that of the "moving image of eternity" it is correct to say that it was and will be.
Time and the heavens came into existence at the same instant. God made the sun so that animals
could learn arithmetic--without the succession of days and nights, one supposes, we should not
have thought of numbers. The sight of day and night, months and years, has created knowledge of
number and given us the conception of time, and hence came philosophy. This is the greatest boon
we owe to sight.
There are (apart from the world as a whole) four kinds of animals: gods, birds, fishes, and land
animals. The gods are mainly fire; the fixed stars are divine and eternal animals. The Creator told
the gods that he could destroy them, but would not do so. He left it to them to make the mortal
part of all other animals, after he had made the immortal and divine part. (This, like other
passages about the gods in Plato, is perhaps not to be taken very seriously. At the beginning,
Timaeus says he seeks only probability, and cannot be sure. Many details are obviously
imaginative, and not meant literally.)
The Creator, Timaeus says, made one soul for each star. Souls have sensation, love, fear, and
anger; if they overcome these, they live righteously, but if not, not. If a man lives well, he goes,
after death, to live happily for ever in his star. But if he lives badly, he will, in the next life, be a
woman; if he (or she) persists in evil-doing, he (or she) will become a brute, and go on through
transmigrations until at last reason conquers. God put some souls on earth, some on the moon,
some on other planets and stars, and left it to the gods to fashion their bodies.
There are two kinds of causes, those that are intelligent, and those that, being moved by others,
are, in turn, compelled to move others. The former are endowed with mind, and are the workers of
things fair and good, while the latter produce chance effects without order or design. Both sorts
ought to be studied, for the creation is mixed, being made up of necessity and mind. (It will be
observed that necessity is not subject to God's power.) Timaeus now proceeds to deal with the part
contributed by necessity.
Earth, air, fire, and water are not the first principles or letters or elements; they are not even
syllables or first compounds. Fire, for instance, should not be called this, but such--that is to say, it
is not a substance, but rather a state of substance. At this point, the question