A History of Greek Philosophy / PYTHAGORAS AND THE PYTHAGOREANS

Page 7

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 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. 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.

Cf. Sources on the Pythagorean Philosophy

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Cf. Guthrie, The Early Presocratics and the Pythagoreans - A Synopsis of Greek Philosophy

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