Timaeus' Lecture

This is how the body of the world was created out of 4 such elements.

It was harmonized by proportion, and therefore has the spirit of friendship. Having been reconciled to itself, it was indissoluble.

The creation took up all of each of the 4 elements. The Creator compounded the world out of all

• the fire
• the water
• the air
• the earth.

He leaves no part of any of them nor any power of them outside.

His intention was for the animal to be:

1. a perfect whole with perfect particles
2. one, leaving no remnants out of which another such world might be created
3. free from old age and unaffected by disease

If heat and cold and other powerful forces which unite bodies surround and attack them from outside when they are unprepared, the particles get decomposed.

The forces make the particles waste away, bringing diseases and old age on them.

This is why he made the world one whole, with every particle complete, perfect, and not liable to old age and disease.

He gave the suitable and natural shape to the universe.

The shape for the animal template had all the other shapes.

God considered that the like is fairer than the unlike.

This is why He shaped the world as a globe, round as from a lathe, which is the most like itself.

• It has its extremes in every direction equidistant from the centre.

The living being does not need:

• eyes when there is nothing remaining outside to be seen
• ears when there is nothing to be heard
• breath when there is no atmosphere
• organs when nothing went in or out of him

So his design was to:

• use his own waste as his own food
• do and suffer everything by himself, in himself.