|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: possible out of the way of evil, and therefore he banishes him from an evil
world. Plato is sensible of the difficulty; and he often shows that he is
desirous of justifying the ways of God to man. Yet on the other hand, in
the Tenth Book of the Laws he passes a censure on those who say that the
Gods have no care of human things.
The creation of the world is the impression of order on a previously
existing chaos. The formula of Anaxagoras--'all things were in chaos or
confusion, and then mind came and disposed them'--is a summary of the first
part of the Timaeus. It is true that of a chaos without differences no
idea could be formed. All was not mixed but one; and therefore it was not
difficult for the later Platonists to draw inferences by which they were
| 
