In the Timaeus , too, we have the following testimony to show that the world is proof against disease and destruction in the future. “Now the framing of the world took up the whole of each of these four elements, for out of all fire, of all water and air and earth did the framer fashion it, leaving no part nor power of any without. Therein he had this intent, first that it might be a creature, perfect to the utmost with all its parts perfect, next that it might be one, seeing that nothing was left over by which another of the kind should be formed: furthermore, that it might be free from age and sickness, for he reflected that when hot things and cold and all such as have strong powers gather round a composite body from without and fall unseasonably upon it they annoy it and bringing upon it sickness and age cause it to decay. With this motive and on such reasons God fashioned it as a whole, with each of its parts whole in itself so as to be perfect, and free from age and sickness.” We may take this as Plato’s testimony to the indestructibility of the world; that it is uncreated follows the natural law of consequences. Dissolution is consequential to the created, indestructibility to the uncreated. The author of the verse “All that is born is due to death” seems to have hit the truth and to have understood the causal connexion between birth and destruction. The matter is put otherwise thus. All compound things which are destroyed are dissolved into what they were compounded from. Dissolution then is found to be nothing else than a return to the natural condition of each, and therefore conversely composition has forced the ingredients thus collected into an unnatural condition. And indeed the absolute truth of this appears as follows. We men are an amalgamation out of the four elements which in their totality are elements of the universe, namely earth, water, air and fire, out of which we have borrowed only small pieces. But the pieces thus amalgamated have lost their natural position. Heat the upward soaring is thrust down and the earthy and weighty substance is lightened and has taken instead the upper position which is occupied by the most earthy of our constituents, the head. But the bond which violence has clinched is the most worthless of all bonds and lasts for but a little time. Quickly it is broken by the rebellious prisoners in their yearning for their natural free movement towards which they eagerly take their departure. As the tragic poet says What springs from earth goes back to earth, The ether-born to heaven’s vault returns; Naught that is born can die; Hither and thither its parts disperse And take their proper form. Now the law laid down to govern all things which are destroyed is this. When the assembled things are in the combined state of existence they have accepted conditions of disorder in exchange for their natural order and move away into positions opposite to the natural. So in a sense they seem to live like strangers in a foreign land. But when they are dissolved they return to the condition proper to their nature.
On the Eternity of the World 6
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