ence. *

losophers who belonged to it were natives of | erable influence on some of the later schools, Ionia-may be said to have been founded by as they present a remarkable coincidence with Thales of Miletus, a contemporary of Solon, in- one of the most recent theories of modern sciasmuch as he introduced a method which, notwithstanding great diversities in their theories, It is scarcely possible to refrain from smiling was retained by his successors. But how far at the boldness with which these first adventuany personal intercourse existed among them, rers in the field of speculation, unconscious of is extremely uncertain, though, on the author- the scantiness of their resources or of the difity of some writers of little credit, they have ficulty of the enterprise, rushed at once to the been commonly represented as forming an un- solution of the highest problems of philosophy. broken chain of teachers and scholars. The But, to temper any disdainful feeling which point in which they agreed was, that they fixed their temerity may excite, it should be rememtheir attention to a primeval state of things, bered that, without the spirit which prompted to which they mounted by such steps as they this hardihood, philosophy would probably nevcould find, and from which they endeavour-er have risen from its cradle. The direction ed to deduce the later order of nature. This which it took towards outward objects was the feature, which was common to their systems, most conformable to the natural tendency of seems to betray the influence of the poetical the human mind, and to the peculiar character cosmogonies, from which it was probably bor- and genius of the Ionian race; and, that we rowed, though the mythical form was discarded. may not undervalue the importance of these Whether it was from the same source that early attempts, or turn away from them with Thales derived the distinguishing tenet of his indifference, on account of their intrinsic fuphilosophy, according to which water, or some tility, it may be proper to cast a look on the reliquid element, was the origin of all things, is sults to which they led, on the manner in which much more doubtful. But it is still less proba- they affected the views of subsequent inquirers, ble that he adopted this dogma from an Orien- and the influence they exerted on the public tal mythology, though his personal connexion mind. With regard to the study of nature, inwith Phoenicia, whence his family is said to deed, the utmost, perhaps, that can be said in have sprung, has been supposed strongly to fa- their favour is, that they did not materially vour this suspicion. Aristotle*-it would seem check, confine, or pervert it. Most of these much more judiciously-considers it as the re- early philosophers were diligent as well as sasult of some very simple observations on the gacious inquirers-a praise which has been beuses of moisture in the nourishment of vegeta- stowed on them by one of the most eminent of ble and animal life, which were probably con- our own dayt-and enriched the knowledge of nected with a traditional belief that the earth their age with some important discoveries; and rested on an abyss of waters,† bounded by the though their explanations of natural phenomena river ocean, the immediate cause of earth- are often extremely rude, it does not appear quakes, which were therefore ascribed to the that they attempted to accommodate their obpower of Poseidon. It seems to have been by servations to their systems, which, indeed, were a similar process that, half a century later, probably not so mature as to require such a Anaximenes of Miletus was led to substitute a sacrifice. But in another point of view these new principle for the liquid element of Thales. systems were pregnant with more important To him, air, as it encompassed and sustained consequences. Thales evolved his world out the earth and the heavenly bodies which float of a single simple substance, to which he atin it, appeared also as the universal source of tributed the power of passing spontaneously life-the breath of the world, which animates through the various transformations necessary all the beings that live in it. And it was appa- for the multiplicity of natural productions; but rently by an analogy of the same kind that fire he does not seem to have attempted accurately -not the visible element, but some more subtle to define the nature of these transformations: fluid-was preferred for the same purpose by and so most of his successors, who set out the Ephesian Heraclitus, who, in other respects, from a similar hypothesis, contented themselves stands apart from the other philosophers of the with some vague notions or phrases about the school an original thinker, who, by a peculiar successive expansions or contractions of the and ingenious theory, endeavoured to reconcile original substance. But as the contemplation the constant flux of all sensible objects with of animal life had led Anaximenes to adopt air the permanency of a single intelligible sub-as the basis of his system, a later philosopher, stance. To him the order of nature appeared Diogenes of Apollonia, carried this analogy a as the momentary equipoise of conflicting im-step farther, and regarded the universe as issupulses, which he illustrated by the tension of the bow and the lyre, or by an image which, singularly enough, occurs also in the philosophical poetry of India, as the play of the infinite Being, from whom all things proceed, and to whom, in successive periods, all things return. His followers seem to have formed a separate sect, and his opinions to have exerted consid

ser, in his antipathy to the Ionians, would deprive them of all share in the glory of their most illustrious citizens, who, like Xenophanes and Anacreon, migrated to other regions. * Met., i, 3.

+ Plut., De Pl. Phil., iii., 15. Orig., Phil., 1. Sir J. Herschel (Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, p. 107) suggests a different occasion.

ing from an intelligent principle, by which it was at once vivified and ordered-a rational as well as sensitive soul-still without recognising any distinction between matter and mind. Much earlier, however, Anaximander of Miletus, who flourished not long after Thales, and is generally considered as his immediate dis

*La Place's état primitif (Systême du Monde, p. 433) comes near to the apx of Heraclitus on the one side, as the Top TEXVIKóv of the Stoics did on the other..

+ Sir J. Herschel (Discourse, p. 107). But the remarks in the next page, so far as they impute unphilosophical mo tives of vanity or ambition to these same inquirers, will not be readily adopted by any one who is conversant with the history of Greek philosophy.

ciple, seems to have been struck by the diffi- | One Being was the Deity. The changes which culty of accounting for the changes which a Thales attributed to the One Being appeared simple substance must be supposed to undergo to him inconsistent with the character of the in order to produce an infinite variety of beings. Deity and unintelligible in themselves. He He found it easier, in conformity with some of found it impossible to conceive that anything the ancient cosmogonies, to conceive the prim- could come into being or could cease to be; itive state of the universe as a vast chaos--for nevertheless, it does not appear that he absowhich he had no other name than the Infinite-lutely denied the reality of external objects, or containing all the elements out of which the world was to be constructed by a process of separation and combination, which, however, he considered as the result of motion, not impressed on it from without, but inherent in the mass. This hypothesis, which tended to give an entirely new direction to the speculations of the school, seems to have been treated with a neglect which it is difficult to explain, and which has raised a suspicion that some less celebrated names may have dropped out of the list of the Ionian philosophers.* But, a century after Anaximander, Anaxagoras of Clazomenæ revived his doctrine, with some very fanciful additions and one very important change. He combined the principle of Anaximander with that of his contemporary Diogenes, and acknowledged a supreme mind, distinct from the chaos to which it imparted motion, form, and order. The pantheistic systems of the Ionian school were only independent of the popular creed, and did not exclude it. The language of Thales and Heraclitus, who declared that the universe was full of gods,† left room for all the fictions of the received mythology, and might even add new fervour to the superstition of the vulgar. But the system of Anaxagoras seems to have been felt to be almost irreconcilable with the prevailing opinions, and hence, as we shall find, drew upon him hatred and persecution.

regarded their varying aspects as mere illusions. But the precise mode in which he attempted to reconcile their multiplicity and manifold transformations with the unity and unalterable identity of the Deity, who, though all mind, was still one with the world, is a point which cannot be determined from the fragmentary remains of his works, and on which we are left to form uncertain conjectures. If, as some accounts might lead us to believe, he for this purpose made a distinction between the senses and the reason, he would have the honour of opening a new and very important field of speculation, as the earliest inquirer into the faculties of the human mind; and, at all events, he suggested the distinction, which was more strongly insisted on by his follower Parmenides. Xenophanes was not so immersed in his ontological speculations as to neglect the study of nature, and had formed a system which seems not to have been very far removed from that of Thales, as he was led by geological observations to similar conclusions on the primitive state of the world. He was the first Greek philosopher who openly rejected the popular superstition, which he referred to its true source, the tendency of man to assimilate the objects of his worship to his own nature, and he inveighed against Homer and Hesiod for attributing to the gods actions unworthy of the divine character. He also attacked several doctrines of his philosophical contemporaries or predecessors, and seems to have satisfied himself better in refuting their opinions than in establishing his own.

that he received his personal instructions, pursued the same direction. But he set out, not like Xenophanes, from the idea of deity, but from the notion of being; he expressly grounded his system on the distinction between sense and reason, as means of arriving at truth, and, on the one hand, went so far as to deny the reality of time, space, and motion, while on the other hand he admitted so much of a real foundation for the appearances of nature as rendered them not unworthy of attention, and even constructed a peculiar physical theory to explain them. But it is to be lamented that in his

While philosophy was thus cultivated in Jonia, two schools arose in the western colonies, of widely different characters, though both were founded by the Ionians, and one in the seat of an Ionian population. This was the Parmenides, a native of Elea, whose early Eleatic, which took its name from the town of youth seems to have coincided with the advanElea or Velia, on the western coast of South-ced age of Xenophanes, though it is not certain ern Italy, a settlement of the Phocæans, the origin of which will be hereafter noticed, and to which Xenophanes, the founder of the school, migrated, it is believed, about 536 B.C. from his birthplace, Colophon. We mention it first, because it seems to have been connected, though by a polemical relation, with the school of Thales, and its history, in one important point, presents a contrast to that of the Ionian philosophy for the Eleatic began where the other ended, with the admission of a supreme intelligence; and it even seems probable that Xenophanes was guided in the formation of his system by a religious rather than by a purely philosophical interest. As Thales saw gods in all things, so it may be said that Xenophanes saw all things in God. Aristotle described his predominant thought or feeling with remarkable liveliness and simplicity, by saying that he gazed upon the whole heaven, and said that the

* Met., i., 5, εἰς τὸν ὅλον οὔρανον ἀπιβλέψας τὸ ἓν εἶναι no Tov Ocov.

mingled in one mass by referring to sea-shells found in midHe supported his opinion that earth and sea were once land regions and in the bowels of mountains, to the impressions of fish in the quarries of Syracuse, and to similar phenomena observed in the Isle of Paros and elsewhere. Origen., Phil, 14 This seems to imply that no preceding philosopher had made the same use of the like observations. See above, p. 212, not. †. col. 2.

Ritter (1., p. 452) finds an allusion to Pythagorean doc trines, where it would seem that Xenophanes might have had Anaximander's intip v in view. The Pythagorean tenets which he is supposed to have controverted, even if they were formed so early, seem, according to Ritter's own observation (p. 356), to have been kept longer secret.

philosophy with religion and an ascetic morality, assumed a priestly character, possessed an insight into some secrets of nature unknown to his contemporaries, and by all these means acquired a powerful ascendant over them, and was regarded with a religious awe-Empedocles belongs to the same class with Epimenides and Pythagoras, the founder of the second, and the most celebrated of the Western schools, which, indeed, might perhaps claim precedence by a few years of the Eleatic.* We have reserved it for this place, both as less intimately connected with the Ionian schools, and because it will lead us to take a view of the political condition of some of the Greek cities in Italy which we have already mentioned.

case, as in his master's, we are left in the dark | after times as to demand notice here. In anas to his mode of reconciling these seemingly other point of view-as a man who combined inconsistent views. His fellow-citizen, friend, and disciple, the courageous and unfortunate Zeno, and Melissus of Samos, who united great military talents and experience with his philosophical pursuits, chiefly exercised their dialectic subtlety in combating both the dogmas of other philosophers and the opinions of the vulgar; and though there is no reason to doubt that they were earnest in search of truth, they seem too often to have descended to sophistical paradoxes, which need all the indulgence that can be claimed for an early stage of science. Zeno himself was sometimes ranked among the sophists, whose pernicious influence we shall hereafter have occasion to notice; and thus the Eleatic school, which in its outset was distinguished by a religious philosophy, insensibly contracted a close affinity with a class of men who laboured to destroy both philosophy and religion.

The history of Pythagoras is obscured by a cloud of legends, through which little can be distinguished beyond the leading outlines of his life and character. He was a native of Samos, born about B.C. 570, and by his mother's side is said to have been connected with one of the most ancient families in the island. But his father, Mnesarchus, was generally believed to have been a foreigner, and not of purely Greek origin, though it was disputed whether he was a Phoenician, or belonged to the Tyrrhenians of Lemnos or Imbrus-to a branch, therefore, of the Pelasgian race. Like uncertainty hangs over the early life of Pythagoras, the sources of his knowledge, or the aid he received in the cultivation of his mind. But there seems to be no reason to doubt that he travelled in the East, at least in Egypt, and that he derived some instruction from Pherecydes of Scyros, if not from Anaximander. To his stay in Egypt he was most likely indebted, not so much for any positive knowledge or definite opinions, as for hints which roused his curiosity, and impressions which decided the bias of his mind. In the science of the Egyptians he perhaps found little to borrow; but in their political and religious insti

We may here mention a remarkable feature in the history of the early philosophical literature, which corresponds to the character of the several schools and systems. Of Thales it is not certainly known whether he wrote anything, nor whether some verses-about two hundred-which were attributed to him, contained an account of his physical doctrines, or were merely a collection of practical maxims and precepts, such as were ascribed to all those who were numbered among the Seven Sages. His younger contemporary, Anaximander, unfolded his theory in a prose work, and his example appears to have been followed by all the philosophers of the same school. The specimens left of their writings show that their loss is to be regretted in a literary point of view, as well as on account of the information which they would have afforded. Their style seems to have resembled that of the early historians: its simplicity was relieved by the bold poetical images in which their thoughts were frequently veiled. On the other hand, Xenophanes and Parmenides explained and defended their sys- * He was commonly classed among the Pythagoreans (see tems in verse, which scarcely deserves the Sturz, Empedocles, 3). But Ritter has established his name of poetry, though the former was the connexion with the Eleatics by a careful comparison of his remains with those of Parmenides. Perhaps the other opinauthor of several moral elegies, which were notion was suggested by the resemblance between his characdeficient in poetical merit, and of a historical ter and that of Pythagoras. Yet, besides his doctrine conepic, perhaps the first of its kind, on the found-cerning the soul, his Sphere-god, which absorbs and assimilates portions of the realm of strife, and his two opposite ation of Colophon and the migration to Elea. principles, which are subordinate to a higher unity, seem The remains of the philosophical poems breathe to come nearer to some peculiar features of the Pythagorea strain of oracular solemnity and obscurity, an philosophy. By others, again, both ancients and modand to contemporary readers must have suppli- has been assigned to the Ionian school, as a disciple of erns (as Reinhold, Geschichte der Philosophie, i., p. 66), he ed the absence of all purely poetical appeals to Anaxagoras. He may probably be looked upon as the first the imagination and the feelings by the interest author of an eclectic system. But see Brandis, in the esof new and mysterious trains of thought, strug- say above referred to, p. 123, foho. gling in vain for an adequate expression. But a metrical vehicle did not so well suit Zeno's dialectic genius, and he adopted a more appropriate instrument of controversy in the dialogue, which in his hands was probably a very dry form, and utterly destitute of the attractions which were afterward imparted to it by the highest efforts of Attic eloquence.

The Eleatics appear likewise to have suggested some features of the system framed about the middle of the fifth century by Empedocles of Agrigentum, which he also unfolded in a poetical form. It neither has so much philosophical interest, nor exerted such influence in

Apollon. ap. Porphyr., De Vit. Pyth., 2 Tradition, indeed, can have but little weight on a point of this nature. But as to Pherecydes, the ancients appear to have been mentioned among the teachers of Pythagoras, our belief unanimous. As to Anaximander and Thales, who is also must rest chiefly on the probability, whatever it may be, that he became acquainted with the persons most eminent for knowledge and wisdom in his day. With regard to Phereyes, the tradition may seem to be confirmed by another, according to which he was the first Greek who taught the immortality of the soul. But no traces of an intercourse with Thales or Anaximander can be discovered in any of question is one which it is equally unimportant and difficult the doctrines ascribed to Pythagoras, and therefore the to decide. This is still more the case as to the other alleged teachers of Pythagoras, as Bias of Priene, and obhas made some judicious remarks on this subject in his scure names, such as Creophilus and Hermodamas. Geschichte der Pythagorischen Philosophie, p. 15, fohio.

Ritter

of his system, as it is almost certain that he never committed it to writing; and it is extremely difficult, in the doctrines which are called Pythagorean, to distinguish what belongs to him, and what to his disciples and their folremarks on its character and tendency, so far as they may be collected with some degree of safety. It seems clear that Pythagoras not only conceived that numbers represented the essence and properties of all things, but attributed to them such a real objective existence as rendered them capable of serving as materials or elements in his construction of the universe; a process, of which no satisfactory account has yet been given, which does not imply that he confounded, first a numerical unit with a geometrical point, and then this with a material atom. He thus, on one side, pointed the way to the physical theory afterward maintained by Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus, though it is by no means certain that this was the source from which it was derived. But it is extremely improbable that either he, or any of his followers, ever caught a glimpse of the atomic theory of modern science. On the other hand, he seems to be justly chargeable with a large part of the absurdities and superstitions which claimed the sanction of his name in the latest period of Greek philosophy, and which exerted such a powerful and mischievous influence over the opinions of many succeeding ages; for, innocent as he may have been of such an intention, he probably opened a door for all these chimeras, not only in the mysterious virtue which he attributed to numbers, but likewise in the still more abstruse speculations by which he ascended to the first principles of number it

tutions he saw a mighty engine, such as he might wish to wield for nobler purposes. It is equally credible that he was initiated in several of the most ancient Greek mysteries, even if there should be no ground for the conjecture that he inherited some secrets of a mystic lore from Pelas-lowers. We can only venture to make a few gian ancestors.* We may here remark that among the various opinions which have been entertained by the learned as to the Greek mysteries, none seem more probable than that which holds them to have been the remains of a worship which preceded the rise of the Hellenic mythology and its attendant rites, grounded on a view of nature less fanciful, more earnest, and better fitted to awaken both philosophical thought and religious feeling. It is extremely doubtful how far they were ever used as a vehicle for the exposition of theological doctrines differing from the popular creed. But it seems not improbable that, in the century which followed the opening of a regular intercourse between Greece and Egypt, some attempts were made to connect the mystic legends, which were either exhibited in mimic shows or conveyed in hymns, with a sort of speculative system, which may here and there have contained some features derived from the East; and that the authors of this new learning endeavoured to recommend it by the authority of Orpheus, and other venerable names of Thracian, Lycian, or Hyperborean bards and prophets. It was now, perhaps, that the views of the initiated began to be extended beyond the present life, and that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul was made a basis for the assurance of higher privileges than had before been held out to them. Whether it was from a domestic or a foreign source that Pythagoras drew the peculiar form of this doctrine which he adopted-self, in which he discovered a contrast variousthat of a transmigration of souls-we cannot determine; Pindar's allusions seem to indicate that in his time it had been long familiar to the Greeks t

out of it. And thus the First Cause itself was drawn into the conflict, and engaged in a struggle with its own original imperfection.

ly expressed by his followers as one between light and darkness, or between good and evil, and perhaps equivalent to that between mind and matter, reason and sense.* These oppoPythagoras is said to have been the first site principles were represented, indeed, as subGreek who assumed the title of a philosopher.ordinate to a higher unity, but also as issuing If this was so, he probably did not intend, as has been commonly imagined, to deprecate the reputation of wisdom, but to profess himself devoted to the pursuit of it; though, on the other hand, the well-known story which explains the origin of the name, suggests an entirely false notion of his view of life so far as it implies that he regarded contemplation as the highest end of human existence. His ardent thirst of knowledge he shared with many of his contemporaries; but he was distinguished by his strong bent for mathematical studies, and for all connected with them. Several remarkable discoveries in geometry, music, and astronomy are attributed to him, and his whole philosophy was the result of this predilection. We are the less inclined to enter into an explanation

Ritter, i., p. 350. But the story of the mystagogue Aglaophamus, who is said to have admitted him to the Orphic mysteries at Libethra, where he learned the rudiments of his arithmetical theology, is perhaps a fable not much more ancient than the time of lamblichus. See Lobeck, Aglaoph.

↑ See Dissen on Pindar, Ol., 11., 68, and Fragm. Thren., 4. The philosopher is like the spectator at the Olympic games, who, while others are attracted by ambition or gain, comes only to gratify a liberal curiosity. See Cicero, Tusc. Disp, v., 3, and Davis's note.

See Professor Powell's History of Natural Philosophy, an this Cyclopædia, p. 19, 21.

It is not improbable that the philosophy of Pythagoras would have been more sober, and might not have been the occasion of so many incoherent dreams, but for the symbolical and mystic veil which he threw over it, and which was, perhaps, necessary for the success of his plans, though it could not secure them against the revolution by which they were at last frustrated. For the history of the human mind his institutions are, perhaps, less interesting than his philosophy; but for the history of Greece his philosophy is chiefly important, as it throws some light on the character of his institutions. The accounts which have been preserved of

*Aristotle, Met., i., 5, enumerates ten pairs of these opposite principles, which, according to some Pythagoreans, on account of the virtue ascribed to the number ten, included all or the most important elements of the universe. We subjoin the list, which may give some notion of the character of the system and of the ease with which it might adapt itself to the most fanciful combinations. They are: Limit and Unlimited; Odd and Even; One and Many; Right and Left; Male and Female; Still and Moved; Straight and Curve; Light and Darkness; Good and Evil; Square and Oblong. These, as the ancients perceived, are only ten different aspects of one vague idea

their origin and their fate, though perplexed by many contradictions, serve for a time to break the obscurity which commonly rests upon the affairs of the Greek cities in Italy.

tensions, which, he must have been conscious, had no real ground, and which, we must suspect, were calculated to attract the veneration of the credulous. The most famous of these was the claim he laid to the privilege-conferred on him, as he asserted, by the god Hermes of preserving a distinct remembrance of many states of existence which his soul had passed through an imposture attested by his contemporary Xenophanes, who, as his character in this respect stands much higher than that of Pythagoras, appears to have treated it in his elegies with deserved ridicule.*

:

Pythagoras is generally believed to have found Polycrates ruling at Samos on his return from his travels in the East, and his aversion to the tyrant's government was sometimes assigned as the motive which led him finally to quit his native island. If there was any foundation for this story, it must probably be sought, not in any personal enmity between him and Polycrates who is said to have furnished him with letters of recommendation to Amasis-but What were the precise motives which induced in his conviction that the power of Polycrates him finally to fix his residence among the Italwould oppose insuperable obstacles to his de- ian Greeks, and particularly at Croton, is only signs. For it seems certain that, before he set matter for conjecture. The peculiar salubrity out for the West, he had already conceived the of the air of Croton, its aristocratical governidea to which he dedicated the remainder of ment, a state of manners which, though falling his life, and only sought for a fit place and a far short of his idea, was advantageously confavourable opportunity to carry it into effect. trasted with the luxury of Sybaris, might sufWe, however, find intimations that he did not fice to determine his choice, even if there were leave Samos until he had acquired some celeb- no other circumstances in its condition which rity among the Asiatic Greeks* by the intro- opened a prospect of successful exertion. In duction of certain mystic rites which Herodotus fact, however, the state of parties in Croton at represents as closely allied to the Egyptian, and the time when he arrived there seems to have to those which were celebrated in Greece un- been singularly favourable to the undertaking der the name of Orpheus as their reputed found-which he meditated. Causes of discord were at er. But as we cannot believe that the es- work there, as in most of the neighbouring cities, tablishment of a new form of religion was an very similar to those which produced the strugobject that Pythagoras ever proposed to him-gle between the partricians and the plebeians self apart from his political views, we could only regard these mysteries, supposing the fact ascertained, in the light of an essay or an experiment by which he sounded the disposition or the capacity of his countrymen for the reception of other more practical doctrines. The fame of his travels, his wisdom, and sanctity, had probably gone before him into Greece, where he appears to have stayed some time, partly, perhaps, to enlarge his knowledge, and partly to heighten his reputation. It was no doubt for the former purpose that he visited Crete and Sparta, where he found a model of government and discipline more congenial to his habits of thinking than he could have met with anywhere else but in Egypt or India. If, as is highly probable, he stopped on the same journey at Olympia and Delphi, it was, perhaps, less from either curiosity or devotion than from the desire of obtaining the sanction of the oracles, and of forming a useful connexion with The real nature of these designs, and of the their ministers. Thus we are told that he was means by which he endeavoured to carry them indebted for many of his ethical dogmas to into execution, is a question which has exerThemistoclea of Delphi, probably the priestess. cised the sagacity of many inquirers, and has The legends about his appearance at Olympia- been variously solved, according to the higher where he is said to have shown a thigh like degree of importance which Pythagoras has the shoulder of Pelops, of gold or ivory, and to been supposed to have attached to religion, or have fascinated an eagle as it flew over his to philosophy, or to government. But it seems head-may very well be connected with this clear that his object was not exclusively, or journey, and would indicate that he was looked even predominantly religious, or philosophical, upon as a person partaking of a superhuman or political, and that none of these objects stood nature, and as an especial favourite of Heaven. in the relation of an end to the other two, as its How far he excited or encouraged such a delu- means. On the other hand, we cannot be satsion, is, as in all such cases, very difficult to isfied with the opinion of a modern author,† determine; but it seems unquestionable that that the aim of Pythagoras was to exhibit the he did not rely solely on his genuine merits and Diog., vini., 36. Pythagoras is represented as interce acquirements, but put forward marvellous pre-ding for a dog which was howling under the lash, on the ground that he recognised the voice of a deceased friend, whose soul had migrated into the animal.

Ritter infers this from the story that Zamolxis had served Pythagoras in Samos (Herod., iv., 95), and also from the fact that the fame of his learning had reached HeracliNeither argument is decisive.

tus.

at Rome. There was a body, called a senate, composed of a thousand members, and probably representing the descendants of the more ancient settlers, invested with large and irresponsible authority, and enjoying privileges which had begun to excite discontent among the people. The power of the oligarchy was still preponderant, but apparently not so secure as to render all assistance superfluous. The arrival of a stranger, outwardly neutral, who engaged the veneration of the multitude by his priestly character, and by the rumour of his supernatural endowments, and was willing to throw all his influence into the scale of the government, on condition of exercising some control over its measures, was an event which could not but be hailed with great joy by the privileged class; and, accordingly, Pythagoras seems to have found the utmost readiness in the senate of Croton to favour his designs.

+ Mueller, Dor, iii., 9, 15. He goes beyond F Schlegel, who, in his essay on Plato's Diotima (Werk., v., p. 109), had noticed the Dorian character of the Pythagorean institutions.