78 



discipline, or anything else characterized by wisdom." He 

 adds, " We must therefore assert, that when that devasta- 

 tion by a deluge took place, human affairs were in a state of 

 infinite and dreadful solitude; that a prodigious part of the 

 earth was unprolific ; and other animals having perished, 

 some herds of oxen, and a few goats, which were rarely 

 found, supplied those men with food that escaped the devas- 

 tation." See what the divine philosopher further observes on 

 this interesting subject, in my Translation of this book of his 

 Laws. 



The reader, however, must be careful not to confound 

 this Saturnian period with the golden age, which also was 

 under Saturn. For the latter, says Damascius (apud Phot.), 

 consisted of a race of men proximate to the gods, and is 

 most magnificently celebrated by poets who were seated on 

 the tripos of the Muse. But by the golden age, as Proclus 

 on Hesiod beautifully observes, " an intellectual life is im- 

 plied. For such a life is pure, impassive, and free from 

 sorrow ; and of this impassivity and purity gold is an image, 

 because it is never subject to rust or putrefaction, Such a 

 life, too, is very properly said to be under Saturn, because 

 Saturn is an intellectual god." See more concerning this 

 Divinity in the Additional Notes at the end of the 5th vol. 

 of my Plato, p. 675, &c. 



( d ) Page 59. Plato, in the eighth book of his Republic, 

 speaking of the dissolution of the city which he has consti- 

 tuted, observes as follows : " Not only with respect to ter- 

 restrial plants, but likewise in terrestrial animals, a fertility 

 and sterility of soul as well as of body takes place, when the 

 revolutions of the heavenly bodies complete the periphery of 

 their respective orbits ; which are shorter to the shorter 

 lived, and contrarywise to such as are the contrary." The 



