EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS IN ITALY 



enter into the story as it has come down to us. And 

 yet we must reflect that most men change their opin- 

 ions in the course of a long lifetime, and that the an- 

 tagonistic reports may both be true. 



True or false, these fables have an abiding interest, 

 since they prove the unique and extraordinary char- 

 acter of the personality about which they are woven. 

 The alleged witticisms of a Whistler, in our own day, 

 were doubtless, for the most part, quite unknown to 

 Whistler himself, yet they never would have been 

 ascribed to him were they not akin to witticisms that 

 he did originate were they not, in short, typical ex- 

 pressions of his personality. And so of the heroes of 

 the past. " It is no ordinary man," said George Henry 

 Lewes, speaking of Pythagoras, "whom fable exalts 

 into the poetic region. Whenever you find romantic 

 or miraculous deeds attributed, be certain that the 

 hero was great enough to maintain the weight of the 

 crown of this fabulous glory." 1 We may not doubt, 

 then, that Pythagoras, Parmenides, and Empedocles, 

 with whose names fable was so busy throughout an- 

 tiquity, were men of extraordinary personality. We 

 are here chiefly concerned, however, neither with the 

 personality of the man nor yet with the precise doc- 

 trines which each one of them taught. A knowledge 

 of the latter would be interesting were it attainable, 

 but in the confused state of the reports that have come 

 down to us we cannot hope to be able to ascribe each 

 idea with precision to its proper source. At best we 

 can merely outline, even here not too precisely, the 

 scientific doctrines which the Italic philosophers as a 

 whole seem to have advocated. 



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