he others are the imperfect copies
(_mimesi_). The world of sense is itself only a symbol, an allegory, a
figure. As in the sensible world there is a scale of beings from the
lowest to the most perfect, that is to the material universe, so in the
sphere of intellect, the type of the world, ideas are combined together
by higher ideas, and these again by others still higher, and so on to
the apex, the ultimate, supreme, omnipotent Idea, the Good which
includes and sums up the whole.

Plato holds that matter is not the body, but that which may become the
body by the plastic action of the idea, as Weber well expresses it;
matter considered in itself is the indefinite (_apeiron_), the
indefinable (_aoriston_), and the amorphous, and it is co-eternal with
ideas, and inert; from the union of ideas and matter the cosmos had its
origin, the image of the invisible deity, God in power, the living
organism (_Zoon_), possessing a body, sense, a definite object, a soul.
The body of the universe has the form of a sphere, the most beautiful
which can be conceived; the circle described in revolving is also the
most perfect motion.

The stars first had their source in the Idea of Good; first the fixed
stars, then the planets, then the earth, _created deities_; the earth
produced organized beings, beginning with man, the crowning work and
object of all the rest; the fruits of the earth were made to nourish
him, and animals were made to become the abode of fallen souls. Man, the
microcosm, is reason within a soul, which is in its turn contained in a
body. The whole body is organized with a view to this reason. The head,
the seat of reason, is round because this is the most perfect form. The
breast is the seat of generous passions, while the bestial appetites are
found in the belly and intestines.

The human soul, like the soul of the world, contains immortal and mortal
elements; the intelligence or reason, and sensuality. The immortality of
the soul is also proved by the memory. The subsequent union of life and
matter in the production of the universe is the work of an intermediate,
equivocal being, the _demiurgos_. Thus Plato opposes the eternity of the
intelligence to Ionic materialism, and the eternity of matter to the
monistic theory of the Eleatics.

In the genesis of nature we again find the synthetic conception of the
elements, which he estimates to be four; to which geometrical forms
correspond, and the world was finally organi