The account imitates the act of creation itself

Concerning an image and its paradigm, then, we must distinguish in this way, (29b3–4)

General explanation: 339.5–340.13

There are three things which have a natural interrelation with each other: realities (pragmata), thoughts (noêmata) and accounts (logoi). The first basic principles that he took in hand were related to realities and thoughts. The distinction he will make now is related to accounts. When he separated that which comes into being from Being, he applied himself to the investigation of realities, andwhen in the case of realities he distinguished our forms of cognition (gnôseis), he applied himself to the investigation of thoughts. But now, partitioning off the accounts in accordance with the different forms of cognition, he will show us the separate nature of those accounts. As a result these will [all] be in correspondence with each other: two kinds of realities, Being and becoming; two kinds of cognition, intuitive thought and opinion; two kinds of account, those that are stable and those that are likely. And where else do the forms of cognition come from than from the objects of knowledge? Where else does the differentiation of accounts come from than from the kinds of cognition?

Some thus say that distinguishing in advance what the method of giving an account is and what kind of reader one should have is a matter of literary composition and that Aristotle and many other more recent writers have emulated this. I myself would say that it is the act of creation itself which the account imitates. For just as it first produces the invisible principles of life in the cosmos and then causes the visible reality to exist and also contains its definition prior to the cosmos in its entirety [coming into existence], in the same way Timaeus too applies himself to the investigation of realities, makes the form of the account appropriate for the realities [being described], and prior to the entire investigation first treats and defines in advance the method of giving an account, so that the teaching in its entirety can be calibrated in accordance with this definition.