PYTHAGOREAN WRITINGS. 



terms of his mailer, as that nothing of either Ihould 

 efcape him any where ? Such a confiftency of ideas, 

 and fuch a clear and artlefs diction, are fo different 

 from what are feen in the fragments of the other 

 Pythagorean adepts, of Empedodes, for example, that 

 it could not but be obferved. 



The objections are here fo artfully drawn up in a 

 phalanx, as to feem irrefiftible ; perhaps, however, 

 this phalanx may be defeated, if we can but divide it. 

 The deficiency of fymbols, of myftic language, of 

 numbers, would undoubtedly prove much, if the au- 

 thor had but fir ft proved that a Pythagorean could ab~ 

 folutely neither think nor write without them. If to 

 this we add, from the hiftory of Pythagorifm, the re- 

 mark, that all thefe matters were adopted for no other 

 purpofe than to throw dull in the eyes of the profane ; 

 that Ocellus wrote only for molt intimate friends : 

 1 fay, if we take all this into conlideration, I cannot 

 fee why Ocellus might not have laid the mafk afkle. 



From the aflertion that the transformation of the 

 elements is likewife taught by Ariftotle, it will yet 

 hardly follow, that it cannot be taught by Pythagoras. 

 Accordingly it ought neceflarily to have been here 

 lhewn that this doctrine is not pythagoric. And this 

 proof would have been attended with fo much the 

 greater difficulty, as very antient and authentic tefti- 

 moraies declare the contrary. From Alexander Poly- 

 hiftor and Ariftotle, Diogenes Laertius relates the fol- 

 lowing : From folid figures arife folid bodies ; and to 

 this clafs belong the four elements, fire, water, earth, 

 air, which are interchangeably altered and trans- 

 formed,. 



