conception of nature was never that of law interrupted by exceptions,--a
somewhat unfortunate metaphysical invention of modern times, which is at
variance with facts and has failed to satisfy the requirements of thought.

Section 3.

Plato's account of the soul is partly mythical or figurative, and partly
literal. Not that either he or we can draw a line between them, or say,
'This is poetry, this is philosophy'; for the transition from the one to
the other is imperceptible. Neither must we expect to find in him absolute
consistency. He is apt to pass from one level or stage of thought to
another without always making it apparent that he is changing his ground.
In such passages we have to interpret his meaning by the general spirit of
his writings. To reconcile his inconsistencies would be contrary to the
first principles of criticism and fatal to any true understanding of him.

There is a further difficulty in explaining this part of the Timaeus--the
natural order of thought is inverted. We begin with the most abstract, and
proceed from the abstract to the concrete. We are searching into things
which are upon the utmost limit of human intelligence, and then of a sudden
we fall rather heavily to the earth. There are no intermediate steps which
lead from one to the other. But the abstract is a vacant form to us until
brought into relation with man and nature. God and the world are mere
names, like the Being of the Eleatics, unless some human qualities are
added on to them. Yet the negation has a kind of unknown meaning to us.
The priority of God and of the world, which he is imagined to have created,
to all other existences, gives a solemn awe to them. And as in other
systems of theology and philosophy, that of which we know least has the
greatest interest to us.