Platonicae quaestiones

Plutarch

Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. V. Goodwin, William W., editor; Brown, R., translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company; Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874.

But observe whether this be not true, that no circle

or sphere in this world is exact; but since by the tension and circumtension of the right lines, or by the minuteness of the parts, the difference disappears, the figure seems circular and round. Therefore no corruptible body moves circularly, but altogether in a right line. To be truly spherical is not in a sensible body, but is the element of the soul and mind, to which he has given circular motion, as being agreeable to their nature.

HOW COMES IT TO PASS THAT IN PHAEDRUS IT IS SAID, THAT THE NATURE OF A WING, BY WHICH ANY THING THAT IS HEAVY IS CARRIED UPWARDS, PARTICIPATES MOST OF THE BODY OF GOD?[*](See Phaedrus, p. 246 D.)

Is it because the discourse is of love, and love is of beauty inherent in a body? Now beauty, by similitude to things divine, moves and reminds the soul. Or it may be (without too much curiosity) he may be understood in plain meaning, to wit, that the several faculties of the soul being employed about bodies, the power of reasoning and understanding partakes most about divine and heavenly things; which he did not impertinently call a wing, it raising the soul from mean and mortal things to things above.

IN WHAT SENSE DOES PLATO SAY, THAT THE ANTIPERISTASIS (OR REACTION) OF MOTION—BY REASON THERE IS NO VACUUM—IS THE CAUSE OF THE EFFECTS IN PHYSICIANS’ CUPPING-GLASSES, IN SWALLOWING, IN THROWING OF WEIGHTS, IN THE RUNNING OF WATER, IN THUNDER, IN THE ATTRACTION OF THE LOADSTONE, AND IN THE HARMONY OF SOUNDS?[*](See Timaeus, pp. 79-81.)

For it seems unreasonable to ascribe the reason of such different effects to the selfsame cause.

How respiration is made by the reaction of the air,

he has sufficiently shown. But the rest, he says, seem to be done miraculously, but really the bodies thrust each other aside and change places with one another; while he has left for us to determine how each is particularly done.