PLATO. 67 



rhythm. Timaeus proceeds to distinguish the qualities of the externa 

 world from the essences to which they assimilate, or of which, at most, 

 they only participate. A singular definition is then given of Space. 1 



As all bodies were resolved into the four elements, so the element- Properties of 

 ary bodies themselves are now resolved into figures. The different Matter> 

 sorts of watery, aerial, earthy, and fiery substances are enumerated; 

 and definitions are given of the opposite properties of heat and cold, 

 hardness and softness, heaviness and lightness, smoothness and rough- 

 ness, and of the sensations of pleasure and pain. A description ensues 

 of the different senses, and of the whole animal economy ; and the 

 subject of divination is transiently glanced at in a manner ambiguous 

 at least, if not ironical. 



Several medical observations ensue, particularly on the preferable- 

 ness of diet and regimen to violent medicines. The distempers of the 

 mind are incidentally touched upon, as sometimes connected with 

 physical causes, and as at other times originating in the defects of 

 early education, in which case the parents or guardians are much more 

 blameworthy than the unfortunate subject of the malady. The 

 ascendency of reason is asserted to be something divine ; and the pure 

 enlightened reason is designated as a demon or superior spirit. The 

 dialogue closes with a scale of the animal creation. 



It is somewhat difficult to conjecture for what reason Plato has 

 formed so strict a connexion between his ' Dialogue on Justice ' and 

 ' The Timaaus,' except, perhaps, it might be his intention to intimate 

 to his disciples the course in which he wished such studies to be pur- 

 sued, and that he would have them perfect themselves in morals before 

 they proceeded to the study of these sublime metaphysical investiga- 

 tions. 



The scope of ' The Critias ' seems to have been to introduce the 

 peculiar political sentiments set forth in the ' Dialogue on Justice,' and 

 to familiarize them to the Athenians by a sort of popular romance. 

 By assuring his countrymen that his ideal commonwealth once existed, 

 and that their own was the favoured country in which such political 

 institutions had flourished in days of which the memory had long since 

 passed, he might think to propitiate in favour of his scheme, those 

 national vanities and prepossessions, which he before probably offended. 



Plato attempted a work of more practical utility, when he wrote his System of 

 ' System of Laws.' The five first books of these, besides containing Laws ' 

 many profound speculations on the general principles of laws on the 

 duties of a legislator, on the propriety of accompanying laws with a 

 statement of the reasons which produce them, of visiting offences with 

 proportionate punishments, and of considering punishments as exem- 

 plary and admonitory, rather than vindictive abound with more pithy 

 and pregnant apophthegms of moral wisdom than any equal portion 



* Tpirov $t a.u yivo; TO <r?j ^ufa; a,u tpGopav ov /fpoff^i^ofAivov zSptzv at wxpiy^ov offK 

 i%ti yivtffiv -raff iv, aura Be pir avKiff0ri<rias KVTOV XoyiffftM <rm vatica, ftoyig vrtirrov, 

 x. r. A. p. 52. 



F 2 



