INTRODUCTION TO PYTHAGOREAN FRAGMENTS

The reason that Pythagoreanism has been neglected, and often treated mythically, is that until this edition, the Pythagorean fragments have never been collected, in text, or any translation. This book therefore marks an era in the study of philosophy, and is needed by every university and general library in the world, not to mention those of the students of philosophy. But there is yet a wider group of people who will welcome it, the lovers of truth in general, who will be charmed by Hierocles' modern views about the family, inspired by Iamblichus's beautiful life of Pythagoras, which has been inaccessible for over a century, and strengthened by the maxims of Sextus, which represent the religious facts of the religion of the future more perfectly than can easily be found elsewhere.

The universal culture of Pythagoras is faithfully portrayed by the manifold aspects of the teachings of Archytas, and Philolaus, and of many other Pythagoreans, among whose fragments we find dissertations on every possible subject: metaphysics, psychology, ethics, sociology, science, and art. Men of general culture, therefore, will feel the need of this encyclopedic information and study; and conversely, there is neither scientist, metaphysician, clergyman, litterateur or sociologist who will fail to discover therein something to his taste.

The Fragments have been gathered from various sources. On Philolaus, the authority is Boeckh. The Archytas fragments have been taken from Chaignet; the minor works from Gale and Taylor, and the Maxims and Golden verses from Dacier. The Timaeus was taken from Plato's works, among which it has been preserved. Hierocles's Commentary on the Golden verses has been temporarily omitted as late, wordy, and containing nothing new.

INTRODUCTION TO PYTHAGOREAN LIBRARY

As it is the Editor's purpose to live up to the title of this book, "A Complete Pythagorean Library," he will be grateful to any purchaser of the book who may point out to him further fragments that might be added, as the Editor has no idea that he has, in spite of his good intentions, and Herculean labors, done more than to make the first attempt in a most important direction. Moreover, as the work had to be done at off times, by night, or on holidays, it was inevitably hurried, and therefore inevitably imperfect; for all of which oversights and errors he begs consideration, forgiveness, and constructive criticism.

This work was done, however, because of its great significance in the history of philosophy, which has been elsewhere more definitely been pointed out, and for the sake of which, no doubt, the book will be procured by all students, philosophers and general lovers of truth. It was undertaken for no purpose other than the benefit of humanity, that had for so long been deprived of this its precious heritage, and the Editor will be satisfied if he succeeds in restoring these treasures of thought and inspiration to his day and generation.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS PYTHAGOREAN LIBRARY

IMPORTANCE OF THIS COLLECTION OF PYTHAGOREAN FRAGMENTS

It is a general notion among the uneducated that the great geniuses of thought and poetry arose by divine decree in ready-made originality. Goethe did his best to disabuse the world of this, acknowledging that most of the merit of his work was due to the literature he had studied better than anybody else of his circle. Virgil was so ashamed of his borrowings from Ennius and others, later demonstrated by Macrobius, that on his deathbed he wished to destroy his Aeneid, not understanding that it was all the more precious to us for the fidelity with which it represented the then immediately preceding age. The uncoverers of the sources of Shakespeare, Homer, Milton (Vondel), Dante (Bruno Latini), and many ethnic scriptures have done; their victims no harm, but rather honor; enriching their significance, and making them all the more precious to the world which in the last analysis cares nothing for a British poacher and pawnbroker who wrote his name in 6 different ways, or about a blind traveler, compelled to make the most of his foreign findings, or a Florentine Bolshevik, exile and sycophant, to whom it was heaven to be guided by a stout mother of a great family, who had repulsed him; but the world is very much concerned in having, in modern, accessible and cheap form a summary of the best that has been done up to that time.

In restoring the background of philosophy and thought behind Plato and Aristotle, we are not doing them an injury, but rather making their utterances all the more precious by showing the mental associations that inspired them as they penned their immortal words. This can, of course, be done only very partially, for we have only fragments to deal with; but the inference is reasonable that if we can suggest so much from mere fragments, we could do much more from the now lost complete works of the Pythagoreans. To begin with, Plato showed his good taste by making great efforts to procure the inaccessible writings of Ocellus, and through Archytas secured several. So we have a definite historical connection on which to base our further suppositions.

Then we hear that he paid a large sum of money for a Pythagorean writing, which indeed may have been the treatise of the Locrian Timaeus, which is generally printed with his works, and whose close relations with his own "Timaeus" are unblinkable. To begin with, we do know that the titles of many of his dialogues were not taken on chance, but represented famous thinkers in that field, such as the Protagoras, and others.

The correspondences between his Timaeus and the Locrian work are so marked, that inevitably some connection has been assumed, and in view of Plato's fame and the Locrian's rusticity, has generally led to calling the Locrian work an abstract of Plato's.

But even they who stated and assumed this had qualms of conscience. Both De Gelder and Teneann had pointed out that the Locrian "origin of the human soul is more clearly explained" than the Platonic; and Burges adds, that in view of this it is "hard to understand how the former could have been an abridgment of the latter." De Gelder had already pointed out important discrepancies, so that the abstract theory is unsatisfactory. The Locrian calculation from 384 (instead of Plato's 192) [through] the numbers of the scale to a total of 114,695 is no easy matter, and impossible for the student abstracter; this implied great mathematical and musical skill, and could not have been made without very clear purposes, which indeed here are unmistakably Pythagorean.

In comparing the Locrian and Platonic essays we find the Locrian much shorter, logical, and without any padding. It is therefore, antecedently, much more likely to have been the source of inspiration. Thomas Taylor had already done much in this field, which deserves, and no doubt in the future will attract serious attention. We can here mention only a few of the better known correspondences.

The second chapter of Ocellus Lucanus's treatise, is practically reproduced by Aristotle in his essay on Generation and Corruption, especially the three things necessary to generation; also the four powers, and details about matter. Several paragraphs about the mixture of the elements are taken entire. Also the expression, "as is proper, from such things as are proper, and when it is proper."

Hippodamus's mingling of democracy, aristocracy and monarchy is found in Plato's laws, and his Statesman. Ecphantus said that any man who has a divine conception of things is in reality a king. Plato in his Statesman said that "we must call royal he who possesses the royal science, whether or not he governs." Callicratidas defined God as an intellectual, and incorruptible animal, while in the 12th book of his Metaphysics, Aristotle says that ÒGod is an animal eternal and most excellent."

Strange to say, Plato's mother was named Pericthyone, whose namesake was one of the Pythagoreans' female philosophers. She said that those who are unfaithful to their parents must expect punishment in hell, while Olimpiodorus, on the Phaedo of Plato states that the soul is by the divinity not punished through anger, but medicinally, as was implied by Pericthyone. Aristoxenus's second paragraph is quoted in extenso in Plato's Laws, (viii, p187, l88, Bipon). Pempelus's fragment on parents is also quoted by Plato in the same work. Archytas's treatment of happiness is reproduced in part in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. This most interesting topic, should furnish the subject of a most valuable treatise, which will be necessary to the proper appreciation of all Greek philosophy. Who will have time for it?