s_" or "_that_" (tode or touto); they rise no higher
than "_of such kind_" or "_of what kind or quality" (toiouton or
opoionoun ti).[593] It is not earth, or air, or fire, or water, but "an
invisible _species_ and formless universal receiver, which, in the most
obscure way, receives the immanence of the intelligible."[594] And in
relation to the other two principles (_i.e._, ideas and objects of
sense), "it is _the mother_" to the father and the offspring.[595] But
perhaps the most remarkable passage is that in which he seems to
identify it with _pure space_, which, "itself imperishable, furnishes a
_seat_ (edran) to all that is produced, not apprehensible by direct
perception, but caught by a certain spurious reasoning, scarcely
admissible, but which we see as in a dream; gaining it by that judgment
which pronounces it necessary that all which is, be _somewhere_, and
occupy a _certain space_."[596] This, it will be seen, approaches the
Cartesian doctrine, which resolves matter into _simple extension.[597]

[Footnote 591: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. xii. and xiii.]

[Footnote 592: "Timaeus," ch. xxii.]

[Footnote 593: "Timaeus," ch. xxiii.]

[Footnote 594: Ibid., ch. xxiv.]

[Footnote 595: Ibid., ch. xxiv.]

[Footnote 596: Ibid., ch. xxvi.]

[Footnote 597: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
171.]

It should, however, be distinctly noted that Plato does not use the word
yle--matter. This term is first employed by Aristotle to express "the
substance which is the subject of all changes."[598] The subject or
substratum of which Plato speaks, would seem to be rather a logical than
a material entity. It is the _condition or supposition_ necessary for
the production of a world of phenomena. It is thus the
_transition-element_ between the real and the apparent, the eternal and
the contingent; and, lying thus on the border of both territories, we
must not be surprised that it can hardly be characterized by any
definite attribute.[599] Still, this unknown recipient of forms or ideas
has a _reality_; it has "an abiding nature," "a constancy of existence;"
and we are forbidden to call it by any name denoting quality, but
permitted to style it "_this_" and "_that_" (tode kai touto).[600]
Beneath the perpetual changes of sensible phenomena there is, then, an
unchangeable subject, which yet is neither the Deity, nor ideas, nor the
soul of man, which exists as the means and occasion of the manifestation
of Di