Page:Works of Plato his first fifty-five dialogues (Taylor 1804) (Vol 2 of 5) (IA Vol2worksofplato00plat).pdf/465

 INTRODUCTION TO THE

TIM^EUS,

455

is required in the body which receives them, that the image may not be diſſipated from the rarity of the receptacle, and that front many defluxions it may pafs into one form.

But fmoothnefs likewife is required, left the

afperity of the receptacle, on account of the prominency of fome of its parts and the depth of others, fhould be the caufe of inequality to the image. And, laftly, fplendour is required; that the image, which naturally polfeffes a {lender form, may become apparent to the fight. In the next place, with refpeCt to matter, and the various epithets by which Plato calls it in this dialogue, it is neceflary to obferve, that as in an amend¬ ing feries of fubje&s we muft arrive at length at fomething which is better than all things, fo in a defcending feries our progreffion muft be flopped by fomething which is worfe than all things, and which is the general recep¬ tacle of the laft proceflion of forms.

And this is what the antients called

matter, and which they confidered as nothing more than a certain indefinitenefs of an incorporeal, indivifible, and intelleChial nature, and as fomething which is not formally imprefied and bounded by three dimenfions, but is entirely remitted and refolved, and is on all fides rapidly flowing from being into non-entity.

But this opinion concerning matter, fays Simplicius 1,

feems to have been adopted by the flrft Pythagoreans among the Greeks ; and after thefe by Plato, according to the relation of Moderatus.

For he

fhows us—“ that, according to the Pythagoreans, there is a firjl one fubfifting prior to the effence of things and every fubftance ; that alter this, true being and intelligible or forms fubfift : and, in the third'place, that which per¬ tains to foul, and which participates of the one and of intellectual forms. But after this (fays he) the laft nature, which is that of fenfibles, fubfifts ; which does not participate of the preceding natures, but is thus affeCled and formed according to the reprefentation of thefe ; fince the matter of fenfible natures is the fhadow of that non-being which primarily fubfifts in quantity, or rather may be faid to depend upon, and be produced by, this.”

Hence Porphyry,

in his fecond book on Matter, fays Simplicius, obferves that Plato calls matter, quantity, which is formlefs, indivifible, and without figure ; but capacious, and the receptacle of form, figure, divilion, quality, and other things of a fimilar kind.

And this quantity and form, confidered according 1 In Ariftot. Phyf. p. 50, b.

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