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Anecdotes Respecting The Life And Discoveries Of Pythagoras.
after his otvn image , man has well repaid him . Pythagoras taught also the metemsychosis . Some pretended , that he employed it as an emblem to reform men from their vicious courses , it then became-, like the story of the companions of Ulysses , an allegory hi ghly worthy of a philosopher , ' had he-not seen in our souls a particle of the divinity . His disciples , however , took the meaning of it in a literal senseand several Christiansamong whom we may quote
, , Manes , adopted their doctrine . Pythagoras , according to Aristotle , is the first philosopher who treated of morals , the basis of which was the love of truth . The word , therefore , of a Pythagorean , like that of a Quaker , was equivalent to an oath . To attain to truth , Pythagoras required that people should continually combat ignorance of the mindand the
, passions . He generally disguised his precepts under a symbolical form , which he did not explain to every body . To put his disciples in mind , that they should foresee in the morning all the actions of the day , and to examine their consciences in the evening , he recommended to them to scratch their foreheads when they went out , and the back part of their heads when they entered . When he was
desirous of inviting them to preserve tranquility of soul , he advised them not to eat their hearts . In his language , to incite anger by invective , was to stir the fire with a sword . But to see his morality more stripped of its dress , one must read The Golden Version , a work of Lysis , which is , however , attributed to Pythagoras . His discoveries in natural-philosophy were astonishing . He was'the
first who had an idea of the system of Copernicus ; for he imagined that the universe revolved round a central fire , which vivified all nature , and which was the source of motion . He boasted of understanding the harmony of the heavens , which in his style apparently signified thar he was sure of the truth of his opinion . The ancient authors thought , however , that he spoke without metaphor , and they have each explained this idea according to the notions which they
formed of the planetary system . How can it be supposed , said the }* , that such large bodies should move in silence ? In this manner they made the planets not to float in a vacuum . They afterwards divided the whole space which separates the earth from the stars , into six or seven parts , forming a gamut of six or seven tones . According to Pliny , the moon being distant 126000 stadia-from usproduced a full
, , tone ; above her , Mercury and Venus rendered each half a tone ; the sun being much farther removed from Venus , formed a tone and a half , and Jupiter and Saturn had each their semitone ; but the starry heavens producd a tone and a half , like the sun . If this was the opinion of Pythagoras , we must confess , that by changing the relation and distances of the planetswe have greatlderanged his
, y system , In short , he affirmed that every thing in the world was harmony . This idea pleased the imagination of Descartes , and Mr . Bernardin de St . Pierre revived it . Pythagoras discovered this harmony between different beings , by the combination of numbers ; but it is not known whether these numbers were the signs or the principles of things . Pie was the first who admitted the sphericity
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Anecdotes Respecting The Life And Discoveries Of Pythagoras.
after his otvn image , man has well repaid him . Pythagoras taught also the metemsychosis . Some pretended , that he employed it as an emblem to reform men from their vicious courses , it then became-, like the story of the companions of Ulysses , an allegory hi ghly worthy of a philosopher , ' had he-not seen in our souls a particle of the divinity . His disciples , however , took the meaning of it in a literal senseand several Christiansamong whom we may quote
, , Manes , adopted their doctrine . Pythagoras , according to Aristotle , is the first philosopher who treated of morals , the basis of which was the love of truth . The word , therefore , of a Pythagorean , like that of a Quaker , was equivalent to an oath . To attain to truth , Pythagoras required that people should continually combat ignorance of the mindand the
, passions . He generally disguised his precepts under a symbolical form , which he did not explain to every body . To put his disciples in mind , that they should foresee in the morning all the actions of the day , and to examine their consciences in the evening , he recommended to them to scratch their foreheads when they went out , and the back part of their heads when they entered . When he was
desirous of inviting them to preserve tranquility of soul , he advised them not to eat their hearts . In his language , to incite anger by invective , was to stir the fire with a sword . But to see his morality more stripped of its dress , one must read The Golden Version , a work of Lysis , which is , however , attributed to Pythagoras . His discoveries in natural-philosophy were astonishing . He was'the
first who had an idea of the system of Copernicus ; for he imagined that the universe revolved round a central fire , which vivified all nature , and which was the source of motion . He boasted of understanding the harmony of the heavens , which in his style apparently signified thar he was sure of the truth of his opinion . The ancient authors thought , however , that he spoke without metaphor , and they have each explained this idea according to the notions which they
formed of the planetary system . How can it be supposed , said the }* , that such large bodies should move in silence ? In this manner they made the planets not to float in a vacuum . They afterwards divided the whole space which separates the earth from the stars , into six or seven parts , forming a gamut of six or seven tones . According to Pliny , the moon being distant 126000 stadia-from usproduced a full
, , tone ; above her , Mercury and Venus rendered each half a tone ; the sun being much farther removed from Venus , formed a tone and a half , and Jupiter and Saturn had each their semitone ; but the starry heavens producd a tone and a half , like the sun . If this was the opinion of Pythagoras , we must confess , that by changing the relation and distances of the planetswe have greatlderanged his
, y system , In short , he affirmed that every thing in the world was harmony . This idea pleased the imagination of Descartes , and Mr . Bernardin de St . Pierre revived it . Pythagoras discovered this harmony between different beings , by the combination of numbers ; but it is not known whether these numbers were the signs or the principles of things . Pie was the first who admitted the sphericity