namque deos didici securum agere aevum, nec, si quid miri faciat natura, deos id tristis ex alto caeli demittere tecto
--Horace, "Satires"
Overcoming of philosophers through the destruction of the world of being: intermediary period of nihilism: before there is yet present the strength to reverse values and to deïfy becoming and the apparent world as the only world, and to call them good.
( B )
Nihilism as a normal phenomenon can be a symptom of increasing strength or of increasing weakness:
For I have learned that gods live an untroubled life, that if nature were to do anything miraculous, the gods in their misery do not send it down from the high vault of heaven.
ATHENIAN: Let us assume that there is a motion able to move other things, but not to move itself; that is one kind; and there is another kind which can move itself as well as other things, working in composition and decomposition, by increase and diminution and generation and destruction—that is also one of the many kinds of motion.
CLEINIAS: Granted.
ATHENIAN: And we will assume that which moves other, and is changed by other, to be the ninth, and that which changes itself and others, and is coincident with every action and every passion, and is the true principle of change and motion in all that is—that we shall be inclined to call the tenth.
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: And which of these ten motions ought we to prefer as being the mightiest and most efficient?
CLEINIAS: I must say that the motion which is able to move itself is ten thousand times superior to all the others.
ATHENIAN: Very good; but may I make one or two corrections in what I have been saying?
CLEINIAS: What are they?
ATHENIAN: When I spoke of the tenth sort of motion, that was not quite correct.
CLEINIAS: What was the error?
ATHENIAN: According to the true order, the tenth was really the first in generation and power; then follows the second, which was strangely enough termed the ninth by us.
CLEINIAS: What do you mean?
ATHENIAN: I mean this: when one thing changes another, and that another, of such will there be any primary changing element? How can a thing which is moved by another ever be the beginning of change? Impossible. But when the self-moved changes other, and that again other, and thus thousands upon tens of thousands of bodies are set in motion, must not the beginning of all this motion be the change of the self-moving principle?
CLEINIAS: Very true, and I quite agree.
ATHENIAN: Or, to put the question in another way, making answer to ourselves: If, as most of these philosophers have the audacity to affirm, all things were at rest in one mass, which of the above-mentioned principles of motion would first spring up among them?
CLEINIAS: Clearly the self-moving; for there could be no change in them arising out of any external cause; the change must first take place in themselves.
ATHENIAN: Then we must say that self-motion being the origin of all motions, and the first which arises among things at rest as well as among things in motion, is the eldest and mightiest principle of change, and that which is changed by another and yet moves other is second.
For I have learned that gods live an untroubled life,
ReplyDeletethat if nature were to do anything miraculous, the gods
in their misery do not send it down from the high vault of heaven.
Plato, "Laws"
ReplyDeleteATHENIAN: Let us assume that there is a motion able to move other things, but not to move itself; that is one kind; and there is another kind which can move itself as well as other things, working in composition and decomposition, by increase and diminution and generation and destruction—that is also one of the many kinds of motion.
CLEINIAS: Granted.
ATHENIAN: And we will assume that which moves other, and is changed by other, to be the ninth, and that which changes itself and others, and is coincident with every action and every passion, and is the true principle of change and motion in all that is—that we shall be inclined to call the tenth.
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: And which of these ten motions ought we to prefer as being the mightiest and most efficient?
CLEINIAS: I must say that the motion which is able to move itself is ten thousand times superior to all the others.
ATHENIAN: Very good; but may I make one or two corrections in what I have been saying?
CLEINIAS: What are they?
ATHENIAN: When I spoke of the tenth sort of motion, that was not quite correct.
CLEINIAS: What was the error?
ATHENIAN: According to the true order, the tenth was really the first in generation and power; then follows the second, which was strangely enough termed the ninth by us.
CLEINIAS: What do you mean?
ATHENIAN: I mean this: when one thing changes another, and that another, of such will there be any primary changing element? How can a thing which is moved by another ever be the beginning of change? Impossible. But when the self-moved changes other, and that again other, and thus thousands upon tens of thousands of bodies are set in motion, must not the beginning of all this motion be the change of the self-moving principle?
CLEINIAS: Very true, and I quite agree.
ATHENIAN: Or, to put the question in another way, making answer to ourselves: If, as most of these philosophers have the audacity to affirm, all things were at rest in one mass, which of the above-mentioned principles of motion would first spring up among them?
CLEINIAS: Clearly the self-moving; for there could be no change in them arising out of any external cause; the change must first take place in themselves.
ATHENIAN: Then we must say that self-motion being the origin of all motions, and the first which arises among things at rest as well as among things in motion, is the eldest and mightiest principle of change, and that which is changed by another and yet moves other is second.