History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell [87]
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 impossible. Wherefore he resolved to have a moving image of eternity, and when he set in order the heaven, he made this image eternal but moving, according to number, while eternity itself rests in unity; and this image we call Time.2
Before this, there were no days or nights. Of the eternal essence we must not say that it was or will be; only is is correct. It is implied that of the 'moving image of eternity' it is correct to say that it was and will be.
Time and the heavens came into existence at the same instant. God made the sun so that animals could learn arithmetic—without the succession of days and nights, one supposes, we should not have thought of numbers. The
sight of day and night, months and years, has created knowledge of number and given us the conception of time, and hence came philosophy. This is the greatest boon we owe to sight.
There are (apart from the world as a whole) four kinds of animals: gods, birds, fishes, and land animals. The gods are mainly fire; the fixed stars are divine and eternal animals. The Creator told the gods that he could destroy them, but would not do so. He left it to them to make the mortal part of all other animals, after he had made the immortal and divine part. (This, like other passages about the gods in Plato, is perhaps not to be taken very seriously. At the beginning, Timaeus says he seeks only probability, and cannot be sure. Many details are obviously imaginative, and not meant literally.)
The Creator, Timaeus says, made one soul for each star. Souls have sensation, love, fear, and anger; if they overcome these, they live righteously, but if not, not. If a man lives well, he goes, after death, to live happily for ever in his star. But if he lives badly, he will, in the next life, be a woman; if he (or she) persists in evil-doing, he (or she) will become a brute, and go on through transmigrations until at last reason conquers. God put some souls on earth, some on the moon, some on other planets and stars, and left it to the gods to fashion their bodies.
There are two kinds of causes, those that are intelligent, and those that, being moved by others, are, in turn, compelled to move others. The former are endowed with mind, and are the workers of things fair and good, while the latter produce chance effects without order or design. Both sorts ought to be studied, for the creation is mixed, being made up of necessity and mind. (It will be observed that necessity is not subject to God's power.) Timaeus now proceeds to deal with the part contributed by necessity.3
Earth, air, fire, and water are not the first principles or letters or elements; they are not even syllables or first compounds. Fire, for instance, should not be called this, but such—that is to say, it is not a substance, but rather a state of substance. At this point, the question is raised: are intelligible essences only names? The answer turns, we are told, on whether mind is or