The tribe of Birds, putting forth feathers instead of hair, was the transformation of men that were guileless, but lightwitted; who were observers of the stars, but thought foolishly that the surest knowledge concerning them cometh through Sight.

The tribe of Beasts which walk on the Earth sprang from those men who sought not Wisdom at all for an help, nor considered the nature of the Heaven at all, because that they no longer used the Revolutions in the Head, but followed the Parts of the Soul which are about the Breast, making them their guides. By reason of this manner of living their four limbs and their heads were drawn down unto kindred earth, and thereon did they rest them; and they got head-pieces of all sorts, oblong, according as the circuits of each, not being kept in use, were crushed in. For this cause their kind grew four-footed and many-footed, for God put more props under those which were more senseless, that they might be drawn the more toward the earth. But the most senseless of them all, which do stretch their whole body altogether upon the earth, since they had no longer any need of feet, the Gods made without feet, to crawl on the earth.

The fourth kind was born, to live in the water, from those men who were the most lacking in Understanding and Knowledge; whom they who fashioned them afresh deemed not worthy any more even of pure air to breathe, because that they had made their Souls impure by all manner of wickedness: wherefore the Gods gave them not thin pure air to breathe, but thrust them down into the waters, to draw thick

breath in the depths thereof. From these men is sprung the nation of Fishes, and of Oysters, and of all that live in the water, which have gotten for recompense of uttermost ignorance the uttermost habitations.

Now may we say that our discourse concerning the All is come to its ending. For this Universe, having taken unto itself Living Creatures mortal and immortal, and having been filled therewith, hath been brought forth a Creature Visible, containing the things which are visible; the Image of his Maker, a God Sensible, Greatest, Best, Fairest, and Most Perfect-this One Heaven Only Begotten.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE TIMAEUS MYTH

I

It lies outside the scope of this work to select for separate comment even a few of the most important questions and topics contained in the vast Timaeus, related as these are, not only to Plato's Philosophy itself as a whole, but to subsequent Philosophy and Theology and Natural Science as influenced by this Dialogue, perhaps the most influential of all Plato's Dialogues.

I keep clear of the Timaeus as an Essay on Physics and Physiology profoundly interesting to the student of the history of these branches.

I do not wish to ransack it for its anticipations of later metaphysical doctrine, such as that of the subjectivity of space, which may, or may not, be taught in the passages treating of χώρα and the ὑποδοχή.

I do not trouble myself or my readers with the lucubrations of Proclus and his like on it.

I do not say a word about the theological doctrine which Christian exegesis has found in it in such abundant store.

For these things the reader must turn to editions of the Timaeus, and Histories of Philosophy where the Timaeus is discussed.

Here we are concerned with it merely as one in the series of Plato's Myths; and as most of the observations which have been made in connection with the other Myths already examined apply equally to this Myth, special observations on it need not be numerous or long. Indeed, the translation which I have made, if read in the light of these former observations, almost explains itself.

More might have been translated, for the whole Discourse delivered by Timaeus is a Myth; or other parts might have been substituted for some here translated. I had to use my

judgment in choosing what to translate, as I could not translate the whole, and my judgment may have sometimes erred ; yet, after all, I venture to think that what I have translated presents the Timaeus in the aspect in which it is the object

of this work to present it as a great Myth in the series which we are reviewing.

This Myth sets forth, in one vast composition, the three Ideas of Soul, Cosmos, and God: in one vast composition; perhaps nowhere else in literature are they set forth so as to produce such a convincing sense of their organic interconnection. And the impressiveness of this vast composition is wonderfully enhanced by the context in which it is framed. Indeed, what is new in the presentation of the Ideas of Soul, Cosmos, and God in the Timaeus, as compared with other Platonic Myths in which they are presented, is derived from the context in which this Myth frames them. The Timaeus, as we have seen, and shall see better when we reach the Critias, follows on after the Republic. It begins with a recapitulation of the first five books of the Republic, which Socrates offers in order that he may say: "Here you have the structure of the Perfect State set forth; now let us see that State exerting function in accordance with its structure. Its structure is that of a highly organised military system. Let us see it engaged in a great war." In answer to this demand Critias introduces and outlines the Atlantis Myth (afterwards resumed in the unfinished Dialogue which bears his name), the History of the Great Antediluvian War in which Athens-representing the raλλímoλis of the Republic -maintains the civilisation of Hellas against the outer barbarian. That is the immediate context of the Discourse, or Myth, delivered by Timaeus. But the Myth breaks away from the sequence of that context in the most startling manner, and soars, on a sudden, above the mundane outlook of the first five books of the Republic and the History of the Great War, with which the company were up to the moment engaged, and constrains them to give all their thoughts to the world eternal.

Two things Timaeus seems to tell them in this Myth.

First, the State must be framed in the Cosmos. You cannot have any scientific knowledge of the Social Good till you understand it as part of the Absolute Good realised in the Cosmos which is the Image of God. The knowledge of the idéa rayaboû which the Republic (in a passage subsequent to the books epitomised by Socrates in the Timaeus) requires

of the True Statesman is, indeed, nothing but the apprehension of the Social Good as determined by the Cosmic Good. The method of the Republic was to write the goodness of the Individual large in the goodness of the State. But we must not stop here. The goodness of the State must be written large in that of the Universe: written, not, indeed, in characters which the scientific faculty can at last be sure that it has deciphered, but in the hieroglyphics, as it were, of a mysterious picture-writing which, although it does not further definite knowledge, inspires that Wonder which is the source of Philosophy, that Fear which is the beginning of Wisdom.

But, secondly, Timaeus goes far beyond the mere recommendation of a study of Cosmology for the sake of the better realisation of the political end. He tells the company, in this Myth, that the political end is not the only end which man may propose to himself. The life of the State and of Man as member of the State, however it may be ennobled and made to seem more choice-worthy by being viewed as part of the blessed life of the One, Only Begotten, Living Creature which is the express image of God, is nevertheless an end in which it is impossible to acquiesce. The best-ordered State cannot escape the Decline and Fall which await all human institutions; and the life of the citizen is incomparably shorter than that of his earthly city. If Man is to have any abiding end it must be in a life of the Soul which lies beyond death, outside the κύκλος τῆς γενέσεως.

To be remembered, and even to be worshipped, by future generations on earth is an "immortality" which can satisfy no man; and still less satisfying is the "immortality" of absorption in the Spirit of the Universe. The only immortality which can satisfy a man, if he can only believe in it, is a personal life after bodily death, or, it may be, after many bodily deaths, when he shall return to his "native star,"

1 "In Plato the State, like everything else upon Earth, is essentially related to the other world, whence all truth and reality spring. This is the ultimate source of his political idealism. The State, therefore, serves not only for moral education, but also as a preparation for the higher life of the disembodied spirit into which a beautiful glimpse is opened to us at the end of the Republic" (Zeller, Aristotle, ii. 212, Engl. Transl.; cf. Rohde, Psyche, ii. 293). The latter half of the Republic, as has been pointed out, is not before us in the

Timaeus.

and be there for ever what the grace of God and his own efforts after ráðaρois have made him.

This third sort of immortality obviously holds the field against the two other sorts mentioned; for, first, it is worth believing, which the second sort, however easy to believe, is not; and, secondly, it is more worth believing than the first sort, because it is a true "immortality"-a personal life for ever and ever, whereas the first sort, consisting in the lapsing memory of the short-lived individuals of a Race itself destined in time to disappear from the earth, is not a true immortality, however comforting it may be to look forward to it as a brief period in the true immortality. Lastly, the third sort of immortality, being worth believing, is, in addition to that, easy to believe, because no evidence drawn from the Natural World can ever be conclusive against it. It is not like a miracle alleged to have occurred in the Natural World in opposition to the recognised Laws of that World. No objective Law of Nature is violated by the personal immortality of the disembodied Soul. The evidence against it, as for it, is subjective only. Does belief in personal immortality comfort men? If it does, they will be found believing-a few, fervently, the majority, perhaps, in passive fashion.

So far I have tried to express the thought and feeling which seem to be in unison with the note of the Timaeus Myth. But there is another type of thought and feeling, on this great subject, which we cannot ignore, although the Timaeus Myth ignores it entirely. We must remember that for the Buddhist East personal immortality has little or no attraction. Final sleep seems to be the ideal for a large portion of the human race.

It would be foolish, then, to say that belief in personal immortality is at all a subjective necessity. All that we are entitled to say is that, as a matter of fact, this belief has prevailed among the races which hitherto have taken the lead in the world. Whether or no it is bound to remain prevalent it is impossible to say. The overworked and the indolent, in modern Europe, easily acquiesce in-nay, gladly embrace, the ideal of eternal sleep; and even for some energetic constructive minds the time comes when they simply wish to rest from their labours, contented to think,