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dictory of many anecdotes of the private wealth of individual members, which are more probable than the general accounts." - Vol. I. pp. 339-341.

The doctrines of the Pythagoreans were introduced into Greece Proper by the dispersion of the society, which is thus related by Ritter.

"The Pythagoreans, we are told, (for the truth of all particulars we cannot pretend to vouch,) had acquired considerable influence in the politics of Croton, and given to its constitution an almost perfect form of aristocracy. Their influence is also represented as extending to Metapontum, Locri, Sybaris, and Tarentum, and as especially inimical to all tyrannical governments. About this time one Tetys had established himself in the tyranny of Sybaris, and the unfriendly nobles had fled to Croton. The refusal of the Crotoniats, at the instance of the Pythagoreans, to deliver up the fugitives when demanded by Tetys, occasioned a war between these two neighboring states; the Crotoniats, under the command of the Pythagorean Milo defeated the once powerful but effeminated Sybarites, and destroyed their city. Their success, however, entailed the ruin of the Pythagoreans. In the division of the spoil a dispute arose from among the popular party, led on by Cylon, who had, it is said, on account of the impurity of his morals, been refused admission into Pythagorean society. The discontented attacked the Pythagoreans, who were assembled in the house of Milo, where the greater number were slain. Pythagoras himself is represented as having escaped the danger, and fled into other cities of Lower Italy; but as the persecution of the Pythagoreans rapidly extended thither also, he met his death, according to the story, at Metapontum, B. C. 358. After his decease, his memory was held in the greatest respect by the Italian Greeks; and even in the time of Cicero, the spot was pointed out where he was said to have perished.

"This persecution of the Pythagoreans was followed by a great political movement throughout all the Italian states. Everywhere the Pythagorean houses of assembly were burnt to the ground, and the leading citizens banished; until at last the friendly intervention of the Achæans effected a reconciliation of parties, and an Achæan constitution, i. e. a democracy, was introduced. In all likelihood, this persecution of the Pythagoreans and their political principles was the cause and occasion of the appearance of so many philosophers of this sect in Greece Proper. Some, however, remained in Italy, and there enjoyed for the most part high political consideration."- Vol. I. pp. 344-346.

This date is incorrect. The attack on the Pythagoreans by Cylon was 504, B. C.

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The teachings of Pythagoras were preserved and continued through the sect of the Pythagoreans, without any remarkable change, for a long time, and we learn what these were from the writings of his followers. The first who gave a written expression to their doctrines is said to have been Philolaus, fragments of whom have come down to us, and have been collected and proved genuine by Böckh, in a small book published at Berlin in 1819. Philolaus lived at Thebes, and was the teacher of Cebes and Simmias, who afterwards left him and went to Socrates. Lysis of Tarentum, another of the most distinguished of the sect of Pythagoras, lived also at Thebes, and was the instructor of Epaminondas. Clinias, also of Tarentum, lived at Heraclea, but neither he nor Lysis appears to have written anything. Archytas, born at Tarentum about 440 B. C., was a distinguished general as well as philosopher. He was never defeated in battle, and enjoyed the confidence of his fellowtownsmen, and was celebrated for his moral virtues. was also skilled in mathematics, in music, and wrote several works; but whatever we possess that is attributed to him is generally considered spurious, as are also those attributed to Timæus, Eurytus, and Ocellus Lucanus. Of the Pythagoreans prior to the time of Socrates we have no historical information, and have no knowledge of any work earlier than Philolaus. It is very uncertain how much of the Pythagorean doctrine was taught by the founder of the school, and how much belongs to his successors. Ancient writers more frequently speak of the doctrine of the school in general, than of Pythagoras, and we are obliged to consider the doctrines of the whole sect very much in the same manner that we would those of a single individual. The writers subsequent to Aristotle, often confound the later doctrines which succeeded those of the ancient Pythagoreans with those which were old and genuine, whereas they were wholly distinct, and had nothing in common but the name.

The first thing to be considered in the Pythagorean philosophy is the formula, "Number is the essence and first principle of all things." All realities are numbers, and are evolved from one, the monad, or unity, which contains the essence of all numbers. This one is used by the Pythagoreans in two distinct senses. In one sense it is the essence of number, sometimes called by them the even

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odd, as being both even and odd, or more properly, as containing in itself the essence of oddness and of evenness; of oddness, inasmuch as, added to the even, it makes the even odd; and of evenness, because, added to the odd, it makes it even. In the other sense in which they use it, it is the first number, unity; as such it is odd, and stands opposed to the first even number, two, the dyad. The one, the even-odd, contains in itself perfection and imperfection and all contrary and opposing qualities. Among the primary principles contained in the one, Aristotle enumerates the finite or limited, and the infinite or unlimited; the odd and the even, the one and the many; the right and the left; the male and the female; the quiescent and the moving; the right line and the curve; light and darkness; good and evil; the square and the oblong. These principles are ten, or the sum of the first four numbered, the tetractys. Philolaus begins the exposition of his doctrine by attempting to show that all things are formed of the limited and the unlimited. Whatever can be known must be limited, must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning and the end are the limiting or the limits, the middle is unlimited. In corporeal things the limits are spacial points, units or monads. These monads, or numerical units, are not bodies, but are incorporeal and strictly mathematical points. By means of the unlimited or the interval, these points form lines, the lines surfaces, and the surfaces solids or bodies. The interval or unlimited, is negative, a void or vacuum which, as Aristotle 66 says, sep

arates the numbers, and determines their nature and the place of things." The limiting and the unlimited, and all the other primary principles of things, are in the one, and are everywhere pervaded by it, being evolved from the one and again returning to the one. The evolution of the world is caused by the contrary and opposing principles in the one; the monad or odd, which is perfect and positive, and the dyad or even, which is imperfect and negative. Hence number is the essence of things. All reality is number, but exists only in so far as united with the void and unlimited.

That by the One the Pythagoreans understood God, is evident from many of their expressions; and when stripped of the symbolical terms, there will be found two elements in their doctrine of the origin of things. The one is the

Indian doctrine of emanation; the other is peculiar to their school, and consists in regarding number as the essence and reality of all things. The resemblance to Indian pantheism in the doctrine that all things are evolved from the original one, is seen on a very slight comparison of the two systems. The philosophers of India place the germ of the multiple in the first being, as Pythagoras includes the dyad in the monad, which is at the same time odd and even, unity and number, the one and the many. The first being is one, eternal, and most simple; and when the Pythagoreans attribute to him contradictory qualities which mutually destroy one another, they start with an impossible being, a being which is, and yet is not. Without doubt they sought to avoid Oriental dualism by placing the opposing principles in the same being; but they thereby destroyed all being, and made the very ground-work and starting-point of their philosophy an error. The other point, which is the peculiar feature of the Pythagorean philosophy, and which has been thought by many to be a consequence of their mathematical and musical studies, is the introduction of number into their system as the essence and reality. It is very possible that, from their mathematical studies, they came to attach greater importance to the consideration of the one in its opposition to the multiple. From this they proceeded to the position, that whatever is or exists must in some manner be contained in the first cause; and, regarding God as the one, they concluded that the realities of things which are contained in the first cause, in the one, must be numbers, and that they are contained in God, in the manner in which numbers are contained in the one or the unit from which they are evolved. Some similarity to the opinion that all things are numbers may perhaps be discovered in the ancient belief in incantations and invocations, which supposed that things bore a necessary relation to words or numbers. The numbers of Pythagoras appear to have played the same part in his system as ideas in that of Plato, though more clearly understood and more fully and philosophically developed by Plato than by the Pythagoreans.

Pythagoras held the soul to be incorporeal and immortal. But not admitting that it could exist otherwise than joined to and inclosed in a body, he taught the migration

of the soul from one body to another. The body with which the soul is clothed in this life is called earthly or terrestrial, from the predominant element; but if it be so purified from the grosser elements that the predominant substance will be air, then we shall have an airy or pneumatic body, which they call also a luciform body. They regarded the soul as an evolution or procession from the universal soul, which, before entering its terrestrial body, possesses a subtile, airy body, of the same nature of the bodies of demons. The soul may be separated from the earthly body, or pass from one body to another, but can never be free from all body. For the soul is the harmony of the body, and for its activity is dependent on the bodily organs. The opinion that the soul is inseparable from a body is a most ancient opinion, and in later times has been held by many Fathers of the Church. Origen* says that after death the soul subsists in what is called a luciform body; and that it was the opinion of the Jews that souls after death had certain bodies united to them. Tertullian † and St. Irenæus ‡ also seem to hold the same doctrine. St. Paul, in speaking of the body in its future state after the resurrection, uses the same expressions as many of the Pythagoreans in treating of the body with which. the soul is clothed after death. And as the doctrine of the resurrection of the body was known to the Jews, it is very possible that the Pythagoreans were not ignorant of it, and may have adopted a part of the doctrine into their philosophy.

The soul was divided by the Pythagoreans into the rational and irrational parts. The rational is peculiar to man, the irrational is possessed also by the brutes. Another division attributed to them is into reason (ppéves), intelligence (vous), and desire (evμós). Closely connected with the division of the soul into the rational and irrational parts is their doctrine of morals. They taught that virtue was a harmony which they regarded as the agreement of the rational and the irrational in life. Justice they defined to be a similarly similar number, by which we are told they meant to convey the maxim that every one should receive his deserts. They insist upon moderation in the

* Adv. Celsum, Lib. II. p. 97. Lib. II. cap. xxxiv. p. 168.

† De An., Cap. VII. p. 165.

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