Timaeus | Page 9

see,' replied Socrates, 'that I shall be well
entertained; and do you, Timaeus, offer up a prayer and begin.'
TIMAEUS: All men who have any right feeling, at the beginning of any enterprise, call
upon the Gods; and he who is about to speak of the origin of the universe has a special
need of their aid. May my words be acceptable to them, and may I speak in the manner
which will be most intelligible to you and will best express my own meaning!
First, I must distinguish between that which always is and never becomes and which is
apprehended by reason and reflection, and that which always becomes and never is and is
conceived by opinion with the help of sense. All that becomes and is created is the work
of a cause, and that is fair which the artificer makes after an eternal pattern, but whatever
is fashioned after a created pattern is not fair. Is the world created or uncreated?--that is
the first question. Created, I reply, being visible and tangible and having a body, and
therefore sensible; and if sensible, then created; and if created, made by a cause, and the
cause is the ineffable father of all things, who had before him an eternal archetype. For to
imagine that the archetype was created would be blasphemy, seeing that the world is the
noblest of creations, and God is the best of causes. And the world being thus created
according to the eternal pattern is the copy of something; and we may assume that words
are akin to the matter of which they speak. What is spoken of the unchanging or
intelligible must be certain and true; but what is spoken of the created image can only be

probable; being is to becoming what truth is to belief. And amid the variety of opinions
which have arisen about God and the nature of the world we must be content to take
probability for our rule, considering that I, who am the speaker, and you, who are the
judges, are only men; to probability we may attain but no further.
SOCRATES: Excellent, Timaeus, I like your manner of approaching the
subject--proceed.
TIMAEUS: Why did the Creator make the world?...He was good, and therefore not
jealous, and being free from jealousy he desired that all things should be like himself.
Wherefore he set in order the visible world, which he found in disorder. Now he who is
the best could only create the fairest; and reflecting that of visible things the intelligent is
superior to the unintelligent, he put intelligence in soul and soul in body, and framed the
universe to be the best and fairest work in the order of nature, and the world became a
living soul through the providence of God.
In the likeness of what animal was the world made?--that is the third question...The form
of the perfect animal was a whole, and contained all intelligible beings, and the visible
animal, made after the pattern of this, included all visible creatures.
Are there many worlds or one only?--that is the fourth question...One only. For if in the
original there had been more than one they would have been the parts of a third, which
would have been the true pattern of the world; and therefore there is, and will ever be, but
one created world. Now that which is created is of necessity corporeal and visible and
tangible,-- visible and therefore made of fire,--tangible and therefore solid and made of
earth. But two terms must be united by a third, which is a mean between them; and had
the earth been a surface only, one mean would have sufficed, but two means are required
to unite solid bodies. And as the world was composed of solids, between the elements of
fire and earth God placed two other elements of air and water, and arranged them in a
continuous proportion--
fire:air::air:water, and air:water::water:earth,
and so put together a visible and palpable heaven, having harmony and friendship in the
union of the four elements; and being at unity with itself it was indissoluble except by the
hand of the framer. Each of the elements was taken into the universe whole and entire;
for he considered that the animal should be perfect and one, leaving no remnants out of
which another animal could be created, and should also be free from old age and disease,
which are produced by the action of external forces. And as he was to contain all things,
he was made in the all-containing form of a sphere, round as from a lathe and every way
equidistant from the centre, as was natural and suitable to him. He was finished and
smooth, having neither eyes nor ears, for there was nothing without him