order." (Thus it appears that Plato's God, unlike the Jewish and Christian God, did not create
the world out of nothing, but rearranged pre-existing material.) He put intelligence in the soul,
and the soul in the body. He made the world as a whole a living creature having soul and
intelligence. There is only one world, not many, as various pre-Socratics had taught; there
cannot be more than one, since it is a created copy designed to accord as closely as possible
with the eternal original apprehended by God. The world in its entirety is one visible animal,
comprehending within itself all other animals. It is a globe, because like is fairer than unlike,
and only a globe is alike everywhere. It rotates, because circular motion is the most perfect; and
since this is its only motion it needs no feet or hands.
The four elements, fire, air, water, and earth, each of which apparently is represented by a
number, are in continued proportion, i.e. fire is to air as air is to water and as water is to earth.
God used all the elements in making the world, and therefore it is perfect, and not liable to old
age or disease. It is harmonized by proportion, which causes it to have the spirit of friendship,
and therefore to be indissoluble except by God.
God made first the soul, then the body. The soul is compounded of the indivisible-unchangeable
and the divisible-changeable; it is a third and intermediate kind of essence.
Here follows a Pythagorean account of the planets, leading to an explanation of the origin of
time:
When the father and creator saw the creature which he had made moving and living, the created
image of the eternal gods, he rejoiced, and in his joy determined to make the copy still more
like the original; and as this was eternal, he sought to make the universe eternal, so far as might
be. Now the nature of the ideal being was everlasting, but to bestow this attribute in its fulness
upon a creature was impossible. Wherefore he resolved to have a moving image of eternity, and
when he set in order the heaven, he made this image eternal but moving according to number,
while eternity itself rests in unity; and this image we call Time. *
Before this, there were no days or nights. Of the eternal essence we must not say that it was or
will be; only is is correct. It is implied
* Vaughan must have been reading this passage when he wrote the poem beginning "I saw
eternity the other night."