Whereas the so-called mysticism of Plato is purely Greek, arising out of
his imperfect knowledge and high aspirations, and is the growth of an age
in which philosophy is not wholly separated from poetry and mythology.

A greater danger with modern interpreters of Plato is the tendency to
regard the Timaeus as the centre of his system. We do not know how Plato
would have arranged his own dialogues, or whether the thought of arranging
any of them, besides the two 'Trilogies' which he has expressly connected;
was ever present to his mind. But, if he had arranged them, there are many
indications that this is not the place which he would have assigned to the
Timaeus. We observe, first of all, that the dialogue is put into the mouth
of a Pythagorean philosopher, and not of Socrates. And this is required by
dramatic propriety; for the investigation of nature was expressly renounced
by Socrates in the Phaedo. Nor does Plato himself attribute any importance
to his guesses at science. He is not at all absorbed by them, as he is by
the IDEA of good. He is modest and hesitating, and confesses that his
words partake of the uncertainty of the subject (Tim.). The dialogue is
primarily concerned with the animal creation, including under this term the
heavenly bodies, and with man only as one among the animals. But we can
hardly suppose that Plato would have preferred the study of nature to man,
or that he would have deemed the formation of the world and the human frame
to have the same interest which he ascribes to the mystery of being and
not-being, or to the great political problems which he discusses in the
Republic and the Laws. There are no speculations on physics in the other
dialogues of Plato, and he himself regards the consideration of them as a
rational pastime only. He is beginning to feel the need of further
divisions of knowledge; and is becoming aware that besides dialectic,
mathematics, and the arts, there is another field which has been hitherto
unexplored by him. But he has not as yet defined this intermediate
territory which lies somewhere between medicine and mathematics, and he