544 PYTHAGOREAN WRITINGS*. 



der, who agrees with the accounts of Ariftotle # , 

 Diogenes Laertius relates, that Pythagoras maintained 

 the following proposition : The animals procreate their 

 fpecies by feed ; that they originate from the earth is 

 impoffible 



We know that almoft all the philofophers affirmed 

 the origin of animals to be from the vivification of mud 

 and flime by the heat of the fun. The queftion is here 

 manifeftly about the firft rife of the animal fpecies ; for, 

 as no man could be fo fenfelefs as to maintain that flill 

 in his time animals grew up out of the earth : fo like- 

 wife none could be fo childifh as to maintain the con- 

 trary. Laertius quotes this tenet of Pythagoras as a re- 

 markable one, and it could only be fo by reafon of its 

 oppolition to the majority of the other tenets. This 

 being fuppofed, he alferts nothing elfe than the eter- 

 nity of the world. For if it be impoffible that animals 

 ever grew up out of the earth ; if it be certain that they 

 are only engendered of each other : then it follows, 

 that animals muft have been from eternity, and there- 

 fore likewife arranged mundane fyflems. 



Accordingly, there are very credible and antient 

 authors who contend with Ariftotle for the honour of 

 having invented the hypothecs of the antecedent world. 

 But there are alfo moderns who have efpoufed this 

 party. Stobaeus affirms |, that Pythagoras taught his 

 followers, that the world had a beginning only in the 



* Diog. Laert. viii. 36. 

 -{- Diog. Laeit. viii. 28. 

 t Stobseus Eclog. Phyf. lib. i. 23. 



abftrael:, 



