[17] The verbs used by Plato to describe the proceedings of the Demiurgus are ξυνετεκταίνετο, ξυνέστησε, ξυνεκεράσατο, ἐμηχανήσατο, and such like.
[18] Plato, Timæus, pp. 47 E-48 A. ἐπιδέδεικται τὰ διὰ νοῦ δεδημιουργημένα· δεῖ δὲ καὶ τὰ δι’ ἀνάγκης γιγνόμενα τῷ λόγῳ παραθέσθαι. Μεμιγμένη γὰρ οὖν ἡ τοῦδε τοῦ κόσμου γένεσις ἐξ ἀνάγκης τε καὶ νοῦ ξυστάσεως ἐγεννήθη· νοῦ δὲ ἀνάγκης ἄρχοντος τῷ πείθειν αὐτὴν τῶν γιγνομένων τὰ πλεῖστα ἐπὶ τὸ βέλτιστον ἄγειν, ταύτῃ κατὰ ταῦτά τε δι’ ἀνάγκης ἡττωμένης ὑπὸ πείθους ἔμφρονος, οὕτω κατ’ ἀρχὰς ξυνίστατο τόδε τὸ πᾶν. Εἴ τις οὖν ἧ γέγονε, κατὰ ταῦτα ὄντως ἐρεῖ, μικτέον καὶ τὸ τῆς πλανωμένης εἶδος αἰτίας, ἧ φέρειν πέφυκεν. Compare p. 56 C: ὅπῃπερ ἡ τῆς ἀνάγκης ἑκοῦσα πεισθεῖσά τε φύσις ὑπεῖκε. Also pp. 68 E, 75 B, 30 A.
Τέχνη δ’ ἀνάγκης ἀσθενεστέρα μακρῷ says Prometheus in Æschylus (P. V. 514). He identifies Ἀνάγκη with the Μοῖραι: and we read in Herodotus (i. 91) of Apollo as trying to persuade the Fates to spare Krœsus, but obtaining for him only a respite of three years — οὐκ οἷόν τε ἐγένετο παραγαγεῖν μοίρας, ὅσον δὲ ἐνέδωκαν αὗται, ἠνύσατο καὶ ἐχαρίσατό οἱ. This is the language used by Plato about Ἀνάγκη and the Demiurgus. A valuable exposition of the relations believed to subsist between the Gods and Μοῖρα is to be found in Naegelsbach, Homerische Theologie (chap. iii. pp. 113-131).
[19] Plutarch reproduces this theory (Phokion, c. 2, ad fin.) of God governing the Kosmos, not by superior force, but by reason and persuasion — ᾗ καὶ τὸν κόσμον ὁ θεὸς λέγεται διοικεῖν, οὐ βιαζόμενος, ἀλλὰ πειθοῖ καὶ λόγῳ παράγων τὴν ἀνάγκην.
Meaning of Necessity in Plato.
We ought here to note the sense in which Plato uses the word Necessity. This word is now usually understood as denoting what is fixed, permanent, unalterable, knowable beforehand. In the Platonic Timæus it means the very reverse:— the indeterminate, the inconstant, the anomalous, that which can neither be understood nor predicted. It is Force, Movement, or Change, with the negative attribute of not being regular, or intelligible, or determined by any knowable antecedent or condition — Vis consili expers. It coincides, in fact, with that which is meant by Freewill, in the modern metaphysical argument between Freewill and Necessity: it is the undetermined or self-determining, as contrasted with that which depends upon some given determining conditions, known or knowable. The Platonic Necessity[20] is identical with the primeval Chaos, recognised in the Theogony or Kosmogony of Hesiod. That poet tells us that Chaos was the primordial Something: and that afterwards came Gæa, Eros, Uranus, Nyx, Erebus, &c., who intermarried, males with females, and thus gave birth to numerous divine persons or kosmical agents — each with more or less of definite character and attributes. By these supervening agencies, the primeval Chaos was modified and regulated, to a greater or less extent. The Platonic Timæus starts in the same manner as Hesiod, from an original Chaos. But then he assumes also, as coæval with it, but apart from it, his eternal Forms or Ideas: while, in order to obtain his kosmical agents, he does not have recourse, like Hesiod, to the analogy of intermarriages and births, but employs another analogy equally human and equally borrowed from experience — that of a Demiurgus or constructive professional artist, architect, or carpenter; who works upon the model of these Forms, and introduces regular constructions into the Chaos. The antithesis present to the mind of Plato is that between disorder or absence of order, announced as Necessity, — and order or regularity, represented by the Ideas.[21] As the mediator between these two primeval opposites, Plato assumes Nous, or Reason, or artistic skill personified in his Demiurgus: whom he calls essentially good — meaning thereby that he is the regularising agent by whom order, method, and symmetry, are copied from the Ideas and partially realised among the intractable data of Necessity. Good is something which Plato in other works often talks about, but never determines: his language implies sometimes that he knows what it is, sometimes that he does not know. But so far as we can understand him, it means order, regularity, symmetry, proportion — by consequence, what is ascertainable and predictable.[22] I will not say that Plato means this always and exclusively, by Good: but he seems to mean so in the Timæus. Evil is the reverse. Good or regularity is associated in his mind exclusively with rational agency. It can be produced, he assumes, only by a reason, or by some personal agent analogous to a reasonable and intelligent man. Whatever is not so produced, must be irregular or bad.
[20] In the Symposion (pp. 195 D, 197 B) we find Eros panegyrised as having amended and mollified the primeval empire of Ἀνάγκη.
The Scholiast on Hesiod, Theogon. 119, gives a curious metaphysical explanation of Ἔρος, mentioned in the Hesiodic text — τὴν ἐγκατεσπαρμένην φυσικῶς κινητικὴν αἰτίαν ἑκάστῳ τῶν ὀντων, καθ’ ἣν ἐφίεται ἕκαστος τοῦ εἶναι.
[21] In the Philêbus, p. 23 C-D, these three are recognised under the terms:— 1. Πέρας. 2. Ἄπειρον. 3. Αἰτία — τῆς ξυμμίξεως τούτων πρὸς ἄλληλα τὴν αἰτίαν.
Compare a curious passage of Plutarch, Symposiacon, viii. 2, p. 719 E, illustrating the Platonic phrase — τὸν θεὸν ἀεὶ γεωμετρεῖν.