would get the good if there were an oracle at Tegyrae as there formerly was, or near Ptoum, where it is a day’s work to meet one man minding his flocks. This very spot, most venerable of all and most renowned “for time and fame”, was for a long time made desert and unapproachable by a savage beast, a female dragon as the story goes; but this is to invert the facts of its lying idle; the [Sidenote: B] wilderness invited the beast, the beast did not make the wilderness. But when, in the good pleasure of the God, Hellas revived in her cities, and the place had men in plenty, two prophetesses were employed, who were lowered in turn, and a third was appointed to relieve. Now there is only one, and we do not complain, for she is enough for those who need her. So we have no cause to blame the God; the prophetic establishment now subsisting suffices for all, and sends away all with what they want. Agamemnon used to employ seven heralds, yet [Sidenote: C] scarcely could control the numerous assembly, whereas in a few days you will see in the theatre here that a single voice reaches all present, and even so it is with prophecy; then it used more voices to reach more persons, now we should fairly wonder at the God if he allowed his prophecy to flow to waste like water, or like the rocks to find an echo for the voices of shepherds and their flocks.’
IX. When Ammonius had said this, and I remained silent, Cleombrotus addressed me: ‘Have you now granted’, he said, [Sidenote: D] ‘that the God makes and also destroys the oracles?’ ‘By no means’, I said. ‘I maintain that no prophetic shrine or oracle is destroyed by the God’s agency. It is as with many other things which he makes or provides; Nature brings in destruction and negation; or rather Matter, which is negation, unweaves and breaks up that which is brought into being by the more powerful cause. Even so I think there are times of obscuration and withdrawal of prophetic forces. The God gives many fair things to men, but gives nothing immortal, so that, in the words of Sophocles:[138] _The works of Gods may die, but not the Gods._ I say that their essence and their power must be sought in [Sidenote: E] Nature and in Matter, the origin being rightly reserved to the God. It would be simple and childish to suppose that the God himself creeps into the bodies of the prophets and speaks from there, using as instruments their mouths and voices, like those ventriloquists once called “Eurycleis”, now “Pythones”. He who mixes up the God with mortal needs does not spare [Sidenote: F] his majesty nor preserve the dignity and the greatness of his excellence.’
X. Then Cleombrotus: ‘You are right. Yet it is hard to grasp and to define how, and up to what point, we may make use of Providence; and therefore those who make the God the cause of nothing at all, and also those who make him the common cause of all, go wide of moderation and decency. It is well said, on the one hand, that Plato, in discovering the element which underlies created qualities, now called “Matter” or “Nature”, relieved philosophers from perplexities [Sidenote: 415] many and great. It seems to me, on the other, that those who have inserted the class of daemons between Gods and men, to draw and knit together the fellowship of the two orders after a fashion, have cleared away more perplexities and greater; whether the view belongs to Zoroaster and the Magi, or comes from Thrace and Orpheus, or from Egypt, or from Phrygia, as we conjecture from seeing in both those countries many elements of death and mourning in the rites celebrated there, mingled with those of initiation. Among the Greeks, Homer appears still to use both names indifferently, and sometimes [Sidenote: B] to call the Gods daemons.
Hesiod first clearly and distinctly laid down four classes of reasonable beings, Gods, then daemons, then heroes, last of all men; and here he appears to admit transition, the golden race of men passing into daemons many and great, the demigods at last into heroes.[139] Others make out a change for bodies and souls alike. As water is seen to be produced out of earth, air from water, and fire from air, and the substance is borne upwards, even so the better souls receive their change from men into heroes, from heroes into daemons. From the daemons again, a few in a long course of time, upborne [Sidenote: C] through virtue, become full partakers of divine nature. To some it happens not to have control of themselves; so they subside and again enter mortal bodies, and endure a life as dim and unillumined as an exhalation.
XI. ‘Hesiod thinks that in certain periods of time the daemons die.
Speaking in the person of the Naïd he darkly indicates the time: _Full ages nine of men that live their prime Lives the hoarse crow, four crows the stag outlives, Three stags the ancient raven, ravens nine The phoenix, but the phoenix, ten times told, We fair-haired nymphs, daughters of Zeus most dread._[140] [Sidenote: D] Those who take the word “age” wrong bring this to a very large total; it means a year, so that the sum comes out nine thousand seven hundred and twenty for the years of life of the daemons. Most mathematicians think it to be less; not even Pindar[141] has called it greater, when he tells us that the nymphs live _Their term appointed even as the trees_, and therefore names them Hamadryads.’ He was still [Sidenote: E] speaking when Demetrius broke in: ‘What was that, Cleombrotus? The year called an “age of man”? Human life, whether “at its prime” or, as some[142] read “in its old age” is not of that length. Those who read “at its prime”, follow Heraclitus[143] in taking “an age” to be thirty years, the time in which the parent sees his offspring a parent. Those who read “in its old age” instead of “at its prime” give a hundred and eight years to the “age”, taking the middle term of human life to be fifty-four, the number made up of unity, the two first surfaces, the two first squares and the two [Sidenote: F] first cubes,[144] the number taken by Plato[145] in his “Generation of the Soul”. Hesiod’s whole story seems to have been framed with a veiled reference to the “Conflagration”, when all things moist will probably disappear and with them the Nymphs, _Who in fair glades their habitation have By river sources and in grassy meads._‘[146] XII. Then Cleombrotus: ‘I hear of this from many, and now I see the Stoic “Conflagration”, which already spreads over the verses of Heraclitus and Orpheus, catching those of Hesiod [Sidenote: 416] too! I have no patience with this “World-Conflagration”, and then the impossibility of the thing! When one can remember the periods, as it is easiest to do with the crow and the hind, one sees how exaggeration passes in. The year has within itself the beginning and the end _Of all things which the circling seasons bear, And parent earth_,[147] so there is nothing against usage in calling it an “age of man”. You allow yourselves, I believe, that Hesiod means human life by “the age”.
Is it not so?’ Demetrius agreed. ‘Well, [Sidenote: B] but this is also clear,’ said Cleombrotus, ‘that the same words are often used for the measure and the things measured, as pint, quart, gallon, bushel. As then we call unity a number, being the smallest measure of number and its origin, so he has called our first measure of human life by the same word as the thing measured—“an age”. The numbers which the others invent have none of the clarity or distinctness usual in numbers. As to the nine thousand seven hundred and twenty, it has come about by taking the sum of the first four numbers, starting with [Sidenote: C] unity, and multiplying it by four, or four by ten.[148] Thus we get forty in either way, which, when five times multiplied [triangle-wise][149] by three, gave the number proposed. But about these matters there need be no difference between us and Demetrius. Whether the time be longer or shorter, determinate or not, in which the soul of a daemon shifts and the life of a demigod, the point will have been proved, before any judge he chooses, on the evidence of wise and ancient witnesses, that there are certain natures on the borderland between Gods and men, subject to mortal affections and enforced changes, who may rightly receive our worship according to the custom of our fathers, and be thought of as daemons and called so.
XIII. ‘Xenocrates, the companion of Plato, used triangles [Sidenote: D] in illustration of the doctrine; he compared the equilateral to a divine nature, the scalene to a mortal, and the isosceles to a daemonic; the first equal in all relations, the second unequal in all, the third equal in some, unequal in others, like the daemonic nature with its mortal passions and divine power. Nature has put forward images, which our sense can perceive, visible likenesses; the sun and the stars standing for Gods, flashes and comets and meteors for mortal men, an image which Euripides[150] drew in the lines: [Sidenote: E] _In all his bloom, like to a falling star His light was quenched, his spirit passed, to air._ But there is a being which is mixed, and really an imitation of the daemons, the moon. Men, seeing her circumference so much in accord with that order of beings, the manifest wanings and waxings and phases which she undergoes, have called her, some an earthlike star, others an Olympian earth, others “the portion of Hecate”, who belongs at once to heaven and earth. As, then, if one were to remove the lower air, withdrawing all [Sidenote: F] between earth and moon, an empty unconnected space would be left, and the unity and continuity of the whole dissolved, even so those who refuse to leave us the daemons break off all intercourse and mutual dealing between Gods and men, by removing that order in Nature which could “interpret”, in Plato’s[151] words, and “minister”, or else they compel us to mingle all things into one mass, forcing the God into human passions and business, and drawing him down to our needs, [Sidenote: 417] as Thessalian witches are said to draw the moon. Only their imposture found credit with women, when Aglaonice the daughter of Hegetor, who knew her astronomy, chose an eclipse of the moon, and then pretended to do magic and draw her down. But as for us, let us never listen when we are told that there are prophecies with no divine agency, or rites and orgiastic services which the Gods do not heed; nor on the other hand suppose that the God is in and out and present there, taking part in the business. Let us leave all this to those [Sidenote: B] rightful ministers of the Gods, their ushers or clerks. Let us hold that there are daemons who watch the performance of rites, and inspire the mysteries, while others go about to avenge crimes of insolence and pride, and to others Hesiod[152] has given a venerable name, _of wealth The saintly givers; such their kingly trust_.
Observe that to do so is kingly. For there are, as among men, so among daemons, degrees of excellence, and in some subsists still some slight, faint, almost excremental remnant of passion and absence of reason; in others this is strong and hard to do away, its traces and symbols being in many places preserved and sporadically found in sacrifices and rites and tales of wonder. [Sidenote: C] XIV. ‘Now as to the mystic rites, in which the most evident and transparent indication may be had of the truth about daemons, “peace be upon my lips”, as Herodotus[153] says. Feasts and sacrifices, days sinister and gloomy, so to call them, when are meals of raw flesh, and rendings and fastings and beaten breasts, and in many places unholy spells over the sacrifices: _Whoopings wild, and cries of frenzy, necks together tossed in air_,[154] all these, I would say, belong to no God, but are modes of appeasement and soothing to avert bad daemons. The human sacrifices which used to be performed were neither asked for nor accepted by Gods, we cannot believe it; yet kings and [Sidenote: D] captains would not have endured to give up their own children by way of initiating the rites, or to cut their throats, without a purpose; it was to soothe and satisfy the heavy displeasure of beings cruel and hard to be moved, or in some cases their frantic low passions, worthy of tyrants, when bodily approach was impossible or not desired. As Hercules besieged the town of Oechalia for the sake of a maiden, so strong and violent daemons, requiring in vain a human soul still enveloped in the body, bring pestilences to cities and sterility of land, and stir up wars and seditions, until they succeed in getting that on which their affection is set. Some have fared otherwise; [Sidenote: E] thus in a long stay in Crete I came to know of an absurd festival observed there: the headless form of a man is shown, and you are told that this was Molus, father of Meriones, who assaulted a maiden and was found without a head.
XV. ‘Now all the crimes of violence, all the wanderings of Gods, all tales of hiding, banishment, servitude, which are [Sidenote: F] said or sung in myth or hymn, are adventures which happened not to Gods but to daemons, and are recorded to show their excellence or power; Aeschylus[155] was wrong when he wrote _Apollo pure, the God exil’d from heav’n_, and so was the Admetus in Sophocles[156] wrong: _Mine was the cock who called him to the mill._ Widest of the truth of all are the theologians of Delphi, who, thinking that a battle once took place here between the God and a serpent for the possession of the oracle, allow poets and speech-writers contending in the theatres to tell these stories, [Sidenote: 418] expressly belying their own most sacred rites.’ Philippus, the historian, who chanced to be present, here expressed surprise, and asked: ‘What rites such competitors belied?’ ‘Those relating to the oracle,’ was the reply, ‘whereby the city, admitting to initiation those from here to Tempe has now banished all Greeks dwelling beyond Thermopylae.[157] For the booth set up afresh every nine years near the court of the temple is not like any den or serpent’s haunt, but is an imitation of the dwelling of a tyrant or king. And the assault made upon it in silence through what they call “Dolon’s Way”, by [Sidenote: B] which the Aeolidae bring the boy, both of whose parents are living, with lighted torches, put fire to the booth, overturn the table, and then flee through the gates of the temple without turning back; and lastly the wanderings of the boy and his servile offices, and the purification rites at Tempe, all convey a suspicion of some great crime of shocking audacity. For it is quite absurd, my friend, that Apollo, after killing a beast, should flee to the extremities of Greece in quest of purification, and then should pour libations there and do all which men do to [Sidenote: C] appease and soften the wrath of daemons (fiends and avengers as they are called, because they pursue the memories of old unforgotten stains). The story which I once heard about that flight and removal is strangely absurd and surprising; but if there be any truth in it, let us never believe that what passed about the oracle in these old times was any trifling or ordinary matter. However, fearing to seem to do what Empedocles describes: _Stringing sundry myths, nor ever keeping to a single path_, I will ask you to allow me to affix the proper conclusion to my first tale, for we have just reached it. Many have said it before [Sidenote: D] us; let us dare to say it now. When the daemons who have to do with oracles and prophecies fail, all such things fail too, and lose their force if the daemons flee or shift their place; then, if they return after an interval, the things speak aloud, like instruments of music when those who can play them are present to play.’
XVI. When Cleombrotus had finished, Heracleon spoke: ‘There is no profane or uninitiated person present, no one who holds views about the Gods discordant with our own; but let us keep jealous watch on ourselves, Philippus, lest without our own knowledge we assume strange and even monstrous [Sidenote: E] hypotheses.’ ‘Well said,’ answered Philippus, ‘but what shocks you specially in what Cleombrotus is advancing?’ ‘That the oracles should be administered,’ said Heracleon, ‘not by Gods, who may well be quit of earthly concerns, but by daemons, assistants of the God, seems to me a not unfair assumption; but then to pluck, I had almost said by the handful, out of the verses of Empedocles, sins, infatuations, and God-inflicted wanderings, and to fasten them upon these daemons, and to suppose that in the end they die like men, this I do think a somewhat bold and barbarian view.’ Here Cleombrotus [Sidenote: F] asked Philippus who and whence the young man was, and, after learning his name and city, said: ‘No, Heracleon, it is by no means “without our own knowledge” that we have reached strange propositions; but in discussing great matters it is not possible to attain what is probable in opinion without starting from great premisses. But you, though you do not know it yourself, are taking back what you grant. You allow that there are daemons; but when you require that they should not be faulty [Sidenote: 419] nor yet mortal, it is no longer daemons that you retain. For in what do they differ from Gods if as to their being they are immortal, and as to virtue are passionless and impeccable?’
XVII. As Heracleon remained silent and in deep thought, he went on: ‘Faulty daemons come to us not from Empedocles only, but from Plato and Xenocrates and Chrysippus; yes, and Democritus,[158] when he prays to meet “fair-falling phantoms”, shows that he knew of others which were disagreeable, with definitely vicious intentions and impulses. As to death in such beings, I have heard a story from a man who was no fool or [Sidenote: B] romancer. Some of you have heard Aemilianus the orator; Epitherses was his father, my fellow-townsman and teacher in grammar. He said that he was once on a voyage to Italy, and embarked on board a ship carrying cargo and many passengers. It was already evening when the breeze died down off the Echinades Islands; and the ship drifted till it was near Paxi. Most on board were awake, and many still drinking after supper. Suddenly a voice was heard from the island of Paxi; some one was calling Thamus in a loud voice, so that they all wondered. [Sidenote: C] Thamus was an Egyptian pilot, not even known by name to many of the passengers. Twice he was called, and remained silent; the third time he paid attention to the caller, who raised his voice and said: “When you reach the Palodes, tell them that Great Pan is dead.” Hearing this, Epitherses said, all were in consternation, and began discussing with one another whether “it were better to do as was ordered, or to refuse to meddle and to let it be. They decided in the end that, if there were a breeze, Thamus should sail past quietly, but if there should be calm about the place, he should hail, and report. When he was off the Palodes, as there was neither wind nor wave, [Sidenote: D] Thamus at the helm looked to land and repeated the words he had heard: “Great Pan is dead.” He had no sooner done this than a great groaning was heard, proceeding not from one but from many, mingled with cries of wonder. As there were many present, the story was soon spread in Rome, and Thamus was sent for by Tiberius Caesar, who so entirely credited the story, that he caused inquiry to be made about Pan. The scholars, of whom there were many round him, conjectured that he was the son born of Hermes and Penelope.’[159] (Philippus [Sidenote: E] was able to produce several witnesses from the company who had heard the old Aemilianus.)
XVIII. Demetrius told us that, among the islands near Britain, many were deserted and lay scattered (Sporades), some of them bearing the names of daemons and demigods. He himself, by the Emperor’s command, made a voyage of inquiry and observation to the nearest of the deserted islands, which had a few inhabitants, all sacred persons and never molested by the Britons. Just after his arrival, there was a great confusion in the atmosphere, many portents from the sky with gusts of wind and fiery blasts. When these calmed [Sidenote: F] down, the islanders said that ‘one of the mightier ones has ceased to be.’ For as a lamp when lighted, so they explained, has no unpleasant effect, but when extinguished is disagreeable to many people, so it is with great souls: their kindling into life is easy and free from pain; their extinction and death often breed winds and tempests, ‘such as you see now’, and infect the air with pestilence and sickness. They added that there is one island in particular where Cronus is a prisoner, being guarded in his sleep by Briareus; for sleep has been devised to be a chain to bind him, and there are many daemons about him as satellites and attendants.[160] XIX. Cleombrotus spoke next: ‘I have stories of the same [Sidenote: 420] kind which I might tell; but it is enough for our hypothesis that there is nothing which actually contradicts it or makes such things impossible. Yet we know’, he continued, ‘that the Stoics not only hold the view which I am advancing with [Sidenote: B] reference to daemons, but also recognize one out of the great multitude of Gods who is eternal and immortal; the others, they think, have come into being, and will perish. From the flouts and laughter of the Epicureans, which they venture to employ against Providence also, calling it a mere myth, we have nothing to fear. We maintain that their “Infinity” is a myth; so many worlds, not one of which is governed by divine reason, all produced spontaneously, and so subsisting. If it be permissible to laugh in speaking of Philosophy, we may laugh at the dumb, blind, soulless images which they shepherd during countless cycles of years, to reappear and anon return in all directions, some issuing from bodies still living, some [Sidenote: C] from those long ago burned or rotted. Thus they drag into physiology cyphers and shadows; yet if one asserts that daemons exist not in physical nature only, but as matter of theory, able to remain in being for long periods of time, they show irritation.’
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 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. Of the three left over, each is placed at one angle. Each world keeps a light touch on its neighbours while they revolve as in a dance. The area inside the triangle is the common hearth of all, and is called the “Plain of Truth”, and within it the formulae, and ideas, and patterns, [Sidenote: C] of things which have been and things which are, lie undisturbed. Eternity is around them, and from it, like a stream drawn off from it, Time passes to the worlds. Once in ten thousand years human souls, if they have lived good lives, are allowed to see and inspect this sight; and the best of the initiations performed here are a dream of that review and that initiation. In our philosophical discourses we are working on the memory of the fair things which are seen there, or else our discourse is vain. This’, he said, ‘is the tale I heard from him; he spoke as a man does in the mystery of an initiation, and offered no demonstration or evidence.’
XXIII. I turned to Demetrius: ‘How’, I said, ‘do the [Sidenote: D] lines about the Suitors run, where they wondered to see Ulysses handling the bow?’ When he had remembered them, ‘Just’, I said, ‘what it comes into my head to say about your stranger: _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