267 
superior to one without either. He gave it also a spherical 
body, for such ol all other forms is the most perfect. Since, 
therefore, it was His pleasure to render His production most 
perfect, He constituted it a gocl; begotten indeed, but inde- 
structible by any other cause than by the God who made it, in 
case it should be His pleasure to dissolve it. 
36. Although it is doubtful whether Pythagoras ever wrote 
any account of his doctrines, it is tolerably certain that Philo- 
laus, his distinguished disciple, who flourished in the time of 
Socrates, and therefore within a century of his master, has left 
sufficient in his work on the Pythagorean philosophy to enable 
us to discover that he undertook, by means of a single primor- 
dial prihciple, the vague problem of the origin and constitution 
of the universe as a whole ; and likewise that he held and taught 
very distinctly the doctrine of transmigration of souls, which 
has been set forth so fully in the Timosus of Plato, as the chief 
motive of good believed by the learned Greeks. 
37. This doctrine was viewed apparently in the light of a 
process of purification. Souls under the dominion of sensuality 
passed into the bodies of animals, or, if incurable, were thrust 
down to Tartarus, in order to undergo expiation, or to meet 
with condign punishment. The pure were exalted to higher 
modes of life, aud at last attained to incorporeal existence. In 
reference to the fruits of such a creed, it is interesting to see 
that wherever we have notices of distinguished Pythagoreans, 
we usually meet with characters of uprightness and self-restraint. 
Pythagoras himself is said to have once been Euphorbus, one 
of the bravest of the Trojans, who was slain by Menelaus ; and 
that in proof of his assertion he took down at first sight the 
shield of Euphorbus from the temple of Hera or Juno, in 
which it had been placed by the victor six centuries before.* 
38. Plato’s embodiment of the transmutation theory , which 
appears to resemble some of the extraordinary theories pro- 
pounded in modern times, is to be found chiefly in the Phcedo 
and the Tinueus. In the latter work he describes how wicked 
men in the first generation were changed into women for their 
punishment during the second, and thence passed into the tribe 
of birds, with feathers in place of hair, which were, as he says, 
“fashioned from men not actually vicious, but over curious 
concerning things on high.” The race of wild animals with 
feet were made “ from men who had made no use of philo- 
* habentque 
Tartara Panthoiden, iterum Oreo 
Demissum ; quamvis, clypeo Trojana relixo 
Tempora testatus. Horace, Cana. i. 28 
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