

PYTHAGORAS, 



!ia<J endured. lie at first enjoined them 

 a five years* silence in the school, during 

 which* they were only to hear; after 

 Which leave was given them to start 

 questions, and to propose doubts, under 

 the caution, however, to say, " not a lit- 

 tle in many words, but much in a few." 

 Having gone through their probation, 

 they were obliged, before they were ad- 

 mitted, to bring all their fortune into the 

 common stock, which was managed by 

 persons chosen on purpose, and called 

 ceconomists, and the whole community 

 had all things in common. 



The necessity of concealing their mys- 

 teries induced the Egyptians to make use 

 of three sorts of styles, or ways of ex- 

 pressing their thoughts ; the simple, the 

 hieroglyphical, and the symbolical. In 

 the simple, they spoke plainly and intel- 

 ligibly, as in common conversation ; in 

 the hieroglyphical, they concealed their 

 thoughts under certain images and cha- 

 racters ; and in the symbolical, they ex- 

 plained them by short expressions, which, 

 under a sense plain and simple, included 

 another wholly figurative. Pythagoras 

 borrowed these three different ways from 

 the Egyptians in all the instructions he 

 gave ; but chiefly imitated the symbolical 

 style ; which he thought very proper to 

 inculcate the greatest and moat impor- 

 tant truths ; for a symbol, by its double 

 sense, the proper and the figurative, 

 teaches two things at once ; and nothing 

 pleases the mind more than the double 

 image it represents to our view. In this 

 manner Pythagoras delivered many excel- 

 lent things concerning God, and the hu- 

 man soul, and a great variety of precepts, 

 relating to the conduct of life, political as 

 well as civil ; he made also some consi- 

 derable discoveries and advances in the 

 arts and sciences. Thus, among Hie 

 works ascribed to him, there are not only 

 books of physic and books of morality, 

 like that contained in what are called his 

 ** Golden Verses," but treatises on politics 

 and theology. All these works are lost ; 

 but the vastness of his mind appears from 

 the wonderful things he performed. He 

 delivered, as antiquity relates, several 

 cities of Italy and Sicily from the yoke of 

 slavery ; he appeased seditions in others ; 

 and he softened the manners, and brought 

 to temper th$ most savage and unruly 

 spirits of several people and tyrants. 

 Phalaris, the tyrant of Sicily, it is said, 

 was the only one who could withstand 

 the remonstrances of Pythagoras; and he, 

 it seems, was so enraged at his dis- 

 courses, that he ordered him to be put 

 YOL. V. 



to death. But though the lectures of the 

 philosopher could make no impression 

 on the tyrant, yet they were sufficient to 

 reanimate the Sicilians, and to put them 

 upon a bold action. In short, Phalaris 

 was killed the same day that he had fixed 

 for the death of the philosopher. 



Pythagoras had a great veneration for 

 marriage ; and therefore himself married 

 at Croton a daughter of one of the chief 

 men of that city, by whom he had two sons 

 and a daughter. One of the sons succeed- 

 ed his father in the school, and became 

 the master of Empedocles. The daugh- 

 ter, named Damo, \vas distinguished both 

 by her learning and her virtues, and 

 wrote an excellent commentary upon 

 Homer. It is related, that Pythagoras 

 had given her some ot his writing's, with 

 express commands not to impart them to 

 any but those of his own family ; to which 

 Damo was so scrupulously obedient, that 

 even when she was reduced to extreme 

 poverty, she refused a great sum of mo 

 ney for them. 



From the country in which Pythagoras 

 thus settled and gave his instructions, his 

 society of disciples was culled the Italic 

 sect of philosophers, and their repnta- 

 tion continued for some ages afterwards, 

 when the Academy and the Lyczeum 

 united to obscure and swallow up the 

 Italic sect. 



Pythagoras's disciples regarded the 

 words of their master as the oracles of a 

 god ; his authority alone, though unsup- 

 ported by reason," passed with them for 

 reason itself; they looked upon him as 

 the most perfect image of God among 

 men. His house was called the temple 

 of Ceres, and his court yard the temple 

 of the Muses : and when he went into 

 towns, it was said he went thither, " not 

 to teach men, but to heal them." 



Pythagoras was persecuted by bad men 

 in the last years of his life, and some say 

 he was killed in a tumult, raised by them 

 against him ; but according to others, he 

 died a natural death at 90 years of age, 

 about 497 years before Christ, 



Beside the high respect and veneration 

 the world has always had for Pythagoras, 

 on account of the excellence of his wis- 

 dom, his morality, his theology, and po 

 litics, he was renowned as learned in all 

 the sciences, and a considerable inventor 

 of many tilings in them ; as arithmetic, 

 geometry, astronomy, music, &c. la 

 arithmetic, the common multiplication 

 table is, to this day, still called Pythago- 

 ras's table. In geometry, it is said, he in- 

 vented many theorems, particularly these 



3 U 



