TIMAEU [16]
all smooth and bright surfaces. For from the communion of the internal
and external fires, and again from the union of them and their
numerous transformations when they meet in the mirror, all these
appearances of necessity arise, when the fire from the face
coalesces with the fire from the eye on the bright and smooth surface.
And right appears left and left right, because the visual rays come
into contact with the rays emitted by the object in a manner
contrary to the usual mode of meeting; but the right appears right,
and the left left, when the position of one of the two concurring
lights is reversed; and this happens when the mirror is concave and
its smooth surface repels the right stream of vision to the left side,
and the left to the right. Or if the mirror be turned vertically, then
the concavity makes the countenance appear to be all upside down,
and the lower rays are driven upwards and the upper downwards.
All these are to be reckoned among the second and co-operative
causes which God, carrying into execution the idea of the best as
far as possible, uses as his ministers. They are thought by most men
not to be the second, but the prime causes of all things, because they
freeze and heat, and contract and dilate, and the like. But they are
not so, for they are incapable of reason or intellect; the only
being which can properly have mind is the invisible soul, whereas fire
and water, and earth and air, are all of them visible bodies. The
lover of intellect and knowledge ought to explore causes of
intelligent nature first of all, and, secondly, of those things which,
being moved by others, are compelled to move others. And this is
what we too must do. Both kinds of causes should be acknowledged by
us, but a distinction should be made between those which are endowed
with mind and are the workers of things fair and good, and those which
are deprived of intelligence and always produce chance effects without
order or design. Of the second or co-operative causes of sight,
which help to give to the eyes the power which they now possess,
enough has been said. I will therefore now proceed to speak of the
higher use and purpose for which God has given them to us. The sight
in my opinion is the source of the greatest benefit to us, for had
we never seen the stars, and the sun, and the heaven, none of the
words which we have spoken about the universe would ever have been
uttered. But now the sight of day and night, and the months and the
revolutions of the years, have created number, and have given us a
conception of time, and the power of enquiring about the nature of the
universe; and from this source we have derived philosophy, than
which no greater good ever was or will be given by the gods to
mortal man. This is the greatest boon of sight: and of the lesser
benefits why should I speak? even the ordinary man if he were deprived
of them would bewail his loss, but in vain. Thus much let me say
however: God invented and gave us sight to the end that we might
behold the courses of intelligence in the heaven, and apply them to
the courses of our own intelligence which are akin to them, the
unperturbed to the perturbed; and that we, learning them and partaking
of the natural truth of reason, might imitate the absolutely
unerring courses of God and regulate our own vagaries. The same may be
affirmed of speech and hearing: they have been given by the gods to
the same end and for a like reason. For this is the principal end of
speech, whereto it most contributes. Moreover, so much of music as
is adapted to the sound of the voice and to the sense of hearing is
granted to us for the sake of harmony; and harmony, which has
motions akin to the revolutions of our souls, is not regarded by the
intelligent votary of the Muses as given by them with a view to
irrational pleasure, which is deemed to be the purpose of it in our
day, but as meant to correct any discord which may have arisen in
the courses of the soul, and