[366] Plato, Legg. x. p. 896 E. ψυχὴν δὴ διοικοῦσαν καὶ ἐνοικοῦσαν ἐν ἅπασι τοῖς πάντῃ κινουμένοις.
As an illustration or comment on this portion of Plato De Legibus, Lord Monboddo’s Ancient Metaphysics are instructive. See vol. i. pp. 2-7-9-25. He adopts the distinction between Mind and Body made both in the tenth Book De Legg., and in the Epinomis. He considers that Body and Mind are mixed together in each part of nature; and in the material world never separated: that motion is perpetual; and “Where there is motion, there must be there something that moves. What is moved, I call body; what moves, I call mind.
“Under mind, in this definition, I include:— 1. The rational and intellectual; 2. The animal life; 3. That principle in the vegetable, by which it is nourished, grows, and produces its like, and which therefore is commonly called the vegetable life; and 4. That motive principle which I understand to be in all bodies, even such as are thought to be inanimate. This is the distinction between body and mind made by Plato in his tenth Book of Laws” (pp. 8-9).
“The Greek word ψυχή denotes the three first kinds I have mentioned, which are not expressed by any one word that I know in English; for the word mind, that I have used to express them, denotes in common use only the rational mind or soul, as it is otherwise called. The fourth kind that I have mentioned, viz., the motive principle in all bodies, is not commonly in Greek called ψυχή. But Aristotle, in a passage which I shall afterwards quote, says that it is ὥσπερ ψυχή (p. 8, note).
“As to the principle of motion or moving principle, which Aristotle supposes to be in all bodies, it is what he calls nature (p. 9). … He makes Nature also to be the principle of rest in bodies; by which I suppose he means, that those bodies which he calls heavy, that is, which move towards the centre of the earth, would rest if they were there” (p. 9, note).
“From the account here given of motion, it is evident that by it the whole business of nature, above, below, and round about us, is carried on. … To those who hold that mind is the first of things, and principal in the universe, it will not appear surprising that I have made moving, or producing motion, an essential attribute of mind” (p. 25).
In the same Treatise — which exhibits very careful study both of Plato and of Aristotle — Lord Monboddo analyses the ten varieties of motion here recognised by Plato, and shows that Plato’s account is confused and unsatisfactory. Ancient Metaphysics, vol. i. pp. 23-230-252.
[367] Plato, Legg. x. p. 897 B.
[368] Plato, Legg. x. pp. 897 E-898 A. ᾗ προσέοικε κινήσει νοῦς τῶν δέκα ἐκείνων κινήσεων τὴν εἰκόνα λάβωμεν … τούτοιν δὴ τοῖν κινήσεοιν τὴν ἐν ἑνὶ φερομένην ἀεὶ περί γέ τι μέσον ἀνάγκη κινεῖσθαι, τῶν ἐντόρνων οὐσῶν [al. οὖσαν] μίμημά τι κύκλων, εἶναί τε αὐτὴν τῇ τοῦ νοῦ περιόδῳ πάντως ὡς δυνατὸν οἰκειοτάτην τε καὶ ὁμοίαν.
[369] Plato, Legg. x. p. 898 B-C.