deed an end be in
the purpose of the Creator_; and it is designed as closely as possible
to resemble the eternal nature, its exemplar. The model exists through
all eternity; the world has been, is, and will be through all
_time_.'[603] In this ineffable eternity Plato places the Supreme Being,
and the archetypal ideas of which the sensible world of time partakes.
Whether he also includes under the same mode of existence the
_subject-matter_ of the sensible world, it is not easy to pronounce; and
it appears to me evident that he did not himself undertake to speak with
assurance on this obscure problem."[604] The creation of matter "out of
nothing" is an idea which, in all probability, did not occur to the mind
of Plato. But that he regarded it as, in some sense, a _dependent_
existence--as existing, like time, by "the purpose or will of the
Creator"--perhaps as an eternal "generation" from the "eternal
substance," is also highly probable; for in the last analysis he
evidently desires to embrace all things in some ultimate _unity_--a
tendency which it seems impossible for human reason to avoid.

[Footnote 602: See _ante_, note 4, p. 349.]

[Footnote 603: "Timaeus," ch. xiv.]

[Footnote 604: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
171-175.]

2d. _Beneath all mental phenomena there is a permanent subject or
substratum which he designates_ THE IDENTICAL (to auto)--_the rational
element of the soul--"the principle of self-activity" or
self-determination_.[605]

There are three principles into which Plato analyzes the soul--the
principle of the _Identical_, the _Diverse_, and the _Intermediate
Essence_.[606] The first is indivisible and eternal, always existing in
_sameness_, the very substance of _Intelligence_ itself, and of the same
nature with the Divine.[607] The second is divisible and corporeal,
answering to our notion of the passive _sensibilities_, and placing the
soul in relation with the visible world. The third is an intermediate
essence, partaking of the natures of both, and constituting a medium
between the eternal and the mutable--the conscious _energy_ of the soul
developed in the contingent world of time. Thus the soul is, on one
side, linked to the unchangeable and the eternal, being formed of that
ineffable element which constitutes the _real_ or _immutable Being_, and
on the other side, linked to the sensible and the contingent, being
formed of that element which is purely _relative_ an