Epinomis

Ath. Come, then: shall we say that this, at least, is most truly called by nature a living being, when one combination of soul and body, coming together, brings forth one shape?

Clin. Rightly.

Ath. 981b Then such a thing is most justly called a living being?

Clin. Yes.

Ath. And solid bodies, according to the likely account, must be said to be five, out of which one could mold the finest and best things; but all the other kind has one shape; for there is nothing else that could come to be bodiless and have no color at all, in any way, ever, except the kind that is really most divine, the kind of soul.¹ And this is, very nearly, the only one to which it belongs to mold and to craft, 981c while to body, as we say, it belongs to be molded and to come into being and to be seen; but to the other — let us say it again, for it must be said more than once — it belongs to be invisible, and knowing, and intelligible, having had a share in memory and in reckoning, in odd and even changes alike. Since, then, the bodies are five, we must say that they are fire and water, and third air, fourth earth, and fifth ether,² and that, with these in the lead, each living being, many and of every kind, is produced. We must learn them one by one, in this way. 981d Let us set down first, as one, the earthly: all human beings, and all that are many-footed and footless, and all that move about and all that stay in place, held fast by roots; and we must hold this to be what makes it one: that all of these are made from all the kinds, but the most of it is of earth and of the solid nature. And we must set down another kind of living being as second, one that comes into being and at the same time can be seen: for it has most of fire, and has, too, earth 981e and air, and has small parts of all the others as well; and so we must say that living beings of every kind come into being from them, and ones that are seen; and we must hold, again, that of living beings the things in the heaven are