ctions gives the effect of
heaviness. The descriptive portion of the Timaeus retains traces of
the first Greek prose composition; for the great master of language was
speaking on a theme with which he was imperfectly acquainted, and had
no words in which to express his meaning. The rugged grandeur of the
opening discourse of Timaeus may be compared with the more harmonious
beauty of a similar passage in the Phaedrus.

To the same cause we may attribute the want of plan. Plato had not
the command of his materials which would have enabled him to produce
a perfect work of art. Hence there are several new beginnings and
resumptions and formal or artificial connections; we miss the 'callida
junctura' of the earlier dialogues. His speculations about the
Eternal, his theories of creation, his mathematical anticipations, are
supplemented by desultory remarks on the one immortal and the two
mortal souls of man, on the functions of the bodily organs in health and
disease, on sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. He soars into
the heavens, and then, as if his wings were suddenly clipped, he walks
ungracefully and with difficulty upon the earth. The greatest things in
the world, and the least things in man, are brought within the compass
of a short treatise. But the intermediate links are missing, and we
cannot be surprised that there should be a want of unity in a work which
embraces astronomy, theology, physiology, and natural philosophy in a
few pages.

It is not easy to determine how Plato's cosmos may be presented to the
reader in a clearer and shorter form; or how we may supply a thread of
connexion to his ideas without giving greater consistency to them than
they possessed in his mind, or adding on consequences which would
never have occurred to him. For he has glimpses of the truth, but no
comprehensive or perfect vision. There are isolated expressions about
the nature of God which have a wonderful depth and power; but we are
not justified in assuming that these had any greater significance to
the mind of Plato than language of a neutral and impersonal character...
With a view to the illustration of the Timaeus I propose to divide this
Introduction into sections, of which the first will contain an outline
of the dialogue: (2) I shall consider the aspects of nature which
presented themselves to Plato and his age, and the elements of
philosophy which entered into the conception of them: (3) the theology
and physics of th