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Timaeus

P >> Plato, translated by B. Jowett. >> Timaeus




There is a corresponding enquiry concerning the mode of treatment by which
the mind and the body are to be preserved, about which it is meet and right
that I should say a word in turn; for it is more our duty to speak of the
good than of the evil. Everything that is good is fair, and the fair is
not without proportion, and the animal which is to be fair must have due
proportion. Now we perceive lesser symmetries or proportions and reason
about them, but of the highest and greatest we take no heed; for there is
no proportion or disproportion more productive of health and disease, and
virtue and vice, than that between soul and body. This however we do not
perceive, nor do we reflect that when a weak or small frame is the vehicle
of a great and mighty soul, or conversely, when a little soul is encased in
a large body, then the whole animal is not fair, for it lacks the most
important of all symmetries; but the due proportion of mind and body is the
fairest and loveliest of all sights to him who has the seeing eye. Just as
a body which has a leg too long, or which is unsymmetrical in some other
respect, is an unpleasant sight, and also, when doing its share of work, is
much distressed and makes convulsive efforts, and often stumbles through
awkwardness, and is the cause of infinite evil to its own self--in like
manner we should conceive of the double nature which we call the living
being; and when in this compound there is an impassioned soul more powerful
than the body, that soul, I say, convulses and fills with disorders the
whole inner nature of man; and when eager in the pursuit of some sort of
learning or study, causes wasting; or again, when teaching or disputing in
private or in public, and strifes and controversies arise, inflames and
dissolves the composite frame of man and introduces rheums; and the nature
of this phenomenon is not understood by most professors of medicine, who
ascribe it to the opposite of the real cause. And once more, when a body
large and too strong for the soul is united to a small and weak
intelligence, then inasmuch as there are two desires natural to man,--one
of food for the sake of the body, and one of wisdom for the sake of the
diviner part of us--then, I say, the motions of the stronger, getting the
better and increasing their own power, but making the soul dull, and
stupid, and forgetful, engender ignorance, which is the greatest of
diseases. There is one protection against both kinds of disproportion:--
that we should not move the body without the soul or the soul without the
body, and thus they will be on their guard against each other, and be
healthy and well balanced. And therefore the mathematician or any one else
whose thoughts are much absorbed in some intellectual pursuit, must allow
his body also to have due exercise, and practise gymnastic; and he who is
careful to fashion the body, should in turn impart to the soul its proper
motions, and should cultivate music and all philosophy, if he would deserve
to be called truly fair and truly good. And the separate parts should be
treated in the same manner, in imitation of the pattern of the universe;
for as the body is heated and also cooled within by the elements which
enter into it, and is again dried up and moistened by external things, and
experiences these and the like affections from both kinds of motions, the
result is that the body if given up to motion when in a state of quiescence
is overmastered and perishes; but if any one, in imitation of that which we
call the foster-mother and nurse of the universe, will not allow the body
ever to be inactive, but is always producing motions and agitations through
its whole extent, which form the natural defence against other motions both
internal and external, and by moderate exercise reduces to order according
to their affinities the particles and affections which are wandering about
the body, as we have already said when speaking of the universe, he will
not allow enemy placed by the side of enemy to stir up wars and disorders
in the body, but he will place friend by the side of friend, so as to
create health. Now of all motions that is the best which is produced in a
thing by itself, for it is most akin to the motion of thought and of the
universe; but that motion which is caused by others is not so good, and
worst of all is that which moves the body, when at rest, in parts only and
by some external agency. Wherefore of all modes of purifying and re-
uniting the body the best is gymnastic; the next best is a surging motion,
as in sailing or any other mode of conveyance which is not fatiguing; the
third sort of motion may be of use in a case of extreme necessity, but in
any other will be adopted by no man of sense: I mean the purgative
treatment of physicians; for diseases unless they are very dangerous should
not be irritated by medicines, since every form of disease is in a manner
akin to the living being, whose complex frame has an appointed term of
life. For not the whole race only, but each individual--barring inevitable
accidents--comes into the world having a fixed span, and the triangles in
us are originally framed with power to last for a certain time, beyond
which no man can prolong his life. And this holds also of the constitution
of diseases; if any one regardless of the appointed time tries to subdue
them by medicine, he only aggravates and multiplies them. Wherefore we
ought always to manage them by regimen, as far as a man can spare the time,
and not provoke a disagreeable enemy by medicines.

Enough of the composite animal, and of the body which is a part of him, and
of the manner in which a man may train and be trained by himself so as to
live most according to reason: and we must above and before all provide
that the element which is to train him shall be the fairest and best
adapted to that purpose. A minute discussion of this subject would be a
serious task; but if, as before, I am to give only an outline, the subject
may not unfitly be summed up as follows.

I have often remarked that there are three kinds of soul located within us,
having each of them motions, and I must now repeat in the fewest words
possible, that one part, if remaining inactive and ceasing from its natural
motion, must necessarily become very weak, but that which is trained and
exercised, very strong. Wherefore we should take care that the movements
of the different parts of the soul should be in due proportion.

And we should consider that God gave the sovereign part of the human soul
to be the divinity of each one, being that part which, as we say, dwells at
the top of the body, and inasmuch as we are a plant not of an earthly but
of a heavenly growth, raises us from earth to our kindred who are in
heaven. And in this we say truly; for the divine power suspended the head
and root of us from that place where the generation of the soul first
began, and thus made the whole body upright. When a man is always occupied
with the cravings of desire and ambition, and is eagerly striving to
satisfy them, all his thoughts must be mortal, and, as far as it is
possible altogether to become such, he must be mortal every whit, because
he has cherished his mortal part. But he who has been earnest in the love
of knowledge and of true wisdom, and has exercised his intellect more than
any other part of him, must have thoughts immortal and divine, if he attain
truth, and in so far as human nature is capable of sharing in immortality,
he must altogether be immortal; and since he is ever cherishing the divine
power, and has the divinity within him in perfect order, he will be
perfectly happy. Now there is only one way of taking care of things, and
this is to give to each the food and motion which are natural to it. And
the motions which are naturally akin to the divine principle within us are
the thoughts and revolutions of the universe. These each man should
follow, and correct the courses of the head which were corrupted at our
birth, and by learning the harmonies and revolutions of the universe,
should assimilate the thinking being to the thought, renewing his original
nature, and having assimilated them should attain to that perfect life
which the gods have set before mankind, both for the present and the
future.

Thus our original design of discoursing about the universe down to the
creation of man is nearly completed. A brief mention may be made of the
generation of other animals, so far as the subject admits of brevity; in
this manner our argument will best attain a due proportion. On the subject
of animals, then, the following remarks may be offered. Of the men who
came into the world, those who were cowards or led unrighteous lives may
with reason be supposed to have changed into the nature of women in the
second generation. And this was the reason why at that time the gods
created in us the desire of sexual intercourse, contriving in man one
animated substance, and in woman another, which they formed respectively in
the following manner. The outlet for drink by which liquids pass through
the lung under the kidneys and into the bladder, which receives and then by
the pressure of the air emits them, was so fashioned by them as to
penetrate also into the body of the marrow, which passes from the head
along the neck and through the back, and which in the preceding discourse
we have named the seed. And the seed having life, and becoming endowed
with respiration, produces in that part in which it respires a lively
desire of emission, and thus creates in us the love of procreation.
Wherefore also in men the organ of generation becoming rebellious and
masterful, like an animal disobedient to reason, and maddened with the
sting of lust, seeks to gain absolute sway; and the same is the case with
the so-called womb or matrix of women; the animal within them is desirous
of procreating children, and when remaining unfruitful long beyond its
proper time, gets discontented and angry, and wandering in every direction
through the body, closes up the passages of the breath, and, by obstructing
respiration, drives them to extremity, causing all varieties of disease,
until at length the desire and love of the man and the woman, bringing them
together and as it were plucking the fruit from the tree, sow in the womb,
as in a field, animals unseen by reason of their smallness and without
form; these again are separated and matured within; they are then finally
brought out into the light, and thus the generation of animals is
completed.

Thus were created women and the female sex in general. But the race of
birds was created out of innocent light-minded men, who, although their
minds were directed toward heaven, imagined, in their simplicity, that the
clearest demonstration of the things above was to be obtained by sight;
these were remodelled and transformed into birds, and they grew feathers
instead of hair. The race of wild pedestrian animals, again, came from
those who had no philosophy in any of their thoughts, and never considered
at all about the nature of the heavens, because they had ceased to use the
courses of the head, but followed the guidance of those parts of the soul
which are in the breast. In consequence of these habits of theirs they had
their front-legs and their heads resting upon the earth to which they were
drawn by natural affinity; and the crowns of their heads were elongated and
of all sorts of shapes, into which the courses of the soul were crushed by
reason of disuse. And this was the reason why they were created quadrupeds
and polypods: God gave the more senseless of them the more support that
they might be more attracted to the earth. And the most foolish of them,
who trail their bodies entirely upon the ground and have no longer any need
of feet, he made without feet to crawl upon the earth. The fourth class
were the inhabitants of the water: these were made out of the most
entirely senseless and ignorant of all, whom the transformers did not think
any longer worthy of pure respiration, because they possessed a soul which
was made impure by all sorts of transgression; and instead of the subtle
and pure medium of air, they gave them the deep and muddy sea to be their
element of respiration; and hence arose the race of fishes and oysters, and
other aquatic animals, which have received the most remote habitations as a
punishment of their outlandish ignorance. These are the laws by which
animals pass into one another, now, as ever, changing as they lose or gain
wisdom and folly.

We may now say that our discourse about the nature of the universe has an
end. The world has received animals, mortal and immortal, and is fulfilled
with them, and has become a visible animal containing the visible--the
sensible God who is the image of the intellectual, the greatest, best,
fairest, most perfect--the one only-begotten heaven.

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