(32) Timaeus: and out of these materials, such in kind and four in number, the body of the Cosmos was harmonized by proportion and brought into existence. These conditions secured for it Amity, so that being united in identity with itself it became indissoluble by any agent other than Him who had bound it together. Now of the four elements the construction of the Cosmos had taken up the whole of every one. For its Constructor had constructed it of all the fire and water and air and earth that existed, leaving over, outside it, no single particle or potency of any one of these elements. And these were his intentions:

(3) "Atoms" or "elements"- it is in either case an absurdity, an impossibility, to hand over the universe and its contents to material entities, and out of the disorderly swirl thus occasioned to call order, reasoning, and the governing soul into being; but the atomic origin is, if we may use the phrase, the most impossible.

A good deal of truth has resulted from the discussion of this subject; but, even to admit such principles does not compel us to admit universal compulsion or any kind of "fate."

Suppose the atoms to exist:

These atoms are to move, one downwards- admitting a down and an up- another slant-wise, all at haphazard, in a confused conflict. Nothing here is orderly; order has not come into being, though the outcome, this Universe, when it achieves existence, is all order; and thus prediction and divination are utterly impossible, whether by the laws of the science- what science can operate where there is no order?- or by divine possession and inspiration, which no less require that the future be something regulated.

Material entities exposed to all this onslaught may very well be under compulsion to yield to whatsoever the atoms may bring: but would anyone pretend that the acts and states of a soul or mind could be explained by any atomic movements? How can we imagine that the onslaught of an atom, striking downwards or dashing in from any direction, could force the soul to definite and necessary reasonings or impulses or into any reasonings, impulses or thoughts at all, necessary or otherwise? And what of the soul's resistance to bodily states? What movement of atoms could compel one man to be a geometrician, set another studying arithmetic or astronomy, lead a third to the philosophic life? In a word, if we must go, like soulless bodies, wherever bodies push and drive us, there is an end to our personal act and to our very existence as living beings.

The School that erects other material forces into universal causes is met by the same reasoning: we say that while these can warm us and chill us, and destroy weaker forms of existence, they can be causes of nothing that is done in the sphere of mind or soul: all this must be traceable to quite another kind of Principle.

(3) So be it, they say. But the philosophers, the Stoics, and Plato, and Pythagoras, nay more, Aristotle the Peripatetic, suppose the existence of matter among the first principles; and not one first principle. Let them then know that what is called matter by them, is said by them to be without quality, and without form, and more daringly said by Plato to be non-existence. And does he not say very mystically, knowing that the true and real first cause is one, in these very words: "Now, then, let our opinion be so. As to the first principle or principles of the universe, or what opinion we ought to entertain about all these points, we are not now to speak, for no other cause than on account of its being difficult to explain our sentiments in accordance with the present form of discourse." But undoubtedly that prophetic expression, "Now the earth was invisible and formless," supplied them with the ground of material essence.

(7) Empedokles in identifying his "elements" with Matter is refuted by their decay.

Anaxagoras, in identifying his "primal-combination" with Matter- to which he allots no mere aptness to any and every nature or quality but the effective possession of all- withdraws in this way the very Intellectual-Principle he had introduced; for this Mind is not to him the bestower of shape, of Forming Idea; and it is co-aeval with Matter, not its prior. But this simultaneous existence is impossible: for if the combination derives Being by participation, Being is the prior; if both are Authentic Existents, then an additional Principle, a third, is imperative . And if this Creator, Mind, must pre-exist, why need Matter contain the Forming-Ideas parcel-wise for the Mind, with unending labour, to assort and allot? Surely the undetermined could be brought to quality and pattern in the one comprehensive act?

As for the notion that all is in all, this clearly is impossible.

Those who make the base to be "the infinite" must define the term.

If this "infinite" means "of endless extension" there is no infinite among beings; there is neither an infinity-in-itself nor an infinity as an attribute to some body; for in the first case every part of that infinity would be infinite and in the second an object in which the infinity was present as an attribute could not be infinite apart from that attribute, could not be simplex, could not therefore be Matter.

Atoms again cannot meet the need of a base.

There are no atoms; all body is divisible endlessly: besides neither the continuity nor the ductility of corporeal things is explicable apart from Mind, or apart from the Soul which cannot be made up of atoms; and, again, out of atoms creation could produce nothing but atoms: a creative power could produce nothing from a material devoid of continuity. Any number of reasons might be brought, and have been brought, against this hypothesis and it need detain us no longer.

(1) And this indeed is what he said to the young men in the Gymnasium. But when they had told their parents what they had heard, a thousand men having called Pythagoras into the senate-house, and praised him for what he had said to their sons, desired him, if he had any thing advantageous to say to the Crotonians, to unfold it to those who were the leaders of the administration. He was also the first that advised them to build a temple to the Muses, in order that they might preserve the existing concord. For he observed that all these divinities were called by one common name, [the Muses,] that they subsisted in conjunction with each other, especially rejoiced in common honors, and in short, that there was always one and the same choir of the Muses.

He likewise farther observed, that they comprehended in themselves symphony, harmony, rythm, and all things which procure concord. They also evince that their power does not alone extend to the most beautiful theorems, but likewise to the symphony and harmony of things. In the next place, he said it was necessary they should apprehend that they received their country from the multitude of the citizens, as a common deposit. Hence, it was requisite they should so govern it, that they might faithfully transmit it to their posterity, as an hereditary possession. And that this would firmly be effected, if they were equal in all things to the citizens, and surpassed them in nothing else than justice. For men knowing that every place requires justice, have asserted in fables that Themis has the same order with Jupiter, that Dice, i. e. justice, is seated by Pluto, and that Law is established in cities; in order that he who does not act justly in things which his rank in society requires him to perform, may at the same time appear to be unjust towards the whole world.

He added, it was proper that the senators should not make use of any of the Gods for the purpose of an oath, but that their language should be such as to render them worthy of belief even without oaths. And likewise, that they should so manage their own domestic affairs, as to make the government of them the object of their deliberate choice. That they should also be genuinely disposed towards their own offspring, as being the only animals that have a sensation of this conception. And that they should so associate with a wife the companion of life, as to be mindful that other compacts are engraved in tables and pillars, but those with wives are inserted in children. That they should likewise endeavour to be beloved by their offspring, not through nature, of which they were not the causes, but through deliberate choice: for this is voluntary beneficence.

(2) Our first observations must be directed to what passes in the Sensible realm for Substance. It is, we shall agree, only by analogy that the nature manifested in bodies is designated as Substance, and by no means because such terms as Substance or Being tally with the notion of bodies in flux; the proper term would be Becoming.

But Becoming is not a uniform nature; bodies comprise under the single head simples and composites, together with accidentals or consequents, these last themselves capable of separate classification.

Alternatively, Becoming may be divided into Matter and the Form imposed upon Matter. These may be regarded each as a separate genus, or else both may be brought under a single category and receive alike the name of Substance.

But what, we may ask, have Matter and Form in common? In what sense can Matter be conceived as a genus, and what will be its species? What is the differentia of Matter? In which genus, Matter or Form, are we to rank the composite of both? It may be this very composite which constitutes the Substance manifested in bodies, neither of the components by itself answering to the conception of Body: how, then, can we rank them in one and the same genus as the composite? How can the elements of a thing be brought within the same genus as the thing itself? Yet if we begin with bodies, our first-principles will be compounds.

Why not resort to analogy? Admitted that the classification of the Sensible cannot proceed along the identical lines marked out for the Intellectual: is there any reason why we should not for Intellectual-Being substitute Matter, and for Intellectual Motion substitute Sensible Form, which is in a sense the life and consummation of Matter? The inertia of Matter would correspond with Stability, while the Identity and Difference of the Intellectual would find their counterparts in the similarity and diversity which obtain in the Sensible realm.

But, in the first place, Matter does not possess or acquire Form as its life or its Act; Form enters it from without, and remains foreign to its nature. Secondly, Form in the Intellectual is an Act and a motion; in the Sensible Motion is different from Form and accidental to it: Form in relation to Matter approximates rather to Stability than to Motion; for by determining Matter's indetermination it confers upon it a sort of repose.

In the higher realm Identity and Difference presuppose a unity at once identical and different: a thing in the lower is different only by participation in Difference and in relation to some other thing; Identity and Difference are here predicated of the particular, which is not, as in that realm, a posterior.

As for Stability, how can it belong to Matter, which is distorted into every variety of mass, receiving its forms from without, and even with the aid of these forms incapable of offspring.

This mode of division must accordingly be abandoned.

(6) The elements are worshipped, - the air by Diogenes, the water by Thales, the fire by Hippasus; and by those who suppose atoms to be the first principles of things, arrogating the name of philosophers, being wretched creatures devoted to pleasure. "Wherefore I pray," says the apostle, "that your love may abound yet more and more, in knowledge and in all judgment, that ye may approve things that are excellent." "Since, when we were children," says the same apostle, "we were kept in bondage under the rudiments of the world. And the child, though heir, differeth nothing from a servant, till the time appointed of the father."

(69) Timaeus: or any of the other elements; but He, in the first place, set all these in order, and then out of these He constructed this present Universe, one single Living Creature containing within itself all living creatures both mortal and immortal. And He Himself acts as the Constructor of things divine, but the structure of the mortal things He commanded His own engendered sons to execute. And they, imitating Him, on receiving the immortal principle of soul, framed around it a mortal body, and gave it all the body to be its vehicle, and housed therein besides another form of soul, even the mortal form,

(50) We have staked our life, our reason, our spirit, our religion, in order to understand the perfection of an atom. Sew up your lips and ask nothing of the empyrean or the throne of God. No one really knows the essence of the atom - ask whom you will. The Heavens are like a cupola upside down, without stability, at once moving and unmoving. One is lost in contemplation of such a mystery - it is veil upon veil; one is like a figure painted on a wall, and one can only bite the back of one's hand.

(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.

(62) Timaeus: of quadrangular bases, being very firmly based, it is a most inelastic form; and so too is everything which is of very dense composition and most rigid. The nature of “heavy” and “light” would be shown most clearly if, along with them, we examined also the nature of “above” and “below,” as they are called. That there really exist two distinct and totally opposite regions, each of which occupies one-half of the Universe—the one termed “below,” towards which move all things possessing any bodily mass, and the other “above,” towards which everything goes against its will,—

(2) I shall therefore rather pass on to show, that some of the Pythagoreans were political characters, and adapted to govern. For they were guardians of the laws, and ruled over certain Italian cities, unfolding to them, and counselling them to adopt the most excellent measures, but abstaining from public revenues. And though they were greatly calumniated, yet at the same time the probity of the Pythagoreans, and the wish of the cities themselves prevailed, so that they were desired by them to administer their political concerns. But at this time the most beautiful of polities appear to have existed in Italy and in Sicily. For Charondas the Catanean, who appears to have been one of the best legislators, was a Pythagorean; as were also the Locrians Zaleucus and Timares, who were celebrated for their legislation.

Those also who established the Rheginic polities, that polity which is called Gymnasiarchic, and that which is denominated from Theocles, are said to have been Pythagoreans. Phytius likewise, Theocles, Elecaon, and Aristocrates, excelled among the Pythagoreans in their studies and manners, which also the cities in those places adopted at those times. In short, it is asserted that Pythagoras was the inventor of the whole of political erudition, when he said that nothing is pure among things that have an existence; but that earth participates of fire, fire of air, air of water, and water of spirit. And in a similar manner the beautiful participates of the deformed, the just of the unjust, and other things conformably to these. From this hypothesis, however, the reasoning tends to either part.

He also said, that there are two motions of the body and the soul; the one being irrational, but the other the effect of deliberate choice. That three certain lines also constitute polities, the extremes of which mutually touch each other, and produce one right angle; so that one of them has the nature of the sesquitertian; another that of the diapente; and the third is a medium between the other two. But when we consider by a reasoning process the coincidences of the lines with each other, and also of the places under these, we shall find that they represent the best image of a polity. Plato has made the glory of this invention his own; for he clearly says in his Republic, “that the sesquitertian progeny conjoined with the pentad produces two harmonies.” It is also said, that Pythagoras cultivated the moderation of the passions, and mediocrity, and that by the conjunction of a certain precedaneous good, he rendered the life of each of his disciples happy.

And in short, it is said that he discovered the choice of our good, and of the works adapted to our nature. It is likewise narrated of him, that he withdrew the Crotonians from harlots, and universally from an association with women that were not affianced. For the wives of the Crotonians came to Theano the wife of Brontinus, one of the Pythagoreans, a woman of a wise and excellent soul, (and who was the author of that beautiful and admirable saying, “that it is lawful for a woman to sacrifice on the very day in which she has risen from the embraces of her husband,” which some ascribe to Theano the wife of Pythagoras) the Crotonian wives came therefore to her, and entreated her to persuade Pythagoras to discourse to them on the continence which was due from them to their husbands.

This she promised to do; and Pythagoras having accordingly made an oration to the Crotonians, which had the desired effect, the incontinence which then prevailed was entirely destroyed. It is further related likewise, that when ambassadors came to the city of the Crotonians from Sybaris, for the purpose of demanding the exiles, Pythagoras beholding one of the ambassadors, who with his own hand had slain one of his friends, made him no answer. But when the man interrogated him, and wished to converse with him, Pythagoras said, that it was not lawful to discourse with homicides. Whence also by certain persons he was thought to be Apollo. All these particulars, therefore, and such as we have a little before mentioned concerning the destruction of tyrants, and the liberation of the cities of Italy and Sicily, and many other circumstances, are indications of the benefits conferred on mankind by Pythagoras in political concerns.

(9) Anaxagoras, again, in his assertion of a Mind pure and unmixed, affirms a simplex First and a sundered One, though writing long ago he failed in precision.

Heraclitus, with his sense of bodily forms as things of ceaseless process and passage, knows the One as eternal and intellectual.

In Empedocles, similarly, we have a dividing principle, "Strife," set against "Friendship"- which is The One and is to him bodiless, while the elements represent Matter.

Later there is Aristotle; he begins by making the First transcendent and intellective but cancels that primacy by supposing it to have self-intellection. Further he affirms a multitude of other intellective beings- as many indeed as there are orbs in the heavens; one such principle as in- over to every orb- and thus his account of the Intellectual Realm differs from Plato's and, failing reason, he brings in necessity; though whatever reasons he had alleged there would always have been the objection that it would be more reasonable that all the spheres, as contributory to one system, should look to a unity, to the First.

We are obliged also to ask whether to Aristotle's mind all Intellectual Beings spring from one, and that one their First; or whether the Principles in the Intellectual are many.

If from one, then clearly the Intellectual system will be analogous to that of the universe of sense-sphere encircling sphere, with one, the outermost, dominating all- the First will envelop the entire scheme and will be an Intellectual Kosmos; and as in our universe the spheres are not empty but the first sphere is thick with stars and none without them, so, in the Intellectual Kosmos, those principles of Movement will envelop a multitude of Beings, and that world will be the realm of the greater reality.

If on the contrary each is a principle, then the effective powers become a matter of chance; under what compulsion are they to hold together and act with one mind towards that work of unity, the harmony of the entire heavenly system? Again what can make it necessary that the material bodies of the heavenly system be equal in number to the Intellectual moving principles, and how can these incorporeal Beings be numerically many when there is no Matter to serve as the basis of difference?

For these reasons the ancient philosophers that ranged themselves most closely to the school of Pythagoras and of his later followers and to that of Pherekudes, have insisted upon this Nature, some developing the subject in their writings while others treated of it merely in unwritten discourses, some no doubt ignoring it entirely.

(7) I. The Plane of the Elements On this Plane of Consciousness is manifested the actions and reactions between the subtle elements of which all material forms are composed. Here occurs the play between the atoms, the electrons, the ions, the corpuscles, and the still more tenuous particles of substance of which science has as yet no knowledge. And, going still further back, it may be said that on this plane occurs the play of phases of substance as much more tenuous and subtle than the electrons as the latter are more tenuous than the atoms. Little can be said concerning these practically unknown forms and phases of matter, although the occult teachings are quite full of them.

(13) So, the student of Hermetics need not lay aside any of his cherished scientific views regarding the Universe. All he is asked to do is to grasp the underlying principle of "THE ALL is Mind; the Universe is Mental--held in the mind of THE ALL." He will find that the other six of the Seven Principles will "fit into" his scientific knowledge, and will serve to bring out obscure points and to throw light in dark corners. This is not to be wondered at, when we realize the influence of the Hermetic thought of the early philosophers of Greece, upon whose foundations of thought the theories of modern science largely rest. The acceptance of the First Hermetic Principle (Mentalism) is the only great point of difference between Modern Science and Hermetic students, and Science is gradually moving toward the Hermetic position in its groping in the dark for a way out of the Labyrinth into which it has wandered in its search for Reality.

(56) Timaeus: when taken singly each in its several kind, is seen by us, but when many are collected together their masses are seen. And, moreover, as regards the numerical proportions which govern their masses and motions and their other qualities, we must conceive that God realized these everywhere with exactness, in so far as the nature of Necessity submitted voluntarily or under persuasion, and thus ordered all in harmonious proportion. From all that we have hitherto said about these Kinds,

(2) We are obliged, therefore, at the start, both to establish the existence of this other Kind and to examine its nature and the mode of its Being.

Now if Matter must characteristically be undetermined, void of shape, while in that sphere of the Highest there can be nothing that lacks determination, nothing shapeless, there can be no Matter there. Further, if all that order is simplex, there can be no need of Matter, whose function is to join with some other element to form a compound: it will be found of necessity in things of derived existence and shifting nature- the signs which lead us to the notion of Matter- but it is unnecessary to the primal.

And again, where could it have come from? whence did it take its being? If it is derived, it has a source: if it is eternal, then the Primal-Principles are more numerous than we thought, the Firsts are a meeting-ground. Lastly, if that Matter has been entered by Idea, the union constitutes a body; and, so, there is Body in the Supreme.

(8) The division into elements must, in short, be abandoned, especially in regard to Sensible Substance, known necessarily by sense rather than by reason. We must no longer look for help in constituent parts, since such parts will not be substances, or at any rate not sensible substances.

Our plan must be to apprehend what is constant in stone, earth, water and the entities which they compose- the vegetal and animal forms, considered purely as sensibles- and to confine this constant within a single genus. Neither Matter nor Form will thus be overlooked, for Sensible Substance comports them; fire and earth and the two intermediaries consist of Matter and Form, while composite things are actually many substances in one. They all, moreover, have that common property which distinguishes them from other things: serving as subjects to these others, they are never themselves present in a subject nor predicated of any other thing. Similarly, all the characteristics which we have ascribed to Substance find a place in this classification.

But Sensible Substance is never found apart from magnitude and quality: how then do we proceed to separate these accidents? If we subtract them- magnitude, figure, colour, dryness, moistness- what is there left to be regarded as Substance itself? All the substances under consideration are, of course, qualified.

There is, however, something in relation to which whatever turns Substance into qualified Substance is accidental: thus, the whole of fire is not Substance, but only a part of it- if the term "part" be allowed.

What then can this "part" be? Matter may be suggested. But are we actually to maintain that the particular sensible substance consists of a conglomeration of qualities and Matter, while Sensible Substance as a whole is merely the sum of these coagulations in the uniform Matter, each one separately forming a quale or a quantum or else a thing of many qualities? Is it true to say that everything whose absence leaves subsistence incomplete is a part of the particular substance, while all that is accidental to the substance already existent takes independent rank and is not submerged in the mixture which constitutes this so-called substance?

I decline to allow that whatever combines in this way with anything else is Substance if it helps to produce a single mass having quantity and quality, whereas taken by itself and divorced from this complementary function it is a quality: not everything which composes the amalgam is Substance, but only the amalgam as a whole.

And let no one take exception on the ground that we produce Sensible Substance from non-substances. The whole amalgam itself is not True Substance; it is merely an imitation of that True Substance which has Being apart from its concomitants, these indeed being derived from it as the possessor of True Being. In the lower realm the case is different: the underlying ground is sterile, and from its inability to produce fails to attain to the status of Being; it remains a shadow, and on this shadow is traced a sketch- the world of Appearance.

(55) Timaeus: in matters wherein he ought to be versed; but the question whether they ought really to be described as one Universe or five is one which might with more reason give us pause. Now our view declares the Universe to be essentially one, in accordance with the probable account; but another man, considering other facts, will hold a different opinion. Him, however, we must let pass. But as for the Kinds which have now been generated by our argument, let us assign them severally to fire and earth and water and air. To earth let us give the cubic form; for of the four Kinds earth is the most immobile

(82) Timaeus: For seeing that there are four elements of which the body is compacted,—earth, fire, water and air,—when, contrary to nature, there occurs either an excess or a deficiency of these elements, or a transference thereof from their native region to an alien region; or again, seeing that fire and the rest have each more than one variety, every time that the body admits an inappropriate variety, then these and all similar occurrences bring about internal disorders and disease. For when any one element suffers a change of condition that is contrary to nature, all its particles that formerly were being cooled