HISTORY OF THE ATOMIC THEORY. 8 1 



and ten the number of elementary qualities and their con- 

 traries. 



On applying these numbers to matter and to calculation, 

 we see no inclination to enter into details and to explain the 

 constitution of different bodies by such means. Or, in other 

 words, the numbers of Pythagoras are not of such a cha- 

 racter as to give us the slightest clue either to the atomic 

 theory or that of equivalents, although the remnants of his 

 philosophy shew that he must have greatly exalted the mode 

 of thinking wherever he taught, and led men to seek law 

 and science or great and beautiful truths in the study of 

 nature. 



He believed in five elements. This spiritual method of 

 derivation, or explanation, is at least an interesting instance 

 of that mode of thought. Numbers being the origin, the 

 monad, is a point ; the dyad (or dual), is a line ; the triad, is 

 a surface ; the tetrade, a geometrical body ; the pentade, the 

 physical body with sensible properties. The cube, was the 

 earth ; the pyramid, fire ; the octahedron, air ; the icosahe- 

 dron, water ; the dodecahedron, the fifth element, Aristotle's 

 ether. 



This is enough from the many contradictory notices about 

 Pythagoras, it leads to a pantheistic view of creation, and is 

 another feature in the progress of the subject.* The Pytha- ' 

 goreans spoke chiefly of morals ; of nineteen writers, whose 

 fragments I consulted, none spoke of physics. 



Anaxagoras says, "The Greeks are wrong in thinking that 

 some things are produced and others perish, for nothing is 

 produced, and nothing perishes ; but some things are mixed, 

 some separated, some confused, some distinct, and production 

 or perishing may be properly called composition or mixture, 

 and decomposition or separation." 



" The number of things remains always the same." He 



• Tiedemann, Vol. L, p. 118. 



M 



