42 Baron Cuvier's Lectures on the Natural Sctaices. 



The second school is that of Pythagoras, who was born in 

 584i, and flourished about the year 550 before our era. He 

 also had received his doctrine from the Egyptian priests, and 

 ■separated less from them than Thales had done. He even tried 

 to establish their constitution ; for, having gone from Samos to 

 Crotone, he there founded secret societies, which soon caused 

 disturbances, in which most of his partisans were massacred. 



The third, or Elean school, derived its name from a small 

 town of Lucania, where it was first established. It had for its 

 founder Xenophanes, who was born at Colophon, in Asia Mi- 

 nor, but who afterwards passed over to Italy. This philosopher 

 does not appear to have borrowed any thing of the Egyptians. 

 His doctrine, which was that of pure ideaUsm, rather resembled 

 that of the Indians. 



The fourth, or Atomistic school, founded by Leucippus, em- 

 braced a system entirely opposed to that of the Eleans. It saw 

 nothing in the imiverse but matter and motion. 



Along with these four purely speculative sects subsisted the 

 family of the Asclepiades, who cultivated the sciences solely with 

 a practical object. They attached themselves chiefly to facts, 

 and their method served, at a later period, as a model, and con- 

 tributed greatly to the progress of the positive sciences. 



Lecture Fifth. — Schools of Philosophy before Socrates. 



We have seen that there were instituted in Greece, or rather 

 in the Greek colonics, four great sects or schools of philosophy, 

 which, in consequence of political events, were eventually con- 

 centrated at Athens. There was established among them a 

 useful emulation; and at length their labours being resumed 

 by Socrates, gave rise to a new school, which, by the judicious 

 method adopted in it, opened a way to the sciences, in which it 

 was not possible afterwards to retrograde. But, before coming 

 to that remarkable period, we must return to the four primitive 

 schools, which as yet we have only mentioned. 



Ionian ScJiool. — The Ionian sect, the most ancient of all of 

 them, is that whose dogmas approximate nearest to the domains 

 of the natural sciences. Its philosophy was at first almost en- 

 tirely material; which proves, we may observe, that, at the 



