The soul of the world is framed on the analogy of the soul of
man, and many traces of anthropomorphism blend with Plato’s
highest flights of idealism. The heavenly bodies are endowed with
thought; the principles of the same and other exist in the
universe as well as in the human mind. The soul of man is made
out of the remains of the elements which had been used in
creating the soul of the world; these remains, however, are
diluted to the third degree; by this Plato expresses the measure
of the difference between the soul human and divine. The human
soul, like the cosmical, is framed before the body, as the mind
is before the soul of either—this is the order of the divine
work—and the finer parts of the body, which are more akin to the
soul, such as the spinal marrow, are prior to the bones and
flesh. The brain, the containing vessel of the divine part of the
soul, is (nearly) in the form of a globe, which is the image of
the gods, who are the stars, and of the universe.
There is, however, an inconsistency in Plato’s manner of
conceiving the soul of man; he cannot get rid of the element of
necessity which is allowed to enter. He does not, like Kant,
attempt to vindicate for men a freedom out of space and time; but
he acknowledges him to be subject to the influence of external
causes, and leaves hardly any place for freedom of the will. The
lusts of men are caused by their bodily constitution, though they
may be increased by bad education and bad laws, which implies
that they may be decreased by good education and good laws. He
appears to have an inkling of the truth that to the higher nature
of man evil is involuntary. This is mixed up with the view which,
while apparently agreeing with it, is in reality the opposite of
it, that vice is due to physical causes. In the Timaeus, as well
as in the Laws, he also regards vices and crimes as simply
involuntary; they are diseases analogous to the diseases of the
body, and arising out of the same causes. If we draw together the
opposite poles of Plato’s system, we find that, like Spinoza, he
combines idealism with fatalism.