reason and mind and is
unchangeable, and must therefore of necessity, if this is admitted, be
a copy of something. Now it is all-important that the beginning of
everything should be according to nature. And in speaking of the copy
and the original we may assume that words are akin to the matter
which they describe; when they relate to the lasting and permanent and
intelligible, they ought to be lasting and unalterable, and, as far as
their nature allows, irrefutable and immovable--nothing less. But
when they express only the copy or likeness and not the eternal things
themselves, they need only be likely and analogous to the real words. As
being is to becoming, so is truth to belief. If then, Socrates, amid the
many opinions about the gods and the generation of the universe, we are
not able to give notions which are altogether and in every respect exact
and consistent with one another, do not be surprised. Enough, if we
adduce probabilities as likely as any others; for we must remember that
I who am the speaker, and you who are the judges, are only mortal
men, and we ought to accept the tale which is probable and enquire no
further.

SOCRATES: Excellent, Timaeus; and we will do precisely as you bid us.
The prelude is charming, and is already accepted by us--may we beg of
you to proceed to the strain?

TIMAEUS: Let me tell you then why the creator made this world of
generation. He was good, and the good can never have any 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. Wherefore
also finding the whole visible sphere not at rest, but moving in an
irregular and disorderly fashion, out of disorder he brought order,
considering that this was in every way better than the other. Now the
deeds of the best could never be or have been other than the fairest;
and the creator, reflecting on the things which are by nature visible,
found that no unintelligent creature taken as a whole was fairer than
the intelligent taken as a whole; and that intelligence could not be
present in anything which was devoid of soul. For which reason, when he
was framing the universe, he put intelligence in soul, and soul in body,
that he might be the creator