Page:Works of Plato his first fifty-five dialogues (Taylor 1804) (Vol 2 of 5) (IA Vol2worksofplato00plat).pdf/467

 INTRODUCTION TO THE TIM

US.

437

and poſſeſſing no power from intelleft; but is conftituted in the defedl and fhade, as it were, of all real being.

Hence, too, in each of its vanifhing

appellations, it eludes our fearch : for, if we think of it as fomething great, it is in the mean time fmall; if as fomething more, it becomes lefs ; and the apparent being which we meet with in its image is non-being, and, as it were, a flying mockery.

So that the forms which appear in matter are

merely ludicrous ; flhadows falling upon fhadow, as in a mirror, where the pofition of the apparent is different from that of the real objed ; and which, though apparently full of forms, poflefles nothing real and true.

But the

things which enter into, and depart from, matter, are nothing but imitations of being, and femblances flowing about a formlefs femblance.

They feem,

indeed, to effed fomething in the fubjed matter, but in reality produce nothing ; from their debile and flowing nature being endued with no folidity and no rebounding power.

And fince matter likewife has no folidity, they

penetrate it without divifion, like images in water, or as if any one fhould fill a vacuum with forms.” Such, then, being the true condition of matter and her inherent fhadowy forms, we may fafely conclude that whatever becomes corporeal in an emi¬ nent degree has but little power of recalling itfelf into one ; and that a nature of this kind is ready by every trifling impulfe to remain as it is im¬ pelled ; to rufh from the embraces of bound, and haften into multitude and non-entity.

Hence, as Plotinus beautifully obferves, (Ennead. 3, lib. 6,)—

“ thofe who only place being in the genus of body, in confequence of impulfes and concuflions, and the phantafms perceived through the fenfes, which perfuade them that fenfe is alone the ftandard of truth, are affedled like thofe in a dream, who imagine that the perceptions of fleep are true. For fenfe is alone the employment of the dormant loul; fince as much of the foul as is merged in body, fo much of it fleeps.

But true elevation and

true vigilance are a refurredtion from, and not with, the dull mats of body. For, indeed, a refurrection with body is only a tranfmigration from fleep to fleep, and from dream to dream, like a man paffing in the dark from bed to bed.

But that elevation is perfectly true which entirely riles from the dead

weight of bodies; for thefe, pofleffing a nature repugnant to foul, poflefs fomething oppofite to efience. vol. 11.

And this is further evident from their gene3 n

ration.