[361] Plato, Apol. Sokr. p. 23. τὰ κατὰ πάντων τῶν φιλοσοφούντων πρόχειρα ταῦτα λέγουσιν, ὅτι τὰ μετέωρα καὶ τὰ ὑπὸ γῆς καὶ θεοὺς μὴ νομίζειν καὶ τὸν ἥττω λόγον κρείττω ποιεῖν. Xenoph. Memor. i. 2, 31. See generally the first two chapters of the Memorabilia, where Xenophon intimates that Sokrates was accused of training youth to a life of lawless and unprincipled ambition and selfishness, and especially of having trained Kritias and Alkibiades.
In so far as these heretics affirmed that right as opposed to wrong, just as opposed to unjust, true belief as opposed to false respecting the Gods, were determined by the lawgiver and not by any other authority — Plato has little pretence for blaming them: because he himself claims such authority explicitly in his Magnêtic community, and punishes severely not merely those who disobey his laws in act, but those who contradict his dogmas in speech or argument. Before he proclaims his intended punishments in a penal law, he addresses the heretics in a proëm or prefatory discourse intended to persuade or win them over: a discourse which was the more indispensable, since their doctrines (he tells us) were disseminated everywhere.[362] If he seriously intended to persuade real dissentients, his attempt is certainly a failure: for the premisses on which he reasons are such as would not have been granted by them — nor indeed by many who agreed in the conclusion which he was himself trying to prove.
[362] Plato, Legg. x. pp. 890 D, 891 A.
Kosmological and Kosmogonical theory announced in Leges.
The theory here given by Plato, represents the state of his own convictions at the time when the Leges were composed. It is a theory of kosmology of universal genesis: different in many respects from what he propounds in the Timæus, since it comprises no mention of the extra-kosmical Demiurgus — nor of the eternal Ideas — nor of the primordial chaotic movements called Necessity — while it contains (what we do not find in the Timæus) the allegation of a twofold or multiple soul pervading the universe — the good soul (one or more), being co-existent and co-eternal with others (one or more), that are bad.[363]
[363] Plato, Legg. x. p. 896 E.
Soul — older, more powerful in the universe than Body. Different souls are at work in the universe — the good soul and the bad soul.
The fundamental principle which he lays down (in this tenth Book De Legibus) is — That soul or mind is older, prior, and more powerful, than body. Soul is the principle of self-movement, activity, spontaneous change. Body cannot originate any movement or change by itself. It is simply passive, receiving movement from soul, and transmitting movement onward. The movement or change which we witness in the universe could never have begun at first, except through the originating spontaneity of soul. None of the four elements — earth, water, air, or fire — is endowed with any self-moving power.[364] As soul is older and more powerful than body, so the attributes of soul are older and more powerful than those of body: that is, pleasure, pain, desire, fear, love, hatred, volition, deliberation, reason, reflection, judgment true or false — are older and more powerful than heat, cold, heaviness, lightness, hardness, softness, whiteness, sweetness, &c.[365] The attributes and changes of body are all secondary effects, brought about, determined, modified, or suspended, by the prior and primitive attributes and changes of soul. In all things that are moved there dwells a determining soul: which is thus the cause of all effects however contrary — good and bad, just and unjust, honourable and base. But it is one variety of soul which works to good, another variety which works to evil.[366] The good variety of soul works under the guidance of Νοῦς or Reason — the bad variety works irrationally.[367] Now which of the two (asks Plato) directs the movements of the celestial sphere, the Sun, Moon, and Stars? Certainly, the good soul, and not the bad. This is proved by the nature and character of their movements: which movements are rotatory in a circle, and exactly uniform and equable. Now among all the ten different sorts of motion or change, rotatory motion in a circle is the one which is most akin or congenial to Reason.[368] The motion of Reason, and the motion of the stars, is alike rotatory, and the same, and unchangeable — in the same place, round the same centre, and returning into itself. The bad soul, acting without reason, produces only irregular movements, intermittent, and accompanied by constant change of place.[369] Though it is the good variety of soul which produces the celestial rotation, yet there are many distinct and separate souls, all of this same variety, which concur to the production of the result. The Sun, the Moon, and each of the Stars, has a distinct soul inherent in itself or peculiar to its own body.[370] Each of these souls, invested in the celestial substance and in each of the visible celestial bodies, is a God: and thus all things are full of Gods.[371]
[364] Plato, Legg. x. pp. 894 D, 895 B.
[365] Plato, Legg. x. pp. 896 A, 897 A. The κινήσεις of soul are πρωτουργοί — those of body are δευτερουργοί.