Chapter XXXVII (1)

IONIC PHILOSOPHERS. — PYTHAGORAS. — KROTON AND SYBARIS.

The history of the powerful Grecian cities in Italy and Sicily, between the accession of Peisistratus and the battle of Marathon, is for the most part unknown to us. Phalaris, despot of Agrigentum in Sicily, made for himself an unenviable name during this obscure interval. His reign seems to coincide in time with the earlier part of the rule of Peisistratus (about 560-540 B. C.), and the few and vague statements which we find respecting it,[688] merely show us that it was a period of extortion and cruelty, even beyond the ordinary licence of Grecian despots. The reality of the hollow bull of brass, which Phalaris was accustomed to heat in order to shut up his victims in it and burn them, appears to be better authenticated than the nature of the story would lead us to presume: for it is not only noticed by Pindar, but even the actual instrument of this torture, the brazen bull itself,[689]—which had been taken away from Agrigentum as a trophy by the Carthaginians when they captured the town, was restored by the Romans, on the subjugation of Carthage, to its original domicile. Phalaris is said to have acquired the supreme command, by undertaking the task of building a great temple[690] to Zeus Polieus on the citadel rock; a pretence whereby he was enabled to assemble and arm a number of workmen and devoted partisans, whom he employed, at the festival of the Thesmophoria, to put down the authorities. He afterwards disarmed the citizens by a stratagem, and committed cruelties which rendered him so abhorred, that a sudden rising of the people, headed by Têlemachus (ancestor of the subsequent despot, Thêro), overthrew and slew him. A severe revenge was taken on his partisans after his fall.[691]

[688] The letters of Bentley against Boyle, discussing the
pretended Epistles of Phalaris,—full of acuteness and learning,
though beyond measure excursive,—are quite sufficient to teach us
that little can be safely asserted about Phalaris. His date is
very imperfectly ascertained. Compare Bentley, pp. 82, 83, and
Seyfert, Akragas und sein Gebiet, p. 60: the latter assigns the
reign of Phalaris to the years 570-554 B. C. It is surprising
to see Seyfert citing the letters of the pseudo-Phalaris as an
authority, after the exposure of Bentley.

[689] Pindar. Pyth. 1 _ad fin_, with the Scholia, p. 310, ed.
Boeckh; Polyb. xii, 25; Diodor. xiii, 99; Cicero cont. Verr.
iv, 33. The contradiction of Timæus is noway sufficient to make
us doubt the authenticity of the story. Ebert (Σικελίων, part
ii, pp. 41-84, Königsberg, 1829) collects all the authorities
about the bull of Phalaris. He believes the matter of fact
substantially. Aristotle (Rhetoric, ii, 20) tells a story of the
fable, whereby Stêsichorus the poet dissuaded the inhabitants
of Himera from granting a guard to Phalaris: Conon (Narrat.
42 ap. Photium) recounts the same story with the name of
Hiero substituted for that of Phalaris. But it is not likely
that either the one or the other could ever have been in such
relations with the citizens of _Himera_. Compare Polybius, vii,
7, 2.

[690] Polyæn. v, 1, 1; Cicero de Officiis, ii, 7.

[691] Plutarch, Philosophand. cum Principibus, c. 3, p. 778.

During the interval between 540-500 B. C., events of much importance occurred among the Italian Greeks,—especially at Kroton and Sybaris,—events, unhappily, very imperfectly handed down. Between these two periods fall both the war between Sybaris and Kroton, and the career and ascendency of Pythagoras. In connection with this latter name, it will be requisite to say a few words respecting the other Grecian philosophers of the sixth century B. C.

I have, in a former chapter, noticed and characterized those distinguished persons called the Seven Wise Men of Greece, whose celebrity falls in the first half of this century,—men not so much marked by scientific genius as by practical sagacity and foresight in the appreciation of worldly affairs, and enjoying a high degree of political respect from their fellow-citizens. One of them, however, the Milesian Thalês, claims our notice, not only on this ground, but also as the earliest known name in the long line of Greek scientific investigators. His life, nearly contemporary with that of Solon, belongs seemingly to the interval about 640-550 B. C.: the stories mentioned in Herodotus—perhaps borrowed in part from the Milesian Hekatæus—are sufficient to show that his reputation for wisdom, as well as for science, continued to be very great, even a century after his death, among his fellow-citizens. And he marks an important epoch in the progress of the Greek mind, as having been the first man to depart both in letter and spirit from the Hesiodic Theogony, introducing the conception of substances with their transformations and sequences, in place of that string of persons and quasi-human attributes which had animated the old legendary world. He is the father of what is called the Ionic philosophy, which is considered as lasting from his time down to that of Sokratês; and writers, ancient as well as modern, have professed to trace a succession of philosophers, each one the pupil of the preceding, between these two extreme epochs. But the appellation is, in truth, undefined, and even incorrect, since nothing entitled to the name of a school, or sect, or succession,—like that of the Pythagoreans, to be noticed presently,—can be made out. There is, indeed, a certain general analogy in the philosophical vein of Thalês, Hippo, Anaximenês, and Diogenês of Apollonia, whereby they all stand distinguished from Xenophanês of Elea, and his successors, the Eleatic dialecticians, Parmenidês and Zeno; but there are also material differences between their respective doctrines,—no two of them holding the same. And if we look to Anaximander, the person next in order of time to Thalês, as well as to Herakleitus, we find them departing, in a great degree, even from that character which all the rest have in common, though both the one and the other are usually enrolled in the list of Ionic philosophers.

Of the old legendary and polytheistic conception of nature, which Thalês partially discarded, we may remark that it is a state of the human mind in which the problems suggesting themselves to be solved, and the machinery for solving them, bear a fair proportion one to the other. If the problems be vast, indeterminate, confused, and derived rather from the hopes, fears, love, hatred, astonishment, etc., of men, than from any genuine desire of knowledge,—so also does the received belief supply invisible agents in unlimited number, and with every variety of power and inclination. The means of explanation are thus multiplied and diversified as readily as the phenomena to be explained. And though no future events or states can be predicted on trustworthy grounds, in such manner as to stand the scrutiny of subsequent verification,—yet there is little difficulty in rendering a specious and plausible account of matters past, of any and all things alike; especially as, at such a period, matters of fact requiring explanation are neither collated nor preserved with care. And though no event or state, which has not yet occurred, can be predicted, there is little difficulty in rendering a plausible account of everything which has occurred in the past. Cosmogony, and the prior ages of the world, were conceived as a sort of personal history, with intermarriages, filiation, quarrels, and other adventures, of these invisible agents; among whom some one or more were assumed as unbegotten and self-existent,—the latter assumption being a difficulty common to all systems of cosmogony, and from which even this flexible and expansive hypothesis is not exempt.

Now when Thalês disengaged Grecian philosophy from the old mode of explanation, he did not at the same time disengage it from the old problems and matters propounded for inquiry. These he retained, and transmitted to his successors, as vague and vast as they were at first conceived; and so they remained, though with some transformations and modifications, together with many new questions equally insoluble, substantially present to the Greeks throughout their whole history, as the legitimate problems for philosophical investigation. But these problems, adapted only to the old elastic system of polytheistic explanation and omnipresent personal agency, became utterly disproportioned to any impersonal hypotheses such as those of Thalês and the philosophers after him,—whether assumed physical laws, or plausible moral and metaphysical dogmas, open to argumentative attack, and of course requiring the like defence. To treat the visible world as a whole, and inquire when and how it began, as well as into all its past changes,—to discuss the first origin of men, animals, plants, the sun, the stars, etc.,—to assign some comprehensive reason why motion or change in general took place in the universe,—to investigate the destinies of the human race, and to lay down some systematic relation between them and the gods,—all these were topics admitting of being conceived in many different ways, and set forth with eloquent plausibility, but not reducible to any solution either resting on scientific evidence, or commanding steady adherence under a free scrutiny.[692]

[692] The less these problems are adapted for rational solution,
the more nobly do they present themselves in the language of a
great poem; see as a specimen, Euripidês, Fragment. 101, ed.
Dindorf.

Ὄλβιος ὅστις τῆς ἱστορίας
Ἔσχε μάθησιν, μήτε πολιτῶν
Ἐπὶ πημοσύνῃ, μήτ᾽ εἰς ἀδίκους
Πράξεις ὁρμῶν·
Ἀλλ᾽ ἀθανάτου καθορῶν φύσεως
Κόσμον ἀγήρω, πῆ τε συνέστη
Καὶ ὅπη καὶ ὅπως.
Τοῖς δὲ τοιούτοις οὐδέποτ᾽ αἰσχρῶν
Ἔργων μελέτημα προσίζει.

At the time when the power of scientific investigation was scanty and helpless, the problems proposed were thus such as to lie out of the reach of science in its largest compass. Gradually, indeed, subjects more special and limited, and upon which experience, or deductions from experience, could be brought to bear, were added to the list of _quæsita_, and examined with great profit and instruction: but the old problems, with new ones, alike unfathomable, were never eliminated, and always occupied a prominent place in the philosophical world. Now it was this disproportion, between questions to be solved and means of solution, which gave rise to that conspicuous characteristic of Grecian philosophy,—the antagonist force of suspensive skepticism, passing in some minds into a broad negation of the attainability of general truth,—which it nourished from its beginning to its end; commencing as early as Xenophanês, continuing to manifest itself seven centuries afterwards in Ænesidêmus and Sextus Empiricus, and including in the interval between these two extremes some of the most powerful intellects in Greece. The present is not the time for considering these Skeptics, who bear an unpopular name, and have not often been fairly appreciated; the more so, as it often suited the purpose of men, themselves essentially skeptical, like Sokratês and Plato, to denounce professed skepticism with indignation. But it is essential to bring them into notice at the first spring of Grecian philosophy under Thalês, because the circumstances were then laid which so soon afterwards developed them.

Though the celebrity of Thalês in antiquity was great and universal, scarcely any distinct facts were known respecting him: it is certain that he left nothing in writing. Extensive travels in Egypt and Asia are ascribed to him, and as a general fact these travels are doubtless true, since no other means of acquiring knowledge were then open. At a time when the brother of the Lesbian Alkæus was serving in the Babylonian army, we may easily conceive that an inquisitive Milesian would make his way to that wonderful city wherein stood the temple-observatory of the Chaldæan priesthood; nor is it impossible that he may have seen the still greater city of Ninus, or Nineveh, before its capture and destruction by the Medes. How great his reputation was in his lifetime, the admiration expressed by his younger contemporary, Xenophanês, assures us; and Herakleitus, in the next generation, a severe judge of all other philosophers, spoke of him with similar esteem. To him were traced, by the Grecian inquirers of the fourth century B. C., the first beginnings of geometry, astronomy, and physiology in its large and really appropriate sense, the scientific study of nature: for the Greek word denoting nature (φύσις), first comes into comprehensive use about this time (as I have remarked in an earlier chapter),[693] with its derivatives _physics_ and _physiology_, as distinguished from the _theology_ of the old poets. Little stress can be laid on those elementary propositions in geometry which are specified as discovered, or as first demonstrated, by Thalês,—still less upon the solar eclipse respecting which, according to Herodotus, he determined beforehand the year of occurrence.[694] But the main doctrine of his physiology,—using that word in its larger Greek sense,—is distinctly attested. He stripped Oceanus and Tethys, primeval parents of the gods in the Homeric theogony, of their personality,—and laid down water, or fluid substance, as the single original element from which everything came, and into which everything returned.[695] The doctrine of one eternal element, remaining always the same in its essence, but indefinitely variable in its manifestations to sense, was thus first introduced to the discussion of the Grecian public. We have no means of knowing the reasons by which Thalês supported this opinion, nor could even Aristotle do more than conjecture what they might have been; but one of the statements urged on behalf of it,—that the earth itself rested on water,[696]—we may safely refer to the Milesian himself, for it would hardly have been advanced at a later age. Moreover, Thalês is reported to have held, that everything was living and full of gods; and that the magnet, especially, was a living thing. Thus the gods, as far as we can pretend to follow opinions so very faintly transmitted, are conceived as active powers, and causes of changeful manifestation, attached to the primeval substance:[697] the universe being assimilated to an organized body or system.

[693] Vol. i, ch. xvi.

[694] Diogen. Laërt. i, 23; Herodot. i, 75; Apuleius, Florid. iv,
p. 144, Bip.

Proclus, in his Commentary on Euclid, specifies several
propositions said to have been discovered by Thalês (Brandis,
Handbuch der Gr. Philos. ch. xxviii, p. 110).

[695] Aristotel. Metaphys. i, 3; Plutarch, Placit. Philos. i,
3, p. 875. ὃς ἐξ ὔδατος φησὶ πάντα εἶναι, καὶ εἰς ὕδωρ πάντα
ἀναλύεσθαι.

[696] Aristotel. _ut supra_, and De Cœlo, ii, 13.

[697] Aristotel. De Animâ, i, 2-5; Cicero, De Legg. ii, 11;
Diogen. Laërt. i, 24.

Respecting Hippo,—who reproduced the theory of Thalês under a more generalized form of expression, substituting, in place of water, moisture, or something common to air and water,[698]—we do not know whether he belonged to the sixth or the fifth century B. C. But Anaximander, Xenophanês, and Pherekydês belong to the latter half of the sixth century. Anaximander, the son of Praxiadês, was a native of Milêtus,—Xenophanês, a native of Kolophon; the former, among the earliest expositors of doctrine in prose,[699] while the latter committed his opinions to the old medium of verse. Anaximander seems to have taken up the philosophical problem, while he materially altered the hypothesis of his predecessor Thalês. Instead of the primeval fluid of the latter, he supposed a primeval principle, without any actual determining qualities whatever, but including all qualities potentially, and manifesting them in an infinite variety from its continually self-changing nature,—a principle, which was nothing in itself, yet had the capacity of producing any and all manifestations, however contrary to each other,[700]—a primeval something, whose essence it was to be eternally productive of different phenomena,—a sort of mathematical point, which counts for nothing in itself, but is vigorous in generating lines to any extent that may be desired. In this manner, Anaximander professed to give a comprehensive explanation of change in general, or generation, or destruction,—how it happened that one sensible thing began and another ceased to exist,—according to the vague problems which these early inquirers were in the habit of setting to themselves.[701] He avoided that which the first philosophers especially dreaded, the affirmation that generation could take place out of Nothing; yet the primeval Something, which he supposed was only distinguished from nothing by possessing this very power of generation.

[698] Aristotel. De Animâ, i, 2; Alexander Aphrodis. in
Aristotel. Metaphys. 1, 3.

[699] Apollodorus, in the second century B. C., had before him
some brief expository treatises of Anaximander (Diogen. Laërt.
ii, 2): Περὶ Φύσεως, Γῆς Περίοδον, Περὶ τῶν Ἀπλανῶν καὶ Σφαῖραν
καὶ ἄλλα τινά. Suidas, v. Ἀναξίμανδρος. Themistius. Orat. xxv,
p. 317: ἐθάῤῥησε πρῶτος ὦν ἴσμεν Ἐλλήνων λόγον ἐξενεγκεῖν περὶ
Φύσεως συγγεγραμμένον.

[700] Irenæus, ii, 19, (14) ap. Brandis, Handbuch der Geschichte
der Griech. Röm. Philos. ch. xxxv, p. 133: “Anaximander hoc
quod immensum est, omnium initium subjecit, seminaliter habens
in semetipso omnium genesin, ex quo immensos mundos constare
ait.” Aristotel. Physic. Auscult. iii, 4, p. 203, Bek. οὔτε γὰρ
μάτην αὐτὸ οἶόν τε εἶναι (τὸ ἄπειρον), οὔτε ἄλλην ὑπάρχειν αὐτῷ
δύναμιν, πλὴν ὡς ἀρχήν. Aristotle subjects this ἄπειρον to an
elaborate discussion, in which he says very little more about
Anaximander, who appears to have assumed it without anticipating
discussion or objections. Whether Anaximander called his
ἄπειρον divine, or god, as Tennemann (Gesch. Philos. i, 2, p.
67) and Panzerbieter affirm (ad Diogenis Apolloniat. Fragment.
c. 13, p. 16,) I think doubtful: this is rather an inference
which Aristotle elicits from his language. Yet in another
passage, which is difficult to reconcile, Aristotle ascribes
to Anaximander the water-doctrine of Thalês, (Aristotel. de
Xenophane, p. 975. Bek.)

Anaximander seems to have followed speculations analogous to
those of Thalês, in explaining the first production of the human
race (Plutarch Placit. Philos. v, 19, p. 908), and in other
matters (ibid. iii, 16, p. 896).

[701] Aristotel. De Generat. et Destruct. c. 3, p. 317, Bek. ὃ
μάλιστα φοβούμενοι διετέλεσαν οἱ πρῶτοι φιλοσοφήσαντες, τὸ ἐκ
μηδενὸς γίνεσθαι προϋπάρχοντος· compare Physic. Auscultat. i, 4,
p. 187, Bek.

In his theory, he passed from the province of physics into that of metaphysics. He first introduced into Grecian philosophy that important word which signifies a beginning or a principle,[702] and first opened that metaphysical discussion, which was carried on in various ways throughout the whole period of Grecian philosophy, as to the one and the many—the continuous and the variable—that which exists eternally, as distinguished from that which comes and passes away in ever-changing manifestations. His physiology, or explanation of nature, thus conducted the mind into a different route from that suggested by the hypothesis of Thalês, which was built upon physical considerations, and was therefore calculated to suggest and stimulate observations of physical phenomena for the purpose of verifying or confuting it,—while the hypothesis of Anaximander admitted only of being discussed dialectically, or by reasonings expressed in general language; reasonings sometimes, indeed, referring to experience for the purpose of illustration, but seldom resting on it, and never looking out for it as a necessary support. The physical explanation of nature, however, once introduced by Thalês, although deserted by Anaximander, was taken up by Anaximenês and others afterwards, and reproduced with many divergences of doctrine,—yet always more or less entangled and perplexed with metaphysical additions, since the two departments were never clearly parted throughout all Grecian philosophy. Of these subsequent physical philosophers I shall speak hereafter: at present, I confine myself to the thinkers of the sixth century B. C., among whom Anaximander stands prominent, not as the follower of Thalês, but as the author of an hypothesis both new and tending in a different direction.

[702] Simplicius in Aristotel. Physic. fol. 6, 32. πρῶτος αὐτὸς
Ἀρχὴν ὀνομάσας τὸ ὑποκείμενον.

It was not merely as the author of this hypothesis, however, that Anaximander enlarged the Greek mind and roused the powers of thought: we find him also mentioned as distinguished in astronomy and geometry. He is said to have been the first to establish a sun-dial in Greece, to construct a sphere, and to explain the obliquity of the ecliptic;[703] how far such alleged authorship really belongs to him, we cannot be certain,—but there is one step of immense importance which he is clearly affirmed to have made. He was the first to compose a treatise on the geography of the land and sea within his cognizance, and to construct a chart or map founded thereupon,—seemingly a tablet of brass. Such a novelty, wondrous even to the rude and ignorant, was calculated to stimulate powerfully inquisitive minds, and from it may be dated the commencement of Grecian rational geography,—not the least valuable among the contributions of this people to the stock of human knowledge.

[703] Diogen. Laërt. ii, 81, 2. He agreed with Thalês in
maintaining that the earth was stationary, (Aristotel. de Cœlo,
ii, 13, p. 295, ed. Bekk.)

Xenophanês of Kolophon, somewhat younger than Anaximander, and nearly contemporary with Pythagoras (seemingly from about 570-480 B. C.), migrated from Kolophon[704] to Zanklê and Katana in Sicily and Elea in Italy, soon after the time when Ionia became subject to the Persians, (540-530 B. C.) He was the founder of what is called the Eleatic school of philosophers,—a real school, since it appears that Parmenidês, Zeno, and Melissus, pursued and developed, in a great degree, the train of speculation which had been begun by Xenophanês,—doubtless with additions and variations of their own, but especially with a dialectic power which belongs to the age of Periklês, and is unknown in the sixth century B. C. He was the author of more than one poem of considerable length, one on the foundation of Kolophon and another on that of Elea; besides his poem on Nature, wherein his philosophical doctrines were set forth.[705] His manner appears to have been controversial and full of asperity towards antagonists; but what is most remarkable is the plain-spoken manner in which he declared himself against the popular religion, and in which he denounced as abominable the descriptions of the gods given by Homer and Hesiod.[706]

[704] Diogen. Laërt. ix, 18.

[705] Diogen. Laërt. ix, 22; Stobæus, Eclog. Phys. i, p. 294.

[706] Sextus Empiricus, adv. Mathem. ix, 193.

He is said to have controverted the doctrines both of Thalês and Pythagoras: this is probable enough; but he seems to have taken his start from the philosophy of Anaximander,—not, however, to adopt it, but to reverse it,—and to set forth an opinion which we may call its contrary. Nature, in the conception of Anaximander, consisted of a Something having no other attribute except the unlimited power of generating and cancelling phenomenal changes: in this doctrine, the something or substratum existed only in and for those changes, and could not be said to exist at all in any other sense: the permanent was thus merged and lost in the variable,—the one in the many. Xenophanês laid down the exact opposite: he conceived Nature as one unchangeable and indivisible whole, spherical, animated, endued with reason, and penetrated by or indeed identical with God: he denied the objective reality of all change, or generation, or destruction, which he seems to have considered as only changes or modifications in the percipient, and perhaps different in one percipient and another. That which exists, he maintained, could not have been generated, nor could it ever be destroyed: there was neither real generation nor real destruction of anything; but that which men took for such, was the change in their own feelings and ideas. He thus recognized the permanent without the variable,[707]—the one without the many. And his treatment of the received religious creed was in harmony with such physical or metaphysical hypothesis; for while he held the whole of Nature to be God, without parts or change, he at the same time pronounced the popular gods to be entities of subjective fancy, imagined by men after their own model: if oxen or lions were to become religious, he added, they would in like manner provide for themselves gods after their respective shapes and characters.[708] This hypothesis, which seemed to set aside altogether the study of the sensible world as a source of knowledge, was expounded briefly, and as it should seem, obscurely and rudely, by Xenophanês; at least we may infer thus much from the slighting epithet applied to him by Aristotle.[709] But his successors, Parmenidês and Zeno, in the succeeding century, expanded it considerably, supported it with extraordinary acuteness of dialectics, and even superadded a second part, in which the phenomena of sense—though considered only as appearances, not partaking in the reality of the one Ens—were yet explained by a new physical hypothesis; so that they will be found to exercise great influence over the speculations both of Plato and Aristotle. We discover in Xenophanês, moreover, a vein of skepticism, and a mournful despair as to the attainability of certain knowledge,[710] which the nature of his philosophy was well calculated to suggest, and in which the sillograph Timon of the third century B. C., who seems to have spoken of Xenophanês better than of most of the other philosophers, powerfully sympathized.

[707] Aristot. Metaphys. i, 5, p. 986, Bek. Ξενοφάνης δὲ πρῶτος
τούτων ~ἑνίσας~, οὐθὲν διεσαφήνισεν, οὐδὲ τῆς φύσεως τούτων
(τοῦ κατὰ τὸν λόγον ἑνὸς καὶ τοῦ κατὰ τὴν ὕλην) οὐδετέρας ἔοικε
θιγεῖν, ἀλλ᾽ εἰς τὸν ὅλον οὐρανὸν ἀποβλέψας τὸ ἓν εἶναί φησι τὸν
θεόν.

Plutarch. ap. Eusebium Præparat. Evangel. i, 8. Ξενοφάνης δὲ ὁ
Κολοφώνιος ἰδίαν μέν τινα ὁδὸν πεπορευμένος καὶ παρηλλαχυῖαν
πάντας τοὺς προειρημένους, οὔτε γένεσιν οὔτε φθορὰν ἀπολείπει,
ἀλλ᾽ εἶναι λέγει τὸ πᾶν ἀεὶ ὅμοιον. Compare Timon ap. Sext.
Empiric. Pyrrh. Hypotyp. i, 224, 225. ἐδογμάτιζε δὲ ὁ Ξενοφάνης
παρὰ τὰς τῶν ἄλλων ἀνθρώπων προλήψεις, ἓν εἶναι τὸ πᾶν, καὶ
τὸν θεὸν συμφυῆ τοῖς πᾶσιν· εἶναι δὲ σφαιροειδὴ καὶ ἀπαθῆ καὶ
ἀμετάβλητον καὶ λογικόν, (Airstot. de Xenoph. c. 3, p. 977,
Bek.). Ἀδύνατόν φησιν (ὁ Ξενοφάνης) εἶναι, εἴ τι ἐστὶν, γενέσθαι,
etc.

One may reasonably doubt whether all the arguments ascribed to
Xenophanês, in the short but obscure treatise last quoted, really
belong to him.

[708] Clemens Alexand. Stromat. v, p. 601, vii, p. 711.

[709] Aristot. Metaphysic. i, 5, p. 986, Bek. μικρὸν ἀγροικότερος.

[710] Xenophanês, Fr. xiv, ed. Mullach; Sextus Empiric. adv.
Mathematicos, vii, 49-110; and Pyrrhon. Hypotyp. i, 224; Plutarch
adv. Colôtên, p. 1114; compare Karsten ad Parmenidis Fragmenta,
p. 146.

The cosmogony of Pherekydês of Syrus, contemporary of Anaximander and among the teachers of Pythagoras, seems, according to the fragments preserved, a combination of the old legendary fancies with Orphic mysticism,[711] and probably exercised little influence over the subsequent course of Grecian philosophy. By what has been said of Thalês, Anaximander, and Xenophanês, it will be seen that the sixth century B. C. witnessed the opening of several of those roads of intellectual speculation which the later philosophers pursued farther, or at least from which they branched off. Before the year 500 B. C. many interesting questions were thus brought into discussion, which Solon, who died about 558 B. C., had never heard of,—just as he may probably never have seen the map of Anaximander. But neither of these two distinguished men—Anaximander or Xenophanês—was anything more than a speculative inquirer. The third eminent name of this century, of whom I am now about to speak,—Pythagoras, combined in his character disparate elements which require rather a longer development.

[711] See Brandis, Handbuch der Griech. Röm. Philosophie, ch.
xxii.

Pythagoras was founder of a brotherhood, originally brought together by a religious influence, and with observances approaching to monastic peculiarity,—working in a direction at once religious, political, and scientific, and exercising for some time a real political ascendency,—but afterwards banished from government and state affairs into a sectarian privacy with scientific pursuits, not without, however, still producing some statesmen individually distinguished. Amidst the multitude of false and apocryphal statements which circulated in antiquity respecting this celebrated man, we find a few important facts reasonably attested and deserving credence. He was a native of Samos,[712] son of an opulent merchant named Mnêsarchus,—or, according to some of his later and more fervent admirers, of Apollo; born, as far as we can make out, about the 50th Olympiad, or 580 B. C. On the many marvels recounted respecting his youth, it is unnecessary to dwell. Among them may be numbered his wide-reaching travels, said to have been prolonged for nearly thirty years, to visit the Arabians, the Syrians, the Phenicians, the Chaldæans, the Indians, and the Gallic Druids. But there is reason to believe that he really visited Egypt[713]—perhaps also Phenicia—and Babylon, then Chaldæan and independent. At the time when he saw Egypt, between 560-540 B. C., about one century earlier than Herodotus, it was under Amasis, the last of its own kings, with its peculiar native character yet unimpaired by foreign conquest, and only slightly modified by the admission during the preceding century of Grecian mercenary troops and traders. The spectacle of Egyptian habits, the conversation of the priests, and the initiation into various mysteries or secret rites and stories not accessible to the general public, may very naturally have impressed the mind of Pythagoras, and given him that turn for mystic observance, asceticism, and peculiarity of diet and clothing,—which manifested itself from the same cause among several of his contemporaries, but which was not a common phenomenon in the primitive Greek religion. Besides visiting Egypt, Pythagoras is also said to have profited by the teaching of Thalês, of Anaximander, and of Pherekydês of Syros.[714] Amidst the towns of Ionia, he would, moreover, have an opportunity of conversing with many Greek navigators who had visited foreign countries, especially Italy and Sicily. His mind seems to have been acted upon and impelled by this combined stimulus,—partly towards an imaginative and religious vein of speculation, with a life of mystic observance,—partly towards that active exercise, both of mind and body, which the genius of an Hellenic community so naturally tended to suggest.

[712] Herodot. iv, 95. The place of his nativity is certain
from Herodotus, but even this fact was differently stated by
other authors, who called him a Tyrrhenian of Lemnos or Imbros
(Porphyry, Vit. Pythag. c. 1-10), a Syrian, a Phliasian, etc.

Cicero (De Repub. ii, 15: compare Livy, i, 18) censures the
chronological blunder of those who made Pythagoras the preceptor
of Numa; which certainly is a remarkable illustration how much
confusion prevailed among literary men of antiquity about the
dates of events even of the sixth century B. C. Ovid follows this
story without hesitation: see Metamorph. xv, 60, with Burmann’s
note.

[713] Cicero de Fin. v, 29; Diogen. Laërt. viii, 3; Strabo, xiv,
p. 638; Alexander Polyhistor ap. Cyrill. cont. Julian. iv, p.
128, ed. Spanh. For the vast reach of his supposed travels, see
Porphyry, Vit. Pythag. 11; Jamblic 14, _seqq._

The same extensive journeys are ascribed to Demokritus, Diogen.
Laërt. ix, 35.

[714] The connection of Pythagoras with Pherekydês is noticed
by Aristoxenus ap. Diogen. Laërt. i, 118, viii, 2; Cicero de
Divinat. i, 13.

Of the personal doctrines or opinions of Pythagoras, whom we must distinguish from Philolaus and the subsequent Pythagoreans, we have little certain knowledge, though doubtless the first germ of their geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, etc. must have proceeded from him. But that he believed in the metempsychosis or transmigration of the souls of deceased men into other men, as well as into animals, we know, not only by other evidence, but also by the testimony of his contemporary, the philosopher Xenophanês of Elea. Pythagoras, seeing a dog beaten, and hearing him howl, desired the striker to desist, saying: “It is the soul of a friend of mine, whom I recognized by his voice.” This—together with the general testimony of Hêrakleitus, that Pythagoras was a man of extensive research and acquired instruction, but artful for mischief and destitute of sound judgment—is all that we know about him from contemporaries. Herodotus, two generations afterwards, while he conceives the Pythagoreans as a peculiar religious order, intimates that both Orpheus and Pythagoras had derived the doctrine of the metempsychosis from Egypt, but had pretended to it as their own without acknowledgment.[715]

[715] Xenophanês, Fragm. 7, ed. Schneidewin; Diogen. Laërt. viii,
36: compare Aulus Gellius, iv, 11 (we must remark that this or a
like doctrine is not peculiar to Pythagoreans, but believed by
the poet Pindar, Olymp. ii, 68, and Fragment, Thren. x, as well
as by the philosopher Pherekydês, Porphyrius de Antro Nympharum,
c. 31).

Καί ποτέ μιν στυφελιζομένου σκύλακος παριόντα
Φασὶν ἐποικτεῖραι, καὶ τόδε φάσθαι ἔπος—
Παῦσαι, μηδὲ ῥάπιζ᾽· ἐπείη φίλου ἄνερός ἐστι
Ψυχὴ, τὴν ἔγνων φθεγξαμένης ἀΐων.

Consult also Sextus Empiricus, viii, 286, as to the κοινωνία
between gods, men and animals, believed both by Pythagoras and
Empedoklês. That Herodotus (ii, 123) alludes to Orpheus and
Pythagoras, though refraining designedly from mentioning names,
there can hardly be any doubt: compare ii, 81; also Aristotle, De
Animâ, i, 3, 23.

The testimony of Hêrakleitus is contained in Diogenes Laërtius,
viii, 6; ix, 1. Ἡρακλεῖτος γοῦν ὁ φυσικὸς μονονουχὶ κέκραγε καί
φησι· Πυθαγόρης Μνησάρχου ἱστορίην ἤσκησεν ἀνθρώπων μάλιστα
πάντων, καὶ ἐκλεξάμενος ταύτας τὰς συγγραφὰς, ἐποιήσατο ἑαυτοῦ
~σοφίην, πολυμαθείην, κακοτεχνίην~. Again, Πολυμαθίη νόον
οὐ διδάσκει· Ἡσίοδον γὰρ ἂν ἐδίδαξε καὶ Πυθαγόρην, αὖθις δὲ
Ξενοφάνεά τε καὶ Ἑκαταῖον.

Dr. Thirlwall conceives Xenophanês as having intended in the
passage above cited to treat the doctrine of the metempsychosis
“with deserved ridicule.” (Hist. of Greece, ch. xii, vol. ii, p.
162.) Religious opinions are so apt to appear ridiculous to those
who do not believe them, that such a suspicion is not unnatural;
yet I think, if Xenophanês had been so disposed, he would have
found more ridiculous examples among the many which this doctrine
might suggest. Indeed, it seems hardly possible to present the
metempsychosis in a more touching or respectable point of view
than that which the lines of his poem set forth. The particular
animal selected is that one between whom and man the sympathy is
most marked and reciprocal, while the doctrine is made to enforce
a practical lesson against cruelty.

Pythagoras combines the character of a sophist (a man of large observation, and clever, ascendent, inventive mind,—the original sense of the word Sophist, prior to the polemics of the Platonic school, and the only sense known to Herodotus[716]) with that of an inspired teacher, prophet, and worker of miracles,—approaching to and sometimes even confounded with the gods,—and employing all these gifts to found a new special order of brethren, bound together by religious rites and observances peculiar to themselves. In his prominent vocation, analogous to that of Epimenidês, Orpheus, or Melampus, he appears as the revealer of a mode of life calculated to raise his disciples above the level of mankind, and to recommend them to the favor of the gods; the Pythagorean life, like the Orphic life,[717] being intended as the exclusive prerogative of the brotherhood,—approached only by probation and initiatory ceremonies which were adapted to select enthusiasts rather than to an indiscriminate crowd,—and exacting entire mental devotion to the master.[718] In these lofty pretensions the Agrigentine Empedoklês seems to have greatly copied him, though with some varieties, about half a century afterwards.[719] While Aristotle tells us that the Krotoniates identified Pythagoras with the Hyperborean Apollo, the satirical Timon pronounced him to have been “a juggler of solemn speech, engaged in fishing for men.”[720] This is the same character, looked at from the different points of view of the believer and the unbeliever. There is, however, no reason for regarding Pythagoras as an impostor, because experience seems to show, that while in certain ages it is not difficult for a man to persuade others that he is inspired, it is still less difficult for him to contract the same belief himself.

[716] Herodot. i, 29; ii, 49; iv, 95. Ἑλλήνων οὐ τῷ ἀσθενεστάτῳ
σοφιστῇ Πυθαγόρῃ. Hippokratês distinguishes the σοφιστὴς from
the ἰητρὸς, though both of them had handled the subject of
medicine,—the general from the special habits of investigation.
(Hippokratês, Περὶ ἀρχαίης ἰητρικῆς, c. 20, vol. i, p. 620,
Littré.)

[717] See Lobeck’s learned and valuable treatise, Aglaophamus,
Orphica, lib. ii, pp. 247, 698, 900; also Plato, Legg. vi, 782,
and Euripid. Hippol. 946.

[718] Plato’s conception of Pythagoras (Republ. x, p. 600)
depicts him as something not unlike St. Benedict, or St. Francis,
(or St. Elias, as some Carmelites have tried to make out: see
Kuster ad Jamblich. c. 3)—Ἀλλὰ δὴ, εἰ μὴ δημοσίᾳ, ἰδίᾳ τισὶν
ἡγεμὼν παιδείας αὐτὸς ζῶν λέγεται Ὅμηρος γενέσθαι, οἱ ἐκεῖνον
ἠγάπων ἐπὶ συνουσίᾳ καὶ τοῖς ὑστέροις ὁδόν τινα βίου παρέδοσαν
Ὁμηρικήν· ὥσπερ Πυθαγόρας αὐτός τε διαφερόντως ἐπὶ τούτῳ ἠγαπήθη,
καὶ οἱ ὕστερον ἔτι καὶ νῦν Πυθαγορεῖον τροπὸν ἐπονομάζοντες τοῦ
βίου διαφανεῖς πῃ δοκοῦσιν εἶναι ἐν τοῖς ἄλλοις.

The description of Melampus, given in Herodot. ii, 49, very much
fills up the idea of Pythagoras, as derived from ii, 81-123,
and iv, 95. Pythagoras, as well as Melampus, was said to have
pretended to divination and prophecy (Cicero, Divinat. i, 3,
46; Porphyr. Vit. Pyth. c. 29: compare Krische, De Societate a
Pythagorâ in urbe Crotoniatarum conditâ Commentatio, ch. v, p.
72, Göttingen, 1831).

[719] Brandis, Handbuch der Geschichte der Griechisch. Rom.
Philosophie, part i, sect. xlvii, p. 191.

[720] Ælian. V. H. ii, 26; Jamblichus, Vit. Pyth. c. 31, 140;
Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. c. 20; Diodorus, Fragm. lib. x, vol. iv, p.
56, Wess.: Timon ap. Diogen. Laërt. viii, 36; and Plutarch, Numa,
c. 8.

Πυθαγόρην τε γόητος ἀποκλίναντ᾽ ἐπὶ δόξαν
Θήρῃ ἐπ᾽ ἀνθρώπων, σεμνηγορίης ὀαριστὴν.

Looking at the general type of Pythagoras, as conceived by witnesses in and nearest to his own age,—Xenophanês, Hêrakleitus, Herodotus, Plato, Aristotle, Isokratês,[721]—we find in him chiefly the religious missionary and schoolmaster, with little of the politician. His efficiency in the latter character, originally subordinate, first becomes prominent in those glowing fancies which the later Pythagoreans communicated to Aristoxenus and Dikæarchus. The primitive Pythagoras inspired by the gods to reveal a new mode of life,[722]—the Pythagorean life,—and to promise divine favor to a select and docile few, as the recompense of strict ritual obedience, of austere self-control, and of laborious training, bodily as well as mental. To speak with confidence of the details of his training, ethical or scientific, and of the doctrines which he promulgated, is impossible; for neither he himself nor any of his disciples anterior to Philolaus—who was separated from him by about one intervening generation—left any memorials in writing.[723] Numbers and lines, studied partly in their own mutual relations, partly under various symbolizing fancies, presented themselves to him as the primary constituent elements of the universe, and as a sort of magical key to phenomena, physical as well as moral. And these mathematical tendencies in his teaching, expanded by Pythagoreans, his successors, and coinciding partly also, as has been before stated, with the studies of Anaximander and Thalês, acquired more and more development, so as to become one of the most glorious and profitable manifestations of Grecian intellect. Living as Pythagoras did at a time when the stock of experience was scanty, the license of hypothesis unbounded, and the process of deduction without rule or verifying test,—he was thus fortunate enough to strike into that track of geometry and arithmetic, in which, from data of experience few, simple, and obvious, an immense field of deductive and verifiable investigation may be travelled over. We must at the same time remark, however, that in his mind this track, which now seems so straightforward and well defined, was clouded by strange fancies which it is not easy to understand, and from which it was but partially cleared by his successors. Of his spiritual training much is said, though not upon very good authority. We hear of his memorial discipline, his monastic self-scrutiny, his employment of music to soothe disorderly passions,[724] his long novitiate of silence, his knowledge of physiognomy, which enabled him to detect even without trial unworthy subjects, his peculiar diet, and his rigid care for sobriety as well as for bodily vigor. He is also said to have inculcated abstinence from animal food, and this feeling is so naturally connected with the doctrine of the metempsychosis, that we may well believe him to have entertained it, as Empedoklês also did after him.[725] It is certain that there were peculiar observances, and probably a certain measure of self-denial embodied in the Pythagorean life; but on the other hand, it seems equally certain that the members of the order cannot have been all subjected to the same diet, or training, or studies. For Milo the Krotoniate was among them,[726] the strongest man and the unparalleled wrestler of his age,—who cannot possibly have dispensed with animal food and ample diet (even setting aside the tales about his voracious appetite), and is not likely to have bent his attention on speculative study. Probably Pythagoras did not enforce the same bodily or mental discipline on all, or at least knew when to grant dispensations. The order, as it first stood under him, consisted of men different both in temperament and aptitude, but bound together by common religious observances and hopes, common reverence for the master, and mutual attachment as well as pride in each other’s success; and it must thus be distinguished from the Pythagoreans of the fourth century B. C., who had no communion with wrestlers, and comprised only ascetic, studious men, generally recluse, though in some cases rising to political distinction.

[721] Isokratês, Busiris, p. 402, ed. Auger. Πυθαγόρας ὁ Σάμιος,
ἀφικόμενος εἰς Αἴγυπτον, καὶ μαθητὴς τῶν ἱερέων γενόμενος, τήν τε
ἄλλην φιλοσοφίαν πρῶτος εἰς τοὺς Ἕλληνας ἐκόμισε, καὶ τὰ περὶ τὰς
θυσίας καὶ τὰς ἁγιστείας ἐν τοῖς ἱεροῖς ἐπιφανέστερον τῶν ἄλλων
ἐσπούδασε.

Compare Aristotel. Magn. Moralia, i, 1, about Pythagoras as
an ethical teacher. Dêmokritus, born about 460 B. C., wrote
a treatise (now lost) respecting Pythagoras, whom he greatly
admired: as far as we can judge, it would seem that he too must
have considered Pythagoras as an ethical teacher (Diogen. Laërt.
xi, 38; Mullach, Democriti Fragmenta, lib. ii, p. 113; Cicero de
Orator. iii, 15).

[722] Jamblichus, Vit. Pyth. c. 64, 115, 151, 199: see also the
idea ascribed to Pythagoras, of divine inspirations coming on men
(ἐπίπνοια παρὰ τοῦ δαιμονίου). Aristoxenus apud Stobæum, Eclog.
Physic. p. 206; Diogen. Laërt. viii, 32.

Meiners establishes it as probable that the stories respecting
the miraculous powers and properties of Pythagoras got into
circulation either during his lifetime, or at least not long
after his death (Geschichte der Wissenschaften, b. iii, vol. i,
pp. 504, 505).

[723] Respecting Philolaus, see the valuable collection of
his fragments, and commentary on them, by Boeckh (Philolaus
des Pythagoreers Leben, Berlin, 1819). That Philolaus was the
first who composed a work on Pythagorean science, and thus made
it known beyond the limits of the brotherhood—among others to
Plato—appears well established (Boeckh, Philolaus, p. 22; Diogen.
Laërt. viii, 15-55; Jamblichus, c. 119). Simmias and Kebês,
fellow-disciples of Plato under Sokratês, had held intercourse
with Philolaus at Thebes (Plato, Phædon, p. 61), perhaps about
420 B. C. The Pythagorean brotherhood had then been dispersed in
various parts of Greece, though the attachment of its members to
each other seems to have continued long afterwards.

[724] Plutarch, De Isid. et Osirid. p. 384, ad fin. Quintilian,
Instit. Oratt. ix, 4.

[725] Empedoklês, ap. Aristot. Rhetoric. i, 14, 2; Sextus
Empiric. ix, 127; Plutarch, De Esu Carnium, pp. 993, 996, 997;
where he puts Pythagoras and Empedoklês together, as having both
held the doctrine of the metempsychosis, and both prohibited the
eating of animal food. Empedoklês supposed that plants had souls,
and that the souls of human beings passed after death into plants
as well as into animals. “I have been myself heretofore (said he)
a boy, a girl, a shrub, a bird, and a fish of the sea.”

ἤδη γάρ ποτ᾽ ἐγὼ γενόμην κοῦρός τε κόρη τε,
θάμνος τ᾽, οἴωνός τε καὶ ἐξ ἁλὸς ἔμπυρος ἰχθύς.

(Diogen. L. viii, 77; Sturz. ad Empedokl. Frag. p. 466.)
Pythagoras is said to have affirmed that he had been not only
Euphorbus in the Grecian army before Troy, but also a tradesman,
a courtezan, etc., and various other human characters, before
his actual existence; he did not, however, extend the same
intercommunion to plants, in any case.

The abstinence from animal food was an Orphic precept as well as
a Pythagorean (Aristophan. Ran. 1032).

[726] Strabo, vi, p. 263; Diogen. L. viii, 40.

The succession of these Pythagoreans, never very numerous, seems to have continued until about 300 B. C., and then nearly died out; being superseded by other schemes of philosophy more suited to cultivated Greeks of the age after Sokratês. But during the time of Cicero, two centuries afterwards, the orientalizing tendency—then beginning to spread over the Grecian and Roman world, and becoming gradually stronger and stronger—caused the Pythagorean philosophy to be again revived. It was revived too, with little or none of its scientific tendencies, but with more than its primitive religious and imaginative fanaticism,—Apollonius of Tyana constituting himself a living copy of Pythagoras. And thus, while the scientific elements developed by the disciples of Pythagoras had become disjoined from all peculiarity of sect, and passed into the general studious world,—the original vein of mystic and ascetic fancy belonging to the master, without any of that practical efficiency of body and mind which had marked his first followers, was taken up anew into the pagan world, along with the disfigured doctrines of Plato. Neo-Pythagorism, passing gradually into Neo-Platonism, outlasted the other more positive and masculine systems of pagan philosophy, as the contemporary and rival of Christianity. A large proportion of the false statements concerning Pythagoras come from these Neo-Pythagoreans, who were not deterred by the want of memorials from illustrating, with ample latitude of fancy, the ideal character of the master.

That an inquisitive man like Pythagoras, at a time when there were hardly any books to study, would visit foreign countries, and converse with all the Grecian philosophical inquirers within his reach, is a matter which we should presume, even if no one attested it; and our witnesses carry us very little beyond this general presumption. What doctrines he borrowed, or from whom, we are unable to discover. But, in fact, his whole life and proceedings bear the stamp of an original mind, and not of a borrower,—a mind impressed both with Hellenic and with non-Hellenic habits and religion, yet capable of combining the two in a manner peculiar to himself; and above all, endued with those talents for religion and personal ascendency over others, which told for much more than the intrinsic merit of his ideas. We are informed that after extensive travels and inquiries he returned to Samos, at the age of about forty: he then found his native island under the despotism of Polykratês, which rendered it an unsuitable place either for free sentiments or for marked individuals. Unable to attract hearers, or found any school or brotherhood, in his native island, he determined to expatriate. And we may presume that at this period (about 535-530 B. C.) the recent subjugation of Ionia by the Persians was not without influence on his determination. The trade between the Asiatic and the Italian Greeks,—and even the intimacy between Milêtus and Knidus on the one side, and Sybaris and Tarentum on the other,—had been great and of long standing, so that there was more than one motive to determine him to the coast of Italy; in which direction also his contemporary Xenophanês, the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy, emigrated, seemingly, about the same time,—from Kolophon to Zanklê, Katana, and Elea.[727]

[727] Diogen. Laërt. ix, 18.

Kroton and Sybaris were at this time in their fullest prosperity,—among the first and most prosperous cities of the Hellenic name. To the former of the two Pythagoras directed his course. A council of one thousand persons, taken from among the heirs and representatives of the principal proprietors at its first foundation, was here invested with the supreme authority: in what manner the executive offices were filled, we have no information. Besides a great extent of power, and a numerous population, the large mass of whom had no share in the political franchise, Kroton stood at this time distinguished for two things,—the general excellence of the bodily habit of the citizens, attested, in part, by the number of conquerors furnished to the Olympic games,—and the superiority of its physicians, or surgeons.[728] These two points were, in fact, greatly connected with each other. For the therapeutics of the day consisted not so much of active remedies as of careful diet and regimen; while the trainer, who dictated the life of an athlete during his long and fatiguing preparation for an Olympic contest, and the professional superintendent of the youths who frequented the public gymnasia, followed out the same general views, and acted upon the same basis of knowledge, as the physician who prescribed for a state of positive bad health.[729] Of medical education properly so called, especially of anatomy, there was then little or nothing. The physician acquired his knowledge from observation of men sick as well as healthy, and from a careful notice of the way in which the human body was acted upon by surrounding agents and circumstances: and this same knowledge was not less necessary for the trainer; so that the same place which contained the best men in the latter class was also likely to be distinguished in the former. It is not improbable that this celebrity of Kroton may have been one of the reasons which determined Pythagoras to go thither; for among the precepts ascribed to him, precise rules as to diet and bodily regulation occupy a prominent place. The medical or surgical celebrity of Dêmokêdês (son-in-law of the Pythagorean Milo), to whom allusion has been made in a former chapter, is contemporaneous with the presence of Pythagoras at Kroton; and the medical men of Magna Græcia maintained themselves in credit, as rivals of the schools of the Asklepiads at Kôs and Knidus, throughout all the fifth and fourth centuries B. C.

[728] Herodot. iii, 131; Strabo, vi, p. 261: Menander de
Encomiis, p. 96, ed. Heeren. Ἀθηναίους ἐπὶ ἀγαλματοποιΐα τε καὶ
ζωγραφικῇ, καὶ Κροτωνιάτας ἐπὶ ἰατρικῇ, μέγα φρονῆσαι, etc.

The Krotoniate Alkmæon, a younger contemporary of Pythagoras
(Aristotel. Metaph. i, 5), is among the earliest names mentioned
as philosophizing upon physical and medical subjects. See
Brandis, Handbuch der Geschicht. der Philos. sect. lxxxiii, p.
508, and Aristotel. De Generat. Animal. iii, 2, p. 752, Bekker.

The medical art in Egypt, at the time when Pythagoras visited
that country, was sufficiently far advanced to excite the
attention of an inquisitive traveller,—the branches of it
minutely subdivided and strict rules laid down for practice
(Herodot. ii, 84; Aristotel. Politic, iii, 10, 4).

[729] See the analogy of the two strikingly brought out in the
treatise of Hippokratês Περὶ ἀρχαίης ἰητρικῆς, c. 3, 4, 7, vol.
i, p. 580-584, ed. Littré.

Ἔτι γοῦν καὶ νῦν οἱ τῶν γυμνασίων τε καὶ ἀσκησίων ἐπιμελόμενοι
αἰεί τι προσεξευρίσκουσι, καὶ τὴν αὐτέην ὁδὸν ζητέοντες ὅ,τι ἔδων
καὶ πίνων ἐπικρατήσει τε αὐτέων μάλιστα, καὶ ἰσχυρότερος αὐτὸς
ἑωϋτοῦ ἔσται (p. 580); again, p. 584: Τί οὖν φαίνεται ἑτεροῖον
διανοηθεὶς ὁ καλεύμενος ἰητρὸς καὶ ὁμολογεομένως χειροτέχνης, ὃς
ἐξεῦρε τὴν ἀμφὶ τοὺς κάμνοντας δίαιτάν καὶ τροφὴν, ἢ κεῖνος ὁ ἀπ᾽
ἀρχῆς τοῖσι πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποισι τροφὴν, ᾗ νῦν χρεόμεθα, ἐξ ἐκείνης
τῆς ἀγρίης τε καὶ θηριώδεος εὑρών τε καὶ παρασκευάσας διαίτης:
compare another passage, not less illustrative, in the treatise
of Hippokratês Περὶ διαίτης ὀξέων, c. 3, vol. ii, p. 245, ed.
Littré.

Following the same general idea, that the theory and practice of
the physician is a farther development and variety of that of
the gymnastic trainer, I transcribe some observations from the
excellent Remarques Rétrospectives of M. Littré, at the end of
the fourth volume of his edition of Hippokratês (p. 662).

After having observed (p. 659) that physiology may be considered
as divided into two parts,—one relating to the mechanism of the
functions; the other, to the effects produced upon the human
body by the different influences which act upon it and the media
by which it is surrounded; and after having observed that on
the first of these two branches the ancients could never make
progress from their ignorance of anatomy,—he goes on to state,
that respecting the second branch they acquired a large amount of
knowledge:—