from the earth to the stars. He lifts up his eyes to the heavens and seeks
to guide by their motions his erring footsteps. But we neither appreciate
the conditions of knowledge to which he was subjected, nor have the ideas
which fastened upon his imagination the same hold upon us. For he is
hanging between matter and mind; he is under the dominion at the same time
both of sense and of abstractions; his impressions are taken almost at
random from the outside of nature; he sees the light, but not the objects
which are revealed by the light; and he brings into juxtaposition things
which to us appear wide as the poles asunder, because he finds nothing
between them. He passes abruptly from persons to ideas and numbers, and
from ideas and numbers to persons,--from the heavens to man, from astronomy
to physiology; he confuses, or rather does not distinguish, subject and
object, first and final causes, and is dreaming of geometrical figures lost
in a flux of sense. He contrasts the perfect movements of the heavenly
bodies with the imperfect representation of them (Rep.), and he does not
always require strict accuracy even in applications of number and figure
(Rep.). His mind lingers around the forms of mythology, which he uses as
symbols or translates into figures of speech. He has no implements of
observation, such as the telescope or microscope; the great science of
chemistry is a blank to him. It is only by an effort that the modern
thinker can breathe the atmosphere of the ancient philosopher, or
understand how, under such unequal conditions, he seems in many instances,
by a sort of inspiration, to have anticipated the truth.

The influence with the Timaeus has exercised upon posterity is due partly
to a misunderstanding. In the supposed depths of this dialogue the Neo-
Platonists found hidden meanings and connections with the Jewish and
Christian Scriptures, and out of them they elicited doctrines quite at
variance with the spirit of Plato. Believing that he was inspired by the
Holy Ghost, or had received his wisdom from Moses, they seemed to find in