Page:Works of Plato his first fifty-five dialogues (Taylor 1804) (Vol 3 of 5) (IA Vol3worksofplato00plat).pdf/158

 150 THE PARMENIDES.

But since it is such, it will neither be equal 1 nor unequal, either to itself or to another. How so ? If it were equal, indeed, it would be of the same

that which is denominated liberated, the peculiarity of which, according to them, is to be exempt from mundane affairs, and at the same time to communicate with them. They are also proximately carried in the mundane Gods ; and hence they fay that they are allotted the medium of the supermundane and mundane Gods. This liberated order, therefore, Plato delivers to us in the second hypothesis, and also there says what the idiom of it is, and that it is touching: for it is in a certain respect mundane and supermundane, being collective of those that are properly called mundane Gods, and producing into multitude the union of all the assimilative and supermundane series.
 * After the assimilative order of Gods, which is supermundane alone, ancient theologists arrange

Here, however, Plato omits this order, and passes on to those Gods that are alone mundane ; the reason of which we shall endeavour to assign in commenting on the second hypothesis. The peculiarity, therefore, of the mundane Gods is the equal and the unequal, the former of these indicating their fulness, and their receiving neither any addition nor ablation ; (for such is that which is equal to itself, always preserving the fame boundary ;) but the latter, the multitude of their powers, and the excess and defect which they contain. For, in these, divisions, variety of powers, differences of progressions, analogies, and bonds through these, are, according to ancient theologists, especially allotted a place. Hence, Timaeus also constitutes souls through analogy, the causes of which must necessarily presubsist in the Gods that proximately preside over souls : and as all analogies subsist from equality, Plato very properly indicates the idiom of these divinities by the equal and the unequal. But he now very properly frames the demonstrations of -the negations of the equal and the unequal from sameness and the many, and not from thefimilar and the difjimilar, though he proximately spoke of these. or every mundane deity proceeds from the •demiurgic monad, and the first multitude which he first denies of the one. Of this then we must be entirely persuaded, that the things from which demonstrations consist are the preceding causes of the particulars about which Parmenides discourses; fo that the equal and the unequal, fo far as they proceed from the one, and subsist through sameness and the masiy, so far through these they are denied of the one. Hence, Plato thus begins his discourse concerning them :—“ But fnce it is such,” viz. not as we have just now demonstrated, but as was formerly shown, that it neither receives fame nor different, and is without multitude,•—being such, it is neither equal nor unequal, neither to itself nor to others : for, again, there are here twofold conclusions, in the fame manner as concerning the similar and the diflimilar, and the fame and the different. But that the equal and the unequal are fufpended from the twofold coordinations of divine natures is not immanifeft. For the equal is arranged under the similar, and the same, subsistence in another, the round, and the whole ; but the unequal, under the dijftmilar, the different, fuhfjlence in itself, the Jlraight, and the possession of parts. And again, of these the former are suspended from hound, and the latter from infinity. Plato also appears to produce the discourse through certain oppo-sitions, as it were, that he may (how that the one is above all opposition. For the one cannot be the worse of the two opposites, since this would be absurd j nor can it be the better of the two, since in