It should, however, be distinctly noted that Plato does not use the word ὓλη--matter. This term is first employed by Aristotle to express "the substance which is the subject of all changes." [598] The subject or substratum of which Plato speaks, would seem to be rather a logical than a material entity. It is the condition or supposition necessary for the production of a world of phenomena. It is thus the transition-element between the real and the apparent, the eternal and the contingent; and, lying thus on the border of both territories, we must not be surprised that it can hardly be characterized by any definite attribute. [599] Still, this unknown recipient of forms or ideas has a reality; it has "an abiding nature," "a constancy of existence;" and we are forbidden to call it by any name denoting quality, but permitted to style it "this" and "that" (τόδε καὶ τοῦτο). [600] Beneath the perpetual changes of sensible phenomena there is, then, an unchangeable subject, which yet is neither the Deity, nor ideas, nor the soul of man, which exists as the means and occasion of the manifestation of Divine Intelligence in the organization of the world. [601]
[Footnote 598: ][ (return) ] "Metaphysics," bk. vii. ch. i.
[Footnote 599: ][ (return) ] Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 178.
[Footnote 600: ][ (return) ] "Timæus," ch. xxiii.
[Footnote 601: ][ (return) ] Ibid., ch. xiiii
There has been much discussion as to whether Plato held that this "Receptacle" and "Nurse" of forms and ideas was eternal, or generated in time. Perhaps no one has more carefully studied the writings of Plato than William Archer Butler, and his conclusions in regard to this subject are presented in the following words: "As, on the one hand, he maintained a strict system of dualism, and avoided, without a single deviation, that seduction of pantheism to which so many abstract speculators of his own school have fallen victims; so, on the other hand, it appears to me that he did not scruple to place this principle, the opposite of the Divine intelligence, in a sphere independent of temporal origination.... But we can scarcely enter into his views, unless we ascertain his notions of the nature of Time itself. This was considered to have been created with the rest of the sensible world, to finish with it, if it ever finished--to be altogether related to this phenomenal scene. [602] 'The generating Father determined to create a moving image of eternity (αἰῶνος); and in disposing the heavens, he framed of this eternity, reposing in its own unchangeable unity, an eternal image, moving according to numerical succession, which he called Time. With the world arose days, nights, months, years, which all had no previous existence. The past and future are but forms of time, which we most erroneously transfer to the eternal substance (ἀίδιον οὐσίαν); we say it was, and is, and will be, whereas we can only fitly say it is. Past and future are appropriate to the successive nature of generated beings, for they bespeak motion; but the Being eternally and immovably the same is subject neither to youth nor age, nor to any accident of time; it neither was, nor hath been, nor will be, which are the attributes of fleeting sense--the circumstances of time, imitating eternity in the shape of number and motion. Nor can any thing be more inaccurate than to apply the term real being to past, or present, or future, or even to non-existence. Of this, however, we can not now speak fully. Time, then, was formed with the heavens, that, together created, they may together end, if indeed an end be in the purpose of the Creator; and it is designed as closely as possible to resemble the eternal nature, its exemplar. The model exists through all eternity; the world has been, is, and will be through all time.' [603] In this ineffable eternity Plato places the Supreme Being, and the archetypal ideas of which the sensible world of time partakes. Whether he also includes under the same mode of existence the subject-matter of the sensible world, it is not easy to pronounce; and it appears to me evident that he did not himself undertake to speak with assurance on this obscure problem." [604] The creation of matter "out of nothing" is an idea which, in all probability, did not occur to the mind of Plato. But that he regarded it as, in some sense, a dependent existence--as existing, like time, by "the purpose or will of the Creator"--perhaps as an eternal "generation" from the "eternal substance," is also highly probable; for in the last analysis he evidently desires to embrace all things in some ultimate unity--a tendency which it seems impossible for human reason to avoid.
[Footnote 602: ][ (return) ] See ante, note 4, p. 349.
[Footnote 603: ][ (return) ] "Timæus," ch. xiv.
[Footnote 604: ][ (return) ] Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 171-175.