ONT Re: Verities Of Likely Stories
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VOLS. Note 2
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| Now first of all we must, in my judgement, make the following distinction.
| What is that which is Existent always and has no Becoming? And what is
| that which is Becoming always and never is Existent? Now the one of
| these is apprehensible by thought with the aid of reasoning, since
| it is ever uniformly existent; whereas the other is an object of
| opinion with the aid of unreasoning sensation, since it becomes and
| perishes and is never really existent. Again, everything which becomes
| must of necessity become owing to some Cause; for without a cause it is
| impossible for anything to attain becoming. But when the artificer of any
| object, in forming its shape and quality, keeps his gaze fixed on that which
| is uniform, using a model of this kind, that object, executed in this way,
| must of necessity be beautiful; but whenever he gazes at that which
| has come into existence and uses a created model, the object thus
| executed is not beautiful. Now the whole Heaven, or Cosmos, or
| if there is any other name which it specially prefers, by that
| let us call it -- so, be its name what it may, we must first
| investigate concerning it that primary question which has to be
| investigated at the outset in every case -- namely, whether it has
| existed always, having no beginning of generation, or whether it has
| come into existence, having begun from some beginning. It has come into
| existence; for it is visible and tangible and possessed of a body; and all
| such things are sensible, and things sensible, being apprehensible by opinion
| with the aid of sensation, come into existence, as we saw, and are generated.
| And that which has come into existence must necessarily, as we say, have
| come into existence by reason of some Cause. Now to discover the
| Maker and Father of this Universe were a task indeed; and
| having discovered Him, to declare Him unto all men were
| a thing impossible. However, let us return and inquire
| further concerning the Cosmos -- after which of the Models
| ['paradeigmaton'] did its Architect construct it? Was it after
| that which is self-identical and uniform, or after that which has
| come into existence? Now if so be that this Cosmos is beautiful and
| its Constructor good, it is plain that he fixed his gaze on the Eternal;
| but if otherwise (which is an impious supposition), his gaze was on that
| which has come into existence. But it is clear to everyone that his gaze
| was on the Eternal; for the Cosmos is the fairest of all that has come
| into existence, and He is the best of all the Causes. So having
| in this wise come into existence, it has been constructed
| after the pattern of that which is apprehensible by
| reason and thought and is self-identical.
|
| Plato, "Timaeus", 27D-29A.
|
| Plato, "Timaeus", R.G. Bury (trans.),
|'Plato, Volume 9', G.P. Goold (ed.),
| William Heinemann, London, UK, 1929.
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