XXIX. Infinite Distance between Self-motion and Motion by Impulse. Impassable Chasm between Spirit and Matter. The Word Toλλooτý. Principle of Euphonic Attraction. .... PAGE 30, LINE 13. 'Αρ ̓ οὖν οὐχ ἡ δι' ἕτερον . . . . πολ. λOOTÝV, K. T. λ, This is a very complicated and awkward sentence, with several anomalies, although the general meaning is quite clear. The following is a very free rendering: "Is not that motion, which takes place in one thing by reason of another, but which never effects that anything shall have motion in itself, by itself—is not such a principle of motion, we say, justly styled second, and even the most remote in degree of all such numbers, however great, as any one might choose to use in the computation? being, in truth, that kind of motion or change which is peculiar to a soulless body." The order of the latter part (in which, however, we are compelled to use Toλλ0στý for Tоλλоστý, in consequence of the change of position) would be as follows : δευτέρα τὲ καὶ πολλοστὴ τοσούτων ἀριθμῶν ὁπόσων τις ἂν βούλοιτο αὐτὴν ἀριθμεῖν. The general sense is, that motion by impulse, or the motion of matter, although it may be next in order (devrépa), is yet almost infinitely removed from self-motion, or the motion of soul; that is, by a distance greater than any limit assignable in numbers. It is another mode of saying that there is an impassable chasm between them, by which they are forever parted and assigned to two distinct worlds of being. Materializing naturalists have ever been striving to fill up or bridge this chasm, either by a direct connexion through some most subtle matter, or imponderable agent, or occult quality, or by some tertium quid which might identify in one common essence these two motions, or, rather-the great object of all their strivings-to make the higher a result of the lower. These efforts, however, from the days of Plato to the present, have been all in vain. The distance between the natural and the supernatural, or between the spiritual and ma. terial, must ever remain impassable by any uniting essence. The most æthereal motions of matter, even of that class of substances which the ancients included under the general names πup and al0ýp, and which the moderns have styled imponderable agents, make no approach to the self-motion or avтоkívηois of Spirit. However subtile and attenuated they may be, yet, as matter, and falling under that one idea of matter to which we have before alluded (page 142), the laws of our minds (from which we cannot escape, and aside from which there is, to us, no such thing as truth) compel us to regard them as destitute of all motion and all property of motion in themselves-in fact, as much so as the most ponderous mass of lead or iron. Plato was deeply sensible of the importance of this fundamental position, and therefore he labours so earnestly, even at the hazard of being thought tedious and prolix, to maintain it. We have made the remark before, and yet its importance and its adaptedness to our present subject will justly warrant its repetition. This point being conceded to the atheist, namely, that selfmotion may in some way be an occult property of matter in itself, or that the least and most æthereal atom in the universe could ever get in motion without the aid of that older and higher something to which he has here assigned the λόγος and the ὄνομα ; or that there is the distance of a hair's breadth between the ultimate ideas of change, cause, and the action of spirit-this, we say, being conceded to the atheist, all is lost. If this can be conceived of, or is not at war with the idea, or λóyoç, of matter, as given us by the laws of our own minds, then may it also be conceived of as having an occult adaptive property, and the conclusion can. not be resisted, which would alike establish materialism in respect to man, and pantheism (which is, in fact, the same doctrine) in respect to the universe. Пoλλoor, as it appears in this sentence, is a very peculiar word. It signifies one of many, a fraction whose denominator is a very large number, and hence its name-an infinitesimal part. Compare the Philebus, 44, P.: Tà πOλλοστὰ σκληρότητι; where it is put in direct contrast with оkληpóтaтα, as an infinitesimal fraction opposed to a su perlative. There is also a peculiar grammatical anomaly in this word. According to the order of its construction in the sentence, it should be Toλλoorn, since it regularly refers to devтépa, and must be taken in connexion with it. It is, however, made accusative, in consequence of its position after the infinitive, ἀριθμεῖν, and by the attraction of αὐτήν. This differs from the ordinary case of attraction which exists between the relative and antecedent. It may be styled euphonic, because it seems to affect words solely for the sake of euphony, or, rather, homeophony, and on the mere ground of contiguity in location, although very remotely related in all other respects; so much so, that, in this way, great violence is sometimes done to the true grammatical construction. There is no need of resorting to any various reading, or to any conjectural emendation. We have no doubt, from the location of the word, that Plato wrote πoλLooτý, however harsh the construction may appear to us. The position of Tоσоúτwv also seems very awkward, and yet (although we cannot well keep it in that place when we adopt the order for a literal translation) it is easy to see that, by standing where it does, it has a much stronger emphasis than though it had occurred in the beginning of the clause; as though we should thus paraphrase it in English: "However great the number, carry it as high as you please, still by so much (TOOOÚTwv) is it remote," &c. This principle of local or euphonic attraction, although it sometimes interferes with grammatical smoothness, is undoubtedly in accordance with the genius of the language; and no true scholar can endure the attempts which are sometimes made to divest it of this peculiarity by means of pretended emendations. Argument of Ancient Atheists, that Apparent Evidences of Design were only Evidences of Subsequent Accommodation. Things (they said) older than Knowledge of Things, and therefore older than Soul. PAGE 31, LINE 8. Τρόποι δὴ καὶ ἤθη καὶ βουλήσεις καὶ λογισμοὶ πρότερα σωμάτων, κ. τ. λ. The full force of this cannot be appreciated unless we keep in mind the objection against which it was directed. The ancient atheists said that soul was the offspring or result of matter, and consequently younger. Hence what theists would call evidences of design, or of mind's preceding matter, they would regard as merely subsequent accommodations to an accidental existing state of things, which, had it been any other, would, in like manner, have drawn after it the only uses and accommodations to which it could be adapted; and which, in that case, would have carried with them like appearances of previous design, or, as Lucretius has most concisely expressed it, Nil adeo natum est in corpore, ut uti Thus, for example, they would say, in accordance with their theory, that teeth were not made of a certain shape with the previous design that the animal should eat herbs, but that, because they happened to be of a certain form (and there was no reason in themselves why they should be of one form rather than another), therefore nature applied them to the use, and the only use, adapted to their accidental structure. Again, if certain bodies had, in the course of ages, received from rúxn elongated projections from the main trunk, or an attenuated and flexible shape, or a rounded form, in all these cases, they would have said, and did say, that that animation residing in them (which was itself but a junior art, the production of an older púois), when it found itself thus circumstanced, made the best of its condition, by accommodating the one to a walking, the other to a crawling, and the other to a rolling locomotion. So, also, had they been acquainted with some of the arguments of our modern natural theology, they would have denied that the revolution of the earth on its axis was adjusted to twenty-four hours, with any design that such a period should correspond to designed circumstances in the alternating changes which occur in the economy of the animal and vegetable tribes. On the contrary, they would have contended that, in the eternal and fortuitous dance of rúxn, the earth having received such an accidental impulse as just produced the aforesaid period, nature, in time, accommodated to it the intervals for the exercise and relaxation of human bodies, together with all the periodical vicissitudes which seem to have relation to such a revolution; and that, had this accidental period been of any other length, the same adapting qúois and rúxŋ would, long before this, have brought all the earthly economy into perfect harmony with it. This argument, of which we have given an imperfect outline, they carried to great length, and it is easy to see that it is capable of a most extensive and subtle application. It is difficult, if not impossible, for any one who admits the doctrine of occult properties to any extent in matter, to give a direct answer to the objections drawn from it; and yet we believe that not a vestige of any skeptical doubt which it may produce can remain upon the mind, after reading Paley's most valuable work on natural theology. As a specuS |