Philosophy of Anitiquity, No. II [pp. 32-34]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
there particularly did he wish to open his school; to his
conuurymen w as he most willing to inipart those secret
sto:es of wvsdoid that lie hasd so laboriously striven for,
and sionorably gainied. His wshlies were disappointed,
aind lis Wvatnt of S,icccS ofreis a painful corroboration of
thait famed maxim, that " no one is a prophet in his na tive laid."
vw.s i agai a wanderer in the islands of the Aggean,
andi oa tiih ain land of Greece. At the court of Leon
of Adl iet he first assunied the title of philosopher. The
occas;,,ii of his assuing it, as handed down to us, I
tlhnk. y Atlus Gell ius, is one of thel most delicious
morsels of the gossip of antiqcuity now in our possession.
Leon, sruck witli admiration at hbs universality of
knwIlved C, asked him whivch of -ll arts did he prefer?
Pyt haLgoras aunswecrcd aftor Is fashion: "iNo art or
trade, oh kinO, do I follow i to none of them do I sub..
jeer milyseif, hrot aiy bii is thue art of arts-Lilosopla." Aoil to tie kint'as (uestloin, "Vhat sort of thing
is 1t)1 s ph'loS:)hy?" le is reported to have answered:
L Life i lik I unto ai ~ lyrmp.e game. Aud as there are
who visit E'is, some to contend for the victory for glory's
sake, aud some for the priz alone, and others who
come to p.ly their trades, aiid 1mo01e whose object is to
waetch the contest, so in tife, chiefs and wvarriors strutggle for the- ascendanicy, nmerchiints and artizans sell their
wares,-c! sodine few look on as spectators, study the
wvsayw ardL tli~ ory, dspis g th.e animal contest of the
one, aitld the trt'ickry of th i other; yet as the bee of
llybl Ia extracts sweet honey firom the rankoetsweed, they
draw' useful ime, rls anda ssuidclom from the attentive olsersv,iice of the actions of each. These morals
and wis,idom are philosoph,y, anId the spectators are its
votaries."
I knuos not if inmeory furniishes aright either the aneci,otee or its attthor; but all will admit its truttl to
wosoleoni ocs ciit 1eleains.
His sojourn at Phlius was not long, and once more
I!e returod to Samos. le opened successfully a public slie of philosophy, and occasionally retiring to a
lovely and beautiful cave with his chosen friends and
fitoreite soliolars, lie imipar,ted wv IttS all the mystery of
an casternii priest to!)is Ibcads of ~~cophytes, those truithl
vs ilds the awvs of his Iand, and the opinions of the age,
rendeired it impossiT ol and inipolitic for limi to discourse
of in pul lic.
Th,e mystery wvitli whiihisi Esoteries were ta. ht,
h cei,:seci some to rank him amoni impostors; but
italy it not 10e, that this apparent mystery Iresults fr(si
t lie exLggeration of theo excluded crowid. Samos he~ was
fiiccd to quit, and Ci'otoni in Magia G-rccia had tiih
honor of fitrishin::. hit a asyltum,i.
J:'ioi this time his hiiiitoy is that; of the Coluntry l1.
had- ad,i,ptedl. 1His pupilsi Ieccam~e rewOlt tilonisls in go
v ens'nieli, cud it seenicil'o!o tils fato of tile fliSIndc.,
of' the first sect, to be- fb'.cedI c the0 cxpells of persoinal
Iilcovei~i nc, lo 0 o extelad hs fam a0 nid p: —oisuI-ate li'
-octitis.l Exle fr -us C,'oto-n1a, Metalci )h105 ti I rcive
i-'iii~, anI therec d~e I:it reulieved h~in f-.uom tls~e persecuition
a p Tlar coiniso' ic iii)11 a tc'lol, I ii 1here' to) lie
Ct/Cd of starvrtioli,.i cin h, thi-' i y;esr e f I'S sixty-eiglth
tla th east, that OC-d~I.,iel C,, of atirounomly and m~adthe
iimiities, Pythagoras appears to lhave iibed f h e current
physical theories. So deeply was he imipressed ef tle
imiportance of isumbers, tiha,t he imagied all nature reFuIlated by thore, or as lie exp,reie d h iiself, "thisgs
are ans imitatiotn of numbICer,"' -'1 he divided into
(retioi) equial anid (pci'itioi) tiuequal. UitIiy is tle pr inciple of the firdt, nuality of the latter. Uni-ity lie assumed as his cieblem of coinpletencss, s tihe numbter
correspondilng to the Deity in the I hysical world, as the
representative of the sun, and in his nsoiral code it stood
for virtue.
Dualitiy is a result of unity and is ici-i~,;plete. It
is the emb emn of imyperfection, andI is in all thiiings the
opposite of unity. By comblinations of the ullify and
clduiality, wvserc formedl the tetraclhys, in bhich all nature's
course was traced. It seems to me, that in this oppositioni of the g-oo' d and the 1ad, of absoluite perfctioniu andl
its cointrary, vs- flisi eou to prove tile oriental origin
of the systemi, a11(1 see ceiiiliodied the good anid evil genii
of the Arab tale.
Pythalsgor-as, like his predecessors, considered thIe world
as an liarmonliois vwhole, (its very name was kesaas, or
order,) sub-divided into imperfect par-ts, according to
his tetracliys, each revolving around a common centre,
and followvin harmonic laws. F'roim their usotion he
derived "the')Aic of the spi'ecs." I'lie central five,
the sun, lie called the watch-honse of Jove —the most
perfect thing in the physical world, the source of heat,
and first cause of all vitality. The stars, according to
his theory, are emaiiations of tlie sun, and are divinities. The soul of miI, aloptil)g the Proiecthan filale,
is lileewise an enianationi of the sun. an's soul is
therefore divine. Here, by his confuision of God and
Sol, vve see what lw ill induce us to believe, that during
his captivity at the court of Camubyses, he became acquainted wcvitli the doctrines of' the Gubl)S es of Persia,
and min-ling theomvs with the divitce Juda/eal idea of ti e
Godlike erinin of at least one portion of muan's exist.
once, he formed so wonderful an Eclecticism for the age
in wihiCli lie lived.
An tioportant rfle in this philosophy wvsas performed
Iby demons, but the prime mover of all tliins was God
and (h,'t-Ie) his siwill. Pytlitigoras first cenobled the idea
i-f Ii Deity, by atti-ibutiin —' to it tlse moral properties
of tr,.lih iii cood will to his creatuites.
h i,},d ii an emanation of' the D'eity, therefore it
ca'nnot.i. Wiat then becomies of it? As an answe or to this question, lie adopted the Aetempoy cliosis.
Whliait trl itlous le is sa.id to have believed his own
soil to have tndergonie, is in every on1e's mouth. From
lihas coniifiui~d~iig G(od wvit'., the sun, it was necessary for
hii 0 to h,.-Iiis lte soul mailiteriill.
'Tlim we are i'de bte d for the first Psychological
ailyiis, whsesIclt11' -h1s:ot. teCasoil, or (~ious); 2(1. in,tells-i e,.', or (phi''oiis)-tiie seat of theso twio is in the
bra-sii; 3dii~.d last, the appetites (thu.~es) wvischI exist
iu theu uieast.
I iii i by this analysis lie benefitted man kind more
thiaii by -,ill f h,.is poCt:iys ihAl, IpioliticaI and inusical (Cor 1)]e wvas said to haLve been the inventor of
iisting'id h i-i}stiitets). it swas the first aittempt of man
0o it t(Fij, e ixnal world for thit of thoiz,ht.
i V'yt Caor, though toachi'lili lilims-elf nil branches of
o,, 1a1 no ptipil vvlio resembledi him in univ,er;lty of' puilrsit; eachi devoted himself to a particular
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