The soul of the world is not something added to the body. Timaios says that the soul, both in its creation and in its virtue, was created before the body and became the master who governs it.

That soul is created by mixing together what cannot be divided and what can be, identity and otherness, and substance. Furthermore, the unified whole is then divided into seven parts according to a certain numerical ratio.

Dialogue Text

Timaios (Continued) Regarding the soul, we should not think that it was created by God after the body, as we are about to say. It is impossible for God to allow what is inferior to be joined with what is superior, so that the younger may rule over the older. We speak in this way because we are greatly influenced by chance and coincidence. However, God constructed the soul, not only before the body in generation but also in virtue, as a master and ruler destined to govern the body, using the following materials and methods.

Timaios (Continued). First, we mixed the form of the third entity by combining elements from both unchanging substances that remain undivided and divided substances that arise within the body. Furthermore, we combined the essence of identity with the essence of otherness, assembling them in a way that was intermediate between these two undifferentiated entities and the things that are divided within the body. We took three things and mixed them into one form. The essence of otherness is difficult to mix, but we forced it together to unite it.

Timaios (Continued) And after mixing them together and creating one from the three, we divided this whole into the necessary number of parts. Each part is a mixture of the three: identity, otherness, and reality. The division began as follows: First, one part was taken from the whole, then twice that amount was taken, and for the third, two and a half times the second part, which is three times the first part, was taken. For the fourth, twice the second part; for the fifth, three times the third part; further, for the sixth, eight times the first part, and for the seventh, twenty-seven times the first part.