το περιεχον. Note the intentional echo of the vocabulary of the oldest cosmology. The word apparently goes right back to Anaximander who spoke of the "boundless" out of which the "worlds arise, and into which they perish as "encompassing and steering the course of all things" (Aristot. Phys. I, 203b11, ...) ... These echoes of the old Ionian cosmological vocabulary, which will meet us frequently in the Timaeus, are manifestly unintentional. Plato by no means wishes us to lose sight of the fact that the discourse is put into the mouth of a man of science who belongs to the generation before Socrates.
...whether the οτοιχεια employed by Timaeus are the same as those which Aristotle goes on to refer to as used by Plato εv τοις περι ψιλοσοψιας λεγομεvοις or not it quite a different question, and one on which Aristotle is silent. He may have thought that they are the same, though if he did not think so, it is singular that he makes no attempt to prove the point...8
It may be worth while to note in passing that Aristotle carefully distinguishes between what Plato says in his lectures and what is found in the Timaeus, so that we have here one of the many indications that we must not assume that the dialogue may be treated simply as a revelation of Plato's own convictions.9
Therefore even Plato said that matter and space are the same thing in the Timaeus... But in the so-called unwritten teachings he explains the receptacle in a fashion different from that account, although he did assert that place and space are the same. For while all say that place is something, he alone attempted to explain what is is.
We grant that such passages distinguish the Timaeus from the lectures, but if they contain any hint at all it is more natural to look upon the difference indicated as the modification of one man's thought. Other references in Aristotle put beyond all doubt that Plato and the Timaeus agree in important particulars. For example, Physics, VIII, 251b17 ascribes to Plato himself the view found also in the Timaeus that time and the universe begin together. Now if this passage indicated only that Plato agreed with a philosopher Timaeus on even an important particular, it would of itself prove nothing, though if many such passages were found the identification of Plato and Timaeus would become plausible. However, the passage mentioned does more than note a point of agreement. It asserts twice, b14 and b18, that all previous philosophers but one denied the genesis of time. This one was Plato. Plato alone made time and the universe begin together. Taylor's theory, therefore, would attribute to Aristotle a serious historical oversight, all the more inexcusable because he knew Plato and had read the Timaeus. Now while Aristotle often twisted previous views by discussing them in his own terminology, a little patience will show his historical statements to be confirmed by all credible evidence. If the two phrases "all but one" and "Plato alone" prove false, it will be a most exceptional occurrence.10 A less definite hint, it seems to me, is found in De gen. et corr., I 8, 325b24 ff. "as Plato write in the Timaeus. For this is considerably different from the theory of Leucippus, because the one says that the indivisibles are solids while the other asserts they are planes. Hence for Leucippus there are two forms of generation and separation... while for Plato" there is one only. The last phrase, then, if it mean anything relevant, links Plato himself to the views in the Timaeus.11
We may now turn to that most puzzling of all passages, the procreation of the soul. Our author has composed nearly thirty pages of investigation and reflection of such a valuable character that to object to a point here and there seems mean and unworthy. It must be remembered, however, that we are casting no slurs on the mass of Taylor's researches; the nature of our problem requires examination of minutiae which from some other viewpoint might be be passed by. For our purposes the main point which I think may fairly be noted, after which we may be free to wander among trivial inconsistencies, is that the explanation of this difficult passage does not present evidence in favor of Taylor's thesis. Taylor's method here is to assume that the dialogue represents fifth century science and then to elaborate a possible explanation. In fact the method throughout the Commentary apparently depends on the assumption that apart from the Timaeus the details of fourth and fifth century science are well known and that the Timaeus fits better into the latter. But in the various instances where this assumption is more depended on, it is, in my opinion, the least dependable. At any rate it is by no means clear that in this passage the explanation, which we may regard as a good one - in fact considerably better than that of Martin who usually is so excellent - actually depends on the hypothesis. It in no way furnishes evidence. To quote:
Once more I must remind the reader that the immediate problem is not what Plato thought about the ψυχη, but what he has seen fit to make Timaeus say. We are not at liberty to reason as though Timaeus had read the "works" of Plato... We are entitled to assume that Timaeus might allude to well known fifth-century Pythagorean doctrine, or to fifth-century philosophical theories in general.12
The best way to come to an understanding that Taylor is proceeding on an hypothesis and not giving evidence is to follow through his criticism of Xenocrates. First one must explain with the held of Plutarch just what motives led this Academic to the definition of soul as a self-moving number. Briefly his aim was to synthesize the principles of motion and knowledge. The part about motion is fairly obvious, and the soul must be a number because like is known by like and the basis of all knowledge is the distinction between one thing and another, a matter of arithmetic. Plutarch objects to this Xenocratean development of the Timaeus on two grounds: Plato never said the soul was a number, and Xenocrates' use of Same and Other as principles of Rest and Motion is inconsistent with the Sophist. Now, while Taylor says that "Plutarch is also justified in his complaint of the use to which the Sophistes has been put," he is careful to explain in the footnote on this sentence that "we have no right to assume that when Timaeus speaks of Same and Different he has the logical doctrines of the Sophistes in mind at all... they have no place in fifth-century philosophy."13 If Taylor's theory be true, therefore, Plutarch is not justified in criticizing Xenocrates by means of the Sophist. But what is not brought out in the Commentary is that Xenocrates' conduct and that of Plutarch both indicate, in spite of whatever expository misunderstanding they fell into, that antiquity accepted the Timaeus as genuinely Platonic. If this tradition be not mistaken, references to the Sophist can well be utilized in correcting Xenocrates, although Taylor seems to infer that the Timaeus is deliberately silent with respect to the problems of logic in order to indicate its historicity.
In addition to Xenocrates' misuse of Same and Other, Taylor asserts he had no justification for combining the analysis of forms or numbers into the One and the Great and Small with the views on the soul expressed in the Phaedrus and the Laws. No view can be accepted which makes the soul a number, for Plato said nothing of the sort. Xenocrates came to his conclusion because the soul was formed κατ αριθμον,14 and what is formed κατ αριθμον is of course not necessarily a number. While this latter consideration is true in the abstract, it is likely that Xenocrates made the soul a number, not just because it was formed κατ αριθμον, but because it was composed of elements which produce numbers and everything else. To determine what these elements are Taylor looks to the fifth century. Hence he gets the Limit and the Unlimited whose first combination gives the unit; hence, too, it follows that the Timaeus is not Platonic because the Platonic elements are the One and the Great and Small. What remains lacking, however, is the proof that the Timaeus uses the Pythagorean Limit and Unlimited. Taylor's further identification of the three elements of the soul with the ον, χῳρα, and ενεσις found later in the dialogue is a happier suggestion, and his supposition of an analogy instead of an identity between the two sets of elements is most felicitous,15 though if one insist on strictness, the teaching of Xenocrates that the soul is a number, or even a material thing according to Posidonius, is a logical conclusion. Now Taylor follows Proclus in rejecting any view which would make Plato or Timaeus teach a materialism.16 Though something of a materialism seems implied in all the early interpretations of this passage, Taylor claims, "it seems peculiarly wrong-headed to interpret Timaeus in a way which makes him in effect teach that the soul is corporeal"17; unless of course something in the oral teachings suggested Xenocrates' interpretation. To this, Taylor replies that we have no evidence on this point; and that had Plato made such a suggestion, Aristotle would have been sure to note it; in fact, Aristotle tried to show a correspondence between the Timaeus and Plato but failed because of his misunderstanding of the word αυτοζῳον.18
It seems to me, however, that the identification of the soul with the heavens can be made sufficiently plausible to absolve Xenocrates. if not of misinterpretation, at least of wrong-headedly perverting Plato's doctrines. In fact, if the nineteenth century German scholars, with their zeal for discovering the spurious where it wasn't, had cared to argue that the Timaeus is not Platonic, we might have expected them to show that in other dialogues Plato insists on an incorporeal soul, while the Timaeus comes at least dangerously near a materialism. Now Aristotle, contrary to Taylor's understanding of him, seems to identify the theory of the Timaeus with that of the oral teaching by means of the concept of αυτοζῳον, as we have said above. Taylor now states: "It is off, however, that he does not seem to see that a statement about the αυτοζῳον (which is admittedly a Form of ειδος) is not on the face of it, any evidence for Plato's views about the ψυχη (which is not a Form)."19 It is always odd when Aristotle is mistaken on points of Platonic doctrine when he had the advantage of personal acquaintance with Plato. In fact, when we are forced by our theories to say Aristotle was mistaken, it seems to me a signal we should review our theories. But here the oddity apparently remains.20 Xenocrates, even though mistaken, cannot be so far wrong-headed in considering the soul, not as the intelligible universe, but as the physical universe. This is at least a plausible development because the soul, in the Timaeus, is soon to be cut up into strips which will form the equator and the planetary bands in the ecliptic.
The main point, however, is that this paragraph does not furnish any evidence of fifth century origin. It remains to be proved that the Timaeus uses the Pythagorean elements, and περας and απειρον not the Platonic pair. Unfortunately it is the conclusion which is assumed and the evidence which is inferred.
We now pass on to the possible bearing the relations between Eudoxus and Plato may have on our problem. In the Timaeus Plato refers to certain celestial irregularities without attempting to explain them. Eudoxus, who, though he was twenty years Plato's junior, almost certainly died before Plato, was the first, thanks to Plato's stimulus, to offer an explanation of these irregularities. This theory made the Sun's motion, for instance, result from the combined motions of three concentric spheres, instead of two circular orbits. Now Taylor can find no reference to such a theory in the Timaeus though he can find such references in the Laws and in Epinomis.21 From this Taylor concludes, Plato shows great historical sense in avoiding the anachronism which would have resulted from allowing a fifth century Pythagorean either the approve or to refute a fourth century invention. Taylor further fortifies his position by noting that the passages in the Laws and in Epinomis would also condemn the astronomy of the Timaeus as well as that of Eudoxus, and had the Timaeus and the Laws both represented Plato's thought with an intervening change of opinion, Aristotle would have been sure to mention it.
Now the assumption of keen historical imagination based on the silence of the Timaeus with reference to Eudoxus has a frail support. The question of incompatibility between the Epinomis and the Timaeus, and Aristotle's silence on a change of opinion, must be postponed. Later we shall discuss the passages most carefully. In justice, however, one must admit that should the Laws and Epinomis prove inconsistent with the Timaeus - and that Aristotle would have been sure to mention such a radical change in Plato's thought - this argument in the absence of a more satisfactory hypothesis obtains a certain cumulative force. It is to be hoped that this paper is not subtracting individual grains of sand on the pretence that they are nothing and then concluding there never was a pile. So far, however, we believe it has been shown that very few of Taylor's arguments have left any residuum of proof. His most important material we reserve for the end.
A further case of historical coloring is supposed to be contained in the explanation of sight.22 The word αηρ for mist is supposed to recall language before the time of Empedocles. In any case it is a minor point, discussion of which may well be omitted.
Of more importance is the statement, "Timaeus of Loeri [is] the only person except Socrates who ever speaks of the ειδη at all. So it is clear that Plato meant the language to be regarded as Pythagorean."23 In Plato the Man and His Work,24 Taylor argues that the theory of ideas was invented neither by Plato nor yet be Socrates, but derived from the Pythagorean school. There may be no doubt that some theory resembling the theory of Ideas was invented by the Pythagoreans and that the theory explained in the Phaedo arose out of it; but this is far from proving that Plato rejected the theory of Ideas. These matters lead to a discussion of the relationship between Socrates and Plato, which subject we are trying to avoid.25 However, the occurrence of the Ideas in a dialogue does not of necessity stamp it as fifth century Pythagoreanism. Further, to say that Timaeus and Socrates are the only adherents of an Ideal theory is to assume a debatable view of the contents of the Sophist and passages in the Laws.26
The considerations adduced on the relationship between the Theaetetus and the Timaeus, if beside the point, are unimportant anyway. Taylor writes, "It would hardly have been historically unjustifiable to put into the mouth of a Pythagorean contemporary of Empedocles so fully developed a logical and epistemological doctrine as that expounded in the Theaetetus."27 But that all such reasoning is non-sequitur is clear if in reply one ask, Cannot Plato refer to his own theories summarily? Must he say everything in each dialogue?
Another illustration of the type of Taylor's arguments we add merely for completeness. That it has absolutely no evidential value goes, one would think, without saying. Because, then, the elementary triangles were studied by the Pythagoreans, and because there seem to be echoes of Philolaus in the physiological sections:
Hence, I regard it as reasonably established that the peculiar combination of mathematical physics with Empedoclean biology which pervades the dialogue is meant by Plato as an historically correct picture of the science of Italy and Sicily in the last third of the fifth century.
Of course the Pythagoreans studied mathematics seriously, but Taylor goes on:
Whether anyone had further made a cosmological use of these triangles... or whether this is purely original on the part of Timaeus, does not appear... If we knew more of Pythagoreanism than we do, we might find that there really were attempts at corpuscular physics... though the whole theory could not well have been worked out before the discovery of the construction of the octohedron and icosahedron by Thaetetus.28
Another argument, which seems to me to have particularly little force, it found much later in the Commentary.29 The claim is that the text's preference for a theoretical life is inconsistent with the representation of civil life as a debt the philosopher owes to mankind. All that can be done with this interpretation is to reject it. The passage in the Timaeus is no more inconsistent with Republic VII than is the famous interlude in the Theaetetus.
There are other, though relatively unimportant, passages, e.g., page 565 on respiration, which in themselves furnish practically no evidence that might become cumulative, but which, on the other hand, could easily be fitted into Taylor's scheme.
Admissions
Before, however, we come to the weightiest arguments, we wish to note a few admissions which, on first glance at least, seem to militate against the thesis.
The evidence in the dialogue indicates that if Timaeus was a philosopher of the fifth century, he was not in agreement with a great deal of Pythagoreanism. For example, Taylor admits that "Timaeus represents a 'development' within Pythagoreanism which repudiates prominent features of the original doctrine."30 Two pages later, with respect to the world's breathing, it is granted, "Timaeus is correcting the founder of his order." Something similar is stated in the note on page 13. Later on we shall see that Timaeus held a theory of astronomy so ancient that he is its only representative.31
A more important admission is apologized for in the comment on the section dividing the scale. Taylor says:
If it is true that before Plato's own time there was no definite division recognized, Timaeus is here going beyond the established doctrine of his age, though he can hardly be said to be illegitimately transgressing the limits of Pythagoreanism if precise formulae were first given by a fourth-century Pythagorean, Plato's friend and correspondent, Archytas.32
Later is it shown that Timaeus excludes the doctrine of eternal recurrence which at least some Pythagoreans held.33 Nor34 does Timaeus accept a central fire which was a common Pythagorean theory. Timaeus further seems to have a slightly divergent view on our hearing the music of the spheres.35 Again: "If that is true Timaeus would be in advance of many of his own order in his clear conception of a thing so abstract as 'timeless space'."36 Again: "There is a general similarity between the kind of theory expounded by Timaeus and what Aristotle tells us about Plato's views,"37 though, it must be noted that while Plato does not permit Timaeus to describe the receptacle in terms inconsistent with its continuity, for that would be an anachronism in the fifth century. Had Plato in the Timaeus asserted such continuity, we could of course reply with the same words Taylor used when he found the scale divided.
If there were many more similar admissions, it would soon become exceedingly difficulty to keep Timaeus and Plato distinct.
Major Arguments
To come now to the crucial arguments, we first meet with one which in itself might be of minor importance, but whose potentiality for cumulative force is unmistakable. It is easily summarized.38
Timaeus 36c states that the daily motion of the heavens from east to west is "toward the right," using the same convention as modern astronomers. Aristotle, in De caelo, II 2, 285b25, says this was the regular Pythagorean view, though not his own. But Plato in the Laws, VI 760d2 uses the phrase "toward the right" as identical with "toward the sunrise," and Epinomis, 987b5 follows the usage of the Laws. If it be objected that a chance phrase in a section relating to local police force regulations is hardly decisive for astronomical terminology, but may refer to some colloquial manner of speech, we are forced to reply that such is not the case with the distinctly astronomical passage in the Epinomis. On this point, therefore, Taylor is quite correct. The Timaeus is more Pythagorean than the Laws.
A more momentous argument is next elaborated.39 Briefly it is as follows: In the Timaeus the circle of the Same transmits its motion to the seven Other circles revolving in the opposite sense. This is necessary to explain the daily westward movement of the Sun, Moon, and other planets, if the Earth does not rotate. Contrary to the Timaeus, the Laws and the Epinomis40 give a simple rather than a compound motion to the planets and deny that the external sphere transmits its motion to them, thus implying the rotation of the Earth. Now, this difference, argues Taylor, cannot reflect a change of opinion on Plato's part because, first, we cannot definitely prove that the astronomical portions of the Laws were not written at the same time as the Timaeus; and second, Aristotle makes no mention of such a change of mind. Therefore, the Timaeus must be Pythagorean, for all admit that the Laws is Platonic.
With reference to this argument we first note that the passage in the Laws is not quite what might reasonably be called scientific astronomy. It deals only with so much theory as is necessary for ordinary citizens of a well ordered state not to blaspheme the gods, but on the contrary to speak piously in their sacrifices and prayers. Hence, although Taylor states: "It is not the Athenian's point that the paths of the planets are not wholly irregular... A believer in the double motion may hold [that]... The Athenian's point is that a planet's path is a simple closed curve,"41 the context, in spite of the mention of a circular motion, deals mainly with the contention against lay opinion that the planets are wanderers, and so it cannot be pressed to give any very comprehensive astronomy. It may well be admitted, however, that the insistence on the single circular path in the text is sufficient to substantiate Taylor's interpretation. But this reveals the other horn of the dilemma, for if Plato is insisting on a simple circular motion, he did change his mind, regardless of what the Timaeus teaches or what Aristotle mentions or fails to mention. In the passage under discussion Plato asserts that this theory of a simple circular motion is a novelty with which he had not been long acquainted. In other words, Plato here confesses in so many words that he has changed his mind. Now since much of Taylor's argumentation throughout the Commentary is based on the impossibility of Plato's changing his mind on such an important point during the last years of his life without Aristotle's capitalizing it, this phrase in the Laws considerably weakens Taylor's position.
The mere fact, to come to the second point in the above complex, so essential to Taylor's argument,42 that there is no evidence of an interval of time between the composition of the Timaeus and that of the Laws, does not prove that they were composed simultaneously. It is altogether possible, if not even probably, that after the Timaeus, the Philebus was composed before the Laws was much more than contemplated. We might point out that the phraseology of Timaeus 38b brings at least within the range of possibility a later date for the Sophist than is ordinarily conceded.43 Arguments based on the lack of evidence must always carefully be scrutinized.
If, then, the words "single" and "circular" indicate the kind of astronomical theory Taylor thinks, it merely means that Plato changed his mind as he said he did. But does the word mean all that Taylor says it does. What is the single circular motion a planet could have? One hypothesis on which planetary motion could be simple is that which requires the central place to be assigned to the Sun. But could this hypothesis have been introduced in antiquity with the casual remark that although a novelty is not a difficult theory to learn nor does it demand long study, but rather is easily explained in a short time.44 Burnet,45 indeed, although he by no means appeals to this passage of the Laws, ascribes the heliocentric theory to Plato, but while we today can see that the appearances, for example of Mercury and Venus, require such a hypothesis, as Burnet emphasized, it is difficult to believe that the introduction of this theory into science should have been tucked away so obscurely.46 In fact the text of the Laws definitely excludes the heliocentric theory because the motion referred to, whatever its nature, is the motion of the Sun as well as of the Moon and other planets.
Taylor holds that the Laws and Epinomis reflect a theory in which the planets have a single circular motion around the ecliptic from west to east and in which also the Earth rotates to produce with the alternation of day and night the planet's daily apparent motion. This is a most plausible interpretation of the Laws and the Epinomis, but it does not imply that the Timaeus represents a fifth century Pythagoreanism which Plato never accepted.
We now come to the most crucial and most complicated argument Taylor has to offer. "If we should find," he says, "that they [Plato's views] differ in a matter of first rate importance from the views he has ascribed to Timaeus, this forms an instantia crucis in the controversy."47 All Taylor's argumentation depends on the impossibility of Plato's changing his mind after writing the Timaeus without Aristotle's making a major point out of it. It is quite possible to suppose, however, that Plato, recognizing the immaturity or at least the instability of current astronomy, was often puzzled and tried first one and then another hypothesis without definitely and permanently adopting any, and that Aristotle was somewhat confused both as to what is "written in the Timaeus" and as to Plato's own position. And this inability to fix upon a definite opinion, far from being the sign of a capricious dotage,48 might well be explained as the reaction of a truly great astronomer who sees that the time is not ripe for a relatively satisfactory theory. This, of course, means that Taylor's complete thesis is a non sequitur. Yet in view of the material it is hard to see how any thesis, if we apply logical screws to it, could be anything else. So we are bound in fairness to examine the detail to judge if the thesis is a plausible non-sequitur or an improbable one.
Now, Plato held that the Earth moves. The evidence from Theophrastus, that Plato repented of giving the central position to the Earth, is sufficient to show that the Earth moves. But, unfortunately for Aristotle's silence, it also proves that Plato changes his mind even after the Laws and the Epinomis. Taylor tries to connect the testimonies of Theophrastus and Aristotle so as to make Plato teach in the Laws and Epinomis the Pythagorean central fire theory. This connection is hazardous, because the indefinite pronoun "some," while it may refer to the Academy, does not always and of necessity refer to Plato himself. We may grant that Taylor is right in ascribing to Plato the central fire theory, because Theophrastus implies it and another reference in Plutarch practically asserts it. But what damages Taylor's contentions is that the Laws and the Epinomis do not seems to teach this Pythagorean view. These two dialogues certainly teach the rotation of the Earth as was pointed out in the preceding argument, but their wording, especially that of the Epinomis - which being later than the Laws increases the supposed paradox of a change of mind - rather indicates that the central position is assigned to the Earth, as Zeller holds,49 because if the Earth were not at the center, there would be nine, or, with the addition of a Pythagorean counter Earth, ten orbits, whereas the Epinomis definitely says eight. While the passage in the Laws does not make as explicit an inference, at least it is true that, if we accord any credence whatever to Plutarch and Theophrastus, Plato changes his mind very late in life about the position of the Earth. And if, on the other hand, we do not trust Plutarch and Theophrastus, Taylor's hypothesis has no basis at all.
It is clear, however, that the Timaeus is inconsistent with the Epinomis. In the former dialogue the circle of the Same transmits its motion to the Others, thus explaining day and night; but in the latter it does not. What seems plausible to me is that Plato always held, except in his extreme old age, that the Earth is at the center, but owing to difficulties inherent in a geocentric system changed from the stable Earth of the Phaedo to the moving Earth of the Timaeus and the Laws, but could not exactly decide what this motion was, and consequently, Aristotle could not expound of criticize Plato's astronomy on the basis of twenty year's acquaintance with a fixed theory, but on the contrary was a little puzzled as to what Plato really thought, and, in the Timaeus, as to what motion the peculiar ιλλομενην represented. He is sure, however, it is some sort of motion. Taylor makes it a little harder than necessary to accept the idea of an oscillation of perturbation by arguing that such a motion would be noticed not merely in the excursions of the planets which demanded some explanation, but also in similar excursions of the stars as well. Since, however, the Timaeus allows us to suppose the stars at an immensely greater distance from the Earth than are the planets, the require excursions of the stars would be immensely smaller, imperceptible in fact.
There ism finally, a last argument which, if valid, would of itself strongly suggest the truth of Taylor's thesis. We read,
The section [86b1-87b9] contains the most thorough-going exposition to be found in Plato of the constantly repeated doctrine that no one chooses evil, or is "bad" εκῳν... In the present passage it is expounded by Timaeus and brought into direct connection with his theory of disease... The ουδεις εκῳν κακος is the kind of formula which would be likely to originate among medical men... We can understand his [Socrates'] reading a meaning of his own into it; we cannot really understand his inventing it.50
So far Taylor is arguing about the historical antecedents of Socratic thought, and it may well be admitted that in this Commentary and also long ago in Varia Socratica this eminent professor has done more than any other single person to uncover the sources which Plato utilized in composing his dialogues. And even at this late date it does not seem that his merit has been sufficiently appreciated.
But to continue the quotation with more specific reference to our criticism, Taylor writes:
His [Timaeus'] exposition explains away that very fact of moral responsibility on which Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Timaeus himself, when he is talking ethics and not medicine, are all anxious to insist. The interpretation he proceeds to give of the formula is therefore non-Platonic and non-Socratic... Those who regard the deliverances of T. as all expressions of Plato's views... attribute to Plato a "determinism"... which makes responsibility illusory... Neither Plato nor Plato's Socrates every uses the language about responsibility which Timaeus does. T. expressly says that a man's parents and educators are more to blame than the man himself for his misdoings... T.'s determinist moral psychology is also glaringly inconsistent with itself. I hold, therefore, that is would be a bad mistake to attribute it to Plato.
And finally Taylor revolts from the whole view in disgust, because "the profligate is put on a level with the child who 'wets the bed'."
Now, first we must admit, and it is the strongest point in Taylor's argument, that when Timaeus refers follow and ignorance to bodily diseases he is in no apparent harmony with Republic, X 609ff. of Laws, X 896d. And it may even be that he is inconsistent with implications contained in the early pages of the dialogue. And so the thesis follows on the assumption that Timaeus could, but Plato could never, be inconsistent.
On the other hand it must be recognized that the problems centering around determinism and responsibility have led many men to hold positions which others have considered internally inconsistent or else consistently absurd. How one regards the material in the Timaeus may often depend on the critic's own system of ethics, and such seems the case with Taylor. Take, for example, the whole Stoic school. We find them asserting a thorough-going determinism and at the same time exhibiting a strong moral fervor and common sense condemnation of evil. In other words, that Taylor, because of his own system, thinks determinism inconsistent with responsibility is no reason for holding Plato thought so. The paradoxical statements of philosophers can often be shown to not imply the consequences common sense deduced from them with disgust, No one errs willingly, but that is no reason for withholding punishment, nor does it imply that the punishment of all crimes should be equal. And so in the Laws, IX 861-864, Plato accepts the paradox but denies that the inference is valid. Something similar is true in Lesser Hippias: He who does wrong voluntarily is better - if there be such a man. And while Plato may never (elsewhere) use "the language about responsibility which Timaeus does," we find in the Laws, I, 64d: "Let us suppose that each of us living creatures is an ingenious puppet of the gods, whether contrived by way of a toy of theirs or for some serious purpose - for as to that we know nothing." Similar sentiments, not ordinarily understood to be in keeping with moral fervor, are found in the Laws, VII, 803bff. and Republic, X, 604bc. We may well admit, however, in Taylor's favor, that the interest in medicine in this passage of Timaeus has entailed a rather incautious phraseology.
We conclude, therefore, that none of the evidence makes the usual view of the Timaeus impossible, while some of the evidence has been shown to be in conflict with the position under examination. And though we must register disagreement with the main hypothesis, we cannot fail to admire and respect Professor Taylor's achievement in producing this Commentary on Plato's Timaeus.
1. The New Scholasticism, October 1934.
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