TO ASCLEPIUS
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1. Hermes. All that is moved, Asclepius, is it not moved in something and by something?
Asclepius. Assuredly.
Her. And must not that in which it’s moved be greater than the moved?
Asc. It must.
Her. Mover, again, has greater power than moved?
Asc. It has, of course.
Her. The nature, furthermore, of that in which it’s moved must be quite other from the nature of the moved?
Asc. It must completely.
2. Her. Is not, again, this cosmos vast, [so vast] that than it there exists no body greater?
Asc. Assuredly.
Her. And massive too, for it is crammed with multitudes of other mighty frames, nay rather all the other bodies that there are?
Asc. It is.
Her. And yet the cosmos is a body?
Asc. It is a body.
Her. And one that’s moved?
3. Asc. Assuredly.
Her. Of what size, then, must be the space in which it’s moved; and of what kind [must be] the nature [of that space]? Must it not be far vaster [than the cosmos], in order that it may be able to find room for its continued course, so that the moved may not be cramped for want of room and lose its motion?
Asc. Something, Thrice-greatest one, it needs must be, immensely vast.
4. Her. And of what nature? Must it not be, Asclepius, of just the contrary? And is not contrary to body bodiless?
Asc. Agreed.
Her. Space, then, is bodiless. But bodiless must either be some godlike thing or God [Himself]. And by “some godlike thing” I mean no more the generable but the ingenerable.
5. If, then, space be some godlike thing, it is substantial ; but if ’tis God [Himself], it transcends substance. But it is to be thought of otherwise [than God], and in this way.
God is first “thinkable” for us, not for Himself, for that the thing that’s thought doth fall beneath the thinker’s sense. God then can not be “thinkable” unto Himself, in that He’s thought of by Himself as being nothing else than what He thinks. But He is “something else” for us, and so He’s thought of by us.
6. If space is, therefore, to be thought, [it should] not, [then, be thought as] God, but space. If God is also to be thought, [He should] not [be conceived] as space, but energy that can contain [all space].
Further, all that is moved is moved not in the moved but in the stable. And that which moves [another] is of course stationary, for ’tis impossible that it should move with it.
Asc. How is it, then, that things down here, Thrice-greatest one, are moved with those that are [already] moved? For thou hast said the errant spheres were moved by the inerrant one.
Her. This is not, O Asclepius, a moving with, but one against; they are not moved with one another, but one against the other. It is this contrariety which turneth the resistance of their motion into rest. For that resistance is the rest of motion.
7. Hence, too, the errant spheres, being moved contrarily to the inerrant one, are moved by one another by mutual contrariety, [and also] by the stable one through contrariety itself. And this can otherwise not be.
The Bears up there, which neither set nor rise, think’st thou they rest or move?
Asc. They move, Thrice-greatest one.
Her. And what their motion, my Asclepius?
Asc. Motion that turns for ever round the same.
Her. But revolution—motion round same—is fixed by rest. For “round-the-same” doth stop “beyond-same.” “Beyond-same” then, being stopped, if it be steadied in “round-same”—the contrary stands firm, being rendered ever stable by its contrariety.
8. Of this I’ll give thee here on earth an instance, which the eye can see. Regard the animals down here,—a man, for instance, swimming! The water moves, yet the resistance of his hands and feet give him stability, so that he is not borne along with it, nor sunk thereby.
Asc. Thou hast, Thrice-greatest one, adduced a most clear instance.
Her. All motion, then, is caused in station and by station.
The motion, therefore, of the cosmos (and of every other hylic animal ) will not be caused by things exterior to the cosmos, but by things interior [outward] to the exterior—such [things] as soul, or spirit, or some such other thing incorporal.
’Tis not its body that doth move the living thing in it; nay, not even the whole [body of the universe a lesser] body e’en though there be no life in it.
9. Asc. What meanest thou by this, Thrice-greatest one? Is it not bodies, then, that move the stock and stone and all the other things inanimate?
Her. By no means, O Asclepius. The something-in-the-body, the that-which-moves the thing inanimate, this surely’s not a body, for that it moves the two of them—both body of the lifter and the lifted? So that a thing that’s lifeless will not move a lifeless thing. That which doth move [another thing] is animate, in that it is the mover.
Thou seest, then, how heavy laden is the soul, for it alone doth lift two bodies. That things, moreover, moved are moved in something as well as moved by something is clear.
10. Asc. Yea, O Thrice-greatest one, things moved must needs be moved in something void.
Her. Thou sayest well, O [my] Asclepius! For naught of things that are is void. Alone the “is-not” ’s void [and] stranger to subsistence. For that which is subsistent can never change to void.