flow through the pores of bodies, and preferve, to a certain diftance, not only the qualities but likewife the fhape of the bodies from which they flow,

And thefe radial images are intimated

by Plato in this dialogue, in the Sophifla, and in the feventh book of his Republic; in commenting on the laft of which, Proclus obferves as follows : 6( According to Plato, (fays he) reprefentations of things are hypoftafes of

certain images fabricated by a demoniacal art, as he teaches us in the Sophifla ; for fhadows, of which they fay images are the companions, poffefs a nature of this kind.

For thefe are the effigies of bodies and figures, and

have an abundant fympathy with the things from which they fall; as is evi¬ dent from what the arts of magicians are able to effedt, and from what they tell us concerning images and fhadows.

But why fhould I fpeak of the

powers of magicians, when irrational animals are able to operate through images and fhadows, prior to all reafon ? for they fay that the hyaena, by trampling on the fhadow of a dog feated on an eminence, will hurl him down and devour him ; and Ariflotle fays, that if a woman, during her menffrua, looks into a mirror, fhe will defile both the mirror and the appa¬ rent image/’—‘Ox/ xaxa HAaToova ai sjx(f)a<r£ig vnocrTacrsig sicriv siciooXwv jjt,rirXJav7i ^yipciovpyov^svai, .xa9u7rsp avTog sv r« cro(picrTvi <$/$asi xchQyillsvov 7ruTVi(ra<ra crxiav xaTa&txXXsi, xai Ooivvjv TroiYiTai tov xvvet.

Kai yvvaixog xaQaipovuesvrig (pvicriv Apio-TOTC-Xvjg, sig sveorjpov i^ovtrvjg, ai^a-

TovTca, to ts svoTTTpovy xai to i-j^aivoiLsvov siluXov1.—And

he likewife informs us in

the fame place, that thefe images, on account of their {lender exiflence, cannot otherwife become vifible to our eyes, than when, in confequence of being eftablifhed, refitored, and illuminated in mirrors, they again receive their priftine power and the fhape of their originals.

Hence, fays he, denfity

1 Vid. Prod, in Plat. Polit. p. 430.

is