Pythagoras. We are told that he believed in One God eternal, unchangeable, ruling and upholding all things, that the soul was a 'harmony',' that the body was its prison, in which it was punished for past sin and disciplined for a divine life after death, that those who failed to profit by this discipline would pass into lower forms of life, or suffer severer penalties in Hades. Heraclides Ponticus reports (Diog. L. Proem. 12, Cic. Tusc. v. 3) that Pythagoras was the first to call himself pióropos, a lover of wisdom, saying that the name σopós, used by the older sages, properly belonged to God alone. He compared human life to the gathering at the Olympic games, where some came to win glory, others to make gain, others to watch the spectacle: the philosopher, he said, resembled these last in despising honour and gain, and caring only for knowledge. Other sayings attributed to Pythagoras are the following: ‘man is at his best when he visits the temples of the Gods3.' 'Choose the best life; use will make it pleasant,' (Stob. Flor. 1. 29). 'Do not speak few things in many words, but many things in few words,' (Stob. Flor. xxxv. 8). 'Either be silent, or speak words better than silence,' (Stob. Flor. XXXIV. 7). 'Be sleepless in the things of the 1 The statement of Cicero and others that Pythagoras held the human soul to be a portion of the Divine soul (Cato M. 78) is not confirmed by the earlier authorities. 2 So Philolaus (R. and P. § 124) διά τινας τιμωρίας ἡ ψυχὰ τῷ σώματι συνέζευκται καὶ καθάπερ ἐν σάματι τούτῳ τέθαπται. Plato adds that he condemned suicide as desertion of our post, ev tivi φρουρᾷ ἐσμεν οἱ ἄνθρωποι, καὶ οὐ δεῖ δὴ ἑαυτὸν ἐκ ταύτης λύειν οὐδ ̓ ἀποδιδράσκειν. 3 Βέλτιστοι ἑαυτῶν γίνονται ἄνθρωποι ὅταν πρὸς τοὺς θεοὺς Badiswoi, Plut. Def. Or, 183, see Cic. Leg. II. 11. spirit; for sleep in them is akin to death,' (Stob. Flor. I. 19). “It is hard to take many paths in life at the same time,' (Stob. Flor. 1. 27). 'It is the part of a fool to attend to every opinion of every man, above all to that of the mob,' (Iambl. V. P. 31). The second of the Italic schools was the Eleatic, founded by Xenophanes of Colophon in Asia Minor (b. 569 B.C.), who migrated to Elea in Italy about 540 B.C. While the Pythagoreans strove to explain nature mathematically and symbolically, the Eleatics in their later developments did the same by their metaphysical abstractions. Xenophanes himself seems to have received his first philosophical impulse in the revulsion from the popular mythology. In his philosophical poem he condemns anthropomorphism and polytheism altogether, and charges Homer and Hesiod with attributing to the Gods conduct which would have been disgraceful in men. 'If animals had had hands they would have depicted Gods each in their own form, just as men have done'. God is one, all eye, all ear, all understanding; he is for ever unmoved, unchangeable, a vast all-embracing sphere.' 1 Πάντα θεοῖς ἀνέθηκαν Ὅμηρος θ' Ησίοδός τε It is disputed whether the last expression is to be taken literally, implying that the universe is God, or whether it is a metaphor to express God's perfection and omnipresence. With all his freedom of censure Xenophanes is far from claiming for himself that oracular authority which the Pythagoreans ascribed to the dicta of their master. It is not for man,' he says, 'to hope for certainty in these matters of high speculation. However well he speaks, he has not attained to knowledge, but only to probability at best'.' The chief representative of the Eleatic School is Parmenides (b. 515 B.C.). The fragments of his philosophical poem, collected by Mullach, amount to more than 150 hexameters. He disengaged the doctrine of Xenophanes from its theological form, and ascribed to Being what his predecessor had ascribed to God. His /philosophy is the antithesis of that of Heraclitus. While Heraclitus said 'all is motion and change, the appearance of fixity is merely illusion of the senses;' Parmenides asserted, with distinct reference to him, that all that exists has existed and will exist the same for ever, that it is change and multiplicity which is illusory. It is only by thought we can become conscious of the really existent; being and thought are the same, sense can only give rise to uncertain opinion. In such language we see partly a protest against the vagueness of the conception of development or 'becoming,' by which the Ionic philosophers endeavoured to explain the origin of things, You say fire becomes water, but each thing is what it is, and can never be 1 Καὶ τὸ μὲν οὖν σαφὲς οὔτις ἀνὴρ γένετ' οὐδέ τις ἔσται εἰδὼς ἀμφὶ θεῶν τε καὶ ἄσσα λέγω περὶ πάντων· εἰ γὰρ καὶ τὰ μάλιστα τύχοι τετελεσμένον εἰπών, αὐτὸς ὁμῶς οὐκ οἶδε· δόκος δ ̓ ἐπὶ πᾶσι τέτυκται. otherwise; partly an idea of the indestructibility of matter; partly an anticipation of the later distinction between necessary and contingent truth; thus one point dwelt upon by him was the impossibility of any separation of parts of space. But though truth only belonged to the world of real existence, Parmenides condescended to give his romance of nature for the benefit of those who could not penetrate beyond the world of phenomena. He begins with two principles, light and darkness, also called fire and earth, or male and female; and supposes all things to proceed from their mixture. The existing universe consists of a central fire, the seat of the presiding Deity, and of several concentric rings of mingled light and darkness, bounded on the outside by a wall of flame. The first-born of Gods was Love, by whom the union of opposites is brought about. In this we may trace a reminiscence of the Hesiodic "Epws. Zeno of Elea (b. 490 B.C.) is chiefly known from his arguments showing the absurd consequences of the ordinary belief in the phenomenal world. Parmenides must be right in denying motion and multiplicity, for their assertion leads to self-contradiction. Zeno was in consequence called the inventor of Dialectic. His arguments, especially the famous 'Achilles,' still find a place in treatises on Logic'. 1 It is thus given by Mill (System of Logic 11. 3859), 'The argument is, let Achilles run ten times as fast as the tortoise, yet if the tortoise has the start, Achilles will never overtake him. For suppose them to be at first separated by an interval of a thousand feet: when Achilles has run those thousand feet, the tortoise will have got on a hundred: when Achilles has run those hundred, the tortoise will have run ten, and so on for ever: therefore Achilles may run for ever without overtaking the tortoise.' The clearly marked opposition between the Ionic and the Eleatic views of nature, as shown in Heraclitus and Parmenides, had a powerful influence on the subsequent course of philosophy. Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and the Atomists agreed in accepting the Eleatic principle of the immutability of substance, while denying its absolute Oneness; and they explained the Ionic 'becoming' as the result of the mixture of a number of unchangeable substances. Empedocles of Agrigentum (b. 500 B.C.) 'than whom,' says Lucretius, 'Sicily has produced nothing holier, more marvellous or more dear,' held that there were four eternal, self-subsistent elements or 'roots of things,' which were being continually separated and combined under the influence of Love and Hatred. At times Love has the upper hand, at times Hate. When Love has the complete supremacy the elements are at rest, united in one all-including sphere (paîpos): when Hate prevails, the elements are entirely separate. The soul, like all other things, is formed by the mixture of the elements, and is thus capable of perception, for like can only be perceived by like'. In regard to the origin of living things, Empedocles imagined that the several parts or limbs were in the first instance produced separately in the bosom of the earth, eyes apart from brows, arms from shoulders, etc.; and that these were afterwards joined at haphazard, giving rise to all sorts of monsters, oxheaded men, men-headed oxen; and that it was only after successive trials that nature gave birth to perfect animals, fitted to survive and to propagate their 1 γαίῃ μὲν γὰρ γαῖαν ἐπώπαμεν, ὕδατι δ ̓ ὕδωρ, M P. αἰθέρι δ' αἰθέρα δίαν, ἀτὰρ πυρὶ πῦρ ἀΐδηλον |