Proportion, which was to regulate the order and limits of their connection. The First Cause next took air and water, gave it in charge to Analogia to combine these with the former elements, and all with itself, till the one vast fabric was bound together in the ties of friendship indissoluble, except at the hands of him who first connected it. The supreme Creator then assigned motion to the whole, and placed a soul in the centre, that its energy might be extended from thence throughout the various parts. Thus did the eternal Deity create the universe as an inferior deity possessed of consciousness and enjoying happiness; a second cause and servant of himself; (εὐδαίμονα θεὸν ἐγεννήσατο. But this Soul of the

forms its functions, Plato attempts to illustrate by a mystical application of the relations of numbers. Vide Timæus the Locrian also Aristot. Metaph. lib. i. cap. 5. It should be remembered, however, that when the ancients appear to speak so extravagantly of the power of number, they do not use the word exactly in our sense, but as conveying the idea that all things are subject to certain definite rules and proportions, which may be illustrated by the operation of numbers; as if they had some obscure notions of those physical laws of combination which modern philosophers have demonstrated: Oi μὲν γὰρ Πυθαγόρειοι ΜΙΜΗΣΙΝ τὰ ὄντά φασιν εἶναι τῶν ἀριθμῶν. Aristot. Metaph. lib. i. cap. 6. Thus when Aristotle in his Rhetoric observes, Περαίνεται δὲ ἀριθμῷ πάντα, “ All things are "limited by number," he means, probably, all things are subject to some definite law.

world, though mentioned last in the description, was not contrived the last in order, but was prior both in production and in excellence. It was composed of three essences, the divisible and changeable, the indivisible and unchangeable, and of a third made up of the combination of the other two. From these three substances, the divinity formed one soul, and distributed it to the different members of the universe. But when the composition of the soul had been thus completed according to the intention of the Composer, the eternal Cause then contrived all the material mass within, and united it centre to centre. The soul, diffusing itself from hence,

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1 ΕΠΕΙ ΔΕ ΚΑΤΑ ΝΟΥΝ ΤΩΙ ΞΥΝΙΣΤΑΝΤΙ πᾶσα ἡ τῆς ψυχῆς ξύστασις ἐγεγένητο, μετὰ τοῦτο πᾶν τὸ σωματοειδὲς ἐντὸς αὐτῆς ἐτεκταί VETO. Thus translated by Cicero: "Animum igitur quum ille procreator mundi Deus ex sua mente et divinitate genuisset.” This can hardly be considered a translation of the words. If ex sua mente alone will bear the meaning, "according to his "intention," ex sua mente et divinitate together, can scarcely signify any thing else than, "out of his own divine essence," which Plato does not say. Ciceronianum Lexicon Græco-Latinum ab Henrico Stephano, edit. 1557. Platonis Loci a Cicerone Interpretati, p. 23.

* The principles on which this distribution is made are described with all the useless and unintelligible mysticism in which Plato was so fond of indulging. The laws again by which the composition of the soul was regulated are explained by a fanciful combination of numbers. In this sense, the number of the soul in Timæus the Locrian is declared to be

pervaded the extremity of the heaven revolving upon itself around it, and established the commencement of a life unceasing and full of intellectual enjoyment. Formed by the most excellent Creator the most excellent of created things, it is endowed with a capacity of perceiving eternal truths. From its proportionate distribution and compound essence, and self-revolving power1, when it approaches any divisible or indivisible substance, it is enabled to discern, by moving itself through its own entire nature, the identity and differences of things, to what class each belongs, the time and place and manner of its existence, the distinction

114695. Vide Timæus the Locrian. Bekker, pars iii. vol. iii. p. 382.

Absurd as these speculations of Plato are, they are more than equalled by those of Darjes, a German writer, (and he was only one of a school,) not a century ago, who published a philosophical treatise to demonstrate the Trinity by algebraical formula. Tractatus philosophicus in quo Pluralitas Personarum in Deitate, &c.1735. Problems of the same kind are also to be found in Stapfer, a divine of a different church, in a learned work, (Institutiones Theolog. tomi 5. Tiguri, 1743.) Vid. vol. iii. p. 481, 482, &c. And Dr. Hutchinson, in his inquiry into the origin of our ideas of beauty and virtue, has applied algebra to the question of "moral merit:" "The benevolence (moral merit) of an agent is proportional to a fraction, having the moment of good for the numerator, and the ability of the agent for the "denominator." Life and Writings of Dr. Reid, in Dugald Stewart's edition of his works.

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1 Cicero de Natura Deorum lib. i.

cap. 10.

between essences eternal and the same, and those created and changeable. But when the Father who had made this image of the eternal deities had seen it living and moving, he was well-pleased and rejoiced, and he determined to perfect his work, and to render it still more similar to the original archetype. He then applied himself to the creation of time ", the sun, moon, and stars, and other divinities, who though parts of the one vast animal, are endowed with separate consciousness and personal happiness". When the Father

m It is remarkable that Plato makes no distinction of time in the eternal archetype of the world as it existed in the divine mind; Λέγομεν γὰρ δὴ ὡς ἦν ἔστι τε καὶ ἔσται, τῇ δὲ τὸ ἔστι μόνον κατὰ τὸν ἀληθῆ λόγον προσήκει. Timæus, p. 36.

" This is certainly Plato's theory, Timæus, p. 29. If then all the animals which are parts of the material universe possess separate consciousness, what reason is there for supposing that he believed the soul after death, when it became a part of universal mind, would lose its personality. He uniformly represents it as possessed of individuality. Parts are used in a figurative sense Plato himself tells us that the term body is applied to the universe, not literally, but figuratively, (Timæus, p. 30.) I am well aware that by subsequent writers the distinctions of the philosopher were not so accurately observed, and that the still greater absurdity of their notions respecting the Anima Mundi might justify the satire of the Epicurean in Cicero, or the keener ridicule of St. Augustine: though we can hardly imagine the creed of any to have extended so far as to embrace the belief, that all things were literally a part of Jupiter, and that the Deity in the torrid zone was parched with heat, and in the hyperborean regions was stiff with cold; and that he actually

of all things had created these principal parts of the universe, he afterwards assigned to them, as second causes and subject deities, their subordinate departments in the work of creation. To their care was committed the formation of other animated essences inferior to themselves. They are charged in gratitude for the immortality which their Maker in his benevolence has given them, and to which they had no natural claim, to devote themselves diligently to the task: "Deities of dei

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ties, of whom I am Creator and Father, ye are "not immortal and indissoluble; what I have made "I can dissolve, yet ye shall not be dissolved, nor "be subject to death, through the might of my "will. Apply yourselves to the creation of ani-` "mals, imitating my power exerted in your pro"duction. I will furnish you with the first prin

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ciples and eternal seeds for the formation of "those who are to resemble the immortal Gods, "but do ye, adding the mortal to the immortal "nature, mould and produce them into being,

died in men, and was whipped in boys: "Quid infelicius credi "potest quam Jovis partem vapulare cum puer vapulat," Cicero de Natura Deorum lib. i. cap. 10, 11. St. Augustin, Civ. Dei, lib. iv. cap. 13. Dr. Ireland, p. 184, 185. Vide also Comment. Marsil. Ficini, lib. iii. cap. 3. Plotini Ennead. 4.

• The spirit and beauty of the passage beginning Θεοὶ θεῶν, ὧν ἐγὼ δημιουργὸς πατήρ τε ἔργων will be felt by every reader of Plato. Timæus, p. 43.