Selected Essays of Plutarch, Vol. II. · Plutarch
ON THE CESSATION OF THE ORACLES
XX. When these views had been stated, Ammonius spoke: ‘I think’, he said, ‘the dictum of Theophrastus was right. For what prevents our accepting a view which is dignified and highly philosophical? To disallow it is to reject many things possible but incapable of positive proof; to allow it is not[161] necessarily to import many which are impossible and [Sidenote: D] baseless. However, the only argument which I have heard the Epicureans employ against the daemons as introduced by Empedocles, that, if they are faulty and liable to sins, they cannot be blessed beings and long-lived, because vice implies much blindness and a liability to destructive accidents, is a foolish one. For, on this showing, Epicurus will be a worse man than Gorgias the sophist, and Metrodorus than Alexis the writer of comedies. For Alexis lived twice as long as Metrodorus, and Gorgias more than a third as long again as Epicurus. It is in another sense that we call virtue strong and [Sidenote: E] vice weak, not with regard to the duration or dissolution of body. Look at the lower animals: many which are sluggish in limb and dull in spirit, loose or disorderly in habits, live longer terms than the sensible and ingenious. Hence the Epicureans do wrong in ascribing the immortality of God to the caution and resistance which he opposes to destructive forces. No, the immunity from suffering and death should be laid in the nature of the blessed being, and should imply no trouble on his part. Perhaps, however, it is inconsiderate to argue against persons not present. It is now for Cleombrotus to resume his [Sidenote: F] argument lately interrupted, about the migration and exile of the daemons.’
XXI. Then Cleombrotus: ‘Very well; I shall be surprised, however, if it does not appear to you much stranger than what we have already said. Yet its basis lies in Nature, and Plato struck the note, not stating his view in plain terms, but as an obscure theory, cautiously throwing out a hint in enigmatical form; for all which even he has been met with a great outcry [Sidenote: 421] from the other philosophers. Now since we are here with a bowl in our midst of mingled myths and theories—and where should a man meet with kinder listeners before whom to try theories as foreign coins are tried?—I do not hesitate to give you the benefit of the story of a certain outlandish man. It was after many wanderings and after paying heavy search fees, that I found him at last with difficulty, and enjoyed his conversation and kindly welcome. It was near the Red Sea, where once every year he associated with men, spending the rest of his time, as he used to say, with nomad nymphs and deities. He was the handsomest man I ever saw, and kept free from sickness [Sidenote: B] of any sort, treating himself once a month with the medicinal and bitter fruit of a grass.
He was practised in the use of many tongues; to me he would mostly use a Doric, which was very nearly a song. While he was speaking, there was a fragrance in all the place from the sweet breath passing out of his mouth. His general learning and information were with him all the time; but one day in every year he was inspired with prophecy, and would then go down to the sea and foretell the future; potentates and secretaries of kings would come to visit him and then go away. He used to refer prophecy to daemons; [Sidenote: C] he paid the greatest attention to Delphi, and there were none of the stories told of Dionysus, or of the rites performed here, of which he had not heard. But he would say that all those stories belonged to mighty sufferings of daemons, and among them this of the Python; only that his slayer was not exiled for nine years nor to Tempe, but was turned out into another universe, returning thence after nine revolutions of the Great Year, purified and “Phoebus” indeed, to resume possession of the oracle, which had been guarded in the meanwhile by Themis.
That the stories of the Typhons and Titans were [Sidenote: D] similar; there had been battles of daemons against daemons, followed by banishment of the defeated or expiation of offenders by a God, for instance, Typhon is said to have sinned against Osiris, and Cronus against Uranus; deities whose honours have become dim or been altogether forgotten since they were removed to another universe. Thus I hear that the Solymi, who dwell near the Lycians, hold Cronus in special honour; but when he had slain their princes, Arsalus, Dryus, and Trosobius, he was banished and removed (whither they cannot say). So he passed out of account, but Arsalus and his fellows are called “stern Gods”, and the Lycians publicly [Sidenote: E] and in private make execrations in their names. Many stories like these may be had out of theological collections.’ ‘But if we call certain daemons by the recognized names of Gods,’ the stranger said, ‘it should be no wonder, for to whatever God each has been assigned, to share his power and honour, after him he likes to be called; even as among ourselves one is “of Zeus”, one “of Athena”, one “of Apollo,” one “of Dionysus”, one “of Hermes”; only some have by accident been rightly called, most have received names quite inappropriate, [Sidenote: F] misapplied names of Gods.’
XXII. Here Cleombrotus paused. All present found his story a marvellous one, but Heracleon asked how it bore upon Plato, and in what sense he had given the note. ‘You perfectly remember’, said Cleombrotus, ‘that he rejected, on the face of it, an infinity of worlds, but felt a difficulty as to [Sidenote: 422] a limited number, and was ready to go up to five,[162] thus conceding probability to those who assume one world for each element, but himself keeping to one. This appears to be peculiar to Plato, the other philosophers[163] regarding with horror any plurality, because, if you do not limit matter to one world, when you pass outside unity you arrive at once at an unlimited and perplexing infinity.’ ‘But did your stranger’, I asked, ‘limit the number of worlds as Plato does, or did you neglect to find this out when you were with him?’ ‘Was it [Sidenote: B] likely,’ said Cleombrotus, ‘when he graciously put himself at my disposal? On these points, if on nothing else, I was, of course, an attentive and eager listener. What he said was that there is not an infinite number of worlds, nor yet one, nor yet five, but one hundred and eighty-three, arranged in a triangle with sixty worlds in each side.
_Surely the rogue some pilfering expert is_[164] in doctrines and theories from everywhere. He had travelled widely in letters, and he was no Barbarian, but a Greek steeped deeply in Greek learning. The number of his worlds proves it against him, for it is not Egyptian nor yet Indian, but Dorian of Sicily, and comes from a man of Himera named Petron. [Sidenote: E] His own pamphlet I never read and I do not know whether it is extant; but Hippys of Rhegium, mentioned by Phanias of Eresus, records it as his view or theory that there are one hundred and eighty-three worlds all in touch with one another “by elements”, whatever that may mean; he gives no further explanation or proof of any sort.’ ‘What proof could there be’, broke in Demetrius, ‘in matters of that sort, where Plato, without a word to make it reasonable or likely, simply laid down his theory?’ ‘And yet’, said Heracleon, [Sidenote: F] ‘we hear you grammarians referring the view to Homer,[165] on the ground that he distributes the whole into five worlds, Heaven, Water, Air, Earth, Olympus. Two of these he leaves “common”, namely, Earth with all the lower portion of the whole, Olympus with all the upper. The three in the middle have been allotted to the three Gods.
So also Plato,[166] apparently assigning to the different aspects of the whole the bodily forms [Sidenote: 423] and figures which are the most beautiful and the first, spoke of five worlds, one each for earth, water, air, fire, but kept for last that which includes the others, the world of the Dodecahedron, an expansible and versatile body, and assigned to it the figure which suits the psychical periods and movements.’ Demetrius said: ‘Why not let sleeping Homers lie for the present? We have had enough of myths. But as to Plato, he is very far from calling the five different aspects of the world five worlds; and, where he is combating those who assume an infinite number, states his own opinion that this is the only one, and is the sole creation of God and beloved by him, brought into being [Sidenote: B] out of the corporeal whole, entire, complete, and self-sufficing. Hence it may appear strange that he should himself state the truth, yet supply to others the fundamental principle of a view which is improbable and irrational. To give up the defence of a single world was in a sort to grant the assumption of the infinity of the whole. To make the definite number of worlds five, neither more nor less, was quite against reason and removed from all probability. Unless’, he added, turning to me, ‘you have anything to say?’ ‘It seems to me’, I said, ‘to come to this, that you have now dropped our discussion about oracles, as concluded, and are taking up a fresh one of equal [Sidenote: C] importance.’ ‘We have not dropped the old one,’ said Demetrius, ‘only we do not decline the new when it fastens on us. For we do not mean to linger upon it, only to touch on it sufficiently to ask how far it is probable; then we will return to the original subject.’
XXIV. ‘In the first place then,’ I said, ‘the reasons which prevent the making of an infinite number of worlds do not prevent the making of more worlds than one. It is possible that both prophecy and a Providence may find place in several worlds, and that the intrusion of Chance may be very small, while most things, and those the greatest, observe order in [Sidenote: D] their origin and their transition, none of which suppositions is consistent with Infinity. In the next place, it is most consonant with reason that God should not have made the world a sole creation and left it to itself. For, being perfectly good, he is lacking in no virtue, least of all in the virtues of Justice and Friendliness, for these are most beautiful and becoming Gods. Now it is the nature of God to have nothing which is idle or without use. Therefore there are other Gods and worlds outside, towards which he exercises the social virtues; for Justice, or Gratitude, or Benevolence, cannot be exercised towards himself or any part of himself, it must be towards [Sidenote: E] others.
So it is not likely that this world should toss about in the infinite void without friends, without neighbours, without communication; since we see Nature herself wrapping up individuals in classes and species, as though in jars or seed-vessels. There is nothing in the whole list of things which has not some common formula, nor can anything be called by a distinctive name which does not possess, generically or individually, certain qualities.[167] But the world is not spoken of as possessing generic qualities; it has qualities then as an individual, which distinguish it from others akin to and resembling itself. For [Sidenote: F] if there is not in the world such a thing as one man, one horse, one star, one God, one daemon, what is to prevent there being in Nature not one world, but several? If any one says that Nature has one earth and one sea, he fails to see the obvious fact of similar parts. For we divide earth into parts, all with one common name, and sea likewise. But a part of the world is no longer a world; it is composed of parts naturally different.
XXV. ‘Again, the chief fear which has led some to use [Sidenote: 424] up the whole of matter on our world, that nothing may be left outside to disturb its coherence by resistance or thrusts, is a needless one. For suppose several worlds, to each of which is apportioned its own being, and matter definitely measured and limited, then nothing will be left outside without place or formation, like an extruded remnant, to put pressure from without. For the law which has control of the matter allotted to each world will not allow anything to be thrust out and wander to strike upon another world, or anything from another to strike its own, because Nature admits neither quantity without limit, nor movement without law and arrangement. [Sidenote: B] Or, even if any stream be drawn off and pass from worlds to other worlds, it must needs be homogeneous and kindly, mingling itself mildly with all, as the stars when they blend their rays. And the worlds themselves must have delight, as they gaze on one another in friendliness, and must also provide for the Gods in each, who are many and good, times of intercourse and common cheerfulness. There is nothing impossible in all this, no fairy tale and no paradox; unless, mark me, the views of Aristotle[168] are to bring it into suspicion on physical grounds. For if each body has its own place, as he says it has, earth must necessarily move towards the centre [Sidenote: C] from every side, and the water rest upon it, underlying the lighter elements because of its weight. If, then, there are many worlds, the result will be that earth is in many places above fire and air, and in many below them; and the same with air and water too, which will be here in natural places, there in unnatural. Which being impossible, as he thinks, there must neither be two worlds nor more than two, but this one only, composed of all matter, and established according to Nature and to the several qualities of matter.
XXVI. ‘However, all this is more plausible than true. Look at it in this way,’ I went on, ‘dear Demetrius: when [Sidenote: D] he says that some bodies move downward towards the middle, others upwards from the middle, others around the middle, with reference to what does he take the middle? Not to the void surely, for on his view there is none. But in the view of those who allow a void, it has no middle, just as it has no first or last, for these are limits, but the infinite has no limits. Or if a man were to force himself, by sheer thinking, to conceive any middle point in an infinite void, what is the resulting difference in the movements of the different bodies towards it? Bodies have no force in the void, nor yet have bodies any choice or impulse to make them aim at the middle and tend towards it from all sides. Besides, where there are bodies with [Sidenote: E] no soul, and a place which is incorporeal and without difference of parts, it is as impossible to conceive of any movement towards it arising out of themselves, as of any attraction upon them arising out of it. It remains that the middle is spoken of not in a local sense but in a corporeal. For granted that this world has unity of structure with many dissimilar elements, the different parts have necessarily different movements towards different objects. This is clear from the consideration [Sidenote: F] that different elements, where their substance is transferred, change their places at the same time; rarefaction distributes in a circular movement the matter raised upwards from the middle; consolidation and condensation press matter downward towards the middle and force it together.
XXVII. ‘On this subject more words are needless here. Whatever you assume to be the effective cause of these vicissitudes and changes, it will hold each world together within itself. Each world has earth and sea, each has a middle point [Sidenote: 425] of its own, its own vicissitudes and changes of the bodies upon it, and a nature and a force which preserve everything and keep it in its place. As for what is outside, whether it be nothing or an infinite void, it presents no middle point, as we have said; while, if there be many worlds, each has a middle point of its own, and therefore a special movement of bodies to or from or about that middle (to follow the distinction made by these thinkers). To insist that, where there are many middle points, weights press from all sides to one, is as though we should insist that, whereas there are many men, the blood from all should flow together into a single vein, and the brains of all be enveloped in a single pia mater; and to make it a grievance [Sidenote: B] that all hard bodies in nature should not be together in one place, and all rarefied bodies in another. That would be preposterous, and equally so to complain that wholes should have their parts disposed in their natural order within each of them. It might be absurd to call that a world which has a moon low down[169] within it, like a man with his brain lodged in his ankles or his heart in his temples. But to make several independent worlds, and then to differentiate the parts in sets to follow their wholes, and so divide them, is not absurd. Earth, [Sidenote: C] sea, and heaven will be in their natural and proper arrangement within each. Above, below, around, middle have no relation to another world or to the outside, each world has them all in and for itself.
XXVIII. ‘As to the “stone” which some assume to be outside the world, it is not easy to form a conception of it, either as at rest or in motion. For how is it either to remain at rest, being weighty, or to move towards the world, like other heavy bodies, being no part of it nor reckoned in with its substance? Earth embraced in another world, and attached to it, need cause [Sidenote: D] no difficulty, when it does not part from the whole because of its weight, and shift hitherwards, since we see the natural strain by which each of the parts is held in its place. For if we look, not to the world but outside it, to get our conception of “below” and “above”, we shall find ourselves in the same difficulties as Epicurus, who made all his atoms move to places under our feet, as though either the void had feet, or infinite space permitted us to conceive of “above” or “below” within itself! Hence, again, we must feel surprise at Chrysippus, or indeed be quite at a loss as to what possessed him to say that the world has been settled “in the middle”, and that its substance, having occupied this middle place from all eternity, [Sidenote: E] works therewith for permanence and in fact for indestructibility. These are his words in the Fourth Book of his work on “_Things Possible_”, where he falsely dreams of a middle of the infinite, and assigns, still more preposterously, to that non-existent middle the cause of the stability of the world; and yet he had often said in other works, that substance is controlled and maintained by the movements towards and away from its own middle point.
XXIX. ‘Then as to the other arguments of the Stoics, who can find them alarming? They ask how we are to keep one Destiny and one Providence if there are many worlds, and whether we shall not have many “Diès” and many “Zenès”. [Sidenote: F] In the first place, if it is absurd that we should have Zeus in the plural number, surely their scheme will be far more absurd; for they make, in the revolutions of infinite worlds, sun, moon, Apollo, Artemis, Poseidon, all multiplied to infinity. Then, what makes it necessary that there should be many “Diès”, if there are more worlds than one, rather than one principal God the emperor of the whole, possessing intelligence and reason, sovereign in each world, such a one as he who is called with us lord and father of all? Or what is to prevent all worlds [Sidenote: 426] from being subject to the Destiny and Providence of Zeus, and that he should overlook and control each in turn, supplying to each the principles, the seeds, the formulae of all which is brought about?
XXXI. Having said so much, I paused. Philippus, after a short interval, went on: ‘Whether the truth about these [Sidenote: F] things be so, or not, I could not, for my own part, assert with confidence. But if we are to force the God outside one world, why make him the artificer of five worlds and no more; and what is the bearing of that number on the plurality of worlds? I would rather be informed on this point than as to the inner meaning of the consecration of the letter “E” in this place. That letter is neither triangle, nor square, nor “perfect”, nor cubic, nor has it any other apparent elegance for those who love and admire such things. The process out of the elements, at which the Master obscurely hinted, is hard to grasp [Sidenote: 427] in every respect, and shows none of that probability which must have drawn him on to say that it is likely that out of five solid bodies having equal angles and equal faces and enclosed by figures of equal area, when set into matter, the same number of perfect worlds was at once produced.’
XXXII. ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘yet Theodorus of Soli seems to treat the argument very fairly, in expounding the Mathematics of Plato. This is his method: the Pyramid, the Octahedron, the Eicosahedron and the Dodecahedron, the solid figures which Plato ranks first, are all beautiful because of the symmetry and equality of their formulae; nothing better than these or equal to them has been left over for Nature to compose [Sidenote: B] or to frame. They have not, however, all been constructed on a single plan, nor have all a similar origin. The Pyramid is the finest and smallest, the largest and the one of most parts is the Dodecahedron; of the remaining two the Eicosahedron is more than double the Octahedron in number of triangles.[171] It follows that it is impossible for all to take their origin at once from one and the same matter. For those which are fine and small, and more simple in their structures, must be the first to obey him who stirs and fashions the mass; they must sooner cohere and be completed than those whose parts are abundant, and the figures complex, and their construction more laborious, [Sidenote: C] as the Dodecahedron.
It follows that the Pyramid is the only primal body, and that none of the others is so; they are left behind by Nature in the becoming. For this strange result there is, however, a remedy, the division and distribution of matter into five worlds. Here the Pyramid (for it first formed substance), there the Octahedron, in a third world the Eicosahedron. But from the figure which first took substance in each the rest will take their origin, all change arising by concretion or dissolution of parts, as Plato himself shows.[172] He goes thoroughly into nearly all the cases, but for us a brief survey will suffice. Since air is formed when fire is extinguished, and when rarefied [Sidenote: D] again yields fire out of itself, we must observe what happens to the seeds of either element, and the changes. The seeds of fire[173] are the Pyramid with its twenty-four primary triangles; the seeds of air are the Octahedron with its forty-eight. Therefore one element of air is formed by the commixture and coherence of two of fire; and one of air is exchanged into two of [Sidenote: E] fire, or by close pressure into itself passes away into the form of water. Thus, universally, that which is first formed readily allows the others to come into being by transmutation.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.