Note 9 — Chapter XXXVIII · TIMÆUS AND KRITIAS.

Plato, Timæus, pp. 29 D, 28 D, 59 C-D, 68 C, 72 D. κατ’ ἐμὴν δόξαν — παρὰ τῆς ἐμῆς ψήφου (p. 52 D). In many parts of the dialogue he repeats that he is delivering his own opinion — that he is affirming what is probable. In the Phædon, however, we find that εἰκότες λόγοι are set aside as deceptive and dangerous, Phædon, p. 92 D. In the remarkable passage of the Timæus, p. 48 C-D, Plato intimates that he will not in the present discourse attempt to go to the bottom of the subject — τὴν μὲν περὶ ἁπάντων εἴτε ἀρχὴν εἴτε ἀρχὰς εἴτε ὅπῃ δοκεῖ τούτων πέρι, τὸ νῦν οὐ ῥητέον — but that he will confine himself to εἰκότες λόγοι — τὸ δὲ κατ’ ἀρχὰς ῥηθὲν διαφυλάττων, τὴν τῶν εἰκότων λόγων δύναμιν, πειράσομαι μηδενὸς ἧττον εἰκότα, μᾶλλον δὲ καὶ ἔμπροσθεν ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς περὶ ἑκάστων καὶ ξυμπάντων λέγειν.

What these principia are, which Plato here keeps in the background, I do not clearly understand. Susemihl (Entwickelung der Plat. Phil. ii. p. 405) and Martin (Études sur le Timée, ii. p. 173, note 56) have both given elucidations of this passage, but neither of them appear to me satisfactory. Simplikius says:— Ὁ Πλάτων τὴν φυσιολογίαν εἰκοτολογίαν ἔλεγεν εἶναι, ᾧ καὶ Ἀριστοτέλης συμμαρτυρεῖ, Schol. Aristot. Phys. 325, a. 25 Brandis.