Timaeus

​Timaeus: Accepting this indeed from wise men as the most principal beginning of becoming and the cosmos, one would accept it most correctly. For god, wishing that all things should be good, and nothing, so far as possible, should be bad, thus took over all that was visible—which was not at rest but moving discordantly and disorderly—and brought it into order out of disorder, thinking that the former was in every way better than the latter. And it neither was nor is lawful for the best to do anything other than the most beautiful; considering therefore, he found that among things visible by nature, no work destitute of intellect as a whole would ever be more beautiful than one possessing intellect as a whole, and moreover, that it is impossible for intellect to belong to anything apart from a soul. For this reason, then, having constructed intellect within soul, and soul within body, he fashioned the universe, in order that he might complete a work that is by nature most beautiful and best. Thus, then, according to the likely speech, one must say that this cosmos has truly become a living being endowed with soul and intellect through the providence of god. This being established, we must say next what follows upon this: to which of the living beings did the constructor construct it in likeness? Let us not deign to liken it to any of those things that exist in the form of a part—for nothing resembled to what is incomplete could ever be beautiful—but let us posit that it is of all things most like to that of which all other living beings, both individually and by genera, are parts. For that indeed contains and encompasses within itself all intelligible living beings, just as this cosmos contains us and all other visible creatures that have been constructed.

​Timaeus: For, god wishing to liken it most of all to the most beautiful of intelligible things and complete in every way, constructed it as a single visible living being, containing within itself all the living beings that are by nature akin to it. Have we then correctly called heaven “one,” or was it more correct to speak of many and infinite? One, if indeed it is to be crafted according to the model. For that which encompasses all intelligible living beings could never be a second along with another; for again there would have to be another living being encompassing those two, of which those two would be parts, and then this cosmos would no longer be said to be likened to those two, but more correctly to that which encompasses them. In order, then, that this cosmos might be like the all-complete living being in respect of its uniqueness, for this reason the maker made neither two nor infinite worlds, but this one and only generated heaven is and will continue to be. Now, what has become must be bodily, visible, and tangible; but nothing could ever become visible apart from fire, nor tangible without some solid, nor solid without earth. Hence, starting to construct the body of the universe out of fire and earth, god made it. But it is not possible for two things alone to be beautifully put together without a third, for there must be some bond in the middle to bring them both together. And the most beautiful of bonds is that which makes itself and the things bound together as much one as possible, and proportion by nature accomplishes this in the most beautiful way.