Some go so far as to hold that the movements which the soul
imparts to the body in which it is are the same in kind as those
with which it itself is moved. An example of this is Democritus, who
uses language like that of the comic dramatist Philippus, who accounts
for the movements that Daedalus imparted to his wooden Aphrodite by
saying that he poured quicksilver into it; similarly Democritus says
that the spherical atoms which according to him constitute soul, owing
to their own ceaseless movements draw the whole body after them and so
produce its movements. We must urge the question whether it is these
very same atoms which produce rest also-how they could do so, it is
difficult and even impossible to say. And, in general, we may object
that it is not in this way that the soul appears to originate movement
in animals-it is through intention or process of thinking.
It is in the same fashion that the Timaeus also tries to give a
physical account of how the soul moves its body; the soul, it is there
said, is in movement, and so owing to their mutual implication moves
the body also. After compounding the soul-substance out of the
elements and dividing it in accordance with the harmonic numbers, in
order that it may possess a connate sensibility for 'harmony' and that
the whole may move in movements well attuned, the Demiurge bent the
straight line into a circle; this single circle he divided into two
circles united at two common points; one of these he subdivided into
seven circles.
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