"The psychology of Plato led him to recognize mind wherever there was motion, and hence not only to require a Deity as first mover of the universe, but also to conceive the propriety of separate and subordinate agents attached to each of its parts, as principles of motion, no less than intelligent directors. These agents were entitled 'gods' by an easy figure, discernible even in the sacred language, [657] and which served, besides, to accommodate philosophical hypotheses to the popular religion. Plato, however, carefully distinguished between the sole, Eternal Author of the Universe, on the one hand, and that 'soul,' vital and intelligent, which he attaches to the world, as well as the spheral intelligences, on the other. These 'subordinate deities,' though intrusted with a sort of deputed creation, were still only the deputies of the Supreme Framer and Director of all." [658] The "gods" of the Platonic system are "subordinate divinities," "generated gods," brought into existence by the will and wisdom of the Eternal Father and Maker of the universe. [659] Even Jupiter, the governing divinity of the popular mythology, is a descendant from powers which are included in the creation. [660] The offices they fulfill, and the relations they sustain to the Supreme Being, correspond to those of the "angels" of Christian theology. They are the ministers of his providential government of the world. [661]
[Footnote 657: ][ (return) ] Psalm lxxxii. I; John x. 34.
[Footnote 658: ][ (return) ] Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 164.
[Footnote 659: ][ (return) ] "Timæus," ch. xv.
[Footnote 661: ][ (return) ] "Laws," bk. x.
The application of this fundamental conception of the Platonic system--the eternal unity of the principles of Order, Goodness, and Truth in an ultimate reality, the Eternal Mind--to the elucidation of the temporal life of man, yields, as a result--
II. THE PLATONIC ETHICS.
Believing firmly that there are unchangeable, necessary, and absolute principles, which are the perfections of the Eternal Mind, Plato must, of course, have been a believer in an immutable morality. He held that there is a rightness, a justice, an equity, not arbitrarily constituted by the Divine will or legislation, but founded in the nature of God, and therefore eternal. The independence of the principles of morality upon the mere will of the Supreme Governor is proclaimed in all his writings. [662] The Divine will is the fountain of efficiency, the Divine reason, the fountain of law. God is no more the creator of virtue than he is the creator of truth.
And inasmuch as man is a partaker of the Divine essence, and as the ideas which dwell in the human reason are "copies" of those which dwell in the Divine reason, man may rise to the apprehension and recognition of the immutable and eternal principles of righteousness, and "by communion with that which is Divine, and subject to the law of order, may become himself a subject of order, and divine, so far as it is possible for man." [663]