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PYTHAGORAS. 



PYTHAGORAS. 



J030 



among the kings of his time ; for while they were surrounded by 

 worthless flatterers, Pyrrhus had friends such as few kings possessed. 

 In his family he was an affectionate father and husband. A change 

 seems to have taken place in his character from the time when he 

 embarked for Sicily, and no blame can be attached to his conduct 

 previous to that event. The death of Neoptolemus was a mere act of 

 self defence, but his conduct towards Sparta has left a stain upon his 

 character. Pyrrhus also attempted to distinguish himself as an 

 author (Cic., 'Ad. Fam.,' is. 25; Plut, 'Pyrr.,' 21); but we have no 

 means of judging of his merits in this respect, as no part of his work 

 remains. The ' Life of Pyrrhus' by Plutarch is one of the most 

 exquisite specimens of biography. 



Coin of Pyrrhus. 

 British Museum. Actual size. Silrcr. The head is probably that of Jupiter. 



PYTHA'GORAS, the son of Mnesarchus, was born about B.O. 570, 

 in the island of Samos. By his mother's side he was connected with 

 the most distinguished families of the island : his father, according to 

 most accounts, was not of pure Greek blood, but either a Phoenician 

 or a Tyrrhenian of Lemnos or Imbros. The history of Pythagoras is 

 obscured and disfigured by a cloud of fables, through which we are 

 unable to discover anything beyond the most general outline of the 

 chief events of his life and his character. He is said to have been a 

 disciple of Pherecydes of Syros; aud if we could give credit to the 

 various other traditions respecting his masters, he would appear to 

 have been connected with almost all the philosophers of the age, from 

 Thales and Anaximander down to the obscure Creophilus and Hermo- 

 damas. (Porphyr., 'De Vit. Pythag.,' 2; Diog. Laert., viii. 2.) But 

 the information which he derived from his countrymen did not satisfy 

 his inquisitive mind, and, like many other illustrious Greeks, he 

 travelled into various countries. He first visited Egypt, where he 

 was introduced to King Amasis by letters from Polycrates. From 

 Egypt he went to Asia, where he is said to have made himself 

 acquainted with the science of the Chaliliuans and the Magi : some 

 traditions even state that he visited India and the Gyumosophists. 

 But though these traditions may have some historical foundation, thus 

 much is certain, that bis philosophical system was not derived from 

 any foreign source, or even materially influenced by anything that he 

 saw and learned in the countries which he visited. 



On his return from his travels he seems to have conceived the plan 

 which he afterwards endeavoured to realise; but finding that the 

 tyranny which Polycrates had established in his native island would 

 be an insurmountable obstacle to his views, he set out in search of a 

 new home. After having travelled through several parts of Greece, 

 partly to strengthen himself in his opinions, for which purpose he 

 perhaps visited Crete and Sparta ; partly to form useful connections, 

 in at Olympia aud Delphi ; partly also to sound the miuds of the 

 people, and to discover how far they might be disposed to carry his 

 designs into effect, he finally settled at Croton in Southern Italy. The 

 fame of his wisdom and of his travels had probably gone before him 

 to the Italian Greeks. The aristocratical party at Croton, who were 

 in possession of all the political power, had excited disconteut among 

 the people; and though still strong enough to maintain their position 

 against the commonalty, they must have hailed the arrival of a stranger, 

 who, being supposed to be endowed with supernatural powers, com- 

 manded the veneration of the multitude, and was willing to serve the 

 oligarchs on condition that they would allow him some degree of 

 influence in their political measures. 



From the moment of his favourable reception by the senate of 

 Croton, whose object seems to have been to use him as an instru- 

 ment for their own ends, a new era in the lifo of Pythagoras com- 

 mences; but before we proceed to consider the manner in which he 

 endeavoured to put his theory into practice, we shall attempt to give 

 a brief outline of his philosophical principles, which will serve to 

 throw some light upon his institution, which we shall describe here- 

 after. The philosophic school of which Pythagoras was the founder, 

 is sometimes called the Italian or the Doric school. The latter name 

 pcerns to have been gi vcn to it, not so much because it was peculiar 

 to the Doric race, or because its object was to establi.-h the ideal of 

 a Dorian state (Miiller, ' Dor.,' iii. !>, 15), but because it was neither 

 connected with the Ionian nor the Attic school. It is the more dif- 

 ficult to give a clear idea of the philosophy of Pythagoras, as it is 

 almost certain that be himself never committed it to writing, and 

 Unit, it bos been disfigured by the fantastic dreams and chimeras of 

 later Pythagoreans. In modern times great light has been thrown 



upon the subject by the careful examination aud analysis of the frag- 

 ments of Philolaus by Boeckh. (' Philolaus des Pythagoreers Lehren 

 nebst den Bruchstucken seines Werkes,' Berlin, 1819.) Philolaus of 

 Taventum, a disciple of Pythagoras himself, was in all probability the 

 first Pythagorean who wrote an exposition of the system of his 

 master, and his fragments must therefore be considered as the most 

 genuine source of information. The results at which Boeckh arrived, 

 are on the whole the same as those which Hitter, in his ' Geschichte 

 der Pythagorischen Philosophic' (Harnb., 1826) subsequently reached, 

 though by a different mode of inquiry. Pythagoras considered numbers 

 as the essence and the principle of all things, and attributed to them 

 a real and distinct existence, so that in his view they were the elements 

 out of which the universe was constructed. How ho conceived this 

 process, has never yet been satisfactorily explained ; but he was pro- 

 bably led to the supposition by observing that the periodical occur- 

 rences in nature, and almost all institutions and religious regulations 

 and observances in Greece, were founded on numerical relations. But 

 he ascended still further to the principles of numbers themselves; 

 these principles he conceived in the form of contrasting pairs, such 

 as straight and curve, limited and unlimited, one and many, odd and 

 even, and others. (Aristot., ' Metaph.,' i. 5.) Further, he traced these 

 contrasts to one first principle and element, the unit (Bora's), which 

 included both the even and the odd. This unit he considered as the 

 formal as well as material basis of all things, and as identical with 

 the one supreme being, or God. The decad and tetractys, or the 

 quaJrate, are likewise described as perfect numbers and first principles ; 

 the triad was called the number of the whole, because it had a begin- 

 ning, middle, and end. Pythagoras conceived the vital process of the 

 world as a process of breathing, and the first principle was therefore 

 likewise a breathing being, which inhaled the infinite atmosphere of 

 the world (Smupov irvevfta.), and thus partook of its infinity and became 

 capable of developing itself into a multiplicity of numbers or things. 

 The perfect development of the original unit is represented in our 

 actual world, which consists of small and lar^e wholes in the greatest 

 variety. The special principle of every single whole or organisation 

 is again a unit, or a point separating itself from the rest ; and as it 

 is a living germ, it developes itself by breathing the faeipov irvivfia, into 

 a distinct body of peculiar form and properties. Every abstract idea 

 was thus in reality a number, and physical objects were symbolical 

 representations of numbers. In the world which had thus arisen out of 

 a union between the even and odd, &c., the Pythagoreans distinguished 

 five elements, fire, air, water, earth, and the so-called fifth element 

 (T)> ireftfTTov irroixe'ioi'), which was probably the ether. In the centre 

 of the universe they placed the central fire (etrri'a TOV navriis. as it were, 

 the altar of the universe), the principle of life in the world. The 

 central fire is surrounded by the earth, the moon, the sun, the five 

 planets, and the firmament, all of which were either gods themselves 

 or inhabited by gods inferior to the supreme God who ruled the whole. 

 The universe was divided, according to Philolaus, into three region?. 

 The first was the sublunary region, between the earth and the moon, 

 the scene of change and passing events, where beings come into exist- 

 ence and perish again; it was called the heaven (ovpavis.) The second 

 region was the region from the moon upwards to the firmament, and 

 bore the name of kosmos (iccJtr/tos). The third, or the firmament itself, 

 called Olympus, was probably, in accordance with the national and 

 traditional belief of the Greeks, considered as the abode of the gods. 

 The heavenly bodies, together with the gods themselves, were conceived 

 as performing a choral dance round the central fire, whence the music 

 or the Larmony of the spheres. 



Advancing from the consideration of the universe to man, the 

 Pythagoreans represented the souls of men as light particles of the 

 universal soul diffused through the whole world (Cic.. 'De Nat. Deor.,' 

 i. 11); the souls of the gods were considered as proceeding directly 

 from the central fire, which was on this account designated ' mother 

 of the gods,' while the souls of men proceeded from the sun, which 

 was a more reflex of the central fire. The soul of man was divided 

 into three parts, vats, Qpevcs, and 0v;ufc : the two former were con- 

 sidered as the rational half of the soul, and had their seat in the 

 brain ; the last, or Svfws was the animal half, and its seat was in the 

 heart. (Diog. Laert., viii. 19, 30; Plut., 'De Plac. Phil.,' iv. 5.) 



The doctrine of the transmigration of souls does not seem to have 

 originated among the ancient Greeks, for they describe the souls of 

 the departed as dwelling in the lower world, from which there was 

 generally no return. Pythagoras may have derived it from some of 

 the mysteries, for he is said to have been initiated in all the existing 

 mysteries both of Greece and other countries. He and his followers 

 considered the transmigration of souls as a kind of purifying process. 

 The souls, previous to their entering into human bodies, floated in the 

 air, from whence they were inhaled by the process of breathing at the 

 moment of birth. At the moment of death, they descended into the 

 lower world, where they were probably supposed to dwell a certain 

 number of years, after which they again rose into the upper world, 

 and floated in the air, until they entered into new bodies. When by 

 this process their purification had become complete, the souls were 

 raised to higher regions, where they continued to exist, and to enjoy 

 the presence aud company of the gods. 



The Pythagoreans, according to Aristotle (' Eth. Magn.,' i. 1), were 

 the first who determined anything in moral philosophy. Their ethics 



