Like knows like-Like is known by like.* The ingredients are blended together according to a scale of harmonic proportion. The element Idem is placed in an even and undivided rotation of the outer or sidereal sphere of the Kosmos; the element Diversum is distributed among the rotations, all oblique, of the seven interior planetary spheres, that is, the five planets, with the Sun and Moon. Impressions of identity and diversity, derived either from the ideal and indivisible, or from the sensible and divisible, are thus circulated by the kosmical soul throughout its own entire range, yet without either voice or sound. Reason and Science are propagated by the Circle of Idem: Sense and Opinion, by those of Diversum. When these last-mentioned Circles are in right movement, the opinions circulated are true and trustworthy. It is thus that Plato begins his Psychology with Kosmology; the Kosmos is in his view a Divine Immortal being or animal, composed of a spherical rotatory body and a rational soul, cognitive as well as motive. Among the tenants of this Kosmos are included, not only gods, who dwell in the peripheral or celestial regions, but also men, birds, quadrupeds, and fishes. These four inhabit the more central or lower regions of air, earth, and water. In describing men and the inferior animals, Plato takes his departure from the divine Kosmos, and proceeds downwards by successive stages of increasing degeneracy and corruption. The cranium of man was constructed as a little Kosmos, including in itself an immortal rational soul, composed of the same materials, though diluted and adulterated, as the kosmical soul; and moving with the like rotations, though disturbed and irregular, suited to a rational soul. This cranium, for wise purposes which Plato indicates, was elevated by the gods upon a tall body, with attached limbs for motion in different directionsforward, backward, upward, downward, to the right and left.† Within this body were included two inferior and mortal souls; one in the thoracic region near the heart, the other lower down below the diaphragm, in the abdominal region; but both of them fastened or rooted in the spinal marrow or cord, which formed a continuous line with the brain above. These two souls were See this doctrine of the Timæus more fully expounded in Grote's 'Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates,' Vol. III., c. 36, p. 250-256 seq. + Plato, Timæus, p. 41 E.; Grote's Plato, Vol. III., c. 36, p. 264. PLATO'S DIVISION OF THE MIND. 613 both emotional; the higher or thoracic soul being the seat of courage, energy, anger, &c., while to the lower or abdominal soul belonged appetite, desires, love of gain, &c. Both of them were intended as companions and adjuncts, yet in the relation of dependence and obedience, to the rational soul in the cranium above; which, though unavoidably debased and perturbed by such unworthy companionship, was protected partially against the contagion by the difference of location-the neck being built up as an isthmus of separation between the two. The thoracic soul, the seat of courage, was placed nearer to the head, in order that it might be the medium for transmitting influence from the cranial sou! above, to the abdominal soul below; which last was at once the least worthy and the most difficult to control. The heart, being the initial point of the veins, received the orders and inspirations of the cranial soul, transmitting them onward through its many blood-channels to all the sensitive parts of the body; which were thus rendered obedient, as far as possible, to the authority of man's rational nature.* The unity or communication of the three souls was kept up through the continuity of the cerebrospinal column. But though, by these arrangements, the higher soul in the cranium was enabled to control to a certain extent its inferior allies, it was itself much disturbed and contaminated by their reaction. The violence of passion and appetite, the constant processes of nutrition and sensation pervading the whole body, the multifarious movements of the limbs and trunk, in all varieties of direction,-these causes all contributed to agitate and to confuse the rotations of the cranial soul, perverting the arithmetical proportions and harmony belonging to them. The Circles of Same and Diverse were made to convey false information; and the soul, for some time after its first junction with the body, became destitute of intelligence. In mature life, indeed, the violence of the disturbing causes abates, and the man may become more and more intelligent, especially if placed under appropriate training and education. But in many causes, no such improvement took place; and the rational soul of man was irrecoverably spoiled; so that new and worse breeds were formed, by successive steps of degeneracy. The first stage, and the • Plato, Timæus, p. 70; Grote's Plato, Vol. III., p. 271-272. + Plato, Timæus, p. 43-44; Grote's Plato, Vol. III., p. 262-264. least amount of degeneracy, was exhibited in the formation of woman-the original type of man not having included diversity of sex. By farther steps of degradation, in different ways, the inferior animals were formed-birds, quadrupeds, and fishes.* In each of these, the rational soul became weaker and worse; its circular rotations ceased with the disappearance of the spherical cranium, and animal appetites with sensational agitations were left without control. As man, with his two emotional souls and body joined on to the rational soul and cranium, was a debased copy of the perfect rational soul and spherical body of the divine Kosmos, so the other inhabitants of the Kosmos proceeded from still farther debasement and disrationalization of the original type of man. Such is the view of Psychology given by Plato in the Timæus; beginning with the divine Kosmos, and passing downwards from thence to the triple soul of man, as well as to the various still lower successors of degenerated man. It is to be remarked that Plato, though he puts soul as prior to body in dignity and power, and as having for its functions to control and move body, yet always conceives soul as attached to body, and never as altogether detached, not even in the divine Kosmos. The soul, in Plato's view, is self-moving and self-moved: it is both Primum Mobile in itself, and Primum Movens as to the body; it has itself the corporeal properties of being extended and moved, and it has body implicated with it besides. The theory above described, in so far as it attributes to the soul-rational constituent elements (Idem, Diversum), continuous magnitude, and circular rotations, was peculiar to Plato, and is criticised by Aristotle as the peculiarity of his master.† But several other philosophers agreed with Plato in considering selfmotion, together with motive causality and faculties perceptive and cognitive, to be essential characteristics of soul. Alkmæon declared the soul to be in perpetual motion, like all the celestial bodies; hence it was also immortal, as they were. Herakleitus described it as the subtlest of elements, and as perpetually fluent; hence it was enabled to know other things, all of which were in flux and change. Diogenes of Apollonia affirmed that * Plato, Timæus, p. 91; Grote's Plato, p. 281-282. Aristot. De Animâ, I. 2, 405, a. 32. ANCIENT THEORIES OF THE SOUL. 615 the element constituent of soul was air, at once mobile, allpenetrating, and intelligent. Demokritus declared that among the infinite diversity of atoms, those of spherical figure were the constituents both of the element fire and of the soul; the spherical atoms were by reason of their figure the most apt and rapid in moving; it was their nature never to be at rest; and they imparted motion to everything else.* Anaxagoras affirmed Soul to be radically and essentially distinct from every thing else; but to be the great primary source of motion, and to be endued with cognitive power, though at the same time not suffering impressions from without.† Empedokles considered Soul to be a compound of the four elements--fire, air, water, earth; with Love and Hatred as principles of motion, the former producing aggregation of elements, the latter, disgregation; by means of each element, the soul became cognizant of the like element in the Kosmos. Some Pythagoreans looked upon the soul as an aggregate of particles of extreme subtlety, which pervaded the air and were in perpetual agitation. Other Pythagoreans, however, declared it to be an harmonious or proportional mixture of contrary elements and qualities; hence its universality of cognition, extending to all.‡ A peculiar theory was delivered by Xenokrates (who, having been fellow-pupil with Aristotle, under Plato, afterwards conducted the Platonic school, during all the time that Aristotle taught at the Lyceum), which Aristotle declares to involve greater difficulty than any of the others. Xenokrates described the soul as "a number-(a Monad or Indivisible Unit)-moving itself."§ He retained the self-moving property which Plato had declared to be characteristic of the soul, while he departed from Plato's doctrine of a soul with continuous extension. He thus fell back upon the Pythagorean idea of Number as the fundamental essence. Aristotle impugns, as alike untenable, both the two properties here alleged-number and self-motion. If the Monad both moves and is moved (he argues), it cannot be indivisible; if it be moved, it must have position, or must be a point; but the motion of a point is a line, without any of that variety • Aristot. De Animâ, I. p. 404, a. 8, 405, a. 22, 406, b. 17. +Aristot. De Animâ, I. p. 405, a. 13, b. 22. Aristot. De Animâ, I. p. 404, a. 17, 407, b. 28. § Aristot. De Animâ, I. 4, 408, b. 32, 409, b. 12. that constitutes life. How can the soul be a Monad? or if it be, what difference can exist between one soul and another, since Monads cannot differ from each other except in position? How comes it that some bodies have souls and others not? and how, upon this theory, can we explain the fact that many animated bodies, both plants and animals, will remain alive after being divided the monadic soul thus exhibiting itself as many and diverse? Besides, the Monad set up by Xenokrates is hardly distinguishable from the highly attenuated body or spherical atom recognized by Demokritus as the origin or beginning of bodily motion. These and other arguments are employed by Aristotle to refute the theory of Xenokrates. In fact, he rejects all the theories then current. After having dismissed the self-motor doctrine, he proceeds to impugn the views of those who declared the soul to be a compound of all the four elements, in order that they might account for its percipient and cognitive faculties upon the maxim then very generally admitted*—That like is perceived and known by like. This theory, the principal champion of which was Empedokles, appears to Aristotle inadmissible. You say (he remarks) that like knows like; how does this consist with your other doctrine, that like cannot act upon, or suffer from, like, especially as you consider that both in perception and in cognition the percipient and cognizant suffers or is acted upon?† Various parts of the cognizant Subject, such as bone, hair, ligaments, &c., are destitute of perception and cognition; how then can we know anything about bone, hair, and ligaments, since we cannot know them by like? Suppose the Soul to be compounded of all the four elements; this may explain how it comes to know the four elements, themselves, but not how it comes to know all the combinations of the four; now innumerable combinations of the four are comprised among the Cognita. must assume that the Soul contains in itself not merely the four elements, but also the laws or definite proportions wherein they can combine; and this is affirmed by no one.§ Moreover, Ens is an equivocal, or at least a multivocal, term; there are Entia Aristot. De Animâ, I. 5, 409, a. 29. † Aristot. De Animâ, I. 5, 410, a. 25. Aristot. De Animâ, I. 5, 409, b. 28, 410, a. 12. We |