Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato

by Thomas Taylor

The second species of analysis is as follows: It is necessary to make the thing investigated the subject of hypothesis; to survey such things as are prior to it; and to demonstrate these from things posterior, ascending to such as are prior, till we arrive at the first thing and to which we give our assent. But beginning from this, we descend synthetically to the thing investigated. Of this species, the following is an example from the Phaedrus of Plato. It is inquired if the soul is immortal; and this being hypothetically admitted, it is inquired in the next place if it is always moved. This being demonstrated, the next inquiry is if that which is always moved, is self-moved; and this again being demonstrated, it is considered whether that which is self-moved is the principle of motion, and afterwards if the principle is unbegotten. This then being admitted as a thing acknowledged, and likewise that what is begotten is incorruptible, the demonstration of the thing proposed is thus collected. If there is a principle, it is unbegotten and incorruptible. That which is self-moved is the principle of motion. Soul is self-moved. Soul therefore (i.e. the rational soul) is incorruptible, unbegotten, and immortal.

Of the third species of analysis, which proceeds from the hypothetical to that which is unhypothetical, Plato has given a most beautiful specimen in the first hypothesis of his Parmenides. For here, taking for his hypothesis that the one is, he proceeds through an orderly series of negations, which are not privative of their subjects, but generative of things which are as it were, their opposites, till he at length takes away the hypothesis that the one is. For he denies of it all discourse and every appellation. And thus evidently denies of it not only that it is, but even negation. For all things are posterior to the one; viz. things known, knowledge, and the instruments of knowledge. And thus, beginning from the hypothetical, he ends in that which is unhypothetical, and truly ineffable.

Having taken a general survey, both of the great world and the microcosm man, I shall close this account of the principal dogmas of Plato, with the outlines of his doctrine concerning Providence and Fate, as it is a subject of the greatest importance, and the difficulties in which it is involved are happily removed by that prince of philosophers.

In the first place, therefore, Providence, according to common conceptions, is the cause of good to the subjects of its care; and Fate is the cause of a certain connection to generated natures. This being admitted, let us consider what the things are which are connected. Of beings, therefore, some have their essence in eternity, and others in time. But by beings whose essence is in eternity, I mean those whose energy as well as their essence is eternal; and by beings essentially temporal, those whose essence is always in generation, or becoming to be, though this should take place in an infinite time. The media between these two extremes are natures which, in a certain respect, have an essence permanent and better than generation, or a flowing subsistence, but whose energy is measured by time. For it is necessary that every procession from things first to last should be effected through media. The medium, therefore, between these two extremes, must either be that which has an eternal essence, but any energy indigent of time, or, on the contrary, that which has a temporal essence, but an eternal energy. It is impossible, however, for the latter of these to have any subsistence; for if this were admitted, energy would be prior to essence. The medium, therefore, must be that whose essence is eternal, but energy temporal. And the three orders which compose this first middle and last are, the intellectual, psychical (or that pertaining to soul), and corporeal. For from what has been already said by us concerning the gradation of beings, it is evident that the intellectual order is established in eternity, both in essence and energy; that the corporeal order is always in generation, or advancing to being, and this either in an infinite time, or in a part of time; and that the psychical is indeed eternal in essence, but temporal in energy. Where then shall we rank things which being distributed either in places or times, have a certain coordination and sympathy with each other through connection? It is evident that they must be ranked among altermotive and corporeal natures. For of things which subsist beyond the order of bodies, some are better both than place and time; and others, though they energize according to time, appear to be entirely pure from any connection with place.

Hence things which are governed and connected by Fate are entirely altermotive and corporeal. If this then is demonstrated, it is manifest that admitting Fate to be a cause of connection, we must assert that it presides over altermotive and corporeal natures. If, therefore, we look to that which is the proximate cause of bodies, and thorough which also altermotive beings are moved, breathe, and are held together, we shall find that this is nature, the energies of which are to generate, nourish, and increase. If, therefore, this power not only subsists in us, and all other animals and plants, but prior to partial bodies there is, by a much greater necessity, one nature of the world which comprehends and is motive of all bodies; it follows that nature must be the cause of things connected, and that in this we must investigate Fate. Hence, Fate is nature, or that incorporeal power which is the one life of the world, presiding over bodies, moving all things according to time, and connecting the motions of things that, by places and times, are distant from each other. It is likewise the cause of the mutual sympathy of mortal natures, and of their conjunction with such as are eternal. For the nature which is in us, binds and connects all the parts of our body, of which also it is a certain Fate. And as in our body some parts have a principal subsistence, and others are less principal, and the latter are consequent to the former, so in the universe, the generations of the less principal parts are consequent to the motions of the more principal, viz. the sublunary generations to the periods of the celestial bodies; and the circle of the former is the image of the latter.

Hence it is not difficult to see that Providence is deity itself, the fountain of all good. For whence can good be imparted, to all things, but from divinity? So that no other cause of good but deity is, as Plato says, to be assigned. And, in the next place, as this cause is superior to all intelligible and sensible natures, it is consequently superior to Fate. Whatever too is subject to Fate, is also under the dominion of Providence; having its connection indeed from Fate, but deriving the good which it possesses from Providence. But again, not all things that are under the dominion of Providence are indigent of Fate; for intelligibles are exempt from its sway. Fate therefore is profoundly conversant with corporeal natures; since connection introduces time and corporeal motion. Hence Plato, looking to this, says in the Timaeus, that the world is mingled from intellect and necessity, the former ruling over the latter. For by necessity here he means the motive cause of bodies, which in other places he calls Fate. And this with great propriety; since every body is compelled to do whatever it does, and to suffer whatever it suffers; to heat or to be heated, to impart or to receive cold. But the elective power is unknown to a corporeal nature; so that the necessary and the nonelective may be said to be the peculiarities of bodies.

As there are two genera of things, therefore, the intelligible and the sensible, so likewise there are two kingdoms of these; that of Providence, upwards, which reigns over intelligibles and sensibles, and that of Fate downwards, which reigns over sensibles only. Providence likewise differs from Fate in the same manner as deity from that which is divine indeed, but participation, and not primarily. For in other things we see that which has a primary subsistence, and that which subsists according to participation. Thus the light which subsists in the orb of the sun is primary light, and that which is in the air, according to participation; the latter being derived from the former. And life is primarily in the soul, but secondarily in the body. Thus also, according to Plato, Providence is deity, but Fate is something divine, and not a god: for it depends upon Providence, of which it is as it were the image. As Providence too is to intelligibles, so is Fate to sensibles. And, alternately, as Providence is to Fate, so are intelligibles to sensibles. But intelligibles are the first of beings, and from these others derive their subsistence. And hence the order of Fate depends on the dominion of Providence.

In the second place, let us look to the rational nature itself, when correcting the inaccuracy of sensible information, as when it accuses the sight of deception, in seeing the orb of the sun as not larger than a foot in diameter; when it represses the ebullitions of anger, and exclaims with Ulysses,

"Endure my heart;"

or when it restrains the wanton tendencies of desire to corporeal delight. For in all such operations it manifestly subdues the irrational motions, both gnostic and appetitive, and absolves itself from them, as from things foreign to its nature. But it is necessary to investigate the essence of every thing, not from its perversion, but from its energies according to nature. If therefore reason, when it energizes in us as reason, restrains the shadowy impressions of the delights of licentious desire, punishes the precipitate motion of fury, and reproves the senses as full of deception, asserting that