o's dialogues, which may be justly called rich mental
banquets, and consequently the speakers in them may be considered as so
many guests. Hence in the Timaeus, the persons of that dialogue are
expressly spoken of as guests.

Hyparxis, [Greek: uparxis]. The first principle or foundation, as it
were, of the essence of a thing. Hence also, it is the summit of essence.

Idiom, [Greek: Idioma]. The characteristic peculiarity of a thing.

The Immortal, [Greek: To athanaton]. According to Plato, there are many
orders of immortality, pervading from on high to the last of things; and
the ultimate echo, as it were, of immorality is seen in the perpetuity of
the mundane wholes, which according to the doctrine of the Elean Guest in
the Politicus, they participate from the Father of the universe. For both
the being and the life of every body depend on another cause; since body
is not itself naturally adapted to connect, or adorn, or preserve itself.
But the immortality of partial souls, such as ours, is more manifest and
more perfect than this of the perpetual bodies in the universe; as is
evident from the many demonstrations which are given of it in the Phaedo,
and in the 10th book of the Republic. For the immortality of partial
souls has a more principal subsistence, as possessing in itself the cause
of eternal permanency. But prior to both these is the immortality of
daemons; for these neither verge to mortality, nor are they filled with
the nature of things which are generated and corrupted. More venerable,
however, than these, and essentially transcending them, is the
immortality of divine souls, which are primarily self-motive, and contain
the fountains and principles of the life which is attributed about
bodies, and through which bodies participate of renewed immortality. And
prior to all these is the immortality of the gods: for Diotima in the
Banquet does not ascribe an immortality of this kind to demons. Hence
such an immortality as this is separate and exempt from wholes. For,
together with the immortality of the gods, eternity subsists, which is
the fountain of all immortality and life, as well that life which is
perpetual, as that which is dissipated into nonentity. In short,
therefore, the divine immortal is that which is generative and connective
of perpetual life. For it is not immortal, as participating of life, but
as supplying divine life, and deifying life itself.

Imparticipable, [Greek: To amethekton]. That