d _contingent_. This
last element of the soul is regarded by Plato as "mortal" and
"corruptible," the former element as "immortal" and "indestructible,"
having its foundations laid in eternity.

[Footnote 605: "Laws," bk. x. ch. vi. and vii.; "Phaedrus," Sec. 51; "arche
kineseos."]

[Footnote 606: "Timaeus," ch. xii.; tauton, thateron, and ousia or to
symmisgomenon.]

[Footnote 607: "Laws," bk. v. ch. i.]

This doctrine of the eternity of the free and rational element of the
soul must, of course, appear strange and even repulsive to those who are
unacquainted with the Platonic notion of eternity as a fixed state out
of time, which has no past, present, or future, and is simply that which
"always _is_"--an everlasting _now_. The soul, in its elements of
rationality and freedom, has existed anterior to time, because it now
exists in eternity.[608] In its actual manifestations and personal
history it is to be contemplated as a "generated being," having a
commencement in time.

Now, that the human soul, like the uncreated Deity, has always had a
distinct, conscious, personal, independent being, does not appear to be
the doctrine of Plato. He teaches, most distinctly, that the "divine,"
the immortal part, was created, or rather "generated," in eternity. "The
Deity himself _formed the divine_, and he delivered over to his
celestial offspring [the subordinate and generated gods] the task of
_forming the mortal_. These subordinate deities, copying the example of
their parent, and receiving from his hands the _immortal principle_ of
the human soul, fashioned subsequently to this the mortal body, which
they consigned to the soul as a vehicle, and in which they placed
another kind of soul, mortal, the seat of violent and fatal
affections."[609] He also regarded the soul as having a derived and
dependent existence. He draws a marked distinction between the divine
and human forms of the "self-moving principle," and makes its
continuance dependent upon the will and wisdom of the Almighty Disposer
and Parent, of whom it is "the first-born offspring."[610]

[Footnote 608: See _ante_, note 4, p. 349, as to the Platonic notions of
"Time" and "Eternity."]

[Footnote 609: "Timaeus," ch. xliv.]

[Footnote 610: See the elaborate exposition in "Laws," bk. x. ch. xii.
and xiii.]

That portion of the soul which Plato regarded as "immortal" and "to be
entitled divine," is thus the "_offspring of God_"--a ray of the
Divinity "generat