Chapter XXII. In Answer to the Stoics, That the Soul Cannot Possibly Be Corporeal From Plotinus On the Soul, Book I

[PLOTINUS] ‘Now whether each of us is immortal, or wholly perishes, or whether parts of him will pass into dissolution and destruction, while parts remain for ever, which are the man himself, this one may learn as follows, by examining it in the natural way.

‘In the first place, man cannot be a simple thing, but he has in him a soul, and has also a body whether as our instrument, or as attached to us in any other way; at all events let them be thus distinguished, and let us examine closely the nature and essence of each.

‘The body then, being itself compound, cannot, from the reason of the thing, be permanent; and our senses perceive it dissolving, and wasting, and suffering all kinds of decay, while each of the parts in it follows its own course, and one wastes another away, and changes into another, and destroys it; and this especially when the soul, which harmonizes them, is not present with the atoms.

‘And even if each be isolated in coming into existence, it is not one, since it admits of separation into form and matter, of which even simple bodies must be constituted; moreover having also magnitude, inasmuch as they are bodies, and can be divided and broken into small fragments, in this way also they would be liable to destruction.

‘So if this is part of ourselves, we are not altogether immortal: but if it is an instrument, it must be of the nature described, as having been given only for a certain time. But the dominant part, even the man himself, would be either like the form in relation to the body as matter, or like the agent in relation to an instrument. And in either way the soul is the self.

‘Of what nature then is this? Either it is body, and must certainly be soluble, for every body is compound. Or if it were not body, but of some other nature, this also we must examine either in the same way or some other. And first we must consider into what this body, which they say is soul, must be resolved.

‘For since life is an inseparable property of soul, this body which is the soul, if it consisted of two or more bodies, must either in each of the two or in every one have life innate, or one must have it and the other not, or neither have it. If then the life were attached to one of them only, this itself would be soul.

‘What then would a body be, which derived life from itself? For fire, and air, and water, and earth, are without life from. themselves: and to whichever of these soul is attached, the life which this one enjoys is adventitious. But besides these there are no other bodies. And by those who think that there are elements different from these, they were not said to be souls but bodies, and not to have life. But if, though none of them has life, the assemblage of them is said to have produced life, this is absurd.

‘If, however, each has life, even one is sufficient: but rather it is impossible that a collection of bodies should produce life, and things unintelligent beget intelligence. Moreover they will not assert that these are produced by any and every mode of combination. There must then be the power that is to arrange, and the cause of the combination: so that this would hold the place of a soul.

‘For there would not be even a simple body, to say nothing of a composite body, in the world of being, if there were not a soul in the universe; since it is the accession of reason to matter that makes body, and reason can come from no other source than soul.; ‘If any one should deny this, and say that a soul is made by a concurrence of atoms or indivisibles, he would be refuted by its oneness and community of feeling, and by analogy, since there can be no unity that does not extend throughout the whole, nor can a common feeling come from bodies which are without feeling and incapable of union; but the soul is conscious of feeling; also from things which have no parts there can come neither body nor magnitude.

‘Moreover supposing the body to be simple, if they say that all that is material has no life of itself (for matter has no qualities), but that what is classed as the form (εἶδος)adds the life----then, if they say that this form is the essence, only the one of these and not the union of both will be the soul; and on the other hand, there is no body, for even this is not produced from mere matter, or else we must resolve it again in the same manner.

‘But if they say that the form is an affection of the matter, but not the essence, they will have to state the source from which this affection and the life have come into the matter. For certainly the matter does not give itself form, nor infuse into itself a soul. There must, then, be something which provides life, whether it be provided for the matter or for any of the bodies, and this must be outside and beyond any bodily nature. Since otherwise there would not even be any body, as there would be no animal force.

‘For its own nature is in flux and motion, and if all were bodies they would perish very speedily, even though the name soul should be given to one of them: for it would be affected in the same way as the other bodies, they all having the same matter. Or rather nothing would ever come into being, but all things would remain as matter, if there were nothing to give it form.

‘But perhaps even matter would not exist at all, but this universe would be dissolved, if any one should entrust it to a combination of body, giving it in mere name the rank of soul, though it is only air and breath that is most easily dispersed, and has no unity of itself. For since all bodies are capable of division, how can any one who makes this universe depend on any of them, fail to make it unintelligent and moved at random?

‘For what order, or reason, or mind can there be in breath which needs a soul to give it order? But granted the existence of a soul, all these are subservient to it for the constitution of a world and of every living thing, a different power from each contributing to the whole: whereas if there be no soul present in the universals, they will not merely be without order, but will be nothing at all.

‘These men are also themselves led by the truth to testify that there must be something prior to bodies and superior to them, a species of soul, since they suppose that breath is endowed with mind and that fire is intelligent, as without fire and breath the better part cannot exist in the actual world, but seeks a place where it may be settled; whereas they ought to be seeking where to settle the bodies, as it seems these must be settled in powers of the soul.

‘But if they assume that life and soul are nothing besides breath, what becomes of their much boasted phrase “in a certain state,” in which they take refuge when compelled to assume some active nature besides bodies? If then they say that not every breath is soul, because countless breaths are inanimate, but the breath that is “in a certain state,” they must say that this “certain state,” and this condition, is either something real or nothing.

‘But if they say it is nothing, there will be breath only, and the “certain state” a mere name: and so it will result in their saying that nothing else exists but matter, and that soul, and god, and all things are a mere name, and that matter alone exists. But if the “state” is something real and additional to the substratum and the matter, existing in matter but itself immaterial because it is not compounded again out of matter, it must be not body, but a kind of reason, and a different nature.

‘Moreover from the following considerations it is not less evidently impossible that the soul should be a body of any kind whatever. For then it must be either hot or cold, either hard or soft, and liquid or solid, and black or white, with all other bodily qualities differing in different bodies. And if it is hot, it will only give heat, if cold it will only chill, and the additional presence of lightness will make things light, and of heaviness heavy, and blackness will make black, and whiteness white.

‘For it is no property of fire to chill, nor of cold to make hot. But the soul both produces different effects in different animals, and also contrary effects in the same animal; making some parts solid and others liquid, and some thick and others thin, black and white, light and heavy. Yet it ought to have produced only one effect according to the quality of the body in colour and other respects: but in fact it produces many.

‘And how then will they explain the fact that the motions are diverse instead of one, since every body has one motion only? If they allege choice as cause of some motions, natural laws of others, so far they are right: but choice is not a property of body, nor laws, at least if they are different, while the body is one and simple, and has no participation in any such law, except what has been given to it by that which caused it to be hot or cold.

‘Also the power of causing growth in periods of time and up to this or that measurer----whence can the body itself get this? For it is natural to it to be increased, but to have no power in itself of causing increase, except in as far as it may be taken into service as a mass of matter by the power which by means of it effects the increase. Even if the soul were a body and caused increase, it must also be itself increased by an addition evidently of similar body, if it is to advance equally with that which receives increase from it. And the addition will either be soul, or soulless body.

‘And if soul, how and whence does it come in, and how is it added? But if the addition is soulless, how is it to become animated, and to agree with what was there before, and be one with it, and share the same opinions with the first soul? Will not rather this soul, as a stranger, be in ignorance of what the other knows; and just as with the other mass of our body, one part will pass away from it, and another be added, and nothing will be the same?

‘How then are our remembrances formed? And how our knowledge of our own selves, if we have never the same soul? Moreover if it is body, and the nature of body is that, when divided into several parts, each of the parts is not the same as the whole, and if a soul is of a certain size, then whatever is less than that will not be soul, just as everything of a certain size by any subtraction changes from being what it was.

‘But if anything possessing magnitude should remain the same in quality when diminished in bulk, it is altered as body and as quantity, but may retain its sameness in quality as being different from quantity.

‘What then will they say, who assert that the soul is body?

‘First as to each part of the soul that is in the same body, is each a soul such as the whole is?

‘And so again the part of each part? Magnitude then contributed nothing to its essence; yet it ought to have done so, as there was, a certain fixed quantity; and it was whole in many different places, which cannot be the case with body, that the same should be whole in many places, and the part be the same as the whole.

‘But if they say that each of the parts is not a soul, they will have a soul consisting of soulless parts. And further still, if the magnitude of each soul be limited in each direction, then if it become either less or greater it will not be a soul.

‘Whenever therefore from one connexion and the same seed twin children are begotten, or even many, as in the case of the other animals, the seed being parted into several places, where each is a whole, does not this teach those who are willing to learn, that where the part is the same as the whole, this whole in its own essence transcends the quantitative existence, and must itself be without quantity? For thus it will remain the same when quantity is withdrawn, inasmuch as it is independent of quantity and bulk, as its essence is something different therefrom. The soul therefore and its laws are independent of quantity.

‘But that, if the soul were body, there would be neither sensation nor thought, nor knowledge, nor virtues, nor anything noble, is evident from the following reasons. Whatever is to perceive anything by sensation must itself be one, and must apprehend everything by the same sentient power; even if there should be many impressions that enter through many organs of sensation, or many qualities of one thing, and even if through one sense there should enter a complex object, such as a face.

‘For there are not different powers that perceive the nostril and the eye, but the same perceives all at once. And if one impression comes through the eyes, and another through hearing, there must be some one power which both reach: or how could one say that these are different, if the sensations did not reach the same sentient power at the same time? This, therefore, must be as it were a centre, and lines converging from the circumference of the circle must convey the sensations from all sides to it, and the percipient power of this kind must be really and truly one.

‘For if this were to be extended, and the sensations were to strike upon both extremities, as it were, of a line, either they must run together again to one and the same point, as the centre, or to some other: and each different point will have a sensation of one of the two objects, just as if I were to perceive one object and you another.

‘And if the sensible object be one, as a face, it will be contracted into one, as is evidently the case; for contraction takes place in the very pupils of the eyes (otherwise how could very large objects be seen through them?): so that there is a still further contraction in passing on to the ruling faculty, in such a way that indivisible notions are produced. And this faculty will be indivisible, or, if it were a magnitude, the perceptions would share its divisibility, so that one part (of the soul) would perceive one part (of the object), and another another, and nothing in us would perceive the sensible object as a whole.

‘But in fact the whole sentient is one: for how could it be divided? For there can be no correspondence of equal to equal, because the ruling faculty cannot be equal to each and every sensible object. Into how many parts then shall the division be made? Or shall it be divided into as many parts as the number of varieties in the object of sense that enters? And so then each of those parts of the soul will also perceive by its subdivisions, or the parts of the subdivisions will have no perception; but that is impossible. And if any part perceive all the object, since magnitude by its nature is infinitely divisible, the result will be that each man will also have infinite sensations for each sensible object, infinite images, as it were, of the same thing in our ruling faculty.

‘Moreover if the sentient be body, the sensation cannot take place otherwise than as seals impressed on wax from signet-rings, whether the sensations be impressed upon the blood or upon the breath. If then the impressions are made as in liquid bodies, which is probable, they will become confused, just as if made on water, and there will be no remembrance of them.

‘But if the impressions remain, either it is impossible for others to be imprinted while the former occupy the place, so that there will be no other sensations: or if others are made, the former will be obliterated, so that the remembrance will come to nothing. But if it is possible to remember, and to receive sensations one upon another, without hindrance from the earlier, it is impossible for the soul to be body.

‘And the same may also be seen from the sensation of pain. When a man is said to have a pain in his finger, the pain of course is about the finger, but the sensation of the pain, they must evidently admit, arises in the ruling faculty. While the suffering part therefore is different, the ruling faculty perceives the (animal) spirit, and the whole soul shares the same feeling.

‘How then does this result? By transmission, they will say, the animal spirit about the finger having first suffered, and imparted the suffering to the next, and this to another, until it arrived at the ruling faculty.

‘Necessarily, therefore, if the first had a sensation of pain, there must be another sensation for the second, if the sensation came by way of transmission, and another also for the third, and the sensation of one single pain must become many and infinite, and afterwards the ruling faculty must perceive all these sensations and its own in addition to them.

‘But the truth is, that each of them is not a sensation of the pain in the finger, but that which is next to the finger is a feeling that the wrist is in pain, and the third is a feeling that another part farther up is in pain, and so there are many pains: and the ruling faculty does not perceive the pain in the finger, but the pain close to itself, and knows only this, and dismisses the others, not understanding that it is the finger which is in pain.

‘If, therefore, it is not possible for the sensation of such a pain to be produced by transmission, nor possible that in the body as being a mass, when one part suffers, another part should be noticed (for in every magnitude one part and another part are different), we must suppose the sentient power to be of such a nature as to be everywhere identical with itself. But to effect this is the property of a different kind of being from body.

‘That it would not be possible even to think, if the soul were any kind of body, is to be shown from the following reasons. For if the meaning of sensation is, that the soul apprehends the objects of sense by making use of body, it cannot be that thought also means perception by means of body, or else it will be the same as sensation.

‘If, therefore, thought is apprehension without the aid of body, much rather must the thinking faculty not be body, since sensation is of sensibles, but thought of intelligibles. But if they will not admit this, at all events there must be both thoughts of some intelligibles, and apprehensions of things without magnitude.

‘How, then, if it be magnitude will it conceive in thought that which is not magnitude, or by that which is divisible conceive that which is not divisible? Will it be by some indivisible part of itself? But if so, the thinking faculty will not be body. For there is certainly no need of the whole in order to touch; for any one part is sufficient.

‘If, therefore, they should admit, as is true, that the first notions are those of the things which are most entirely free from body, that is of absolutes, the intelligent faculty can form notions only as being or becoming free from body. But if they should say that the notions are of forms embodied in matter, yet they are only formed by abstraction from the bodies, the mind making the abstraction.

‘For certainly the abstraction of circle, and triangle, and line, and point has nothing to do with flesh, or matter at all. In such an operation, therefore, we must separate the soul itself also from body: it must not therefore itself be body. I suppose too that beauty and justice are things without magnitude, and therefore the conception of them also. So that as they occur the soul will receive them with its indivisible faculty, and they will abide in it as indivisibles.

‘Also if the soul be corporeal how can prudence, justice, fortitude, and other virtues belong to it? For then temperance, or justice, or fortitude must be some kind of breath, or of blood; unless perhaps fortitude were the uneasiness of the breath, and temperance its right temperature, and beauty a certain elegance in forms, because of which, when we see them, we call men goodly and beautiful in body.

‘To be strong and beautiful in form might indeed be suitable to breath; but what does breath want of prudence? Nay; but, on the contrary, it wants to find enjoyment in embraces and caresses, wherein it will either be warmed, or will desire a moderate coolness, or attach itself to things soft, and tender, and smooth. But for assigning to each thing its due worth, what would it care?

‘And is it because they are eternal that the soul fastens upon the conceptions of virtue, and the other objects of the intellect, or does virtue begin to exist in one, and must it perish again? But then who creates it, and whence? For thus there would again remain that former question. It must be, then, because they are eternal and abiding, such as are the conceptions of geometry: and, if eternal and abiding, not corporeal. Therefore also the soul in which they are to exist must be of this same nature; it must not then be corporeal; for everything of the nature of body is non-abiding and transient.

‘If, from seeing the operations of bodies, in imparting heat and cold, and thrusting, and weighing down, they put the soul in this class, as if seating it in a place of activity,----then in the first place they are ignorant that even these bodies work these effects by means of the incorporeal powers contained in them, and then that these are not the powers which we claim as belonging to the soul; but the powers of thought, sensation, reasoning, desiring, managing wisely and well, all require another kind of essence.

‘So by transferring the powers of the incorporeal to the corporeal, they leave none for the former. And that bodies can only produce their effects by means of incorporeal powers is evident from the following reasons. For it will be admitted that quality is one thing and quantity another, and that every body has quantity, and yet not every body has quality, as for example mere matter. But if they admit this, they must admit that quality, being different from quantity, is different from body.

‘For if it have not quantity, how can it be body, since every body has quantity? Moreover, as was said somewhere above, if every body on being divided, and every mass, ceases to be what it was, but when the body is cut small the same quality remains entire in every part,----if for example, the sweetness of honey is none the less sweetness in every drop,----sweetness cannot be a body. The same is true of all the other qualities.

‘Then further, if the powers were bodies, the strong powers must necessarily be great masses, and those which can effect but little, small masses. But if when the masses are great the powers are small, and a few very small masses have the greatest powers, their efficacy must be attributed to something else than magnitude, therefore to something without magnitude. ‘The fact too that matter, being as they say body, is itself the same, but produces different effects when it has qualities added to it,----does not this make it evident that the things added are actually rational powers and incorporeal? And let them not reply that, when breath or blood has departed, the animals die. For it is impossible to exist without many other things besides these, and yet the soul can be none of them. Moreover neither breath nor blood extends through all parts, but soul does.

‘Further, if the soul being body had pervaded every part, it would also have been mixed, in the same way as the mixture takes place in all other bodies. But if the mixture of the bodies leaves none of the components in actual existence, neither will the soul retain an actual existence in the bodies, but only potential, having lost its existence as soul. Just as if sweet and bitter be mingled, the sweet no longer exists. And so we have no soul.

‘And the fact that, being body, it is mingled with body, the whole throughout the whole, so that wherever either may be there the other is also, both having a mass equal to the whole, and that no increase has taken place by the addition of the other,----this will leave nothing that it does not divide. For the mixture is not made in large portions alternately (for so they say it would be a juxta-position), but having passed through the whole, the addition being superimposed upon the less (a thing impossible, that the less should be found equal to the greater)----but nevertheless having so passed through, it divides the whole in every part.

‘Therefore if this occurs at any point whatever, and there be no body between, which has not been cut, the body must have been divided into points, which is impossible; and if the division be carried on to infinity (for whatever particle of body you take, it may be divided), the infinities will have not only a potential but an actual existence. Therefore it is not possible that body should wholly pervade the whole: but the soul does pervade the whole: therefore it is incorporeal.

‘As to their saying that the same breath is an earlier nature, and when it has come into a cool place (ψυχρῷ)and been sharpened, it becomes soul (ψυχή), being made finer in the cool, ----this certainly is absurd; for many animals are born in warm places, and have a soul that has not been cooled. But at all events they say that there is an earlier nature of the soul produced by external contingencies. The result, therefore, is that they make the inferior first, and before this another still less, which they call habit (ἕξις). And the mind comes last, as produced of course from the soul; or if mind is before all things, they ought to make soul next, then vegetative nature; and the later always the worse, if it is a merely natural product.

‘If, therefore, even God in respect of His mind is regarded by them as later, and as generated, His intelligence also being adscititious, it would be possible that neither soul, nor mind, nor God should exist. For if the potential could exist without the previous existence of the actual, and of mind, it would never attain to actuality. For what would there be to bring it on, if there exist not besides itself something prior? But if it is to bring itself into actuality (which is absurd), yet at least in so bringing itself forward it must have something to look to, which must exist not potentially but actually.

‘And yet if the potential is to have the power of always remaining the same, it will of itself have attained to actuality, and this latter will be better than that which has only potentiality, as being a state desired by it. The better therefore will be the prior, both as having a different nature from body, and as always actually existent: mind, therefore, and soul are prior to mere nature; soul, therefore, does not exist as breath, nor yet as body. However, though other arguments might be stated, and have been stated by others, showing that it is not body, yet even what I have now said is sufficient.

‘But since it is of a different nature, we must inquire what this nature is. Is it then, though different from body, yet something belonging to body, as it were a harmony? For although the Pythagoreans used this word “harmony” in a different way, they supposed that it was something of the same kind as the harmony on the strings of the lyre.

‘For as when the strings of the lyre have been stretched tight there conies a certain kind of effect upon them, which is called harmony, in the same way also in our body, when a mixture is made of unlike elements, they thought that a mixture of a certain quality produces both life and soul, which is the effect upon the mixture. But many arguments have ere now been urged against this opinion to show that it is impossible.

‘For it has been argued that the soul is the prior element, but the harmony subsequent: and that the former rules and presides over the body, and in many ways contends with it, but could not do so if it were a harmony: and that the one is an essence, but the harmony is not an essence: and that the mixture of the bodily elements, of which we consist, if it be in due proportion, would mean health: also that in each part differently compounded there would be a different soul, so that there would be many souls: and, as the chief argument, that prior to this present soul there must be another soul to produce this harmony, as in the case of musical instruments there is the musician, who puts the harmony into the strings, having in himself the reasoning faculty in accordance with which he will modulate it.

‘For neither in that case will the strings of themselves, nor in this case the bodily particles be able to bring themselves into harmony. And speaking generally, these philosophers also make animated things out of inanimate, and things casually brought out of disorder into order, and instead of order from the soul they make the soul itself to have received its subsistence from the self-made order. But this cannot possibly take place either in the single parts or in the wholes. The soul, therefore, is not a harmony.’

These extracts are taken from the work of Plotinus against the opinion of the Stoics concerning the soul, who say that it is corporeal. But since I have set forth sufficiently for a summary statement the arguments against Aristotle and the Peripatetics, and those against the sect of the Stoics, it is time to go back again and survey the wonderful physical theories of all their noble philosophers together, seeing especially that all the Greeks in common believed in and worshipped as visible gods the Sun, and Moon, and the rest of the luminaries, and the other elements of the world, and have transferred the fabulous and nonsensical tales about their polytheistic error by more seemly physical explanations to the primary elements and the divisions of the whole world.

Wherefore I think it necessary for me also to collect their opinions on these subjects, and to review their disputes and their vain conceit.

These matters also I will quote from the work of Plutarch, in which he collected the opinions thereon of all the philosophers both ancient and modern, writing in the following manner: [1]

CHAPTER XXIII ---- OF THE SUN.

[PLUTARCH] ‘ANAXIMANDER: that there is a circle twenty-eight times as large as the Earth, having its circumference like a chariot-wheel, hollow, and full of fire, and partly showing the fire through an opening, as through a bellows-pipe: and this is the Sun.

‘Xenophanes: it is formed from the sparks which are seen to be collected from watery vapour, and which compose the Sun out of burning clouds.

‘The Stoics: a flame out of the sea, endowed with intelligence.

‘Plato: out of an immense fire.

‘Anaxagoras, Democritus, Metrodorus: a fiery mass of metal or stone.

‘Aristotle: a globe of the fifth corporeal element.

‘Philolaus the Pythagorean: a disk as of glass, which receives the reflected radiance of the fire in the cosmos, and transmits the light to us; so that the Sun’s fiery appearance in the heaven is like the light which comes to us dispersed by reflexion from the mirror: for this light also we call the Sun, being as it were an image of an image.

‘Empedocles: there are two Suns; the one archetypal, a fire in the other hemisphere of the cosmos, which, has filled that hemisphere, being always opposite to its own reflected light; and the other which we see is the reflected light in this other hemisphere which is filled with air mixed with heat, formed by reflexion from the spherical surface of the Earth and failing upon the crystalline Sun, and carried round with the motion of the fiery Sun: but to express it more shortly, the Sun is the reflexion of the fire that surrounds the Earth.

‘Epicurus: a compact mass of earth, resembling pumice or sponge in its pores, and kindled by the fire.’

CHAPTER XXIV ---- OF THE SUN’S MAGNITUDE.

‘ANAXIMANDER: the Sun itself is equal to the Earth, but the orbit from which it breathes out its fire, and by which it is carried round, is twenty-seven times as large as the Earth.

‘Anaxagoras: many times as large as Peloponnesus.

‘Heracleitus: the breadth of a man’s foot.

‘Epicurus again says that the aforesaid descriptions are all possible: or else that it is of the same size as it appears, or a little greater or less.’

CHAPTER XXV ---- OF THE SHAPE OF THE SUN.

‘ANAXIMENES: the Sun is flat like a plate.

‘Heracleitus: like a boat, concave.

‘The Stoics: spherical, like the universe and the stars.

‘Epicurus: the aforesaid descriptions are all possible.’

Such is their Sun, the mighty god of all things visible in heaven. But Moses and the Hebrew oracles waste no labour on any of these matters.

CHAPTER XXVI ---- OF THE MOON.

‘ANAXIMANDER: it is a circle nineteen times as large as the Earth, full of fire, as in the case of the Sun, and is eclipsed in consequence of the rotation of its disk. And it is like a chariot wheel, having its circumference hollow, and full of fire, with only one vent.

‘Xenophanes: a cloud condensed.

‘The Stoics: a mixture of fire and air. ‘Plato: of earth for the more part.

‘Anaxagoras, Democritus: a fiery solid, having in itself plains, and mountains, and ravines.

‘Heracleitus: earth surrounded with mist. ‘Pythagoras: a mirror-like body.’

CHAPTER XXVII ---- OF THE MOON’S MAGNITUDE.

‘THE Stoics represent it as larger than the Earth, as they also say of the Sun.

‘Parmenides: equal to the Sun, for it is illumined from it.’

CHAPTER XXVIII ---- OF THE MOON’S SHAPE.

‘THE Stoics: it is spherical, as the Sun.

‘Heracleitus: like a boat.

‘Empedocles: like a disk (or quoit).

‘Others like a cylinder.’

CHAPTER XXIX ---- OF THE MOON’S ILLUMINATION.

‘ANAXIMANDER: it has light of its own, but somewhat scanty.

‘Antiphon: the Moon shines by its own light; but the portion of it which is partially hidden is obscured by the Sun’s light falling upon it, as it is the nature of the stronger fire to obscure the weaker: which happens also with the other heavenly bodies.

‘Thales and his followers: the Moon is illumined from the Sun.

‘Heracleitus: the Sun and Moon are affected in the same way: for the heavenly bodies being boat-like in shape, and receiving the products of the watery evaporation, become luminous in appearance; the Sun more brilliantly, because it moves in a purer atmosphere, but the Moon moving in a turbid atmosphere therefore also appears more dim.’

CHAPTER XXX ---- WHAT IS THE SUBSTANCE OF THE PLANETS AND FIXED STARS?

[2]’THALES: the heavenly bodies are of earth, but on fire.

‘Empedocles: of fire, from the fiery element, which the air contained in itself and thrust out at the first separation of the elements.

‘Anaxagoras: the surrounding atmosphere is in its substance fire, but by the energy of its revolution catches up stones from the earth, and having set them on fire has made stars of them.;

‘Diogenes: the heavenly bodies are porous like pumice, and are the breathing-holes of the universe. But again the same author thinks that they are stones, which, though at first invisible, often fall upon the Earth and are extinguished, just as the stony meteor which fell in a fiery form at Aegospotamoi.

‘Empedocles: the fixed stars are fastened to the crystalline sphere, but the planets are free.

‘Plato: for the most part they are of fire, but partake also of the other elements as a cement.

‘Xenophanes: they consist of clouds on fire, but are extinguished every day, and re-kindled in the night, just like live coals: for their risings and settings are their kindlings and quenchings.

‘Heracleides and the Pythagoreans think that each of the stars is a world, including an Earth, and an atmosphere and an ether in the infinite space. These doctrines are introduced in the Orphic Hymns, for they make each star a world.

‘Epicurus rejects none of these opinions, but adheres to his “possible.”’

CHAPTER XXXI ---- OF THE SHAPE OF THE STARS.

‘THE Stoics: the stars are spherical, like the universe, Sun; and Moon.

‘Cleanthes: conical.

‘Anaximenes: like studs fastened in the crystalline sphere.

‘But some say that they are plates of fire, as it were pictures.’

Such are the discoveries of the wonderful philosophers concerning what they call visible gods. But learn also from the same Plutarch’s voice, what decisions they have pronounced concerning the universe: [3]

CHAPTER XXXII ---- HOW THE WORLD WAS CONSTRUCTED.

‘THE world, therefore, has been fashioned in a rounded form, in the following manner. As the corporeal atoms have an undesigned and fortuitous motion, and move continuously and very swiftly, many of them were collected together, and from this cause had great variety of shapes and sizes.

‘And when these were all gathered in the same place, all the larger and heaviest settled down: but as many as were small, and round, and smooth, and easily moved, were thrust out in the collision of the bodies, and carried up on high.

‘When, therefore, the propelling force ceased to carry them upward, and the propulsion no longer tended towards the height, while on the other hand they were prevented from sinking downward, they were compressed into the places which were able to admit them; and these were the places around them.

‘So the multitude of the bodies were turned round towards these places, and becoming intermingled one with another in the turning they generated the heaven. But the atoms retaining the same natural tendency, and being of various kinds, as I have said, were thrust out towards the upper region, and produced the nature of the stars.

‘But the multitude of the bodies which were exhaled kept striking upon the air and thrusting it away; and the air in its motion being turned into wind and encompassing the stars carried them round with it, and maintained the revolution which they now have on high. Afterwards out of the particles which settled down the Earth was produced, and out of those which were carried upward the heaven, and fire, and air.

‘And as there was still much matter included in the Earth, which became condensed in consequence of the blows from the winds and the currents from the stars, all of its shape that was formed by minute particles was further compressed, and generated the watery element.

‘And this having a fluid tendency was carried down into the hollow places which were able to receive and hold it; or the water settled down of itself and gradually hollowed out the places below it.’

Suchis their wonderful cosmogony! And with, this is connected much other disputation, as they started questions about problems of all kinds; whether we ought to regard the universe as one or many; and the cosmos as one or more; and whether it has a soul, and is administered by a divine providence, or the contrary: also whether it is imperishable or perishable; and from what source it is sustained; and from what kind of material God began to make the world: also concerning the order of the world;and what is the cause of its inclination; also concerning what is outside the circumference of the world; and which is the right and which the left side of the world; also concerning the heaven, and, besides all this, concerning daemons and heroes; and about matter, and about ideas: about the arrangement of the universe: yet more, about the course and motion of the stars: and besides this, from what source the stars derive their light: also about the so-called Dioscuri, and the eclipses of the Sun and Moon, and her aspect, and why she has an earthlike appearance; also concerning her distances; and moreover concerning the years.

Now all these questions have been treated in numberless ways by the philosophers of whom we speak, but since Plutarch collected them in a few concise words, by bringing together the opinions of them all and their contradictions, I think it will not be unprofitable to us if they are presented with a view to their rejection on reasonable grounds. For since they stood in diametrical opposition one to another, and stirred up battles and wars against each other, and nothing better, each with jealous strife of words confuting their neighbours’ opinions, must not every one admit that our hesitation on these subjects has been reasonable and safe?

Next in order to the aforesaid subjects I will add all their disquisitions upon matters nearer to the Earth; concerning the figure of the Earth, and its position and inclination: also concerning the sea; that so you may know that the noble sages differed not only about things high and lofty, but that they have disagreed also in matters terrestrial. And to increase yet more your admiration of this wisdom of the wise, I will add also all the controversies they waged about the soul and the ruling faculty therein, unable as they were to discover what their own nature was. But now let us go back to the first of the aforesaid subjects.

CHAPTER XXXIII ---- WHETHER THE ALL IS ONE.

[4]’THE Stoics then represented the world as one, which they also affirmed to be the All, including the corporeal elements.

‘But Empedocles said that, though the world was one, yet it was not the All, but only a small part of the All, and the rest useless matter.

‘Plato derives his opinion that the world is one, and the All one, by inference from three arguments: from the notion that it will not be perfect, unless it comprehends all things; that it will not be like its pattern, unless it be unique; that it will not be indestructible, if there be anything outside it. But in answer to Plato it must be said, that the world is not perfect, for it does not include all things; for man also is perfect, but does not include all things: and there are many examples, as in the case of statues, and houses, and pictures: and how can it be perfect, if it is possible for anything to revolve outside it? And indestructible it is not, and cannot be, since it is created.

‘But Metrodorus says it is as absurd that there should be but one world generated in infinite space, as that there should be but one head of corn in a great plain: and that the world is one of an infinite multitude is manifest from the infinity of causes. For if the world is finite, while the causes from which the world has come are all infinite, the number of worlds must be infinite. For where they all have been causes, there must also be effects: and causes they are, whether the atoms or the elements.’

CHAPTER XXXIV ---- WHETHER THE WORLD HAS A SOUL, AND IS ADMINISTERED BY PROVIDENCE.

[5] ‘THE others all say that it has a soul, and is administered by providence.

‘But Democritus and Epicurus, and all who are for bringing in the atoms and vacuum, say that it neither has a soul, nor is administered by providence, but by some irrational kind of nature.

‘Aristotle says that, as a whole and throughout, it has neither a soul, nor reason, nor intelligence, nor is it administered by providence. For while the heavenly regions partake of all these properties, because they include spheres which are endowed with a soul and life, the terrestrial regions have none of them, but share in the orderly arrangement by accident and not directly.’

CHAPTER XXXV ---- WHETHER THE WORLD IS IMPERISHABLE.

‘PYTHAGORAS, and Plato, and the Stoics say that the world was created by God; and that, so far as it depends on its nature, it is perishable, because it is perceptible by sense through being corporeal; nevertheless it will not be destroyed, through the providence and support of God.

‘Epicurus says that it is perishable, because created, like an animal or a plant.

‘Xenophanes: the world is uncreated, and eternal, and imperishable.

‘Aristotle: the part of the world beneath the Moon may be affected by change, and the things terrestrial therein are doomed to perish.’

CHAPTER XXXVI ---- FROM WHAT SOURCE THE WORLD IS SUSTAINED.

‘ARISTOTLE: if the world receives sustenance, it will also perish; but in fact it needs no sustenance, and therefore is also eternal.

‘Plato: the world supplies its own sustenance out of its waste, by a change.

‘Philolaus: the decay is twofold, sometimes by fire fallen from heaven, and sometimes from the water of the Moon being thrown off by the revolution of its atmosphere: and the exhalations from these are the sustenance of the world.’

CHAPTER XXXVII ---- FROM WHAT MATERIAL FIRST GOD BEGAN TO FORM THE WORLD.

‘THE physicists say that the creation of the world began from Earth, as from a centre; and the centre is the beginning of a sphere.

‘Pythagoras: from fire, and the fifth element.

‘Empedocles: the ether was first separated, and next the fire, and after it the Earth, out of which, when very closely compressed by the rush of the sphere, the water gushed up, and the air was formed from it by evaporation. Then the heaven was produced from the ether, and the Sun from the fire: and the terrestrial parts were formed by condensation out of the other elements.

‘Plato: the world was made visible according to the pattern of the intelligible world: and of the visible world first the soul, and after this the corporeal element, first the part produced from fire and earth, and secondly that from water and air.

‘Pythagoras says that, whereas there are five solid figures which are also called mathematical, out of the cube the earth was produced; out of the pyramid the fire; out of the octahedron the air; out of the eicosahedron the water; and out of the dodecahedron the sphere of the universe.

‘And herein again Plato follows Pythagoras.’

CHAPTER XXXVIII ---- OF THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE WORLD.

‘PARMENIDES: there are wreaths twisted round one upon the other, one of the rare matter, and the other of the dense; and between them others of light and darkness mixed; and that which surrounds them all like a wall is solid.

‘Leucippus and Democritus extend a tunic and a membrane in a circle round the world.

‘Epicurus: the boundary of some worlds is thin, and of others dense: and of these part are in motion, and part immovable.

‘Plato: fire first, then ether, after that air, next water, and earth last: but sometimes he combines the ether with the fire.

‘Aristotle: first impassible ether, that is a fifth body; after that passibles, fire, air, water, and earth last. Of these the celestial portions have the circular motion assigned to them: and of the portions ranged beneath them the light have the upward, and the heavy the downward motion.

‘Empedocles: the places of the elements are not entirely fixed and limited, but they all in a certain way partake one of another.’

CHAPTER XXXIX ---- WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF THE INCLINATION OF THE WORLD.

‘DIOGENES, Anaxagoras: after the world was established, and had brought forth the living beings out of the earth, the world was somehow spontaneously inclined towards its southern side, perhaps from design, in order that some parts of the world might be uninhabitable and some habitable, in consequence of cold, and torrid heat, and a temperate climate.

‘Empedocles: when the air yielded to the impulse of the Sun, the polar Bears became inclined, and the northern regions were elevated, and the southern depressed, and the whole world accordingly.’

CHAPTER XL ---- OF THE OUTSIDE OF THE WORLD, WHETHER IT IS A VACUUM.

‘THE Pythagoreans: outside the world there is a vacuum, into and out of which the world breathes.

‘The Stoics: infinite (vacuum), into which the world is also dissolved by the conflagration.

‘Poseidonius: not infinite, but sufficiently large for the dissolution.

‘Plato, Aristotle: no vacuum either outside the world or inside.’

CHAPTER XLI ---- WHICH ARE THE RIGHT AND WHICH THE LEFT SIDES OF THE WORLD.

‘PYTHAGORAS, Plato, Aristotle: the right parts of the world are the eastern, from which the motion begins, and the left are the western.

‘Empedocles: the right is the region of the summer solstice, and the left the region of the winter solstice.’

CHAPTER XLII ---- OF THE HEAVEN; WHAT IS ITS SUBSTANCE.

‘ANAXIMENES: it is the circumference of the outer zone.

‘Empedocles: the heaven is solid, formed from air compressed by fire into a crystallized form, and encompassing the whole elements of fire and air in each of the hemispheres.

CHAPTER XLIII ---- OF DAEMONS AND HEROES.

[6] ‘IN connexion with the discourse concerning gods we must inquire into that which concerns daemons and heroes.

‘Thales, Pythagoras, Plato, the Stoics: daemons are beings of the nature of souls: heroes also are souls which have been separated from their bodies; and the good souls are good daemons, and the bad souls evil daemons.

‘But Epicurus admits none of these opinions.’

CHAPTER XLIV ---- OF MATTER.

‘Matter is the substratum to generation and decay and the other changes.

‘The Schools of Thales and Pythagoras, and the Stoics: matter is wholly and thoroughly subject to change and alteration and flux.

‘The School of Democritus: the primary elements are impassible, namely, the atom, the vacuum, and the incorporeal.

‘Aristotle and Plato say that matter is corporeal, without form, specific character, shape, or quality, so far as it depends on its own nature, but receptive of the specific forms, as it were a nurse, and a mould, and a matrix. But those who say that matter is water, or fire, or air, or earth, no longer speak of it as without form, but as body: while those who say that it is the indivisible bodies and atoms, do regard it as without form.’

CHAPTER XLV ---- OF THE IDEA.

‘AN “idea” is an incorporeal entity (οὐσία),subsisting itself, and by itself, but giving its image to portions of formless matter, and becoming the cause of their manifestation.

‘Socrates and Plato suppose the ideas to be separable from the matter, subsisting in the thoughts and in the presentations of god, that is, of the mind.

‘Aristotle allowed the specific forms and ideas to remain, not however as separate from the matter, having freed himself from the notion of its being done by god.

‘The Stoic followers of Zeno said that the ideas are thoughts of our own.’

CHAPTER XLVI ---- OF THE ORDER OF THE STARS.

‘XENOCRATES thinks that the stars move on one superficies.

‘The other Stoics that some are before others in height and depth.

[7] ‘Democritus puts the fixed stars first, and next to these the planets, after which the Sun, the Day-star, the Moon.

‘Plato next to the position of the fixed stars sets first the planet called Phaenon, that is Saturn: second Phaethon, that is Jupiter; third the Fiery, Mars; fourth the Day-star, Venus; fifth Stilbon, Mercury; sixth the Sun; seventh the Moon.

‘Of the Mathematicians some agree with Plato, but some put the Sun in the centre of all.

‘Anaximander, and Metrodorus of Chios, and Crates think that the Sun is placed highest of all, next to him the Moon, and beneath them the fixed stars and planets.’

CHAPTER XLVII ---- OF THE COURSE AND MOTION OF THE STARS.

‘ANAXAGORAS, Democritus, Cleanthes: all the fixed stars pass from east to west.

‘Alcmaeon and the Mathematicians: the planets move in an opposite direction to the fixed stars; for theirs is the contrary course from west to east.

‘Anaximander: they are borne along by the circles and spheres on which they are each set.

‘Anaximenes: the stars do not revolve beneath the Earth, but around it.

‘Plato and the Mathematicians: the Sun, the Day-star, and Stilbon (Venus and Mercury) have equal orbits.’

CHAPTER XLVIII ---- WHENCE THE STARS RECEIVE THEIR LIGHT.

‘METEODORUS: the fixed stars are all illumined by the Sun.

‘Heracleitus and the Stoics: the stars are fed from the exhalation of the Earth.

‘Aristotle: the heavenly bodies have no need of nourishment; for they are not perishable but eternal.

‘Plato: there is a common nourishment of the whole world and of the stars from themselves.’

CHAPTER XLIX ---- OF THE SO-CALLED DIOSCURI.

‘XENOPHANES: what appear like stars upon the ships are little clouds which shine in consequence of a certain kind of motion.

‘Metrodorus: they are flashes from the eyes which look at them with fear and amazement.’

CHAPTER L ---- OF AN ECLIPSE OF THE SUN.

‘THALES was the first who said that the Sun is eclipsed from the Moon (which is of an earthy nature) coming perpendicularly under it; and that by reflexion in a mirror she is seen situated beneath the Sun’s disk.

‘Anaximander: from the closing of the orifice of the breathing-hole of the Sun’s fire.

‘Heracleitus: in consequence of the turning of the boat-like figure, so that the concavity is above, and the convexity below facing our eyes.

‘Xenophanes: by extinction, and then again there rises another Sun in the east. But he has incidentally mentioned an eclipse of the Sun lasting over the whole month, and again a total eclipse, so that the day seemed like night.

‘Some say that it is a condensation of the invisible clouds coming over the Sun’s disk.

‘Aristarchus sets the Sun among the fixed stars, and makes the Moon move round the Sun’s orbit, and the Sun’s disk to be overshadowed in consequence of these inclinations.

‘Xenophanes: there are many suns and moons, corresponding to the climes, and sections, and zones of the Earth: and at a certain season the Sun’s disk falls into some section of the Earth which is not inhabited by us, and thus, as if stepping into a hole, suffers eclipse. But the same author says that the Sun goes forward into infinity, but seems to revolve because of its distance.’

CHAPTER LI ---- OF AN ECLIPSE OF THE MOON.

‘ANAXIMANDER: from the closing of the orifice of its circumference.

‘Berossus: because of the turning of the dark side towards us.

‘Heracleitus: because of the turning of the boat-like figure.

‘Of the Pythagoreans some say that it is an outshining and obstruction by our Earth or the counter-earth: but the more recent say that it is in consequence of the spreading of a flame which is gradually kindled in an orderly manner, until it produces the complete full moon, and decreases again in like manner until the conjunction, at which it is entirely extinguished.

‘Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Mathematicians agree that it effects its monthly obscurations by travelling round with the Sun and sharing its illumination; but the eclipses by falling into the shadow of the Earth when that comes between the two luminaries, or rather when it obstructs the light from the Moon.’

CHAPTER LII ---- OF THE MOON’S ASPECT, AND WHY IT HAS AN EARTHLIKE APPEARANCE.

‘THE Pythagoreans say that the Moon has an earthlike appearance, because it is inhabited like our Earth, but by larger animals and more beautiful plants. For the animals upon it are fifteen times as large, and emit no bodily secretion; and that the day is longer in the same proportion.

‘Anaxagoras: on account of an unevenness in the mixture, because of its being both cold and earthy: for the misty part is mingled with the fiery, whence the Moon is also said to shine with false light.

‘The Stoics: because of the admixture of air in its substance its composition is not pure.’

CHAPTER LIII ---- OF THE MOON’S DISTANCES.

‘EMPEDOCLES: the Moon is distant from the Sun twice as far as from the Earth.

‘The Mathematical School: eighteen times as far.

‘Eratosthenes: the Sun’s distance from the Earth is four millions and eighty thousand stades: but the Moon’s distance from the Earth seven hundred and eighty thousand stades.’

CHAPTER LIV ---- OF YEARS.

‘A YEAR of Saturn is a period of thirty years: of Jupiter twelve; of Mars two; of the Sun twelve months; and the same for Mercury and Venus, for they run an equal course. But the Moon’s is thirty days: for this is the complete month from first appearance to conjunction.

‘The Great Yearsome suppose to consist in a period of eight years, but others in nineteen years, and others in fifty-nine. Heracleitus makes it consist of eighteen thousand solar years: Diogenes of three hundred and sixty-five years, as many as the year has days according to Heracleitus: but others of seven thousand, seven hundred, and seventy-seven years.’

So widely do the aforesaid persons differ from each other in regard to things in the heavens above. But now look also at their opinions about the Earth.

CHAPTER LV ---- OF THE EARTH.

‘THALES and his followers say that the Earth is one.

‘Hicetas the Pythagorean says that there are two, this and the antipodal earth.

‘The Stoics: the Earth is one, and finite.

‘Xenophanes: from the lower part its roots reach into infinity, and it is composed of air and fire.

‘Metrodorus: the Earth is the deposit and sediment of the water, and the Sun of the air.’

CHAPTER LVI ---- OF THE FIGURE OF THE EARTH.

‘THALES and the Stoics: the Earth is spherical.

‘Anaximander: it is like a stone pillar supporting the surfaces.

‘Anaximenes: like a table.

‘Leucippus: like a kettle-drum.

‘Democritus: like a disk in its extension, but hollow in the middle.’

CHAPTER LVII ---- OF THE POSITION OF THE EARTH.

‘THE followers of Thales say the Earth is the centre.

‘Xenophanes: the Earth first, for its roots reach into infinity.

‘Philolaus the Pythagorean: first, fire in the centre; for this is the hearth of the universe: second, the antipodal Earth, and third, the Earth which we inhabit, opposite to the antipodal both in situation and revolution; in consequence of which the inhabitants of the antipodal Earth are not seen by those in this Earth.

‘Parmenides was the first to mark off the inhabited parts of the Earth under the two tropical zones.’

CHAPTER LVIII ---- OF THE EARTH’S MOTION.

[8] ‘ALL the others say that the Earth is at rest.

‘But Philolaus the Pythagorean says that it revolves round the fire in an oblique circle, in like manner as the Sun and Moon.

‘Heracleides of Pontus, and Ecphantus the Pythagorean make the Earth move, not however by change of place, but by rotation, turning like a wheel on an axle, from west to east, about its own centre.

‘Democritus: at first the Earth used to change its place, owing to its smallness and lightness; but as in the course of time it grew dense and heavy, it became stationary.’

After the utterance of these different opinions by the noble philosophers concerning the Earth, hear now what they say of the Sea.

CHAPTER LIX ---- OF THE SEA, HOW IT WAS COMPOSED, AND WHY IT IS SALT.

[9] ‘ANAXIMANDER says that the Sea is the remnant of the original moisture, the greater part of which was dried up by the fire, and the remainder changed through its burning heat.

‘Anaxagoras: when the water, which in the beginning was a stagnant lake, was burnt up by the Sun’s revolution, and the greasy part evaporated, the remainder subsided into saltness and bitterness.

‘Empedocles: the Sea is the sweat of the Earth when scorched by the Sun, because of the increased condensation.

‘Antiphon: the sweat of the hot part, from which the included moisture was separated, turned salt by being boiled down, which happens always in the case of sweat.

‘Metrodorus: from being drained through the earth it has partaken of its density, just as liquids which are strained through ashes.

‘Plato and his followers: of the elementary water the part formed out of air, being condensed by cooling, became sweet; but the part formed from earth, being evaporated by heat and burning, became salt.’

So much, then, concerning the Sea. But as to those who professed to give physiological explanations about the whole world, and things celestial and ethereal, and the conception of the universe, how little they knew even of their own nature, you may learn from their discordant utterances on these points also, as follows.

CHAPTER LX ---- OF THE PARTS OF THE SOUL.

[10] ‘PYTHAGORAS, Plato: in the first analysis the Soul has two parts; for it has one part rational and another irrational. But in close and exact consideration, its parts are three: for they distinguish the irrational into the irascible and the appetitive.

‘The Stoics: it is composed of eight parts; five senses, sight, smell, hearing, taste, touch; and a sixth, speech; a seventh, generation; and an eighth, the actual ruling principle, from which proceeds the extension of all these through their proper organs, in a similar manner to the tentacles of the polypus.

‘Democritus, Epicurus: the Soul consists of two parts, its rational faculty being settled in the breast, and the irrational diffused over the whole complexity of the body.

‘But Democritus thought that all things, even dead bodies, naturally partake of a certain kind of soul, because in an obscure way they have some warmth and sensation, though the greater part is dissipated.’

CHAPTER LXI ---- OF THE EXILING FACULTY.

‘PLATO, Democritus: it is in the head as a whole.

‘Straton: between the eyebrows.

‘Erasistratus: about the membrane of the brain, which he calls the epicranis.

‘Herophilus: in the cavity of the brain, which is also its base.

‘Parmenides: in the breast as a whole.

‘Epicurus, and all the Stoics: in the heart as a whole.

‘Diogenes: in the arterial cavity of the heart, which is full of breath.

‘Empedocles in the composition of the blood.

‘Others in the membrane of the pericardium: and others in the diaphragm. Some of the more recent philosophers say that it reaches through from the head to the diaphragm.

‘Pythagoras: the vital power is around the heart; but the rational , and intelligent faculty in the region of the head.’

So far, then, as to their opinions on these matters. Do you not think therefore that with judgement and reason we have justly kept aloof from the unprofitable and erroneous and vain labour of them all, and do not busy ourselves at all about the said subjects (for we do not see the utility of them, nor any tendency to benefit and gain good for mankind), but cling solely to piety towards God the creator of all things, and by a life of temperance, and all godly behaviour according to virtue, strive to live in a manner pleasing to Him who is God over all?

But if even you from malice and envy hesitate to admit our true testimony, you shall be again anticipated by Socrates, the wisest of all Greeks, who has truthfully declared his votes in our favour. Those meteorological babblers, for instance, he used to expose in their folly, and say that they were no better than madmen, expressly convicting them not merely of striving after things unattainable, but also of wasting time about things useless and unprofitable to man’s life. And this shall be testified to you by our former witness Xenophon, one of the best-known of the companions of Socrates, who writes as follows in his Memorabilia:[11]