PREFACE. xxiii 



chus in his Life of Pythagoras *, who all, in the feveral cities to 

 which they gave laws, were honoured as gods. 



Nor are we to wonder that this School produced fuch great men,- 

 when we confider not only how they were educated, and what a 

 courfe of ftudy and difcipline they pafled through, but how care- 

 fully they were chofen before they were admitted into this School ; 

 for Pythagoras believed that there was by Nature, as well as by Edu- 

 cation, a very great difference of men ; and he faid, that if a com- 

 mon ftatuary is at fo much pains to chufe a piece of ftone or tim- 

 ber, out of which to make a Mercury, or ftatue of any kind, how 

 abfurd is it not to pick and chufe, with the greateft care, a man of 

 whom you are to make a philofopher or ftatefman f. He further 

 believed that as Mind was principal in every thing, fo it was in man ; 

 and that our bodies being made for the ufes and purpofes of the 

 Mind, they bore evident marks of the habit and difpofition of the 

 Mind, to which they were fubfervient ; therefore he examined very 

 carefully not only the face, but the whole body, the air, the appear- 

 pearnce, and the movement of thofe whom he admitted to his 

 School, as being certain indications of the difpofitions of their Minds :• 

 And he enquired befides, how they had behaved to their parents and 

 other relations, what gave them pleafure or pain, and how they 

 commonly pafTed their time J. 



The philofophers educated in this School became governors in 

 almoft all the cities of Magna Grcecia, and in feveral of the flates 

 of Sicily, and eftablifhed there other colleges for the education of 

 fuch men as themfelves. Nor was the benefit of thefe inllitutlons. 



of 



* Parag. 172. 



t Jamblichus De Vita Pytbago7-a^ parag. 245, 



X Ibid, parag. 71. 



