(58) Timaeus: and motion in non-uniformity; and the cause of the non-uniform nature lies in inequality. Now we have explained the origin of inequality ; but we have not declared how it is that these bodies are not separated according to their several Kinds, and cease not from their motion and passage one through another. Wherefore, we shall once more expound the matter as follows. The revolution of the All, since it comprehends the Kinds, compresses them all, seeing that it is circular and tends naturally to come together to itself ; and thus it suffers no void place to be left.

(4) And if all things in motion desire, not repose, but ever to make known their own proper movement, even this is an aspiration after the Divine Peace of the whole, which preserves all things from falling away of their own accord, and guards the idiosyncrasy and moving life of all moving things unmoved and free from falling, so that the things moved, being at peace amongst themselves, and always in the same condition, perform their own proper functions.

(1) Hermes, the God who presides over language, was formerly very properly considered as common to all priests; and the power who presides over the true science concerning the Gods is one and the same in the whole of things. Hence our ancestors dedicated the inventions of their wisdom to this deity, inscribing all their own writings with the name of Hermes. If, therefore, we participate of a portion of this God, adapted and commensurate to our powers, you do well to propose your theological doubts to the priests, as friends, and to make these doubts known to them. I also very properly conceiving that the epistle sent to my disciple Anebo was written to me, shall give you a true answer to your inquiries. For it would not be becoming, that Pythagoras and Plato, Democritus and Eudoxus, and many other of the ancient Greeks, should have obtained appropriate instruction from the sacred scribes of their time, but that you who are our contemporary, and think conformably to those ancients, should be frustrated of your wish by those who are now living, and who are called common preceptors. I, therefore, thus betake myself to the present discussion; and do you, if you please, conceive that the same person to whom you sent the letter returns you an answer. Or, if it should seem fit to you, admit it to be me who discourses with you in writing, or some other prophet of the Egyptians, for this is of no consequence. Or, which I think is still better, dismiss the consideration whether the speaker is an inferior or a superior character, but direct your attention to what is said, so as readily to excite your mind to survey whether what is asserted is true or false.

(64) Timaeus: bearing in mind the distinction we previously drew between mobile and immobile substances; for it is in this way that we must track down all those facts that we intend to grasp. Whenever what is naturally mobile is impressed by even a small affection, it transmits it in a circle, the particles passing on to one another this identical impression until they reach the organ of intelligence and announce the quality of the agent. But a substance of the opposite kind, being stable and having no circular movement, is only affected in itself and does not move any other adjacent particle; consequently,

(57) Timaeus: our subsequent argument will be greatly hampered. The facts about them have already been stated in part; but in addition thereto we must state further that motion never consents to exist within uniformity. For it is difficult, or rather impossible, for that which is to be moved to exist without that which is to move, or that which is to move without that which is to be moved; but in the absence of these there is no motion, and that these should ever be uniform is a thing impossible. Accordingly, we must always place rest in uniformity,

(28) Timaeus: and has no Becoming? And what is that which is Becoming always and never is Existent? Now the one of these is apprehensible by thought with the aid of reasoning, since it is ever uniformly existent; whereas the other is an object of opinion with the aid of unreasoning sensation, since it becomes and perishes and is never really existent. Again, everything which becomes must of necessity become owing to some Cause; for without a cause it is impossible for anything to attain becoming. But when the artificer of any object, in forming its shape and quality, keeps his gaze fixed on that which is uniform, using a model of this kind, that object, executed in this way, must of necessity

(34) For ourselves, while whatever in us belongs to the body of the All should be yielded to its action, we ought to make sure that we submit only within limits, realizing that the entire man is not thus bound to it: intelligent servitors yield a part of themselves to their masters but in part retain their personality, and are thus less absolutely at beck and call, as not being slaves, not utterly chattels.

The changing configurations within the All could not fail to be produced as they are, since the moving bodies are not of equal speed.

Now the movement is guided by a Reason-Principle; the relations of the living whole are altered in consequence; here in our own realm all that happens reacts in sympathy to the events of that higher sphere: it becomes, therefore, advisable to ask whether we are to think of this realm as following upon the higher by agreement, or to attribute to the configurations the powers underlying the events, and whether such powers would be vested in the configurations simply or in the relations of the particular items.

It will be said that one position of one given thing has by no means an identical effect- whether of indication or of causation- in its relation to another and still less to any group of others, since each several being seems to have a natural tendency of its own.

The truth is that the configuration of any given group means merely the relationship of the several parts, and, changing the members, the relationship remains the same.

But, this being so, the power will belong, not to the positions but to the beings holding those positions?

To both taken together. For as things change their relations, and as any one thing changes place, there is a change of power.

But what power? That of causation or of indication?

To this double thing- the particular configuration of particular beings- there accrues often the twofold power, that of causation and that of indication, but sometimes only that of indication. Thus we are obliged to attribute powers both to the configuration and to the beings entering into them. In mime dancers each of the hands has its own power, and so with all the limbs; the relative positions have much power; and, for a third power, there is that of the accessories and concomitants; underlying the action of the performers' limbs, there are such items as the clutched fingers and the muscles and veins following suit.

(37) Timaeus: having come into existence by the agency of the best of things intelligible and ever-existing as the best of things generated. Inasmuch, then, as she is a compound, blended of the natures of the Same and the Other and Being, these three portions, and is proportionately divided and bound together, and revolves back upon herself, whenever she touches anything which has its substance dispersed or anything which has its substance undivided she is moved throughout her whole being and announces what the object is identical with

(1) Leaving, therefore, these particulars, you wish in the next place that I would unfold to you “ What the Egyptians conceive the first cause to be; whether intellect, or above intellect; whether alone, or subsisting with some other or others; whether incorporeal, of corporeal; and whether it is the same with the Demiurgus, or is prior to the Demiurgus? Likewise, whether all things are from one principle, or from many principles; whether they have a knowledge of matter, or of primary corporeal qualities; and whether they admit matter to be unbegotten, or to be generated? ” I, therefore, will in the first place relate to you the cause why in the books of the ancient writers of sacred concerns many and various opinions concerning these things are circulated, and also why among those that are still living, and are renowned for their wisdom, the opinion on this subject is not simple and one. I say then, that as there are many essences, and these differing from each other, the all-various multitude of the principles of these, and which have different orders, were delivered by different ancient priests. As Seleucus narrates, therefore, Hermes described the principles that rank as wholes in two myriads of books; or, as we are informed by Manetho , he perfectly unfolded these principles in three myriads six thousand five hundred and twenty five volumes. But different ancient writers differently explained the partial principles of essences. It is necessary, however, by investigation to discover the truth about all these principles, and concisely to unfold it to you as much as possible. And, in the first place, hear concerning that which is the first subject of your inquiry.

(44) Timaeus: and every time they happen upon any external object, whether it be of the class of the Same or of the Other, they proclaim it to be the same as something or other than something contrary to the truth, and thereby prove themselves false and foolish, and devoid, at such times, of any revolution that rules and guides. And whenever external sensations in their movement collide with these revolutions and sweep along with them also the whole vessel of the Soul, then the revolutions, though actually mastered, appear to have the mastery. Hence it comes about that, because of all these affections, now as in the beginning,

(89) Timaeus: Further, as concerns the motions, the best motion of a body is that caused by itself in itself; for this is most nearly akin to the motion of intelligence and the motion of the Universe. Motion due to the agency of another is less good; and the least good motion is that which is imparted to a body lying in a state of rest and which moves it piecemeal and by means of others. Wherefore the motion that is best for purgings and renovations of the body consists in gymnastic exercises; and second-best is the motion provided by swaying vehicles, such as boats or any conveyances that produce no fatigue; while the third kind of motion, although useful for one who is absolutely driven to it,

(43) Timaeus: so that the whole of the living creature was moved, but in such a random way that its progress was disorderly and irrational, since it partook of all the six motions : for it progressed forwards and backwards, and again to right and to left, and upwards and downwards, wandering every way in all the six directions. For while the flood which foamed in and streamed out, as it supplied the food, was immense, still greater was the tumult produced

(80) Timaeus: of thunderbolts, and the marvels concerning the attraction of electron and of the Heraclean stone —not one of all these ever possesses any real power of attraction; but the fact that there is no void, and that these bodies propel themselves round one into another, and that according as they separate or unite they all exchange places and proceed severally each to its own region,—it is by means of these complex and reciprocal processes that such marvels are wrought, as will be evident to him who investigates them properly.

(436) rather say that one part of him is in motion while another is at rest. Very true. And suppose the objector to refine still further, and to draw the nice distinction that not only parts of tops, but whole tops, when they spin round with their pegs fixed on the spot, are at rest and in motion at the same time (and he may say the same of anything which revolves in the same spot), his objection would not be admitted by us, because in such cases things are not at rest and in motion in the same parts of themselves; we should rather say that they have both an axis and a circumference, and that the axis stands still, for there is no deviation from the perpendicular; and that the circumference goes round. But if, while revolving, the axis inclines either to the right or left, forwards or backwards, then in no point of view can they be at rest. That is the correct mode of describing them, he replied. Then none of these objections will confuse us, or incline us to believe that the same thing at the same time, in the same part or in relation to the same thing, can act or be acted upon in contrary ways. Certainly not, according to my way of thinking. Yet, I said, that we may not be compelled to examine all such objections, and prove at length that they are untrue, let us assume their absurdity, and go forward on the understanding that hereafter, if this assumption turn out to be untrue, all the consequences which follow shall be withdrawn. Yes, he said, that will be the best way.

(49) Timaeus: and the second as the model's Copy, subject to becoming and visible. A third kind we did not at that time distinguish, considering that those two were sufficient; but now the argument seems to compel us to try to reveal by words a Form that is baffling and obscure. What essential property, then, are we to conceive it to possess? This in particular,—that it should be the receptacle, and as it were the nurse, of all Becoming. Yet true though this statement is, we must needs describe it more plainly.

(29) Timaeus: constructed Becoming and the All. He was good, and in him that is good no envy ariseth ever concerning anything; and being devoid of envy He desired that all should be, so far as possible, like unto Himself. This principle, then, we shall be wholly right in accepting from men of wisdom as being above all the supreme originating principle of Becoming and the Cosmos.

(1) The principals of all that are, are, therefore, God and Æon. The Cosmos, on the other hand, in that ’tis moveable, is not a principal. For its mobility exceeds its own stability by treating the immoveable fixation as the law of everlasting movement. The Whole Sense, then, of the Divinity, though like [to Him] in its own self immoveable, doth set itself in motion within its own stability. ’Tis holy, incorruptible, and everlasting, and if there can be any better attribute to give to it, [’tis its],—Eternity of God supreme, in Truth itself subsisting, the Fullness of all things, of Sense, and of the whole of Science, consisting, so to say, with God.

(9) But what again, when the Theologians say, that the unmoved goes forth to all, and is moved? Must we not understand this in a sense befitting God? For we must reverently suppose that He is moved, not as beseems carriage, or change, or alteration, or turning, or local movement, or the straight, or the circular, or that from both (curvative), or the intellectual, or the spiritual, or the physical, but that Almighty God brings into being and sustains everything, and provides in every way for everything; and is present, to all, by the irresistible embrace of all, and by His providential progressions and operations to all existing things. But we must concede to our discourse, to celebrate in a sense becoming God, even movements of God, the immovable. And the straight must be considered (to be) the unswerving and the undeviating progression of the operation, and the production from Himself of the whole; and the curvative--the steady progression and the productive condition; and the circular the same, and the holding together the middle and extremities, which encompass and are encompassed,--and the turning to Him of the things which proceeded from Him.

(2) The Egyptians, likewise, do not say that all things are physical. For they separate the life of the soul and the intellectual life from nature, not only in the universe, but also in us. And admitting intellect and reason to subsist by themselves, they say that generated essences were thus fabricated. They likewise arrange the Demiurgus as the primary father of things in generation; and they acknowledge the existence of a vital power, prior to the heavens, and subsisting in the heavens. They also establish a pure intellect above the world, and one impartible intellect in the whole world, and another which is distributed into all the spheres. And these things they do not survey by mere reason alone, but through the sacerdotal theurgy, they announce that they are able to ascend to more elevated and universal essences, and to those that are established above Fate, viz. to God and the Demiurgus; neither employing matter, nor assuming any other thing besides, except the observation of a suitable time.

(33) Timaeus: and to experience by its own agency and within itself all actions and passions, since He that had constructed it deemed that it would be better if it were self-sufficing rather than in need of other things. Hands, too, He thought He ought not to attach unto it uselessly, seeing they were not required either for grasping or for repelling anyone; nor yet feet, nor any instruments of locomotion whatsoever.