The Timaeus of Plato

50 INTRODUCTION.
This restriction of the bounds of human knowledge must
scope.
needs have presented itself to Plato's mind along with the clear
conception of an infinite universal soul which is the sum and
substance of all things.. For only in the endeavour to grasp the
boundlessness of the infinite would he become fully alive to the
limitation of the finite.
Con- 48. The account I have thought
it
necessary to give of
doctrines contained in the Timaeus is now
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completed. There are indeed divers matters of high importance
handled in the dialogue which I have either left unnoticed or
dismissed with brief mention. The theory of space propounded
in the eighteenth chapter, although its profound originality and
importance can hardly be overestimated, has been only partially
examined : further treatment being reserved for the commentary
on the said chapter, since it involves too much detail to be
conveniently included in a general view of the subject
such as
I have here sought to give. The same will apply to the very
interesting ethical disquisition towards the end of the dialogue,
and to the psychological theories advanced in the thirty-first and
thirty-second chapters.
In the foregoing pages my aim has been to trace the chief
currents of earlier Greek speculation to their union in the Platonic
philosophy, and to follow the ever widening and deepening stream
through the region of Platonism itself, until it is merged in the
ocean of idealism into which Plato's thought finally expands.
In particular I have sought to follow the history of the fundamental
antithesis,
the One and the Many, from the lisping utterance
of it (as Aristotle would say) by the preplatonic thinkers
to its clear enunciation as the central doctrine of the later Platonism.
And however imperfectly this object may
have been
accomplished, I trust I have at least not failed in justifying the
affirmation that the Timaeus is second in interest and importance
to none of the Platonic writings.
Of course it is not for a moment maintained that all the
teaching I have ascribed to this dialogue is to be found fully
expanded and explicitly formulated within its limits. To expect
this would argue a complete absence of familiarity with Plato's
method. Plato never wrote a handbook of his own philosophy,