The Universe

Because of all these affections, the soul, when encased in a mortal body is at first without intelligence.

It becomes a rational being after:

• the flood of growth and nutriment abates
• the courses of the soul calm down and go their own way and become steadier as time goes on
• the several circles return to their natural form
  • their revolutions are corrected, and they call the same and the other by their right names

If he has true nurture or education, he attains the fulness and health of the perfect man, and escapes the worst disease of all.

But if he neglects education he walks lame to the end of his life, and returns imperfect and good for nothing to the world below.

This, however, is a later stage.

For now, we ask: how is the body created?

First, the gods:

• imitate the spherical shape of the universe
• enclose the two divine courses in a spherical body.

The head is the most divine part of us. All the other parts are its servants, moving through it.

Such was the origin of legs and hands, which for this reason were attached to every man.

The gods, deeming the front part of man to be more honourable and more fit to command than the hinder part, made us to move mostly in a forward direction. Wherefore man must needs have his front part unlike and distinguished from the rest of his body.

In the head, they first of all put a face in which they inserted organs to minister in all things to the providence of the soul, and they appointed this part, which has authority, to be by nature the part which is in front.

Of the organs, they first contrived the eyes to give light.

So much of fire as would not burn, but gave a gentle light, they formed into a substance akin to the light of every-day life. The pure fire which is within us and related thereto they made to flow through the eyes in a stream smooth and dense, compressing the whole eye, and especially the centre part, so that it kept out everything of a coarser nature, and allowed to pass only this pure element.

When the light of day surrounds the stream of vision, then like falls upon like, and they coalesce, and one body is formed by natural affinity in the line of vision, wherever the light that falls from within meets with an external object.

The whole stream of vision, being similarly affected in virtue of similarity, diffuses the motions of what it touches or what touches it over the whole body, until they reach the soul, causing that perception which we call sight.

But when night comes on and the external and kindred fire departs, then the stream of vision is cut off; for going forth to an unlike element it is changed and extinguished, being no longer of one nature with the surrounding atmosphere which is now deprived of fire= and so the eye no longer sees, and we feel disposed to sleep.

For when the eyelids, which the gods invented for the preservation of sight, are closed, they keep in the internal fire; and the power of the fire diffuses and equalizes the inward motions;

when they are equalized, there is rest, and when the rest is profound, sleep comes over us scarce disturbed by dreams; but where the greater motions still remain, of whatever nature and in whatever locality, they engender corresponding visions in dreams, which are remembered by us when we are awake and in the external world.

For from the communion of the internal and external fires, and again from the union of them and their numerous transformations when they meet in the mirror, all these appearances of necessity arise, when the fire from the face coalesces with the fire from the eye on the bright and smooth surface.

Right appears left and left right, because the visual rays come into contact with the rays emitted by the object in a manner contrary to the usual mode of meeting; but the right appears right, and the left left, when the position of one of the two concurring lights is reversed.

This happens when the mirror is concave and its smooth surface repels the right stream of vision to the left side, and the left to the right (He is speaking of two kinds of mirrors, first the plane, secondly the concave.

The latter is supposed to be placed, first horizontally, and then vertically.). Or if the mirror be turned vertically, then the concavity makes the countenance appear to be all upside down, and the lower rays are driven upwards and the upper downwards.

All these are to be reckoned among the second and co-operative causes which God, carrying into execution the idea of the best as far as possible, uses as his ministers. They are thought by most men not to be the second, but the prime causes of all things, because they freeze and heat, and contract and dilate, and the like.

But they are not so, for they are incapable of reason or intellect; the only being which can properly have mind is the invisible soul, whereas fire and water, and earth and air, are all of them visible bodies.

The lover of intellect and knowledge should explore causes of:

1. intelligent nature
2. the nature of those things which, being moved by others, are compelled to move others.

The sight is the source of the greatest benefit to us.

Number, time, and curiosity of the nature of the universe were created by the sight of:

• day and night
• the months
• the revolutions of the years

From this, we have derived philosophy which is the greatest good given by the gods to mortal man.

even the ordinary man if he were deprived of them would bewail his loss, but in vain.

God invented and gave us sight so that:

• we might behold the courses of intelligence in the heaven
• apply them to the courses of our own intelligence which are akin to them, the unperturbed to the perturbed
• we, learning them and partaking of the natural truth of reason, might imitate the absolutely unerring courses of God and regulate our own vagaries.

The same is true of speech and hearing. This is the principal end of speech, whereto it most contributes.

Moreover, so much of music as is adapted to the sound of the voice and to the sense of hearing is granted to us for the sake of harmony.

Harmony has motions akin to the revolutions of our souls. It is not regarded by the intelligent votary of the Muses as given by them with a view to irrational pleasure, which is deemed to be the purpose of it in our day.

but as meant to correct any discord which may have arisen in the courses of the soul, and to be our ally in bringing her into harmony and agreement with herself.

Rhythm too was given by them for the same reason, on account of the irregular and graceless ways which prevail among mankind generally, and to help us against them.

Thus with small exception, the works of intelligence have been set forth ; and now we must place by the side of them in our discourse the things which come into being through necessity—for the