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Now God did not make the soul after the body, although we are speaking of them
in this order; for having brought them together he would never have allowed that
the elder should be ruled by the younger; but this is a random manner of
speaking which we have, because somehow we ourselves too are very much under the
dominion of chance. Whereas he made the soul in origin and excellence prior to
and older than the body, to be the ruler and mistress, of whom the body was to
be the subject. And he made her out of the following elements and on this wise:
Out of the indivisible and unchangeable, and also out of that which is divisible
and has to do with material bodies, he compounded a third and intermediate kind
of essence, partaking of the nature of the same and of the other, and this
compound he placed accordingly in a mean between the indivisible, and the
divisible and material. He took the three elements of the same, the other, and
the essence, and mingled them into one form, compressing by force the reluctant
and unsociable nature of the other into the same. When he had mingled them with
the essence and out of three made one, he again divided this whole into as many
portions as was fitting, each portion being a compound of the same, the other,
and the essence. And he proceeded to divide after this manner:-First of all, he
took away one part of the whole [1], and then he separated a second part which
was double the first [2], and then he took away a third part which was half as
much again as the second and three times as much as the first [3], and then he
took a fourth part which was twice as much as the second [4], and a fifth part
which was three times the third [9], and a sixth part which was eight times the
first [8], and a seventh part which was twenty-seven times the first [27]. After
this he filled up the double intervals [i.e. between 1, 2, 4, 8] and the triple
[i.e. between 1, 3, 9, 27] cutting off yet other portions from the mixture and
placing them in the intervals, so that in each interval there were two kinds of
means, the one exceeding and exceeded by equal parts of its extremes [as for
example 1, 4/3, 2, in which the mean 4/3 is one-third of 1 more than 1, and one-
third of 2 less than 2], the other being that kind of mean which exceeds and is
exceeded by an equal number. Where there were intervals of 3/2 and of 4/3 and of
9/8, made by the connecting terms in the former intervals, he filled up all the
intervals of 4/3 with the interval of 9/8, leaving a fraction over; and the
interval which this fraction expressed was in the ratio of 256 to 243. And thus
the whole mixture out of which he cut these portions was all exhausted by him.
This entire compound he divided lengthways into two parts, which he joined to
one another at the centre like the letter X, and bent them into a circular form,
connecting them with themselves and each other at the point opposite to their
original meeting-point; and, comprehending them in a uniform revolution upon the
same axis, he made the one the outer and the other the inner circle. Now the
motion of the outer circle he called the motion of the same, and the motion of
the inner circle the motion of the other or diverse. The motion of the same he
carried round by the side to the right, and the motion of the diverse diagonally
to the left. And he gave dominion to the motion of the same and like, for that
he left single and undivided; but the inner motion he divided in six places and
made seven unequal circles having their intervals in ratios of two-and three,
three of each, and bade the orbits proceed in a direction opposite to one
another; and three [Sun, Mercury, Venus] he made to move with equal swiftness,
and the remaining four [Moon, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter] to move with unequal
swiftness to the three and to one another, but in due proportion.
[NOTE: From the Great Books edition, p. 449] |