Platonism

the philosophy of Plato, which was divided into three branches, theology, physics, and mathematics. Under theology were comprehended metaphysics and ethics, or that which in modern language is called moral philosophy. Plato wrote Ijkewise on dialectics, but with such inferiority to his pupil Aristotle, that his works in that department of science are seldom mentioned. The ancient philosophers always began their theological systems with some disquisition on the nature of the gods, and the formation of the world; and it was a fundamental doctrine with them, that *¢ from nothing nothing can proceed.” Weare not to suppose that this general axiom implied nothing more than that for every effect there must be a cause; for this is a proposition which no man will controvert who understands the terms in which it is expre ed; but the ancients believed that a proper creation is impo ible even to Omnipotence, and that to the production of any thing a material is not le nece ary than an efficient cause. That with respect to this important question Plato agreed with his predece ors and contempo- Taries appears evident to us from the whole tenor of his Timzus. We agree with Dr. Enfield in thinking, that in this dialogue, which comprehends his whole doctrine on the subject of the ‘formation of the universe, matter is so manifestly spoken of as eternally co-existing with God, that this part of his doctrine could not have been mistaken by so many able and learned writers, had they not been seduced by the desire of establishing a coincidence of doctrine between the writings of Piato and Moses. It is certain that neither Cicero, ‘nor Apuleius, nor Alcinous, nor even the later commentator Chaicidvs, understood their master in any other sense than as admitting two primarary and incorruptible principles, God, and matter; to which we shall afterwards see reason to add a third, namely ideas, The pa ages quoted by those who maintain the contrary opinion are by nv means sufficient for their purpose. Plato, it is true, in his Time as, calls God the parent of the universe, and in his Sophist a speaks of bim as ** forming animate and inanimate beings, which did not before exist: but these expre ions do not nece arily imply that this Offspring of Deity was produced from nothing, or that no prior matter existed from which these new beings were formed. ‘Through the whole dialogue of the Time us, Plato supposes two eternal and independent causes of all things; one that by which all things “are made, which is God; the other, that from Which all things are made, which is matter. distinguishes between God, matter, and the uni verse, and supposes the Architect of the world to have formed it out of a ma of pre-existent mat-_ ter. Matter, according to Plato, is an eternal” and infinite principle. His dectrine on this head is thus explained by Cicero: ‘ Matter, from which all things are produced and formed, is a substance’ without form or quality, but capable of receiving: all forms, and undergoing every kind of change; in which, however, it never suffers annihilation, but merely a solution of its parts, which are in their nature infinitely divisible, and move in portions of space which are also infinitely divisible. When that principle which we call quality is moved, and acts upon matter, it undergoes an entire change, and those forms are produced, from which arises the diversified and coherent system of the universe.”? This doctrine Plato unfolds at large in his Timeeus, and particularly insists upon the notion, that matter has originally no form, but is capable of receiving any. He calls it the © mother and receptacle of forms, by the union of which with matter the universe becomes perceptible to the senses; and maintains, that the visible world owes its forms to the energy of the divine intellectual nature. Our author is supported in drawing this infers ence by the testimony of Diogenes Laertius, who surely understood the language and dogmas of Plato better than the most accomplished modern * scholar can pretend to do; yet Dr. Ogiivie has lately expre ed great surprise that any one should consider matter as having been, in Plato’s opinion, uncreated; and he boldly affirms, that Laertius, instead of a erting that spirit and matter were the principles of all things, ought to have said that God alone, in Plato’s estimation, was their ori-_ ginal.’ To prove this, he gives from the Timzus a quotation, in which the founder of the Academy declares that God framed heaven and earth, and the inferior deities; and that as he fashioned, so he pervades all nature. He observes, that Cicero denominates the god of Platothe maker, and the god of Aristotle only the governor, of the world. And to satisfy those who may demand a particular proof of Piato’s having taught a real creation, he affirms that his writings abound with declarations on the subject, of which the meaning cannot be misapprehended. ‘‘ With this purpose (says he) Plato denominates at one time the principles or substance of all things, Devazere Seov Anprtoupyous the productions of the efficient Deity,. and others enters more particularly into the question. Thus, he observes, that many persons are ignorant of the nature or power of mind or intellect, ‘as having existed at the beginning, antecedent to all bodies.’ Of this mind, he observes, that it is without exception, wavlwy wpsoSvlaloc, of all things the most ancient; and he subjoins, in order to remove ali doubt of his purpose, that it is also apyn xiwncewe, the cause or principle of motion.” With all po ible respect for Dr. Ogilvie, of whose: piety and erudition we are thoroughly convinced, we must take the liberty to say, that to us the declarations of Plato on this subject appear much le precise and explicit than they appear to him; and that the inference which he would draw from the words of Cicero seems not to flow nece arily from the sense of those words. That Plato be- ° lieved God to have framed the heaven and the earth, and to have fashioned all nature, is a position which, as far as we know, has never been controverted; but between framing and. fashionang the chaos or van wrwin, and calling the universe into existence from non-entity, there is an infinite and an obvious difference. The distinction made by Cicero between the God of Plato and the God of Aristotle is a just distinction, but it will not bear the superstructure which the learned doctor builds upon it, Aristotle maintained the eternity of the world in its present form. Plato certainly taught that the first matter was in time reduced _ from a chavtic state into form by the power of the Demiurgys; but we have seen nothing in his writings which explicitly declares his belief that the first matter was itself created. The learned Cudworth, who wished, like Dr. ‘Ogilvie, to find a coincidence of doctrine between the theology of Plato and that of the gospel, Strained all his faculties to prove that his favourite philosopher taught a proper creation; but he Jaboured in vain. He gives 2 number of quotations in support of his position; of whtch we shall _ here insert only those two upon which Dr. Ogilvie Seems to lay the greatest stre . Plato, says the author of the Intellectual System, calls the one God oc YNV, OULCVOY, Heus SevUS, neu movies Te eV oupeye@ Mas Te evadn, wet vm yus aTavle EDT E leben ® He that makes earth, and heaven, and the gods, and doth all things both in heaven, and hell, and under the €arth.”. And again, ‘“‘he by whose efficienvy the ‘things of the world (yoresoy eyevelo, mporepay oux ovler) _ wert afterwards made when they were not before.” Both Cudworth and Ogilvie think this last sentence an explicit declaration of Plato’s belief in the cre- ative power of God; but that they are mistaken thas been evinced by Mosheim with a force of argu- meat which will admit of no reply. In that part ef the Sophist from which the quotation is taken, Plato considers the duvaysy ronlinny, Of which he is treating, as belonging both to God and to man; cand he defines it in general to be “a certain power which is the cause that things may afterwards be which were not before.” Cudworth wishes to con- fine this definition to the divine power; and adds from himself to the text which he quotes the fol- lowing wards, which are not in Plato, “or from an antecedent non-existence brought forth into be- ing!) That the incomparable author intended to deceive his reader we are far from imagining: zeal for Platonism had deceived himself. Plato’s definition comprehends the Suvapuy mommy, well of man as of God; and therefore cannot infer a creative power any where, unle the father of the academy was so very absurd as tosupposé human artists the creators of those machines-which they have invented and made! Mosheim thinks that Cudworth was misled by too implicit a confidence in Ficinus; and it is not impo ible that Dr. Ozilvie may have been swayed by the authority, great indeed, of the author of the Intellectual System: That intellect existed antecedent to all bodies is indeed a Platonic dogma, from which Dr. Ogilvie, after Cudworth, wishes to infer that the doctrine of the creation was taught in the academy; but Dr. Ogilvie knows, that no man knew better than _ Cudworth, that Plato, with every other Greek philosopher, distinguished between body and mat- ter; and that though he held the priority of in- _ tellect to the former, it by no means follows that he believed it to have existed antecedent to the Jatter. That he believed mind, or rather soul (for 3 _he distinguishes between the two), to be the cause Or principle of motion, cannot be denicd; but we are not therefore authorised to conclude that he _ likewise believed it to be the cause of the existence of matter. That he believed mind to be the most ancient of all things, taking the word things in the most absolute sense, cannot be true, since by Dr. Ogilvie’s own acknowledgment he held the existence and eternity of ideas, not to add that be believed co ey or tay a$oy—the first hypostasis in his trinity, to be superior to mind and prior to it, though not in time, yet in the order of nature. When, therefore, he calls mind the most ancient of all things, he must be supposed to mean only that it is more ancient than all bodies and inferior souls. It is no reflection on the character of Plato that he could not, by the efforts of his own reason, acquire any notion of a proper creation; since we who have the advantage of his writings, and of writings infinitely more valuable, to instruct us, find it extremely difficult, if not impo ible, to conceive how any thing can begin to be. We believe the fact on the authority of revelation; but should certainly never have agitated such a question, had it not been stated to us by writers inspired with celestial wisdom. In the Platonic cosmogony we cannot therefore doubt but that the eternity of the van mpwln was taken for granted. Whether it was an eternal and nece ary emanation from an eternal mind, is not perhaps quite so evident, though our own opinion is, that it was believed to be self-existent. But be this as it may, which is not worth disputing, one thing is certain, that Plato did not believe it to have a single form or quality which it did not receive either from the Demiurgus or the Psyche— the second or third person of his trinity. Except Aristotle, all the Greek philosophers, who were not materialists, held nearly the same opinions respecting the origin of the world; so that in examining their systems we shall be greatly misled if we understand the terms incorporeal and wnmaterial as at all synonymous, It was also a doctrine of Plato, that there is in matter a nece ary but blind and refractury force; and that hence arises a propensity in matter to disorder and deformity, which is the cause of all the imperfection which appears in the works of God, and the origin of evil. On this subject Plato writes with wonderful obscurity: but, as far as we are able to trace his conceptions, he appears to have thought, that matter, from its nature, resists the will of the Supreme Artificer, so that he cannot perfectly execute his designs; and that this is the cause of the mixture of good and evil which is found in the material world. Piato, however, was no materialist. He taught, that there is an intelligent cause, which is the origin of all spiritual being, and the former of the material world., The nature of this great being he pronounced it difficult to discover, and when discovered impo ible to divulge. The existence of God he inferred from the marks of intelligence, which appear in the form and arrangement of bodies in the visible world: and from the unity of the material system be conctuded, that the mind by which it was formed must be one. God, according to Plato, is the supreme intelligence, incorpogeal, without beginning, end, or change, and capable of being perceived only by the mind. He certainly distinguished the Deity not only from body, and whatever has corporeal qualities, but from matter itself, from which all things are made, He also ascribed to him ali those qualities which modern phijosophers ascribe ‘to immaterial substance; and conceived him to bein his nature simple, uncircumscribed in space, the author of all regulated motion, and, in fine, po e ed of intelligence in the highest perfection. His notions of God are indeed exceedingly refined, and such as, it is difficult to suppose that he could ever have acquired but from’ some obscure remains of primeval tradition, gleaned perhaps from the priests of Egypt, or from the philosophers of the East. In the Divine Nature he certainly believed that there are two, and probably that there are three, hypostases, whom he called mo ov and go ey, vous and uyy. The first he considered as self-existent, and elevated far above all mind, and all knowledge; calling him, by way of eminence, the being or the one, The only attribute which he acknowledged in this person was goodne ; and therefore he frequently styles him go ayeloye “‘ the good, or e ential goodne .” The second he considered as mind, the wisdom or reason of the first, and the miaker of the world; and therefore he styles hit a yous, Acyas, and dnpatoup= yos. The third he always speaks of as the soul of the world; and hence calls him juyn, or duyn rou woouoy. He taught that the second is a nece ary emanation from the first, and the third from the second, or perhaps from the first and second. Some have indeed pretended, that the Trinity, which is commonly calied Platonic, was a fiction of - the later Platouists, unknown to the founder of the school: but any person who shall take the trouble to study the writings of Piato will find abundant evidence that he really a erted a triad of divine hypostases, all concerned in the formation and government of the world. Thus, in his 10th book of Laws, where he undertakes to prove the existence of a Deity in opposition to atheists, ascends no higher in the demonstration than te the vx or mundane soul, which he held to be the immediate and proper cause of ali the motion that is in the world. But in other parts of his writings he frequently a erts, as superior to the self moving principle, an immoveable youg or intellect, which was properly the demiurgus or framer of the world; and above this hypostasis one most simple ‘and absolutely perfect being, who is considered in his Theology as auvoeo¢ the original deity, in contradiction from the others, who are only Sen ex Jou. These doctrines are to be gathered from his works at large, particularly from the Timezus, Philebus, Sophist a, and Epinomis: but there is a pa age in his second epistle to Dionysius, apparently written in answer to a letter which that monarch had required him to give a more explicit account than he had formerly done of the nature of God, in which the doctrine of a Trinity seems to be directly a erted. ‘* After having said that he meant to wrap up his meaning in such obscurity, as that an adept only should fully comprehend it, he adds expre ions to the following import: ‘The Lord of Nature is surrounded on all sides by his works: whatever is, exists by his permi ion: he is the fountain and source of excellence: around the second person are placed things of the second order; and around the third those of the third degree.” Of this obscure pa age a very satisfactory explanation is given in Dr. Ogilvie’s Theology of Plato,to which the narrow limits prescribed to such articles as this compel us to refer the reader. We shall only say, that the account which we have given of the Platonic Trinity is ably supported by the doctor. In treating of the eternal emanation of the second and third hypostases from the first, the phi-- losophers of the academy compare them to light and heat proceeding from the sun, Plato himself, as quoted from Dr. Cudworth, illustrates his does trine by the same comparison. For “70 ayaev, or the first hypostasis, is in the intelléctual world the same (he says) to intellect and in tell i gib les that the sun is in the corporeal world to vision and vie sibles; for, as the sun js not vision itself, but the cause of vision, and as that light by which we see ~ is not the sun, but only a thing like the sun; so neither is the Supreme or Highest Good properly knowledge, but the cause of knowledge; nor is’ intellect, considered as such, the best and most perfect being, but only a being having the form of perfection.’ Again, “as the sun causes other things not only to become visible, but also to be generated: so the Supreme Good gives to things not only their capability of being known, but also their very e ences by which they subsist; for this fountain of the Deity, this highest good, is not itself properly e ence, but above e ence, — transcending it in respect both of dignity and of power.” The resemblance which this trinity of Plato bears to that revealed in the gospel must be observed by every attentive reader; but the two doctrines are likewise in some respects exceedingly di imilar. The third hypostases in the Platonic system appears in no point of view co-ordinate with the first or second. Indeed, the first is ele vated far above the second, and the third sunk still further beneath it, being considered as a mere soul immersed in matter, and forming with the corporeal world, to which it is united, one compound animal. Nay, it does not appear perfectly clear, that Plato considered his Puyn rou xocpeov asa pure-spirit, or as having subsisted from eternity as a distinct hypostasis. ‘‘ This governing spirit, of whom the earth, properly so called, is the body, consisted, according to our author’s philosophy, of the same and the other; that is, of the first matter, and of pure intelligence, framed to actuate the machinery of nature. The Supreme Being placed him in the middle of the earth; which, in the vivid idea of Plato, seemed itself to live, in consequence of an influence that was felt in every part of it. From this seat his power is represented as being extended on all sides to the utmost limit of the heavens; conferring life, and preserving harmony in the yarious and complicated parts of the universe. he this being God is said to have looked with peculiar complacency after having formed him as an image of himself, and to have given beauty and perfect proportion to the mansion which he was destined to occupy. According to the doctrine of Timeeus, the Sapreme Being struck out from this original mind innumerable spirits of inferior order, endowed with principles of reason; and he committed to divinities of secondary rank the task of investing these in material forms, and of dispersing them as inha~ bitants of the sun, moon, and other celestial bodies. He taught also, that at death the human soul is reunited to the Juyn tou xorucov, as to the source from which it originally came.” Such is the third person of the Platonic triad, as we find his nature and attributes very accurately stated by Dr. Ogilvie; and the Christian philosopher, who has no particular system to support, will not require another proof that the triad of Plato differs exceedingly from the Trinity of the Scriptures. Indeed the third hypostasis in this triad has so much the appearance of all that the ancients could mean by that which we call a creature, that the learned Cudworth, who wished, it is diffie cult te conceive for what reason, to find the sublimest mystery of the Christian faith explicitly taught jn the writings of a pagan philosopher, was forced to suppose, that Plato held a double }uyn, or soul, one syxegj.iey incorporated with the material world, and the other vaepxoojxioy or supramundane, whieh js not the soul but the governor of the universe. We call this a mere hypothesis; for, though the author displays vast erudition, and adduces many quotations in which this double psyche is plainly mentioned, yet all those quotations are taken from Platonists who lived after the propagation of the gospel, and who, calling themselves eclectics, freely stole from every sect such dogmas as they could incorporate with their own system, and then attributed those dogmas to their master. In the writings of Plato himself, there is not so much as ap allusion to this supramundane psyche; and it is for this reason (the puyn of which he treats being so very inferior to the ductoupyos and wyaGoy) that we have expre ed with hesitation his belief of three hy postases of the divine nature. Yet that he did admit so many seems more than probable both from the pa age illustrated by Dr. Ogilvie, and from the attempt of Plot in us, one of his followers, to demonstrate that the number can be neither greater nor le . That his doctrine on this subject should be inaccurate and erroneous can excite no wonder; whilst it must be confe ed to have such a resemblance to the truth, and to be so incapable of being proved by reasoning from effects to causes, that we could not doubt of his hav- ing inherited it by tradition, even though we had not complete evidence that something very similar to it was taught long before him, not only by Pythagoras and Par me nides, but by the philoso- phers of the Kast. We have said that the Demiurgus was the maker of the world from the first matter which had ex- isted from eternity; but in Plato’s cosmogony there is another principle, more mysterious, if pos- sible, than any thing which we haye yet mentioned. This is his intellectual system of ideas, which it - is not easy to collect from his writings, whether he considered as independent existences, or only as archetypal forms, which had subsisted from eternity in the Asye¢ or divine intellect. On this subject he writes with such exceeding obscurity, that men of the first eminence both among the an- cients and the moderns have differed about his real meaning. Some have supposed, that by ideas he meant real beings subsisting from eternity, inde pendent of all minds, and separate from all matter; and that of these ideas he conceived some to be living and others to be without life. In this manner his doctrine is interpreted by Tertullian among the ancients, and by the celebrated Brucker among the moderns; and not by them only, but by many others equally learned, candid, and acute, Cudworth, on the other hand, with annotator Mosheim, coutends, that by his ideal world, Plato meant nothing move than that there existed from eternity in the Avyos or mind of God a notion or conception of every thing which was in time to be made. This is certainly much more probable in itself, than that a man of enlarged un- der standing should have supposed, that there are somewhere in extramundane space real living in- corporeal beings eating and drinking, which are the ideas of all the animals which ever have been or ever will be eating and drinking in this world. Yet Mosheim candidly acknowledges, that if the controversy were to be decided by the votes of the learned, he is doubtful whether it would be given for or against him; and Cudworth, though he pleads the cause of his master with much ingenuity, owns, that on this subject his language cannot be vindicated. This indeed is most true; for Plato contends, that his ideas are not only the objects of science, but also the proper or physical causes of all things here below; that the idea of similitude is the cause of the resemblance between two globes; and the idea of di imilitude the cause that a globe does not resemble a pyramid: he likewise calls them evaiwe, e ences or substances, and many of his followers have pronounced them to be animals. It was a fundamental doctrine in the system of Plato, that the Deity formed the material world after a perfect model, consisting of those ideas which had eternally subsisted in his own reason: and yet, with some appearance of contradiction, he calls this model “self-existent, indivisible, and eternally generated.” Nay, he talks of it as being intelligent as well as eternal, and wholly different from the transcripts, which are subjected to our inspection. There is so much mystery, confusion, and apparent absurdity, in the whole of this system, as it has come down to us, that we must suppose the friends of Plato to have been intrusted with a key to his esoteric doctrines, which has long been lost; otherwise it would be difficult to conceive how that philosopher could have had so many admirers. With almost every ancient theist of Greece, the founder of the academy believed in an order of beings called demons, which were superior to the ‘souls of men, and struck off by the Demiurgus from the soul of the world. Of these the reader will find some account elsewhere. (See Damon and PotyTHeisM.) We mention them at present because they make an important appearance in Plato’s system of Physics, which was bu'!t upon them, and upon the doctrine which has bee. stated concerning God, matter,and ideas. He taught, that the visible world was formed by the Supreme Architect uniting eternal and immutable ideas to the first matter; that the universe is one animat- ed being, including within its limits all animated natures; that, in the formation of the visible and tangible world, fire and earth were first formed, and were afterwards united by means of air and water; that from’ perfect parts one perfect whole was produced of a spherical figure, as most beau- tiful in itself, and best suited to contain all other fizures; that the elementary parts of the world are of regular geometrical forms, the particles of earth being cubical, those of fire pyramidical, those of air in the form of an octahedron, and those of water in that of an icosahedron; that these are adjusted in number, measure, and power, in perfect conformity to the geometrical laws of proportion; that the soul which pervades this sphere is the cause of its revolution round its cen- tre; and, lastly, that the world will remain for ever, but that by the action of its avi mating principle it accomplishes certain periods, within ‘which every thing returns to its ancient place and state. This periodical revolution of nature is called the Platonic or great year. The metaphysical doctrines of Plato which treat of the human soul, and the principles of his system of ethics, cannot here be detailed; but it is worthy of observation in this place, that, prepara- tory to the study of all philosophy, he required from his disciples a knowledge of the elements of mathematics. In his Republic, he makes Glaucus, one of the speakers, recommend them for their usefalne in human life. “ Arithmetic for accounts and distributions; geometry for incampments and mensurations; music for solemn festivals in honour of the gods; and astronomy for agriculture, for navigation, and the like. So crates, on his part, denies not the truth of all this, but still insinuates that they were capable of answering an end more sublime. ‘* You are pleasant (says he) in your seeming to fear the multitude, lest you should be thought to enjoin certain sciences that are usele . Tis indeed no contemptible matter, though a difficult one, to believe, that through these parti ular sciences the soul has an organ purified and enlightened, which is destroyed and blinded by studies of other kinds; an organ better worth saving than a you sand eyes, in as much a as truth becomes visible through this alone. ve Concerning policy, Plato has written at large in his Republic and in his Dialogue om Laws. He Was So much enamoured with his own conceptions on this subject, that it was chiefly the hope of having an opportunity to realise his plan of a republic which induced him to visit the court of | sius. But they who are conversant with mankind, and capable of calmly investigating «the springs of human actions, will easily perceive | that his projects were chimerical, and could only have originated ina mind replete with philosophical enthusiasm, Of this nothing can be a clearer proof than the design of admittihg in his republie a community of women, in order to give reason an entire controul over desire, The main object of his political institutions appears to have been, the subjugation of the pa ions and appetites, by means of the abstract contemplation of ideas. A system of policy, raised upon such fanciful grounds, cannot merit a more distinct consideration.” 497 498 499 500