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Since it is your opinion that it would be requisite for
me to collect together what I have discoursed and written
dispersedly in several treatises explaining, as we apprehended his sense and meaning, what opinion Plato had
concerning the soul, as requiring a particular commentary
by itself; therefore I have compiled this discourse, which
asks for your consideration and pardon not only because
the matter itself is by no means easy to be handled, but
also because the doctrines herein contained are somewhat
contrary to those held by most of the Platonic philosophers.
And I will first rehearse the words as they run originally
in the text itself of Timaeus.1
‘There being one substance not admitting of division, but
continuing still the same, and another liable to be divided
among several bodies, out of both these he produced for a middle mixture a third sort of Substance, partaking of the nature
of the Same and of the nature of the Other, and placed it
in the midst between that which was indivisible and that
which was subject to be corporeally divided. Then taking
[p. 327]
all three, he blended them into one form, forcibly adapting
to the Same the nature of the Other, not readily condescending to a mixture. Now when he had thus mixed
them with the Substance, and reduced the three into one,
he again divided this whole matter into so many parts as
were thought to be necessary; every one of these parts
being composed of the Same, the Other, and the Substance
And thus he began his division.’
By the way, it would be an endless toil to recite the contentions and disputes that have from hence arisen among
his interpreters, and to you indeed superfluous, who are not
ignorant yourselves of the greatest part.
But seeing that Xenocrates won to his opinions several
of the most eminent philosophers, while he defined the
substance of the soul to be number moved by itself; and
that many adhered to Crantor the Solian, who affirmed the
soul to consist partly of an essence perceptible to the mind,
partly of a nature concerned with sensible things and subject to opinions; I am apt to believe that the perspicuity
of these matters clearly dilucidated will afford you a fair
entrance into the knowledge of the rest.
1 Timaeus, p. 35 A–B.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 2.
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