EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS IN ITALY 



is outlined, quite after the Oriental fashion. We 

 shall have occasion to say more as to this phase of the 

 subject later on. Meantime, before leaving Pythag- 

 oras, let us note that his practical studies of humanity 

 led him to assert the doctrine that "the property of 

 friends is common, and that friendship is equality." 

 His disciples, we are told, used to put all their posses- 

 sions together in one store and use them in common. 

 Here, then, seemingly, is the doctrine of communism 

 put to the test of experiment at this early day. If it 

 seem that reference to this carries us beyond the 

 bounds of science, it may be replied that questions such 

 as this will not lie beyond the bounds of the science of 

 the near future. 



XENOPHANES AND PARMENIDES 



There is a whimsical tale about Pythagoras, accord- 

 ing to which the philosopher was wont to declare that 

 in an earlier state he had visited Hades, and had there 

 seen Homer and Hesiod tortured because of the ab- 

 surd things they had said about the gods. Apocry- 

 phal or otherwise, the tale suggests that Pythagoras 

 was an agnostic as regards the current Greek religion 

 of his time. The same thing is perhaps true of most 

 of the great thinkers of this earliest period. But one 

 among them was remembered in later times as having 

 had a peculiar aversion to the anthropomorphic concep- 

 tions of his fellows. This was Xenophanes, who was 

 born at Colophon probably about the year 580 B.C., and 

 who, after a life of wandering, settled finally in Italy 

 and became the founder of the so-called Eleatic School. 



A few fragments of the philosophical poem in which 

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