The Timaeus of Plato

INTROD UCTION. 27
Moreover, putting the Theaetetus and Philebus together, we
obtain a result of peculiar importance. From the latter we learn
that finite souls are derived from the universal soul, from the
former that material objects are but the perceptions of finite
souls. The conclusion is inevitable, since the objects which constitute
material nature do not exist outside the percipient souls,
and since these percipient souls are part of the universal soul,
that material nature herself is a phase of the universal soul, which
is thus the sum total of existence. Thus we have the plainest
possible indication of the ontological theory which is set forth
in the Timaeus ; though, as usual, Plato has not stated this
doctrine in so many words, but left us to draw the only possible
inference from his language.
26. Yet great as is the progress that has been made, even Deficienmore
remains to be achieved : and it is to the Timaeus that we
"es stl11 to
be supmust
look for fulfilment.
Although the fundamental problem of the One and the Many
is now fairly faced, the solution is not yet worked out. Nor is
the relation between the universal efficient Intelligence
and the
world of matter clearly established : the failure of Anaxagoras in
this regard remains still unremedied. Also (what
is the same
thing viewed in another way) the relation between ideas and particulars
is left undefined. Nay, in this respect we seem yet worse
off than we were in the Republic. For the old unification, such
as it was, has disappeared, and no new one has taken its place.
Formerly we were content to say that the particulars participated
in the ideas, and from the ideas derived their existence. But now
this consolation is denied us. We have the ideas entirely separate
from the particulars, as types fixed in nature ;
and no explanation
is offered as to how material nature came to exist, or seem to exist,
over against them. We have the 'subjective idealism' of the
Theaetetus^ and that is all.
a unity, we seem to sacrifice it as a cause.
Furthermore we desiderate
In fact, while we vindicate the idea as
a clearer account of the relation
between the supreme idea and the inferior ideas, and also between
limited intelligences and the infinite :
intelligence nor can we
be satisfied without a much more thorough investigation into the
nature of materiality. And the answers to all these questions
must be capable of being duly subordinated to one comprehensive
system.
Now if the Timaeus supplies in any reasonable degree a solution
plied.