De Defectu Oraculorum

Why, then, someone will say, did Plato[*](Plato, Timaeus, 55 c.) refer the number of his five worlds to the five geometric figures, saying that God used up the fifth construction on the universe in completing its embellishment? Further on, where he suggests the question about there being more worlds than one,[*](Ibid. 31 a; Cf. 389 f and 421 f, supra.) whether it is proper to speak of one or of five as in truth naturally existent, it is clear that he thinks that the idea started from this source. If, therefore, we must apply reasonable probability to his conception, let us consider that variations in movement necessarily follow close upon the variations in the bodies and their shapes, as he himself teaches[*](Plato, Timaeus, 57 c.) when he makes it plain that whatever is disunited or united changes its place at the same time with the alteration of its substance. For example, if fire is generated from air by the breaking up of the octahedron and its resolution into pyramids, or again if air is generated from fire by its being forced together and compressed into an octahedron, it is not possible for it to stay where it was before, but it escapes and is carried to some other place, forcing its way out and contending against anything that blocks its course or keeps it back.

What takes place he describes more clearly by a simile,[*](Plato, Timaeus, 52 e.) saying that in a manner like to grain and chaff being tossed about and winnowed by the fans and other tools used in cleaning the grain the elements toss matter about and are tossed about by it; and like always draws near1 to like, some things occupying one place and others another, before the universe becomes completely organized out of the elements. Thus, when matter was in that state in which, in all probability, is the universe from which God is absent, the first five properties, having tendencies of their own, were at once carried in different directions, not being completely or absolutely separated, because, when all things were amalgamated, the inferior always followed the superior in spite of Nature.[*](Some would prefer to make Plutarch say in keeping with Nature.) For this reason they produced in the different kinds of bodies, as these were carried some in one direction and others in another, an equal number of separate divisions with intervals between them, one not of pure fire, but fiery, another not of unmingled ether, but ethereal, another not of earth by itself alone, but earthy; and above all, in keeping with the close association of air with water, they contrived, as has been said,[*](Cf. 428 d-e, supra.) that these should come away filled with many foreign elements. It was not the Deity who parted substance and caused it to rest in different places, but, after it had been parted by its own action and was being carried in diverse ways in such great disarray, he took it over and set it in order and fitted it together by the use of proportions and means. Then, after establishing Reason in each as a governor and guardian, he creatjed as many worlds as the existing primal bodies. Let this, then, be an offering for the gratification of Plato on Ammonius’s account, but as for myself, I should not venture to assert regarding the number of wbrlds that they are just so many; but the opinion that sets their number at more than one, and yet not infinite, but limited in amount, I regard as no more irrational than either of the others, when I observe the dispersiveness and divisibility implicit by nature in Matter, and that it neither abides as a unit nor is permitted by Reason to progress to infinity. But if in any other place we have recalled the Academy[*](Cf. 387 f, supra.) to our mind, let us do so here as well, and divest ourselves of excessive credulity and, as if we were in a slippery place in our discussion about infinity, let us merely keep a firm footing.