fference of that thing and some other; and to
what individuals are related, and by what affected, and in what way
and how and when, both in the world of generation and in the world of
immutable being. And when reason, which works with equal truth, whether
she be in the circle of the diverse or of the same,--in voiceless
silence holding her onward course in the sphere of the self-moved,--when
reason, I say, is hovering around the sensible world, and when the
circle of the diverse also moving truly imparts the intimations of sense
to the whole soul, then arise opinions and beliefs sure and certain. But
when reason is concerned with the rational, and the circle of the
same moving smoothly declares it, then intelligence and knowledge
are necessarily perfected;' where, proceeding in a similar path of
contemplation, he supposes the inward and the outer world mutually to
imply each other. 'God invented and gave us sight to the end that we
might behold the courses of intelligence in the heaven, and apply them
to the courses of our own intelligence which are akin to them, the
unperturbed to the perturbed; and that we, learning them and partaking
of the natural truth of reason, might imitate the absolutely unerring
courses of God and regulate our own vagaries.' Or let us weigh carefully
some other profound thoughts, such as the following. 'He who neglects
education walks lame to the end of his life, and returns imperfect and
good for nothing to the world below.' 'The father and maker of all this
universe is past finding out; and even if we found him, to tell of him
to all men would be impossible.' 'Let me tell you then why the Creator
made this world of generation. He was good, and the good can never have
jealousy of anything. And being free from jealousy, he desired that all
things should be as like himself as they could be. This is in the truest
sense the origin of creation and of the world, as we shall do well in
believing on the testimony of wise men: God desired that all things
should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable.' This
is the leading thought in the Timaeus, just as the IDEA of Good is
the leading thought of the Republic, the one expression describing the
personal, the other the impersonal Good or God, differing in form rather
than in substance, and both equally implying to the mind of Plato a
divine reality. The slight touch, perhaps ironical, contained in the
words, 'as we shall do well in believing