Here Proklus recognises the efficacy of the axis in producing and maintaining the revolution of the Kosmos, but he does not remark that it initiates this movement by revolving itself. The [Greek: Theotê\s], which Proklus ascribes to the axis, is invested in the earth packed round it, by the Platonic Timæus.] Now the function which Plato ascribes to the earth in the passage of the Timæus before us is very analogous to that which in the Republic he ascribes to Necessity--the active guardianship of the axis of the kosmos and the maintenance of its regular rotation. With a view to the exercise of this function, the earth is planted in the centre of the axis, the very root of the kosmic soul (Plato, Timæus, p. 34 B). It is even "packed close round the axis," in order to make sure that the axis shall not be displaced from its proper situation and direction. The earth is thus not merely active and influential, but is really the chief regulator of the march of the kosmos, being the immediate neighbour and auxiliary of the kosmic soul. Such a function is worthy of "the first and eldest of intra-kosmic deities," as Plato calls the earth. With perfect propriety he may say that the earth, in the exercise of such a function, "is guardian and artificer of day and night." This is noway inconsistent with that which he says in another passage, that the revolutions of the outer sidereal sphere determine day and night. For these revolutions of the outer sidereal sphere depend upon the revolutions of the axis, which latter is kept in uniform position and movement by the earth grasping it round its centre and revolving with it. The earth does not determine days and nights by means of its own rotations, but by its continued influence upon the rotations of the kosmic axis, and (through this latter) upon those of the outer sidereal sphere. It is important to attend to the circumstance last mentioned, and to understand in what sense Plato admitted a rotatory movement of the earth. In my judgment, the conception respecting the earth and its functions, as developed in the Platonic Timæus, has not been considered with all its points taken together. One point among several, and that too the least important point, has been discussed as if it were the whole, because it falls in with the discussions of subsequent astronomy. Thus Plato admits the rotation of the earth, but he does not admit it as producing any effects, or as the primary function of the earth: it is only an indirect consequence of the position which the earth occupies in the discharge of its primary function--of keeping the cosmical axis steady, and maintaining the uniformity of its rotations. If the cosmical axis is to revolve, the earth, being closely packed and fastened round it, must revolve along with it. If the earth stood still, and resisted all rotation of its own, it would at the same time arrest the rotations of the cosmical axis, and of course those of the entire kosmos besides.