ed. Unless these be
created, the universe will be imperfect, for it will not contain within
it every kind of animal.... In order that these mortal creatures may be,
and that this world may be really a cosmos, do you apply yourselves to
the creation of animals, imitating the exercises of my power in
_creating_ you.'"[195]

[Footnote 195: "Timaeus," ch. xv.]

Here, then, we see that Plato carefully distinguishes between the sole
Eternal Author of the universe, on one hand, and the "souls," vital and
intelligent, which he attaches to the heavenly orbs, and diffuses
through all nature, on the other. These subordinate powers or agents are
all created, "_generated_ deities," who owe their continued existence to
the _will_ of God; and though intrusted with a sort of deputed creation,
and a subsequent direction and government of created things, they are
still only the _servants_ and the _deputies_ of the Supreme Creator, and
Director, and Ruler of all things. These subordinate agents and
ministers employed in the creation and providential government of the
world appear, in the estimation of Plato, to have been needed--

1. _To satisfy the demands of the popular faith_, which presented its
facts to be explained no less than those of external nature. Plato had
evidently a great veneration for antiquity, a peculiar regard for
"tradition venerable through ancient report," and "doctrines hoary with
years."[196] He aspired after supernatural light and guidance; he longed
for some intercourse with, some communication from, the Deity. And
whilst he found many things in the ancient legends which revolted his
moral sense, and which his reason rejected, yet the sentiment and the
lesson which pervades the whole of Grecian mythology, viz., that the
gods are in ceaseless intercourse with the human race, and if men will
do right the gods will protect and help them, was one which commended
itself to his heart.

[Footnote 196: Ibid., ch. v.]

2. These intermediate agents seem to have been demanded to _satisfy the
disposition and tendency which has revealed itself in all systems, of
interposing some scale of ascent between the material creation and the
infinite Creator_.

The mechanical theory of the universe has interposed its long series of
secondary causes--the qualities, properties, laws, forces of nature; the
vital theory which attaches a separate "soul" to the various parts of
nature as the cause and intelligent director of its move