Degeneration of the real tenants of Earth from their primitive type.
When Plato tells us that most part of the tenants of earth, air, and water — all women, birds, quadrupeds, reptiles, and fishes — are the deteriorated representatives of primitive men, constructed at the beginning with the most provident skill, but debased by degeneracy in various directions — this doctrine (something analogous to the theory of Darwin with its steps inverted) indicates that the original scheme of the Demiurgus, though magnificent in its ensemble with reference to the entire Kosmos, was certain from the beginning to fail in its details. For we are told that the introduction of birds, quadrupeds, &c., as among the constituents of the Auto-zôon, was an essential part of the original scheme.[138] The constructing Gods, while forming men upon a pure non-sexual type (such as that invoked by the austere Hippolytus) exempt from the temptations of the most violent appetite,[139] foresaw that such an angelic type could not maintain itself:— that they would be obliged to reconstruct the whole human organism upon the bi-sexual principle, introducing the comparatively lower type of woman:— and that they must make preparation for the still more degenerate varieties of birds and quadrupeds, into which the corrupt and stupid portion of mankind would sink.[140] Plato does indeed tell us, that the primitive non-sexual type had the option of maintaining itself; and that it perished by its own fault alone.[141] But since we find that not one representative of it has been able to hold his ground:— and since we also read in Plato, that no man is willingly corrupt, but that corruption and stupidity of mind are like fevers and other diseases, under which a man suffers against his own consent[142]:— we see that the option was surrounded with insurmountable difficulties: and that the steady and continued degradation, under which the human race has sunk from its original perfection into the lower endowments of the animal world, can be ascribed only to the impracticability of the original scheme: that is, in other words, to the obstacles interposed by implacable Necessity, frustrating the benevolent purposes of the Constructors.
[138] Plat. Tim. p. 41 B-C.
[139] Eurip. Hippol. 615; Medea, 573; Milton, Paradise Lost, x. 888.
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[140] Plat. Tim. p. 76 D. ὡς γάρ ποτε ἐξ ἀνδρῶν γυναῖκες καὶ τἄλλα θηρία γενήσοιντο, ἠπίσταντο οἱ ξυνιστάντες ἡμᾶς, &c. Compare pp. 90 E, 91.
[141] Plat. Tim. p. 42.
[142] Plat. Tim. pp. 86-87.
Close of the Timæus. Plato turns away from the shameful results, and reverts to the glorification of the primitive types.
However, all these details, attesting the low and poor actual condition of the tenants of earth, water, and air — and forming so marked a contrast to the magnificent description of the Kosmos as a whole, with the splendid type of men who were established at first alone in its central region — all these are hurried over by Plato, as unwelcome accompaniments which he cannot put out of sight. They have their analogies even in the kosmical agencies: there are destructive kosmical forces, earthquakes, deluges, conflagrations, &c., noticed as occurring periodically, and as causing the almost total extinction of different communities.[143] Though they must not be altogether omitted, he will nevertheless touch them as briefly as possible.[144] He turns aside from this, the shameful side of the Kosmos, to the sublime conception of it with which he had begun, and which he now builds up again in the following poetical doxology the concluding words of the Timæus:—