There is no danger of the modern commentators on the Timaeus
falling into the absurdities of the Neo-Platonists. In the
present day we are well aware that an ancient philosopher is to
be interpreted from himself and by the contemporary history of
thought. We know that mysticism is not criticism. The fancies of
the Neo-Platonists are only interesting to us because they
exhibit a phase of the human mind which prevailed widely in the
first centuries of the Christian era, and is not wholly extinct
in our own day. But they have nothing to do with the
interpretation of Plato, and in spirit they are opposed to him.
They are the feeble expression of an age which has lost the power
not only of creating great works, but of understanding them. They
are the spurious birth of a marriage between philosophy and
tradition, between Hellas and the East—(Greek) (Rep.). Whereas
the so-called mysticism of Plato is purely Greek, arising out of
his imperfect knowledge and high aspirations, and is the growth
of an age in which philosophy is not wholly separated from poetry
and mythology.
A greater danger with modern interpreters of Plato is the
tendency to regard the Timaeus as the centre of his system. We do
not know how Plato would have arranged his own dialogues, or
whether the thought of arranging any of them, besides the two
‘Trilogies’ which he has expressly connected; was ever present to
his mind. But, if he had arranged them, there are many
indications that this is not the place which he would have
assigned to the Timaeus. We observe, first of all, that the
dialogue is put into the mouth of a Pythagorean philosopher, and
not of Socrates. And this is required by dramatic propriety; for
the investigation of nature was expressly renounced by Socrates
in the Phaedo. Nor does Plato himself attribute any importance to
his guesses at science. He is not at all absorbed by them, as he
is by the IDEA of good. He is modest and hesitating, and
confesses that his words partake of the uncertainty of the
subject (Tim.). The dialogue is primarily concerned with the
animal creation, including under this term the heavenly bodies,
and with man only as one among the animals. But we can hardly
suppose that Plato would have preferred the study of nature to
man, or that he would have deemed the formation of the world and
the human frame to have the same interest which he ascribes to
the mystery of being and not-being, or to the great political
problems which he discusses in the Republic and the Laws. There
are no speculations on physics in the other dialogues of Plato,
and he himself regards the consideration of them as a rational
pastime only. He is beginning to feel the need of further