2d. Beneath all mental phenomena there is a permanent subject or substratum which he designates THE IDENTICAL (τὸ αὐτό)--the rational element of the soul--"the principle of self-activity" or self-determination. [605]
There are three principles into which Plato analyzes the soul--the principle of the Identical, the Diverse, and the Intermediate Essence. [606] The first is indivisible and eternal, always existing in sameness, the very substance of Intelligence itself, and of the same nature with the Divine. [607] The second is divisible and corporeal, answering to our notion of the passive sensibilities, and placing the soul in relation with the visible world. The third is an intermediate essence, partaking of the natures of both, and constituting a medium between the eternal and the mutable--the conscious energy of the soul developed in the contingent world of time. Thus the soul is, on one side, linked to the unchangeable and the eternal, being formed of that ineffable element which constitutes the real or immutable Being, and on the other side, linked to the sensible and the contingent, being formed of that element which is purely relative and contingent. This last element of the soul is regarded by Plato as "mortal" and "corruptible," the former element as "immortal" and "indestructible," having its foundations laid in eternity.
[Footnote 605: ][ (return) ] "Laws," bk. x. ch. vi. and vii.; "Phædrus," § 51; "άρχὴ κινήσεως."
[Footnote 606: ][ (return) ] "Timæus," ch. xii.; ταὐτον, θάτερον, and οὐσία or τὸ σνµµισγόµενον.
[Footnote 607: ][ (return) ] "Laws," bk. v. ch. i.
This doctrine of the eternity of the free and rational element of the soul must, of course, appear strange and even repulsive to those who are unacquainted with the Platonic notion of eternity as a fixed state out of time, which has no past, present, or future, and is simply that which "always is"--an everlasting now. The soul, in its elements of rationality and freedom, has existed anterior to time, because it now exists in eternity. [608] In its actual manifestations and personal history it is to be contemplated as a "generated being," having a commencement in time.
Now, that the human soul, like the uncreated Deity, has always had a distinct, conscious, personal, independent being, does not appear to be the doctrine of Plato. He teaches, most distinctly, that the "divine," the immortal part, was created, or rather "generated," in eternity. "The Deity himself formed the divine, and he delivered over to his celestial offspring [the subordinate and generated gods] the task of forming the mortal. These subordinate deities, copying the example of their parent, and receiving from his hands the immortal principle of the human soul, fashioned subsequently to this the mortal body, which they consigned to the soul as a vehicle, and in which they placed another kind of soul, mortal, the seat of violent and fatal affections." [609] He also regarded the soul as having a derived and dependent existence. He draws a marked distinction between the divine and human forms of the "self-moving principle," and makes its continuance dependent upon the will and wisdom of the Almighty Disposer and Parent, of whom it is "the first-born offspring." [610]
[Footnote 608: ][ (return) ] See ante, note 4, p. 349, as to the Platonic notions of "Time" and "Eternity."
[Footnote 609: ][ (return) ] "Timaeus," ch. xliv.
[Footnote 610: ][ (return) ] See the elaborate exposition in "Laws," bk. x. ch. xii. and xiii.