Complete Works of Plutarch Part 5

Anaximander concluded that the stars were heavenly deities.

Democritus said that G.o.d, being a globe of fire, is the intelligence and the soul of the world.

Pythagoras says that, of his principles, unity is G.o.d; and the good, which is indeed the nature of a unity, is mind itself; but the binary number, which is infinite, is a daemon, and evil,--about which the mult.i.tude of material beings and this visible world are related.

Socrates and Plato agree that G.o.d is that which is one, hath its original from its own self, is of a singular subsistence, is one only being perfectly good; all these various names signifying goodness do all centre in mind; hence G.o.d is to be understood as that mind and intellect, which is a separate idea, that is to say, pure and unmixed of all matter, and not mingled with anything subject to pa.s.sions.

Aristotle's sentiment is, that G.o.d hath his residence in superior regions, and hath placed his throne in the sphere of the universe, and is a separate idea; which sphere is an ethereal body, which is by him styled the fifth essence or quintessence. For there is a division of the universe into spheres, which are contiguous by their nature but appear to reason to be separated; and he concludes that each of the spheres is an animal, composed of a body and soul; the body of them is ethereal, moved orbicularly, the soul is the rational form, which is unmoved, and yet is the cause that the sphere is in motion.

The Stoics affirm that G.o.d is a thing more common and obvious, and is a mechanic fire which every way spreads itself to produce the world; it contains in itself all seminal virtues, and by this means all things by a fatal necessity were produced. This spirit, pa.s.sing through the whole world, received different names from the mutations in the matter through which it ran in its journey. G.o.d therefore is the world, the stars, the earth, and (highest of all) the mind in the heavens. In the judgment of Epicurus all the G.o.ds are anthropomorphites, or have the shape of men; but they are perceptible only by reason, for their nature admits of no other manner of being apprehended, their parts being so small and fine that they give no corporeal representations. The same Epicurus a.s.serts that there are four other natural beings which are immortal: of this sort are atoms, the vacuum, the infinite, and the similar parts; and these last are called h.o.m.oeomeries and likewise elements.

CHAPTER VIII. OF THOSE THAT ARE CALLED GENIUSES AND HEROES

Having treated of the essence of the deities in a just order, it follows that we discourse of daemons and heroes. Thales, Pythagoras, Plato, and the Stoics do conclude that daemons are essences endowed with souls; that the heroes are the souls separated from their bodies, some are good, some are bad; the good are those whose souls are good, the evil those whose souls are wicked. All this is rejected by Epicurus.

CHAPTER IX. OF MATTER.

Matter is that first being which is substrate for generation, corruption, and all other alterations.

The disciples of Thales and Pythagoras, with the Stoics, are of opinion that matter is changeable, mutable, convertible, and sliding through all things.

The followers of Democritus aver that the vacuum, the atom, and the incorporeal substance are the first beings, and not obnoxious to pa.s.sions.

Aristotle and Plato affirm that matter is of that species which is corporeal, void of any form, species, figure, and quality, but apt to receive all forms, that she may be the nurse, the mother, and origin of all other beings. But they that do say that water, earth, air, and fire are matter do likewise say that matter cannot be without form, but conclude it is a body; but they that say that individual particles and atoms are matter do say that matter is without form.

CHAPTER X. OF IDEAS.

An idea is a being incorporeal, not subsisting by itself, but gives figure unto shapeless matter, and becomes the cause of its phenomena.

Socrates and Plato conjecture that these ideas are beings separate from matter, subsisting in the understanding and imagination of the deity, that is, of mind.

Aristotle accepted forms and ideas; but he doth not believe them separated from matter, or patterns of the things G.o.d has made.

Those Stoics, that are of the school of Zeno, profess that ideas are nothing else but the conceptions of our own mind.

CHAPTER XI. OF CAUSES.

A cause is that by which anything is produced, or by which anything is effected.

Plato gives this triple division of causes,--the material, the efficient, and the final cause; the princ.i.p.al cause he judges to be the efficient, which is the mind and intellect.

Pythagoras and Aristotle judge the first causes are incorporeal beings, but those that are causes by accident or partic.i.p.ation become corporeal substances; by this means the world is corporeal.

The Stoics grant that all causes are corporeal, inasmuch as they are physical.

CHAPTER XII. OF BODIES.

A body is that being which hath these three dimensions, breadth, depth, and length;--or a bulk which makes a sensible resistance;--or whatsoever of its own nature possesseth a place.

Plato saith that it is neither heavy nor light in its own nature, when it exists in its own place; but being in the place where another should be, then it has an inclination by which it tends to gravity or levity.

Aristotle saith that, if we simply consider things in their own nature, the earth only is to be judged heavy, and fire light; but air and water are on occasions heavy and at other times light.

The Stoics think that of the four elements two are light, fire and air; two ponderous, earth and water; that which is naturally light doth by its own nature, not by any inclination, recede from its own centre; but that which is heavy doth by its own nature tend to its centre; for the centre is not a heavy thing in itself.

Epicurus thinks that bodies are not limited; but the first bodies, which are simple bodies, and all those composed of them, all acknowledge gravity; that all atoms are moved, some perpendicularly, some obliquely; some are carried aloft either by immediate impulse or with vibrations.

CHAPTER XIII. OF THOSE THINGS THAT ARE LEAST IN NATURE.

Empedocles, before the four elements, introduceth the most minute bodies which resemble elements; but they did exist before the elements, having similar parts and orbicular.

Herac.l.i.tus brings in the smallest fragments, and those indivisible.

CHAPTER XIV. OF FIGURES.

A figure is the exterior appearance, the circ.u.mscription, and the boundary of a body.

The Pythagoreans say that the bodies of the four elements are spherical, fire being in the supremest place only excepted, whose figure is conical.

CHAPTER XV. OF COLORS.

Color is the visible quality of a body.

The Pythagoreans called color the external appearance of a body.

Empedocles, that which is consentaneous to the pa.s.sages of the eye.

Plato, that they are fires emitted from bodies, which have parts harmonious for the sight. Zeno the Stoic, that colors are the first figurations of matter. The Pythagoreans, that colors are of four sorts, white and black, red and pale; and they derive the variety of colors from the mixtures of the elements, and that seen in animals also from the variety of food and the air.

CHAPTER XVI. OF THE DIVISION OF BODIES.

The disciples of Thales and Pythagoras grant that all bodies are pa.s.sible and divisible into infinity. Others hold that atoms and indivisible parts are there fixed, and admit not of a division into infinity. Aristotle, that all bodies are potentially but not actually divisible into infinity.