(7) In this age the word philosophy has little meaning unless accompanied by some other qualifying term. The body of philosophy has been broken up into numerous isms more or less antagonistic, which have become so concerned with the effort to disprove each other's fallacies that the sublimer issues of divine order and human destiny have suffered deplorable neglect. The ideal function of philosophy is to serve as the stabilizing influence in human thought. By virtue of its intrinsic nature it should prevent man from ever establishing unreasonable codes of life. Philosophers themselves, however, have frustrated the ends of philosophy by exceeding in their woolgathering those untrained minds whom they are supposed to lead in the straight and narrow path of rational thinking. To list and classify any but the more important of the now recognized schools of philosophy is beyond the space limitations of this volume. The vast area of speculation covered by philosophy will be appreciated best after a brief consideration of a few of the outstanding systems of philosophic discipline which have swayed the world of thought during the last twenty-six centuries. The Greek school of philosophy had its inception with the seven immortalized thinkers upon whom was first conferred the appellation of Sophos, "the wise." According to Diogenes Laertius, these were Thales, Solon, Chilon, Pittacus, Bias, Cleobulus, and Periander. Water was conceived by Thales to be the primal principle or element, upon which the earth floated like a ship, and earthquakes were the result of disturbances in this universal sea. Since Thales was an Ionian, the school perpetuating his tenets became known as the Ionic. He died in 546 B.C., and was succeeded by Anaximander, who in turn was followed by Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, and Archelaus, with whom the Ionic school ended. Anaximander, differing from his master Thales, declared measureless and indefinable infinity to be the principle from which all things were generated. Anaximenes asserted air to be the first element of the universe; that souls and even the Deity itself were composed of it.

(7) That the philosophic culture of ancient Greece, Egypt, and India excelled that of the modern, world must be admitted by all, even by the most confirmed of modernists. The golden era of Greek æsthetics, intellectualism, and ethics has never since been equaled. The true philosopher belongs to the most noble order of men: the nation or race which is blessed by possession of illumined thinkers is fortunate indeed, and its name shall be remembered for their sake. In the famous Pythagorean school at Crotona, philosophy was regarded as indispensable to the life of man. He who did not comprehend the dignity of the reasoning power could not properly be said to live. Therefore, when through innate perverseness a member either voluntarily withdrew or was forcibly ejected from the philosophic fraternity, a headstone was set up for him in the community graveyard; for he who had forsaken intellectual and ethical pursuits to reenter the material sphere with its illusions of sense and false ambition was regarded as one dead to the sphere of Reality. The life represented by the thraldom of the senses the Pythagoreans conceived to be spiritual death, while they regarded death to the sense-world as spiritual life.

(1) It is also said, that Pythagoras was the first who called himself a philosopher; this not being a new name, but previously instructing us in a useful manner in a thing appropriate to the name. For he said that the entrance of men into the present life, resembled the progression of a crowd to some public spectacle. For there men of every description assemble with different views; one hastening to sell his wares for the sake of money and gain; but another that he may acquire renown by exhibiting the strength of his body; and there is also a third class of men, and those the most liberal, who assemble for the sake of surveying the places, the beautiful works of art, the specimens of valor, and the literary productions which are usually exhibited on such occasions.

Thus also in the present life, men of all-various pursuits are collected together in one and the same place. For some are influenced by the desire of riches and luxury; others by the love of power and dominion; and others are possessed with an insane ambition for glory. But the most pure and unadulterated character, is that of the man who gives himself to the contemplation of the most beautiful things, and whom it is proper to call a philosopher. He adds, that the survey of all heaven, and of the stars that revolve in it, is indeed beautiful, when the order of them is considered. For they derive this beauty and order by the participation of the first and the intelligible essence.

But that first essence is the nature of number and reasons [i. e. productive principles,] which pervades through all things, and according to which all these [celestial bodies] are elegantly arranged, and fitly adorned. And wisdom indeed, truly so called, is a certain science which is conversant with the first beautiful objects, and these divine, undecaying, and possessing an invariable sameness of subsistence; by the participation of which other things also may be called beautiful. But philosophy is the appetition of a thing of this kind. The attention therefore to erudition is likewise beautiful, which Pythagoras extended, in order to effect the correction of mankind.

(80) Having thus traced the more or less sequential development of philosophic speculation from Thales to James and Bergson, it is now in order to direct the reader's attention to the elements leading to and the circumstances attendant upon the genesis of philosophic thinking. Although the Hellenes proved themselves peculiarly responsive to the disciplines of philosophy, this science of sciences should not be considered indigenous to them. "Although some of the Grecians," writes Thomas Stanley, "have challenged to their nation the original of philosophy, yet the more learned of them have acknowledged it [to be] derived from the East." The magnificent institutions of Hindu, Chaldean, and Egyptian learning must be recognized as the actual source of Greek wisdom. The last was patterned after the shadow cast by the sanctuaries of Ellora, Ur, and Memphis upon the thought substance of a primitive people. Thales, Pythagoras, and Plato in their philosophic wanderings contacted many distant cults and brought back the lore of Egypt and the inscrutable Orient.

(1) And these indeed were such as philosophized. But the greatest part of his disciples consisted of auditors whom they call Acusmatici , who on his first arrival in Italy, according to Nicomachus, being captivated by one popular oration alone, exceeded two thousand in number. These, with their wives and children, being collected into one very large and common auditory, called Homacoïon, and which for its magnitude resembled a city, founded a place which was universally called Magna Græcia. This great multitude of people likewise, receiving laws and mandates from Pythagoras as so many divine precepts, and without which they engaged in no occupation, dwelt together with the greatest general concord, celebrated and ranked by their neighbours among the number of the blessed.

At the same time, as we have already observed, they shared their possessions in common. Such also was their reverence for Pythagoras, that they numbered him with the Gods, as a certain beneficent and most philanthropic dæmon. And some indeed celebrated him as the Pythian, but others as the Hyperborean Apollo. Some again considered him as Pæon, but others as one of the dæmons that inhabit the moon; and others celebrated him as one of the Olympian Gods, who, in order to benefit and correct the mortal life, appeared to the men of those times in a human form, in order that he might extend to them the salutary light of felicity and philosophy. And indeed a greater good never came, nor ever will come to mankind, than that which was imparted by the Gods through this Pythagoras.

Hence, even now the proverb of the long-haired Samian , is applied to the most venerable man. But Aristotle relates, in his Treatise On the Pythagoric Philosophy, that such a division as the following was preserved by the Pythagoreans among their principal arcana; viz. that of rational animals one kind is a God, another man, and another such as Pythagoras. And indeed they very reasonably apprehended him to be a being of this kind, through whom a right conception and conformable to things themselves was introduced of Gods, heroes, and dæmons; of the world, the all-various motion of the spheres and stars, their oppositions, eclipses, and inequalities, their eccentricities and epicycles; of all the natures contained in the heavens and the earth, together with those that have an intermediate subsistence, whether apparent or occult.

Nor was there anything (in all this variety of information) at all contrary to the phenomena, or the conceptions of intellect. To which we may add, that all such disciplines, theories, and scientific investigations, as truly invigorate the eye of the soul, and purify the intellect from the blindness introduced by studies of a different kind, so as to enable it to perceive the true principles and causes of the universe, were unfolded by Pythagoras to the Greeks. But besides all this, the best polity, popular concord, community of possessions among friends, the worship of the gods, piety to the dead, legislation, erudition, silence, abstinence from animals, continence, temperance, sagacity, divinity, and in one word, whatever is anxiously sought after by the lovers of learning, was brought to light by Pythagoras. On all these accounts, therefore, as I have just now said, he was (every where) so transcendently admired.

(9) Anaxagoras, again, in his assertion of a Mind pure and unmixed, affirms a simplex First and a sundered One, though writing long ago he failed in precision.

Heraclitus, with his sense of bodily forms as things of ceaseless process and passage, knows the One as eternal and intellectual.

In Empedocles, similarly, we have a dividing principle, "Strife," set against "Friendship"- which is The One and is to him bodiless, while the elements represent Matter.

Later there is Aristotle; he begins by making the First transcendent and intellective but cancels that primacy by supposing it to have self-intellection. Further he affirms a multitude of other intellective beings- as many indeed as there are orbs in the heavens; one such principle as in- over to every orb- and thus his account of the Intellectual Realm differs from Plato's and, failing reason, he brings in necessity; though whatever reasons he had alleged there would always have been the objection that it would be more reasonable that all the spheres, as contributory to one system, should look to a unity, to the First.

We are obliged also to ask whether to Aristotle's mind all Intellectual Beings spring from one, and that one their First; or whether the Principles in the Intellectual are many.

If from one, then clearly the Intellectual system will be analogous to that of the universe of sense-sphere encircling sphere, with one, the outermost, dominating all- the First will envelop the entire scheme and will be an Intellectual Kosmos; and as in our universe the spheres are not empty but the first sphere is thick with stars and none without them, so, in the Intellectual Kosmos, those principles of Movement will envelop a multitude of Beings, and that world will be the realm of the greater reality.

If on the contrary each is a principle, then the effective powers become a matter of chance; under what compulsion are they to hold together and act with one mind towards that work of unity, the harmony of the entire heavenly system? Again what can make it necessary that the material bodies of the heavenly system be equal in number to the Intellectual moving principles, and how can these incorporeal Beings be numerically many when there is no Matter to serve as the basis of difference?

For these reasons the ancient philosophers that ranged themselves most closely to the school of Pythagoras and of his later followers and to that of Pherekudes, have insisted upon this Nature, some developing the subject in their writings while others treated of it merely in unwritten discourses, some no doubt ignoring it entirely.

(18) In a civilization primarily concerned with the accomplishment of the extremes of temporal activity, the philosopher represents an equilibrating intellect capable of estimating and guiding the cultural growth. The establishment of the philosophic rhythm in the nature of an individual ordinarily requires from fifteen to twenty years. During that entire period the disciples of old were constantly subjected to the most severe discipline. Every activity of life was gradually disengaged from other interests and focalized upon the reasoning part. In the ancient world there was another and most vital factor which entered into the production of rational intellects and which is entirely beyond the comprehension of modern thinkers: namely, initiation into the philosophic Mysteries. A man who had demonstrated his peculiar mental and spiritual fitness was accepted into the body of the learned and to him was revealed that priceless heritage of arcane lore preserved from generation to generation. This heritage of philosophic truth is the matchless treasure of all ages, and each disciple admitted into these brotherhoods of the wise made, in turn, his individual contribution to this store of classified knowledge.

(495) There can be no doubt of it. And how can one who is thus circumstanced ever become a philosopher? Impossible. Then were we not right in saying that even the very qualities which make a man a philosopher may, if he be ill-educated, divert him from philosophy, no less than riches and their accompaniments and the other so-called goods of life? We were quite right. Thus, my excellent friend, is brought about all that ruin and failure which I have been describing of the natures best adapted to the best of all pursuits; they are natures which we maintain to be rare at any time; this being the class out of which come the men who are the authors of the greatest evil to States and individuals; and also of the greatest good when the tide carries them in that direction; but a small man never was the doer of any great thing either to individuals or to States. That is most true, he said. And so philosophy is left desolate, with her marriage rite incomplete: for her own have fallen away and forsaken her, and while they are leading a false and unbecoming life, other unworthy persons, seeing that she has no kinsmen to be her protectors, enter in and dishonour her; and fasten upon her the reproaches which, as you say, her reprovers utter, who affirm of her votaries that some are good for nothing, and that the greater number deserve the severest punishment. That is certainly what people say. Yes; and what else would you expect, I said, when you think of the puny creatures who, seeing this land open to

(1) Of his wisdom, however, the commentaries written by the Pythagoreans afford, in short, the greatest indication; for they adhere to truth in every thing, and are more concise than all other compositions, so that they savour of the ancient elegance of style, and the conclusions are exquisitely deduced with divine science. They are also replete with the most condensed conceptions, and are in other respects various and diversified both in the form and the matter. At one and the same time likewise, they are transcendently excellent, and without any deficiency in the diction, and are in an eminent degree full of clear and indubitable arguments, accompanied with scientific demonstration, and as it is said, the most perfect syllogism; as he will find to be the case, who, proceeding in such paths as are fit, does not negligently peruse them.

This science, therefore, concerning intelligible natures and the Gods, Pythagoras delivers in his writings from a supernal origin. Afterwards, he teaches the whole of physics, and unfolds completely ethical philosophy and logic. He likewise delivers all-various disciplines, and the most excellent sciences. And in short there is nothing pertaining to human knowledge which is not accurately discussed in these writings. If therefore it is acknowledged, that of the [Pythagoric] writings which are now in circulation, some were written by Pythagoras himself, but others consist of what he was heard to say, and on this account are anonymous, but are referred to Pythagoras as their author;—if this be the case, it is evident that he was abundantly skilled in all wisdom.

But it is said that he very much applied himself to geometry among the Egyptians. For with the Egyptians there are many geometrical problems; since it is necessary that from remote periods, and from the time of the Gods themselves, on account of the increments and decrements of the Nile, those that were skilful should have measured all the Egyptian land which they cultivated. Hence also geometry derived its name. Neither did they negligently investigate the theory of the celestial orbs, in which likewise Pythagoras was skilled. Moreover, all the theorems about lines appear to have been derived from thence. For it is said that what pertains to computation and numbers, was discovered in Phœnicia. For some persons refer the theorems about the celestial bodies to the Egyptians and Chaldeans in common.

It is said therefore, that Pythagoras having received and increased all these [theories,] imparted the sciences, and at the same time demonstrated them to his auditors with perspicuity and elegance. And he was the first indeed that denominated philosophy, and said that it was the desire, and as it were love of wisdom. But he defined wisdom to be the science of the truth which is in beings. And he said that beings are immaterial and eternal natures, and alone possess an efficacious power, such as incorporeal essences. But that the rest of things are only homonymously beings, and are so denominated through the participation of real beings, and such are corporeal and material forms, which are generated and corrupted, and never truly are.

And that wisdom is the science of things which are properly beings, but not of such as are homonymously so. For corporeal natures are neither the objects of science nor admit of a stable knowledge, since they are infinite and incomprehensible by science, and are as it were, non-beings, when compared with universals, and are incapable of being properly circumscribed by definition. It is impossible however to conceive that there should be science of things which are not naturally the objects of science. Hence it is not probable that there will be a desire of science which has no subsistence, but rather that desire will be extended to things which are properly beings, which exist with invariable permanency, and are always consubsistent with a true appellation.

For it happens that the perception of things which are homonymously beings, and which are never truly what they seem to be, follows the apprehension of real beings; just as the knowledge of particulars follows the science of universals. For he who knows universals properly, says Archytas, will also have a clear perception of the nature of particulars. Hence things which have an existence are not alone, nor only-begotten, nor simple, but they are seen to be various and multiform. For some of them are intelligible and incorporeal natures, and which are denominated beings; but others are corporeal and fall under the perception of sense, and by participation communicate with that which has a real existence. Concerning all these therefore, he delivered the most appropriate sciences, and left nothing [pertaining to them] uninvestigated.

He likewise unfolded to men those sciences which are common [ to all disciplines ,] as for instance the demonstrative, the definitive, and that which consists in dividing, as may be known from the Pythagoric commentaries. He was also accustomed to pour forth sentences resembling Oracles to his familiars in a symbolical manner, and which in the greatest brevity of words contained the most abundant and multifarious meaning, like the Pythian Apollo through certain oracles, or like nature herself through seeds small in bulk, the former exhibiting conceptions, and the latter effects, innumerable in multitude, and difficult to be understood. Of this kind is the sentence, The beginning is the half of the whole , which is an apothegm of Pythagoras himself.

But not only in the present hemistich, but in others of a similar nature, the most divine Pythagoras has concealed the sparks of truth; depositing as in a treasury for those who are capable of being enkindled by them, and with a certain brevity of diction, an extension of theory most ample and difficult to be comprehended, as in the following hemistich:

(1) As he therefore thus prepared his disciples for erudition, he did not immediately receive into the number of his associates those who came to him for that purpose, till he had made trial of, and judiciously examined them. Hence in the first place he inquired after what manner they associated with their parents, and the rest of their relatives. In the next place he surveyed their unseasonable laughter, their silence, and their speaking when it was not proper; and farther still, what their desires were, with whom they associated, how they conversed with them, in what they especially employed their leisure time in the day, and what were the subjects of their joy and grief. He likewise surveyed, their form, their mode of walking, and the whole motion of their body.

Physiognomically also considering the natural indications of their frame, he made them to be manifest signs of the unapparent manners of the soul. When, therefore, he had thus made trial of some one, he suffered him to be neglected for three years, in the mean time observing how he was disposed with respect to stability, and a true love of learning, and if he was sufficiently prepared with reference to glory, so as to despise [popular] honor. After this, he ordered those who came to him to observe a quinquennial silence, in order that he might experimentally know how they were affected as to continence of speech, the subjugation of the tongue being the most difficult of all victories; as those have unfolded to us who instituted the mysteries.

During this [probationary] time, however, the property of each was disposed of in common, and was committed to the care of those appointed for this purpose, who were called politicians, economizers, and legislators. And with respect to these probationers, those who appeared to be worthy to participate of his dogmas, from the judgment he had formed of them from their life and the modesty of their behaviour, after the quinquennial silence, then became Esoterics , and both heard and saw Pythagoras himself within the veil. For prior to this they participated of his words through the hearing alone, beyond the veil, without at all seeing him, giving for a long time a specimen of their peculiar manners. But if they were rejected they received the double of the wealth which they brought, and a tomb was raised to them as if they were dead by the homacoï ; for thus all the disciples of the man were called.

And if they happened to meet with them afterwards, they behaved to them as if they were other persons, but said that they were dead, whom they had modelled by education, in the expectation that they would become truly good men by the disciplines they would learn. They also were of opinion that those who were more slow in the acquisition of knowledge, were badly organized, and, as I may say, imperfect and barren. If, however, after Pythagoras had physiognomically considered their form, their mode of walking, and every other motion, and the state of their body, and he had conceived good hope respecting them; after likewise the quinquennial silence, and the orgies and initiations from so many disciplines, together with the ablutions of the soul, and so many and such great purifications produced from such various theorems, through which the sagacity and sanctity of the soul is perfectly ingenerated; if, after all this, some one was found to be still sluggish and of a dull intellect, they raised to such a one in the school a certain pillar and monument, (as they are said to have done to Perialus the Thurian, and Cylon the prince of the Sybarites, who were rejected by them) expelled him from the Homacoïon or auditory, loading him with a great quantity of silver and gold.

For these were deposited by them in common, and were committed to the care of certain persons adapted to this purpose, and who were called Economics, from the office which they bore. And if afterwards they happened to meet with such a one, they conceived him to be any other person, than him who according to them was dead. Hence also Lysis, blaming a certain person named Hipparchus, because he had communicated the doctrines of the Pythagoreans to the profane, and to those who acceded to them without disciplines and theory, says as follows:

(3) Fearing, however, lest the name of philosophy should be entirely exterminated from mankind, and that they should on this account incur the indignation of the Gods, by suffering so great a gift of theirs to perish, they made an arrangement of certain commentaries and symbols, and likewise, collected together the writings of the more ancient Pythagoreans, and of such things as they remembered. These, each left at his death to his son, or daughter, or wife, with a strict injunction not to give them to any one out of the family. This mandate therefore, was for a long time observed, and was transmitted in succession to their posterity,

(1) After this we must narrate how, when he had admitted certain persons to be his disciples, he distributed them into different classes according to their respective merits. For it was not fit that all of them should equally participate of the same things, as they were naturally dissimilar; nor was it indeed right that some should participate of all the most honorable auditions, but others of none, or should not at all partake of them. For this would be uncommunicative and unjust. While therefore he imparted a convenient portion of his discourses to each, he benefited as much as possible all of them, and preserved the proportion of justice, by making each a partaker of the auditions according to his desert.

Hence, in conformity to this method, he called some of them Pythagoreans, but others Pythagorists; just as we denominate some men Attics, but others Atticists. Having therefore thus aptly divided their names, some of them he considered to be genuine, but he ordained that others should show themselves to be the emulators of these. He ordered therefore that with the Pythagoreans possessions should be shared in common, and that they should always live together; but that each of the others should possess his own property apart from the rest, and that assembling together in the same place, they should mutually be at leisure for the same pursuits. And thus each of these modes was derived from Pythagoras, and transmitted to his successors.

Again, there were also with the Pythagoreans two forms of philosophy; for there were likewise two genera of those that pursued it, the Acusmatici, and the Mathematici. Of these however the Mathematici are acknowledged to be Pythagoreans by the rest; but the Mathematici do not admit that the Acusmatici are so, or that they derived their instruction from Pythagoras, but from Hippasus. And with respect to Hippasus, some say that he was a Crotonian, but others a Metapontine. But the philosophy of the Acusmatici consists in auditions unaccompanied with demonstrations and a reasoning process; because it merely orders a thing to be done in a certain way, and that they should endeavour to preserve such other things as were said by him, as so many divine dogmas.

They however profess that they will not speak of them, and that they are not to be spoken of; but they conceive those of their sect to be the best furnished with wisdom, who retained what they had heard more than others. But all these auditions are divided into three species. For some of them indeed signify what a thing is; others what it especially is; but others, what ought, or what ought not, to be done. The auditions therefore which signify what a thing is, are such as, What are the islands of the blessed? The sun and moon. What is the oracle at Delphi? The tetractys. What is harmony? That in which the Syrens subsist . But the auditions which signify what a thing especially is, are such as, What is the most just thing?

To sacrifice. What is the wisest thing? Number. But the next to this in wisdom, is that which gives names to things. What is the wisest of the things that are with us, [i. e. which pertain to human concerns]? Medicine. What is the most beautiful? Harmony. What is the most powerful? Mental decision. What is the most excellent? Felicity. What is that which is most truly asserted? That men are depraved. Hence they say that Pythagoras praised the Salaminian poet Hippodomas, because he sings:

(4) This therefore was the form of his wisdom which is so admirable.

It is also said, that of the sciences which the Pythagoreans honored, music, medicine and divination, were not among the least. But they were habitually silent and prompt to hear, and he who was able to hear [in a proper manner] was praised by them. Of medicine, however, they especially embraced the diætetic species, and in the exercise of this were most accurate. And in the first place, indeed, they endeavoured to learn the indications of symmetry, of labor, food, and repose. In the next place, with respect to the preparation of food, they were nearly the first who attempted to employ themselves in it, and to define the mode in which it should be performed. The Pythagoreans likewise employed cataplasms more frequently than their predecessors; but they in a less degree approved of medicated ointments. These however they principally used in the cure of ulcerations. But incisions and burnings they admitted the least of all things. Some diseases also they cured by incantations. Pythagoras, however, thought that music greatly contributed to health, if it was used in a proper manner. The Pythagoreans likewise employed select sentences of Homer and Hesiod for the amendment of souls. But they thought it was necessary to retain and preserve in the memory things which they had learnt and heard; and that it was requisite to be furnished with disciplines and auditions, to as great an extent as there was an ability of learning and remembering; the former of these being the power by which knowledge is obtained, but the latter, the power by which it is preserved. Hence, they very much honored the memory, abundantly exercised, and paid great attention to it. In learning too, they did not dismiss what they were taught, till they had firmly comprehended the first rudiments of it; and they recalled to their memory what they had daily heard, after the following manner: A Pythagorean never rose from his bed till he had first recollected the transactions of the former day; and he accomplished this by endeavouring to remember what he first said, or heard, or ordered his domestics to do when he was rising, or what was the second and third thing which he said, heard, or commanded to be done. And the same method was adopted with respect to the remainder of the day. For again, he endeavoured to recollect who was the first person that he met, on leaving his house, or who was the second; and with whom he in the first, or second, or third place discoursed. And after the same manner he proceeded in other things. For he endeavoured to resume in his memory all the events of the whole day, and in the very same order in which each of them happened to take place. But if they had sufficient leisure after rising from sleep, they tried after the same manner to recollect the events of the third preceding day. And thus they endeavoured to exercise the memory to a great extent. For there is not any thing which is of greater importance with respect to science, experience and wisdom, than the ability of remembering. From these studies therefore, it happened that all Italy was filled with philosophers, and this place, which before was unknown, was afterwards on account of Pythagoras called Magna Græcia. Hence also it contained many philosophers, poets, and legislators. For the rhetorical arts, demonstrative reasonings, and the laws written by them, were transferred from Italy to Greece. Those likewise who make mention of physics, adduce as the principal physiologists Empedocles and the Elean Parmenides. Those too, who wish to cite sentences, pertaining to the conduct of human life, adduce for this purpose the conceptions of Epicharmus. And nearly all philosophers make use of these. Thus much therefore concerning the wisdom of Pythagoras, how in a certain respect he very much impelled all his auditors to the pursuit of it, as far as they were adapted to its participation, and how perfectly it was delivered by him.

(1) The successor, however, of Pythagoras, is acknowledged by all men to have been Aristæus, the son of Damophon the Crotonian, who existing at the same time as Pythagoras, was seven ages prior to Plato. Aristæus likewise, was not only thought worthy to succeed Pythagoras in his school, but also to educate his children, and marry his wife Theano, because he was eminently skilled in the Pythagoric dogmas. For Pythagoras himself is said to have taught in his school, forty years wanting one, and to have lived nearly one hundred years. But Aristæus, when much advanced in years, relinquished the school; and after him Mnesarchus succeeded, who was the son of Pythagoras. Bulagoras succeeded Mnesarchus, in whose time it happened that the city of the Crotonians was plundered. Gartydas the Crotonian succeeded Bulagoras, on his return from a journey which he had undertaken prior to the war. Nevertheless on account of the calamity of his country, he suffered so much anxiety, as to die prematurely through grief. But it was the custom with the rest of the Pythagoreans, when they became very old, to liberate themselves from the body as from a prison.

(2) “It is reported that you philosophize to every one you may happen to meet, and publicly, which Pythagoras did not think fit to do. And these things, indeed, O Hipparchus, you learnt with diligent assiduity, but you have not preserved them; having tasted, O excellent man, of Sicilian delicacies, which you ought not to have tasted a second time. If, therefore, you abandon these, I shall rejoice; but if not, you will be dead in my opinion. For it will be pious to call to mind the divine and human precepts of Pythagoras, and not to make the goods of wisdom common to those, who have not even in a dream their soul purified. For it is not lawful to extend to every casual person, things which were obtained with such great labors, and such diligent assiduity, nor to divulge the mysteries of the Eleusinian Goddesses to the profane.

For those who do either of these, are equally unjust and impious. But it will be well to consider what a great length of time we consumed in wiping away the stains which had insinuated themselves into our breasts, till, after the lapse of some years, we became fit recipients of the doctrines of Pythagoras. For as dyers previously purify garments, and then fix in the colors with which they wish them to be imbued, in order that the dye may not be washed away, and may never become evanescent; after the same manner also that divine man prepared the souls of those that were lovers of philosophy, so that they might not deceive him in any of those beautiful and good qualities which he hoped they would possess.

For he did not impart spurious doctrines, nor snares, in which most of the sophists, who are at leisure for no good purpose, entangle young men; but he possessed a scientific knowledge of things human and divine. These men, however, making his doctrine a pretext, perform many dreadful deeds, ensnaring youth not in a becoming nor yet in a casual way. Hence they render their auditors noxious and precipitate. For they infuse theorems and divine doctrines into confused and turbid manners. Just as if some one should pour pure and clear water into a deep well full of mud; for he would disturb the mud, and destroy the clear water. The same thing likewise takes place between those who teach and those who are taught after this manner.

For dense thickets and which are full of briars surround the intellect and heart of those who have not been purely initiated in disciplines, obscure the mild, tranquil, and reasoning power of the soul, and openly impede the intellective part from becoming increased and elevated. It is requisite likewise to call intemperance and avarice the mothers of these thickets; both which are naturally prolific. From intemperance, therefore, unlawful marriages, [unjust] desires, corruptions, intoxication, preternatural pleasures, and certain vehement appetites blossom forth, and which impel their possessors into profundities and precipices. For now desires have compelled some not to abstain either from their mothers or their daughters, and violating law, their country, city, and king, with their hands as it were bound behind them, they are violently dragged along like slaves to extreme destruction.

But from avarice germinate rapine, robbery, parricide, sacrilege, sorcery, and such other evils at are the sisters of these. In the first place, therefore, it is necessary to purify the woods in which these passions have fixed their abode, with fire and sword, and all the machines of disciplines; and having liberated the reasoning power from such mighty evils, we may then implant in and deliver to it something useful and good.” So great and so necessary was the attention which, according to Pythagoras, ought to be paid to disciplines prior to philosophy. He likewise ordained that a singular honor, and the most accurate investigation, should be given to the teaching and participation of his dogmas, as he judiciously examined the conceptions of those that came to him, by various documents, and ten thousand forms of scientific theory.

(490) which is an appearance only, but will go on—the keen edge will not be blunted, nor the force of his desire abate until he have attained the knowledge of the true nature of every essence by a sympathetic and kindred power in the soul, and by that power drawing near and mingling and becoming incorporate with very being, having begotten mind and truth, he will have knowledge and will live and grow truly, and then, and not till then, will he cease from his travail. Nothing, he said, can be more just than such a description of him. And will the love of a lie be any part of a philosopher’s nature? Will he not utterly hate a lie? He will. And when truth is the captain, we cannot suspect any evil of the band which he leads? Impossible. Justice and health of mind will be of the company, and temperance will follow after? True, he replied. Neither is there any reason why I should again set in array the philosopher’s virtues, as you will doubtless remember that courage, magnificence, apprehension, memory, were his natural gifts. And you objected that, although no one could deny what I then said, still, if you leave words and look at facts, the persons who are thus described are some of them manifestly useless, and the greater number utterly depraved; we were then led to enquire into the grounds of these accusations, and have now arrived at the point of asking why are the majority bad, which question of necessity brought us back to the examination and definition of the true philosopher.