PYTHAGORAS AND THE PYTHAGOREANS
_The Pythagorean Brotherhood--Number the master--God the soul of the
world--Music and morals_
[41]
The birthplace of Pythagoras is uncertain. He is generally called the
Samian, and we know, at all events, that he lived for some time in that
island, during or immediately before the famous tyranny [43] of
Polycrates. All manner of legends are told of the travels of
Pythagoras to Egypt, Chaldaea, Phoenicia, and even to India. Others
tell of a mysterious initiation at the sacred cave of Jupiter in Crete,
and of a similar ceremony at the Delphic oracle. What is certain is
that at some date towards the end of the sixth century B.C. he removed
to Southern Italy, which was then extensively colonised by Greeks, and
that there he became a great philosophic teacher, and ultimately even a
predominating political influence.
[46]
He instituted a school in the strictest sense, with its various grades
of learners, subject for years to a vow of silence, holding all things
in common, and admitted, according to their approved fitness, to {23}
[47] successive revelations of the true doctrine of the Master. Those
in the lower grades were called Listeners; those in the higher,
Mathematicians or Students; those in the most advanced stage,
Physicists or Philosophers. With the political relations of the school
we need not here concern ourselves. In Crotona and many other Greek
cities in Italy Pythagoreans became a predominant aristocracy, who,
having learned obedience under their master, applied what they had
learned in an anti-democratic policy of government. This lasted for
some thirty years, but ultimately democracy gained the day, and
Pythagoreanism as a political power was violently rooted out.
Returning to the philosophy of Pythagoras, in its relation to the
general development of Greek theory, we may note, to begin with, that
it is not necessary, or perhaps possible, to disentangle the theory of
Pythagoras himself from that of his followers, Philolaus and others.
The teaching was largely oral, and was developed by successive leaders
of the school. The doctrine, therefore, is generally spoken of as
that, not of Pythagoras, but of the Pythagoreans. Nor can we fix for
certain on one fundamental conception, upon which the whole structure
of their doctrine was built.
[52]
One dictum we may start with because of its analogies with what has
been said of the earlier {24} philosophies. The universe, said the
Pythagoreans, was constituted of _indefinites_ and _definers_, _i.e._
of that which has no character, but has infinite capacities of taking a
character; and secondly, of things or forces which impose a character
upon this. Out of the combination of these two elements or principles
all knowable [53] existences come into being. "All things," they said,
"as known have _Number_; and this number has two natures, the Odd and
the Even; the known thing is the Odd-Even or union of the two."
[66]
By a curious and somewhat fanciful development of this conception the
Pythagoreans drew up two parallel columns of antithetical principles in
nature, ten in each, thus:--
Definite Indefinite
Odd Even
One Many
Right Left
Male Female
Steadfast Moving
Straight Bent
Light Dark
Good Evil
Four Square Irregular
Looking down these two lists we shall see that the first covers various
aspects of what is conceived as the ordering, defining, formative
principle in nature; and that the second in like manner comprises
various {25} aspects of the unordered, neutral, passive, or
disorganised element or principle; the first, to adopt a later method
of expression, is _Form_, the second _Matter_. How this antithesis was
worked out by Plato and Aristotle we shall see later on.
[54]
While, in a sense, then, even the indefinite has number, inasmuch as it
is capable of having number or order imposed upon it (and only in so
far as it has this imposed upon it, does it become knowable or
intelligible), yet, as a positive factor, Number belongs only to the
first class; as such it is the source of all knowledge and of all good.
In reality the Pythagoreans had not got any further by this
representation of nature than was reached, for example, by Anaximander,
and still more definitely by Heraclitus, when they posited an
Indefinite or Infinite principle in nature which by the clash of innate
antagonisms developed into a knowable universe (see above, pp. 12, 16).
But one can easily imagine that once the idea of Number became
associated with that of the knowable in things, a wide field of
detailed development and experiment, so to speak, in the arcana of
nature, seemed to be opened. Every arithmetical or geometrical theorem
became in this view another window giving light into the secret heart
of things. Number became a kind of god, a revealer; and the philosophy
of number a kind of religion or mystery. And this is why the {26}
second grade of disciples were called Mathematicians; mathematics was
the essential preparation for and initiation into philosophy.
Whether that which truly exists was actually identical with Number or
Numbers, or whether it was something different from Number, but had a
certain relation to Number; whether if there were such a relation, this
was merely a relation of analogy or of conformability, or whether
Number were something actually embodied in that which truly
exists--these were speculative questions which were variously answered
by various teachers, and which probably interested the later more than
the earlier leaders of the school.
[56]
A further question arose: Assuming that ultimately the elements of
knowable existence are but two, the One or Definite, and the Manifold
or Indefinite, it was argued by some that there must be some third or
higher principle governing the relations of these; there must be some
law or harmony which shall render their intelligible union [57]
possible. This principle of union was God, ever-living, ever One,
eternal, immovable, self-identical. [58] This was the supreme reality,
the Odd-Even or Many in One, One in Many, in whom was gathered up, as
in an eternal harmony, all the contrarieties of lower [61] existence.
Through the interchange and intergrowth of these contrarieties God
realises Himself; the {27} universe in its evolution is the
self-picturing of God. [62] God is diffused as the seminal principle
throughout [68] the universe; He is the Soul of the world, and the
world itself is God in process. The world, therefore, is in a sense a
living creature. At its heart and circumference are purest fire;
between these circle the sun, the moon, and the five planets, whose
ordered movements, as of seven chords, produce an eternal music, the
'Music of the Spheres.' Earth, too, like the planets, is a celestial
body, moving like them around the central fire.
[71]
By analogy with this conception of the universe as the realisation of
God, so also the body, whether [72] of man or of any creature, is the
realisation for the time being of a soul. Without the body and the
life of the body, that soul were a blind and fleeting ghost. Of such
unrealised souls there are many in various degrees and states; the
whole air indeed is full of spirits, who are the causes of dreams and
omens.
[73]
Thus the change and flux that are visible in all else are visible also
in the relations of soul and body. Multitudes of fleeting ghosts or
spirits are continually seeking realisation through union with bodies,
passing at birth into this one and that, and at death issuing forth
again into the void. Like wax which takes now one impression now
another, yet remains in itself ever the same, so souls vary in the
outward {28} [74] form that envelops and realises them. In this bodily
life, the Pythagoreans are elsewhere described as saying, we are as it
were in bonds or in a prison, whence we may not justly go forth till
the Lord calls us. This idea Cicero mistranslated with a truly Roman
fitness: according to him they taught that in this life we are as
sentinels at our post, who may not quit it till our Commander orders.
On the one hand, therefore, the union of soul with body was necessary
for the realisation of the former ((Greek) _soma, body_, being as it
were (Greek) _sema, expression_), even as the reality of God was not in
the Odd or Eternal Unity, but in the Odd-Even, the Unity in
Multiplicity. On the other hand this union implied a certain loss or
degradation. In other words, in so far as the soul became realised it
also became corporealised, subject to the influence of passion and [75]
change. In a sense therefore the soul as realised was double; in
itself it partook of the eternal reason, as associated with body it
belonged to the realm of unreason.
This disruption of the soul into two the Pythagoreans naturally
developed in time into a threefold division, _pure thought_,
_perception_, and _desire_; or even more nearly approaching the
Platonic division (see below, p. 169), they divided it into _reason_,
_passion_, and _desire_. But the later developments were largely
influenced by Platonic and other doctrines, and need not be further
followed here.
{29} [78] Music had great attractions for Pythagoras, not only for its
soothing and refining effects, but for the intellectual interest of its
numerical relations. Reference has already been made (see above, p.
27) to their quaint doctrine of the music of the spheres; and the same
idea of rhythmic harmony pervaded the whole system. The life of the
soul was a harmony; the virtues were perfect numbers; and the influence
of music on the soul was only one instance among many of the harmonious
relations of things throughout the universe. Thus we have Pythagoras
described as soothing mental afflictions, and bodily ones also, by
rhythmic measure and by song. With the morning's dawn he would be
astir, harmonising his own spirit to his lyre, and chanting ancient
hymns of the Cretan Thales, of Homer, and of Hesiod, till all the
tremors of his soul were calmed and still.
Night and morning also he prescribed for himself and his followers an
examination, as it were a _tuning_ and testing of oneself. At these
times especially was it meet for us to take account of our soul and its
doings; in the evening to ask, "Wherein have I transgressed? What
done? What failed to do?" In the morning, "What must I do? Wherein
repair past days' forgetfulness?"
But the first duty of all was truth,--truth to one's own highest, truth
to the highest beyond us. Through truth alone could the soul approach
the divine. {30} Falsehood was of the earth; the real life of the soul
must be in harmony with the heavenly and eternal verities.
Pythagoreanism remained a power for centuries throughout the Greek
world and beyond. All subsequent philosophies borrowed from it, as it
in its later developments borrowed from them; and thus along with them
it formed the mind of the world, for further apprehensions, and yet
more authentic revelations, of divine order and moral excellence.
{31}