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change. Thus things seen are temporal, but things unseen are eternal. The body is seen, but the soul is unseen; therefore the soul is to be classified in the group of things that are eternal.
The soul, being eternal, is at home in the contemplation of eternal things, that is, essences, but is lost and confused when, as in senseperception, it contemplates the world of changing things.
The soul when using the body as an instrument of perception, that is to say, when using the sense of sight or hearing or some other sense (for the meaning of perceiving through the body is perceiving through the senses) . . . is then dragged by the body into the region of the changeable, and wanders and is confused; the world spins round her, and she is like a drunkard, when she touches change. . . . But when returning into herself she reflects, then she passes into the other world, the region of purity, and eternity, and immortality, and unchangeableness, which are her kindred, and with them she ever lives, when she is by herself, and is not let or hindered; then she ceases from her erring ways, and being in communion with the unchanging is unchanging. And this state of the soul is called wisdom.
The soul of the true philosopher, which has, in life, been liberated from thraldom to the flesh, will, after death, depart to the invisible world, to live in bliss in the company of the gods. But the impure soul, which has loved the body, will become a ghost haunting the sepulchre, or will enter into the body of an animal, such as an ass or wolf or hawk, according to its character. A man who has been virtuous without being a philosopher will become a bee or wasp or ant, or some other animal of a gregarious and social sort.
Only the true philosopher goes to heaven when he dies. «No one who has not studied philosophy and who is not entirely pure at the time of his departure is allowed to enter the company of the Gods, but the lover of knowledge only.» That is why the true votaries of philosophy abstain from fleshly lusts: not that they fear poverty or disgrace, but because they «are conscious that the soul was simply fastened or glued to the body—until philosophy received her, she could only view real existence through the bars of a prison, not in and through herself, . . . and by reason of lust had become the principal accomplice in her own captivity.» The philosopher will be
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temperate because «each pleasure and pain is a sort of nail which nails and rivets the soul to the body, until she becomes like the body, and believes that to be true which the body affirms to be true.»
At this point, Simmias brings up the Pythagorean opinion that the soul is a harmony, and urges: if the lyre is broken, can the harmony survive? Socrates replies that the soul is not a harmony, for a harmony is complex, but the soul is simple. Moreover, he says, the view that the soul is a harmony is incompatible with its pre-existence, which was proved by the doctrine of reminiscence; for the harmony does not exist before the lyre.
Socrates proceeds to give an account of his own philosophical development, which is very interesting, but not germane to the main argument. He goes on to expound the doctrine of ideas, leading to the conclusion «that ideas exist, and that other things participate in them and derive their names from them.» At last he describes the fate of souls after death: the good to heaven, the bad to hell, the intermediate to purgatory.
His end, and his farewells, are described. His last words are: «Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?» Men paid a cock to Asclepius when they recovered from an illness, and Socrates has recovered from life’s fitful fever.
«Of all the men of his time,» Phaedo concludes, «he was the wisest and justest and best.»
The Platonic Socrates was a pattern to subsequent philosophers for many ages. What are we to think of him ethically? (I am concerned only with the man as Plato portrays him.) His merits are obvious. He is indifferent to worldly success, so devoid of fear that he remains calm and urbane and humourous to the last moment, caring more for what he believes to be truth than for anything else whatever. He has, however, some very grave defects. He is dishonest and sophistical in argument, and in his private thinking he uses intellect to prove conclusions that are to him agreeable, rather than in a disinterested search for knowledge. There is something smug and unctuous about him, which reminds one of a bad type of cleric. His courage in the face of death would have been more remarkable if he had not believed that he was going to enjoy eternal bliss in the company of the gods. Unlike some of his predecessors, he was not scientific in his thinking,
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but was determined to prove the universe agreeable to his ethical standards. This is treachery to truth, and the worst of philosophic sins. As a man, we may believe him admitted to the communion of saints; but as a philosopher he needs a long residence in a scientific purgatory.
CHAPTER XVII Plato’s Cosmogony
P LATO’S cosmogony is set forth in the Timaeus, which was translated into Latin by Cicero, and was, in consequence, the only one of the dialogues that was known in the West in the Middle Ages. Both then, and earlier in Neoplatonism, it had more influence than anything else in Plato, which is curious, as it certainly contains more that is simply silly than is to be found in his other writings. As philosophy, it is unimportant, but historically it was so influential that it must be considered in some detail.
The place occupied by Socrates in the earlier dialogues is taken, in the Timaeus, by a Pythagorean, and the doctrines of that school are in the main adopted, including the view that number is the explanation of the world. There is first a summary of the first five books of the Republic, then the myth of Atlantis, which is said to have been an island off the Pillars of Hercules, larger than Libya and Asia put together. Then Timaeus, who is a Pythagorean astronomer, preceeds to tell the history of the world down to the creation of man. What he says is, in outline, as follows.
What is unchanging is apprehended by intelligence and reason; what is changing is apprehended by opinion. The world, being sensible, cannot be eternal, and must have been created by God. Since God is good, he made the world after the pattern of the eternal; being without jealousy, he wanted everything as like himself as possible. «God desired that all things should be good, and nothing bad, as far as possible.» «Finding the whole visible sphere not at rest, but moving in an irregular and disorderly fashion, out of disorder he brought
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order.» (Thus it appears that Plato’s God, unlike the Jewish and Christian God, did not create the world out of nothing, but rearranged pre-existing material.) He put intelligence in the soul, and the soul in the body. He made the world as a whole a living creature having soul and intelligence. There is only one world, not many, as various pre-Socratics had taught; there cannot be more than one, since it is a created copy designed to accord as closely as possible with the eternal original apprehended by God. The world in its entirety is one visible animal, comprehending within itself all other animals. It is a globe, because like is fairer than unlike, and only a globe is alike everywhere. It rotates, because circular motion is the most perfect; and since this is its only motion it needs no feet or hands.
The four elements, fire, air, water, and earth, each of which apparently is represented by a number, are in continued proportion, i.e. fire is to air as air is to water and as water is to earth. God used all the elements in making the world, and therefore it is perfect, and not liable to old age or disease. It is harmonized by proportion, which causes it to have the spirit of friendship, and therefore to be indissoluble except by God.
God made first the soul, then the body. The soul is compounded of the indivisible-unchangeable and the divisible-changeable; it is a third and intermediate kind of essence.
Here follows a Pythagorean account of the planets, leading to an explanation of the origin of time:
When the father and creator saw the creature which he had made moving and living, the created image of the eternal gods, he rejoiced, and in his joy determined to make the copy still more like the original; and as this was eternal, he sought to make the universe eternal, so far as might be. Now the nature of the ideal being was everlasting, but to bestow this attribute in its fulness upon a creature was
