Timaeus

Tim.

Wherefore one ought to distinguish two kinds of causes,[*](Cf. 46 D, 48 A.) the necessary and the divine, and in all things to seek after the divine for the sake of gaining a life of blessedness, so far as our nature admits thereof, and to seek the necessary for the sake of the divine, reckoning that without the former it is impossible to discern by themselves alone the divine objects after which we strive, or to apprehend them or in any way partake thereof. Seeing, then, that we have now lying before us and thoroughly sifted—like wood ready for the joiner, —the various kinds of causes, out of which the rest of our account must be woven together, let us once more for a moment revert to our starting-point,[*](i.e., 47 E.) and thence proceed rapidly to the point from which we arrived hither. In this way we shall endeavor now to supplement our story with a conclusion and a crown in harmony with what has gone before. As we stated at the commencement,[*](Cf. 30 A, 42 D ff.) all these things were in a state of disorder, when God implanted in them proportions both severally in relation to themselves and in their relations to one another, so far as it was in any way possible for them to be in harmony and proportion. For at that time nothing partook thereof, save by accident, nor was it possible to name anything worth mentioning which bore the names we now give them, such as fire and water, or any of the other elements; but He, in the first place, set all these in order, and then out of these He constructed this present Universe, one single Living Creature containing within itself all living creatures both mortal and immortal. And He Himself acts as the Constructor of things divine, but the structure of the mortal things He commanded His own engendered sons to execute. And they, imitating Him, on receiving the immortal principle of soul, framed around it a mortal body, and gave it all the body to be its vehicle,[*](Cf. 44 E.) and housed therein besides another form of soul, even the mortal form, which has within it passions both fearful and unavoidable—firstly, pleasure, a most mighty lure to evil; next, pains, which put good to rout[*](Cf. 64 E.); and besides these, rashness and fear, foolish counsellors both and anger, hard to dissuade; and hope, ready to seduce. And blending these with irrational sensation and with all-daring lust, they thus compounded in necessary fashion the mortal kind of soul. Wherefore, since they scrupled to pollute the divine, unless through absolute necessity, they planted the mortal kind apart therefrom in another chamber of the body, building an isthmus and boundary for the head and chest by setting between them the neck, to the end that they might remain apart. And within the chest—or thorax, as it is called—they fastened the mortal kind of soul.

Tim.

And inasmuch as one part thereof is better, and one worse, they built a division within the cavity of the thorax— as if to fence off two separate chambers, for men and for women—by placing the midriff between them as a screen. That part of the soul, then, which partakes of courage and spirit, since it is a lover of victory, they planted more near to the head, between the midriff and the neck, in order that it might hearken to the reason, and, in conjunction therewith, might forcibly subdue the tribe of the desires whensoever they should utterly refuse to yield willing obedience to the word of command from the citadel of reason. And the heart, which is the junction of the veins and the fount of the blood which circulates vigorously through all the limbs, they appointed to be the chamber of the bodyguard, to the end that when the heat of the passion boils up, as soon as reason passes the word round that some unjust action is being done which affects them, either from without or possibly even from the interior desires, every organ of sense in the body might quickly perceive through all the channels both the injunctions and the threats and in all ways obey and follow them, thus allowing their best part to be the leader of them all. And as a means of relief for the leaping of the heart, in times when dangers are expected and passion is excited—since they knew that all such swelling of the passionate parts would arise from the action of fire,—they contrived and implanted the form of the lungs. This is, in the first place, soft and bloodless; and, moreover, it contains within it perforated cavities like those of a sponge, so that, when it receives the breath and the drink, it might have a cooling effect and furnish relief and comfort in the burning heat. To this end they drew the channels of the windpipe to the lungs, and placed the lungs as a kind of padding round the heart, in order that, when the passion therein should be at its height, by leaping upon a yielding substance and becoming cool, the heart might suffer less and thereby be enabled the more to be subservient to the reason in time of passion. And all that part of the Soul which is subject to appetites for foods and drinks, and all the other wants that are due to the nature of the body, they planted in the parts midway between the midriff and the boundary at the navel, fashioning as it were a manger in all this region for the feeding of the body; and there they tied up this part of the Soul, as though it were a creature which, though savage, they must necessarily keep joined to the rest and feed, if the mortal stock were to exist at all.

Tim.

In order, then, that this part, feeding thus at its manger and housed as far away as possible from the counselling part, and creating the least possible turmoil and din, should allow the Supreme part to take counsel in peace concerning what benefits all, both individually and in the mass,—for these reasons they stationed it in that position. And inasmuch as they knew that it would not understand reason, and that, even if it did have some share in the perception of reasons, it would have no natural instinct to pay heed to any of them but would be bewitched for the most part both day and night by images and phantasms,—to guard against this God devised and constructed the form of the liver and placed it in that part’s abode; and He fashioned it dense and smooth and bright and sweet, yet containing bitterness, that the power of thoughts which proceed from the mind, moving in the liver as in a mirror which receives impressions and provides visible images, should frighten this part of the soul; for when the mental power bears down upon it with stern threats, it uses a kindred portion of the liver’s bitterness[*](i.e., gall.) and makes it swiftly suffuse the whole liver, so that it exhibits bilious colors, and by contraction makes it all wrinkled and rough; moreover, as regards the lobe and passages and gates[*](i.e., the right lobe, the viliary vesicle, and the vena porta; cf. Eurip.Electra827 ff.) of the liver, the first of these it bends back from the straight and compresses, while it blocks the others and closes them up, and thus it produces pains and nausea. On the other hand, when a breath of mildless from the intellect paints on the liver appearances of the opposite kind, and calms down its bitterness by refusing to move or touch the nature opposite to itself, and using upon the liver the sweetness inherent therein rectifies all its parts so as to make them straight and smooth and free, it causes the part of the soul planted round the liver to be cheerful and serene, so that in the night it passes its time sensibly, being occupied in its slumbers with divination, seeing that in reason and intelligence it has no share. For they who constructed us, remembering the injunction of their Father, when He enjoined upon them to make the mortal kind as good as they possibly could, rectified the vile part of us by thus establishing therein the organ of divination, that it might in some degree lay hold on truth. And that God gave unto man’s foolishness the gift of divination[*](Cf. Rep. 346 B,Laws772 D,Phaedo. 244 A ff.) a sufficient token is this: no man achieves true and inspired divination when in his rational mind, but only when the power of his intelligence is fettered in sleep or when it is distraught by disease or by reason of some divine inspiration.

Tim.

But it belongs to a man when in his right mind to recollect and ponder both the things spoken in dream or waking vision by the divining and inspired nature, and all the visionary forms that were seen, and by means of reasoning to discern about them all wherein they are significant and for whom they portend evil or good in the future, the past, or the present. But it is not the task of him who has been in a state of frenzy, and still continues therein, to judge the apparitions and voices seen or uttered by himself; for it was well said of old that to do and to know one’s own and oneself belongs only to him who is sound of mind. Wherefore also it is customary to set the tribe of prophets[*](Cf. Laws871 C, Eurip.Ion413 ff.) to pass judgement upon these inspired divinations; and they, indeed, themselves are named diviners by certain who are wholly ignorant of the truth that they are not diviners but interpreters of the mysterious voice and apparition, for whom the most fitting name would be prophets of things divined. For these reasons, then, the nature of the liver is such as we have stated and situated in the region we have described, for the sake of divination. Moreover, when the individual creature is alive this organ affords signs that are fairly manifest, but when deprived of life[*](i.e., in the sacrificed victim; Cf. Rep. 364 C ff.) it becomes blind and the divinations it presents are too much obscured to have any clear significance. The structure of the organ which adjoins it,[*](i.e., the spleen, which, in relation to the liver, is concave.) with its seat on the left, is for the sake of the liver, to keep it always bright and clean, as a wiper that is laid beside a mirror always prepared and ready to hand. Wherefore also, whenever any impurities due to ailments of the body occur round about the liver, the loose texture of the spleen cleanses and absorbs them all, seeing that it is woven of a stuff that is porous and bloodless: hence, when it is filled with the offscourings, the spleen grows to be large and festered; and conversely, when the body is cleansed, it is reduced and shrinks back to its primal state. Concerning the soul, then, what part of it is mortal, what part immortal, and where and with what companions and for what reasons these have been housed apart, only if God concurred could we dare to affirm that our account is true[*](Cf. 68 D, 74 D.); but that our account is probable we must dare to affirm now, and to affirm still more positively as our inquiry proceeds: affirmed, therefore, let it be. The subject which comes next to this we must investigate on the same lines; and that subject is the way in which the remainder of the body has been generated.[*](Cf. 61 C.) Its construction would most fittingly be ascribed to reasoning such as this.