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Pythagoras conceived his mission in this life to be the moral
regeneration of mankind through education.
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The Religious, Moral and Ethical Teachings of Pythagoras
Reconstructed and Edited


BY
HOBART HUSON


1947




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This volume is affectionately dedicated to
MRS. JAMES E. JACKS - "My Favorite Neighbor".
who envisions the stone which the builders rejected becoming the corner-stone of the temple.




TABLE OF CONTENTS
PROLOGUE................................. 
I. WISDOM, ITS NATURE AND NECESSITY...              3
11. EVOLUTION AND FORM.................... 15
III. SOUL AND METAMORPHOSES..............25
IV. GOD AND THE KOSMOS.................... 37
V. MAN AND KOSMIC LAW....................48
VI. TRUTH......................................60
VII. RELIGION................................. 63
VIII. WORSHIP................................... 78
IX. CONTROLLING PRINCIPLES OF BEING..... 89
X. VIRTUE AS KOSMIC LAW.................. 104
XI. DIET AND DIETARY ETHICS................ 114
XII. PEACE OF MIND, ITS ATTAINMENT........ 126
XIII. JUSTICE...................................    137
XIV. FRIENDSHIP................................154
XV. MARRIAGE AND         FAMILY.......161
XVI. HARMONY................................. 176
XVII. RULERS..................................... 82
XVIII. EPILOGUE.................................189
XIX. PYTHAGOREAN NUNC DIMITTIS......... 191
XX. THE GOLDEN VERSES.......................192
PYTHAGOREAN ENIGMAS...............196
PYTHAGOREAN OR MAGIC SQUARES......214


iv




FOREWORD


The Pythagoron is a reconstruction of the religious,
ethical, and moral teachings of the Greek philosopher,
Pythagoras. It grew out of research necessary to the writing
of a biography of the Sage, a work now in the process of
completion. The name was coined to make easier the
classifying of material relating to Pythagoras, and then
adopted as an index to prospective readers of the nature
of the work - a work inspired by belief in the profound
possibilities in the teachings of Pythagoras for living "the
good life" in the modern world.
Whether or not Pythagoras ever wrote anything, or
left any literary remains, is a matter of controversy.
Diogenes Laertios, among other, declares that he did, and
names several productions, among them The Sacred Discourse. If the Sage wrote anything, his writings in their
original form are no longer extant. Although hundreds oFworks regarding him and the Pythagoreans existed prior to
the fourth century A.D., practically none now exist; and
it would appear that the early Christian Church made a
deliberate effort to systematically destroy all references to
them.\ His teachings and sayings, however, have been
extensively and widely quoted, and thus have in some
measure survived. They have also been misquoted, misinterpreted, and misrepresented; moreover, much material
has been attributed to him that is unquestionably spurious.
It is stated that it was a custom of his disciples to give him


v




credit for their own productions.  What we have of
Pythagorana is fragmenta.
The Pythagoron is, then, a mosaic, drawn from hundreds of sources - Greek, Latin, English, French, German,
Italian, - a line here, a paragraph there, occasionally a
page or two elsewhere. The material which I believe to be
truly Pythagorean - that is, expressive of either Pythagoras
or of one or another of his disciples -, was separated from
the other, classified according to subject matter, and
arranged with some attempt at sequence under the several
subject matter headings. In an effort to make the reading
as smooth as possible, I have added continuity which, however, accords with Pythagorean principles as I conceive
them. My own contributions to the text would hardly
exceed fifteen per centum thereof. The language of the
translations used has been preserved as nearly as possible;
hence, the reader will doubtless observe some variations
in style.
Several friends who saw this work in manuscript suggested that it be documented. Had the book been addressed
primarily to scholars, the argument would have been compellingly persuasive, despite the multitude of footnotes
the process would have included. But in view of the nature
of the work and the facts set forth above, I have refrained
from detailed documentation, believing that the work itself bears ample evidence of its own authenticity, without
necessity for attestations. Suffice it to say that the most
important sources drawn from were the biographies of
Pythagoras by lamblichos, Porphyrios, Diogenes Laertios
and Photios; the Lives and Essays of Plutarch; Hierocles
Commentaries on the Golden Verses; the Pythagorean
Fragmenta, as contained in Fairbanks and in Guthrie's


vi




Pythagorean Source Book; the Apostolic Fathers. Portions
of quotations from Pythagoras contained in Ovid's
Metamorphoses are also incorporated in the reconstruction.
As it is controversial whether or not Pythagoras ever
taught the doctrines of reincarnation and transmigration, all
supposed teachings on these subjects are omitted. I am
inclined to agree with Dacier and others that Pythagoras
did not teach and could not have taught such doctrines.
A few facts pertaining to the life of Pythagoras may
be appropriate here. A pure-blooded Greek, he was born
on the island of Samos about 589 B.C. After traveling in
many lands, acquiring learning and wisdom, he settled at
Krotona in Southern Italy, where he attracted as disciples
many of the most brilliant minds of his time. He married
his pupil, Theano, and had by her seven children, three
boys and four girls. His apostasy from the orthodox religious beliefs brought charges of impiety against him, and
led to his expulsion from Krotona, and the suppression of
his school, in 510 B.C. He died at Metapontum in Italy,
ca. 490 B.C.
It should be borne in mind that Pythagoras lived over
five hundred years before Christ, hence could not have
had doctrines of the Christian Church in mind, or have
anticipated them. His criticisms of theology were directed
to the then prevailing Olympian, Orphic, and other pagan
religions, which had many tenets in common with Christianity.
HOBART HUSON
Dawgwood
Refugio, Texas
September 6, 1947


vii




There was a man among them [the Pythagoreans] who was
transcendent in knowledge, who possessed the most ample stores
of intellectual wealth, and who was in the most eminent degree
the adjutor of the works of the wise. For when he extended all the
powers of his intellect, he easily beheld every thing, as far as to
ten or twenty ages of the human race.
EMPEDOKLES
This pkilosopher [Pythagoras], rightly placed in the rank of
the ablest physicians of Greece, was, according to his most devoted
disciples, neither of the number of the gods, nor even of those of
the divine heroes; he was a man whom Virtue and Wisdom had
adorned with a likeness to the gods, by the complete purifying of
his understanding, which had been effected through contemplation
and prayer.
FABRE D'OLIVET
The Golden Verses of Pythagoras
Pythagoras alone of the Greeks originated a sane theology.
FLAVIUS JOSEPHIUS
It is certain that Pythagoras is entitled to be called the father
of science, and it becomes more and more clear that all European
religions and others, so far as they do not originate in Palestine,
can also be traced to him.
JAMES HASTINGS
Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics
Pythagoras regarded Religion, Science and Philosophy as
one, the combined purpose of which was to enable man to become
the likeness of God. With this purpose, ever in mind, he becamne
the founder of A WAY OF LIFE.
HALLIE WATTERS
The Pythagorean Way of Life


viii




The PYTHAGORON


1


le 3horbs of thre Gob-forshipp p, Bitine ]gt4agoras,
eartilg mon of (Hmnesartrlo in is Tele  nt1  inaratuin,
enen-,g0arle niceth, of te Rznrre of tie absr 'The Plagu of
aitfe as bclarQB bg tgtiagoras,, `ophos anb torcf-earer.
Young men and old! Come reverence in quietude all
these my words:
For I swear by the air I breathe, I swear by the water
I drink, I will never suffer censure on account of this work.
Therefore, Hear what I would say, if thou canst
receive it.
But if thou seest yet see not, or hearest yet hear not,
or comprehend but understand not, my preachment is vain.
Bear in mind, O Neophyte, this Truth:
There is nothing hid which cannot be uncovered;
If the heart desire and the will persevere,
And the inquirer be assiduous and courageous.
Know thyself and thou shalt know the universe
and God.
Seek, therefore, and ye shall find.
Labor hard at these things; practice them diligently;
Thou oughtest to love them!
For these will put thee on the track of divine Virtue.
But before thou approachest a task, determine to
complete it.
And invoke God's help that thou mayst complete it.




2


The PYTHAGORON


Having mastered these things,
Thou shalt know the constitution of immortal gods
and of mortal men;
In what way each thing parts and in what way holds
fast.
And thou shalt know how, by divine law, nature is
in everything alike.
Fear is the deadliest foe to knowledge; and superstition is the mother of fear.
The ignorant man fancies perils which may not exist.
But knowledge crowns the courageous.
Be bold, O man! Divine thou art!
Now, since God inspires my lips, I will dutifully follow
the inspiring God;
I'll open Delphi and the heavens themselves and unlock the oracles of the sublime mind.
Great matters, never traced out by the minds of former
men,
Things that have long been hidden, I will sing.
It is a delight to take one's way along the starry
firmament,
And leaving the earth and its dull regions behind, to
ride on the clouds,
To take stand on stout Atlas' shoulders and see far
below men wandering aimlessly,
Devoid of reason, anxious and in fear of the hereafter,
Thus to exhort them and unroll the book of fatel
Dear youths, I warn you cherish peace divine,
And in your hearts lay deep these words of mine.




The PYTHAGORON


3


I.
The Sage discourseth upon the Nature and
the Necessity of Wisdom and Philosophy,
and explaineth the Dangers of Converse
with Unlearned Men, and the Difference
between Learning, Knowledge, and Wisdom, the Nature of Intellect, and Correct
Mental Attitude.
Not unto all should all be made known.
This is not because any thing should be concealed
from any one,
But because it is not advantageous, either to the giver
or to the receiver,
To communicate knowledge too freely to those not yet
prepared to receive it.
Do not throw thy pearls before swine; for words are
the food of the mind,
And the villainy of men twist them to a corrupt
meaning,
And the unlearned and fools mock that which they
cannot understand,
And bring the wisdom of sages into ridicule and disrepute.
Therefore reserve thy judgment for the wise.
God only is wise: Men at their best are merely
lovers of wisdom.
The Kosmos is a living thing, filled with intelligence,
And intelligence is the governing principle of things




4


The PYTHAGORON


Learning, knowledge and wisdom, are the three
divisions of instruction.
Learning is shallow, and consists of those things we
memorize and are told.
Knowledge is substantial, and consists of those things
we know, and not merely the things we assume to believe.
Knowledge is Power: for weal or woe.
W'isdom excels all, being the potent essence compressed from experience.
Through Wisdom we understand all things: by
Wisdom are all things healed.
Wisdom alone is the Virgin Sophia, ever bringing
forth yet ever virgin.
To the understanding we show a secret which is not
a secret -
All knowledge is belief, but not all belief is knowledge.
In the distinction lies the difference between Wisdom
and ignorance, certainty and uncertainty, and the real and
the counterfeit.
He that knoweth God and understandeth the order of
things
Hath complete confidence in God and his All-Providence
And at no time entertaineth anxiety over any score.
He knoweth the attributes of Virtue to be the laws of
Life;
Wherefore he maketh of Virtue his real nature and
habit;
And accordingly doeth what is right because it is right,
And contenteth himself with being virtuous and without pretense.
But he that merely believes without knowing Truth
of things, is never certain of any thing at any time.
He lacketh confidence in the reality and necessity
of Virtue, not knowing its Power;
And assumeth its form without its substance.
He seeks the appearance of Virtue without its reality,




The PYTHAGORON


5


Being moved solely by fear of punishment or hope of
reward.
No Virtue is real which has not been tested in Life's
crucible.
None can withstand the test lest Virtue rest upon
understanding,
And upon knowledge rather than fatuous belief.
I therefore admonish thee, Know God! IKnow Thyself!
The crux of the matter is this: To love Truth is to
practice Truth;
To love Wisdom is to live consistently with Wisdom.
For when a man hath the right attitude he instinctively
practices Virtue,
And the thought of another course is absent from him.
It is impossible for a man to truly believe one thing and
do another.
It is impossible for a wise man to do wrong.
He who knoweth not what he ought to know is a brute
beast among men:
He who knoweth no more than what he hath need of
is a man among brute beasts:
But he who knoweth all that may be known is as a god
among men.
Believe thyself to be mad in proportion as thou art
ignorant of thyself.
Consider both the praise and reproach of every foolish
person ridiculous,
And the whole life of an ignorant man as a disgrace.
There is no eye like the understanding: no blindness
like ignorance:
No enemy like sickness: nothing so dreaded as death.
Man must by all devices and means at his disposal
avoid and eliminate sickness from his body,
And ignorance from his mind.




6


The PYTHAGORON


Though it seems easy to Know Thyself, this is the
most difficult of all things.
Its message is, in any event, to discover our own
power:
This amounts to learning the nature of the whole
extant world,
Which, as God advises us, is impossible without
philosophy.
The cause of the existence of things is the First Value.
He who seeks to know must first learn to imagine and
to deliberate;
For imagination is the mother of deliberation, and
wonder is the mother of Wisdom.
Imagination is the remembrance of precedent spiritual,
mental and physical states;
While fancy is the disorderly production of the
material brain.
Admire or wonder at nothing: Investigate every thing.
There are more things in the Kosmos than philosophy
conceives.
It is through philosophy one comes to be surprised at
nothing.
The theorems of philosophy are to be enjoyed as much
as possible, as if they were ambrosia and nectar;
For the pleasure arising from them is genuine, incorruptible, and divine.
They are also capable of producing magnanimity; and
though they cannot make immortal that which is mortal.
Yet they enable us to obtain scientific knowledge of
eternal natures.
Philosophy is the knowledge of immaterial and eternal
things.
Philosophy is a desire for and love of wisdom.
Wisdom is the science of objectified truth.




The PYTHAGORON


7


Wisdom is the philosopher's stone and precious above
all else.
It is therefore the sublime duty of man to know God
and to know himself;
For no man is free who cannot command himself:
And who can command himself unless he have Wisdom and understanding?
He who merely lives is like every other dull and
insensate creature.
But he who knows is in himself divine.
It is more necessary to pay attention to philosophy than
to parents and agriculture,
For it is owing to the latter, indeed, that we live;
But philosophers and preceptors are the causes of our
living well, and becoming wise,
In consequence of their having discovered the right
mode of discipline and instruction.
Those who teach solely for the sake of reward show
themselves to be worse than statuaries, or those artists who
perform their work sitting.
For these, when some one orders them to make a
statue of Hermes, search for wood adapted to the reception
of the proper form;
But those teachers pretend that they can readily
produce the works of Virtue from every nature.
Neither art nor Wisdom can be acquired without
preparatory learning;
As the Lesser Mysteries are to be delivered before
the Greater: thus also discipline must precede philosophy.
Great and necessary is the attention which should be
paid to disciplines as introductions to philosophy.
He who digs, always finds: He who digs not, never
finds.
But he who seeks Truth and to know what the Will of
God is, should bear in mind that




8


The PYTHAGORON


The desire to know containeth not always the faculty
to acquire.
Not every wood is fit for a Hermes.
Remind thyself that all men assert that Wisdom is
the greatest good,
But that there are few who strenuously endeavor to
obtain this greatest good.
Wisdom should be cherished as a means of traveling
from youth to old age,
For it is more lasting than any other possession.
Whatever thou doest thoroughly master one principle
before thou proceedest to another.
Superficial learning is unsound.
The nature of the principle of things cannot be learned
by surveying part of things alone.
In sciences we learn and judge not by any single
hasty glance, but by a thorough examination of every detail.
There is grave danger of entire misapprehension of
things when the principle has been mistaken;
For while the true principle remains unknown, no
consequent conclusions can be final.
Be not progency of false opinion.
God and the Kosmos are a unity, and the universe
and its creatures are an entirety.
To understand part all must be comprehended.
He who properly knows universals will also have a
clear perception of the nature of particulars.
There are eight Organs of knowledge:
Sense, imagination, art, opinion, prudence, science,
Wisdom, and mind.
Sense is a fallacious knowledge derived through the
body.
The sense perceptions are deceptive; for scarcely do
we perceive through them aright.




The PYTHAGORON


9


Imagination is a notion of the Soul: the true genius
of Man.
Genius is to men either a good or an evil daemon.
Art is a habit cooperating with Reason.
Prudence is a habit selective of the rightness of
planner deeds.
Science is a habit of those things which remain ever
the same, with Sameness.
Wisdom is a knowledge of the First Causes.
Mind is the principal and fountain of all good things.
Divine Wisdom is true Science.
Wisdom is the science of Truth which is in beings.
Wisdom, indeed, truly so called, is a certain science
which is conversant with the first beautiful objects;
And these, divine, undecaying, and possessing an
invariable sameness of subsistence,
By the participation of which other things also may
be called beautiful.
Docility is divided into three: Shrewdness, Memory
and Acuteness.
Memory guards the things which have been learned.
Acuteness is quickness of understanding.
And shrewdness is the ability of deducing the unlearned from what one has learned to investigate.
Reason is the faculty of discerning and judging.
It is Reason, not Reason in general ^- but that developed by mathematical disciplines, which is capable of
understanding all things.
If this Reason is capable of understanding all, it is
only that its essence is kindred with this nature,
For it is in the nature of things that the similar be
understood by the similar.




10


The PYTHAGORON


God endowed man with Reason that he might use it
and discern the true from the false.
Instinct and intuition were before Reason.
Man hath six senses: touch, sight, hearing, smell,
taste, and insight, or intuition.
He hath also one other sense, a seventh, the same
being Common Sense.
Place intuition as the best charioteer or guide for
thy acts.
A wise intellect is the mirror of God: it is Deity's own
satellite.
A good intellect is the choir of divinity: A bad intellect is the choir of evil daemons.
A divine intellect always intently thinks about the
beautiful.
No one possesses intellect until he understands that
he has it.
Many that have great learning have no intellect.
Abundance of intellect is superior to abundance of
erudition.
Bodily beauty is merely animal unless supported by
intellect.
He is indeed blest who hath both property and intellect, for he will beneficially and properly use them.
He who admonishes a man that fancies he has intellect undertakes a vain labor;
For, as with children, not argument but calamity is
his preceptor.
To a man of intellect reason is more persuasive than
gold.
The reason which is in you is the light of thy life.
Establish noblest Reason as a charioteer from on
High.




The PYTHAGORON


11


By everywhere using reason as thy guide thou wilt
avoid the pitfalls that line the pathway of life.
Know always that those things are not thy riches
which thou possesseth not in the penetralia of the reasoning
powers.
Thou wilt venerate God in proper manner if thou
render the intellect pure from all vice.
Be vigilant in thy intellectual part; for sleep concerning this has affinity with real death.
May He who with holy Wisdom consecrates make
pure thy heart, thy mind make crystal clear,
That thou mayst win fair Wisdom's diadem.
Every land is a fit habitation for a wise man: for the
whole world is the home of the worthy soul.
The fruits of earth are seasonably imparted; but the
fruits of philosophy ripen at all seasons of the year.
Nothing is so peculiar to Wisdom as Truth.
Whatever may be known has a beginning and an end,
Of which the beginning and the end are the boundaries or limits;
But the middle is unlimited, and, as a consequence,
may be subdivided to infinity.
So that the mind of mortal can never know all that
could be known;
For Man has only Time, while God has Eternity.
The entrance of men into the present life resembles
the progression of a crowd to some public spectacle.
For there men of every description assemble with
different views:
One hastening to sell his wares for the sake of money
and gain;
But another that he may acquire renown by exhibiting the strength of his body;
And there is also a third class of men, and those the
most liberal,




12


The PYTHAGORON


'Who assemble for the sake of surveying the places,
the beautiful works of art, the specimens of valor,
And the literary productions which are usually exhibited on such occasions.
Thus also in the present life, men of all-various pursuits are collected together in one and the same place.
For some are influenced by the desire of riches and
luxury;
Others by the love of power and dominion;
And others possessed with an insane ambition for
glory.
But the most pure and unadulterated character is that
of the man who gives himself to the contemplation of the
most beautiful things,
And whom it is proper to call a philosopher.
Again, Life is like a gathering such as that which
comes together for the Olympic Games;
There are three classes of visitors: the lowest are
those who come to buy or sell;
The next above them are those who come to compete
for the glory of a crown.
The best class, however, are those who come to look on,
Who seek neither applause nor gain, but come to
observe what is done and how.
For similarly men come out of another life and nature
into this life,
As out of some city into the full throng of such a great
gathering;
And some grow up with servile natures, greedy for
gain or fame.
But there are a few who despise all things else, and
studiously inquire into the Nature of Things.
These are the seekers after 'Wisdom; these are the
philosophers.
For the philosopher seeks for Truth.
The life that contemplates is more noble than that
which enjoys.




The PYTHAGORON


13


This life may be compared to the Olympic games, for,
as in this assembly some seek glory and the crowns,
Some by the purchase or by the sale of merchandise
seek gain,
And others more noble than either go there neither
for gain nor for applause,
But solely to enjoy this wonderful spectacle and to
see and know all that passes.
We, in the same manner, quit our country, which is
Heaven, and come into the World,
Which is an assembly where many work for profit,
many for gain,
And where there are but few who, despising avarice
and vanity, study nature.
It is these last whom I call Philosophers;
For as there is nothing more noble than to be a
spectator without any personal interest,
So in this life the contemplation and knowledge of
nature are infinitely more honourable than any other
application.
Also Life is like an endless procession, long in
progress, which we join as it passes by.
Along the way others join and others drop out at their
destination;
So that when we come to the end of our own journey
we find few left who walked with us from the beginning.
Wherefore companions on a journey should be mindful of one another.
Friends are as companions on a journey who ought to
aid each other to persevere in the road to a happier life.
The world is like a burning fire: wherefrom a little
is good to warm a man;
But if he takes too much, it will burn him altogether.




14


The PYTHAGORON


The world is like a stage whereon many play their
parts.
Life itself is the score: Drama, Tragedy, or Comedy,
as the players choose to enact it.
Those who play the best part are the sage philosophers,
Whose part it is to learn the manners of all nations,
and to discern the good from the bad.
The world is a scene: Life is a transition: you come,
you see, you depart.
In the theater of Man's life it is reserved only for God
and angels to be lookers-on.


I




The PYTHAGORON


15


II.
The Sage discourseth upon Evolution and
Change, the Genesis of Form and Number,
the Nature of Cosmic Motion, Substance
and Form, the Mutability of Things, and
the Immortality of Real Ego; and Metamorphoses.
And since I am embarked on the boundless sea and
have spread my full sails to the winds,
I shall not from you withhold matters of grave import,
though they may stagger the imagination.
There is nothing in all the world that keeps its form;
For the Kosmos and all it contains are but products
and stages of evolutionary processes.
All things are in a state of flux, and everything is
brought into being with a changing nature.
The heavens and whatever is beneath the heavens
change their forms, the earth and all that is within it.
We also change, who are a part of creation, since
we are not bodies only but also winged souls.
In the beginning abounded the limitless and unlimited
in awful vastness.
And the unlimited was devoid of form, and was ageless.
*Through the energies of evolution areas of the unlimited became delineated,




16


The PYTHAGORON


From the unlimited were deduced immediately Time,
Space, and Motion.
And perforce Form evolved and assumed shape.
Form inhered in limitation, and Number adhered in
Form. Number is Form. Form is Number.
Thus Number is at once the creator and the created.
The whole heaven is Harmony and Number.
Such is the genesis of geometry and mathematics.
With the appearance of Form also began Time.
Time itself flows on in constant motion, just like a
river.
For neither the river nor the swift hour can stop its
course;
But, as wave is pushed on by wave, and as each wave
comes it is both pressed on and itself presses the wave in
front,
So Time both flees and follows and is ever new.
For that which once existed is no more, and that which
was not has come to be;
And so the whole round of motion is gone through
again.
There are three principles of being -- God, Form and
substance.
The Form is the cause of essence; substance is the
substrate which receives the Form.
Neither can substance alone participate in Form by
itself;
Nor can Form by itself apply itself to substance.
There must therefore exist another cause, or divine
energy, which moves the substance of things and forms
them.
This cause is primary and the most excellent of all, 
God.




The PYTHAGORON


17


There are therefore three principles - God, the substance of things, and Form.
God is the artist, the mover. The substance is the
matter, the moved.
The essence is what might be called the art,
And that to which the substance is brought by the
mover.
Many things of which the forms appear different have
one form.
'There is one form for everything, and the others are
not forms:
Thus all things are one.
There is but a single cosmic substance of which all
things have been formed,
So that all forms whatever they may be or have been,
or whenever they have been or may be,
Have been, are, and will be, but multiple or varied
forms of one and the same single substance.
The various forms assumed, retained, and changed,
are wholly matters of degree, relativity, and proportion,
Wherein the authorship of Number, or proportion, or
degree, or relationship, becomes apparent.
The first in degree of form are the five primordial
principles or elemental substances.
In order and sequence they are aether, air, moisture,
fire and earth.
Real matter, though subject like all things to evolution and change, is indestructible.
True matter, however, is alone the cosmic substance
into which all elements are reducible,
For even those things which mortals call the elements
do not persist.
What changes they undergo! Listen, and I will tell
you.
The five elemental substances are of graduating
densities which determine their relative positions or levels.




18


The PYTHAGORON


From the heaviest to the lightest and from the lowest
to the highest, they are earth, water, fire, air and aether.
These elements, although far separate in position,
Nevertheless are all derived each from the other and
each into the other falls back again.
Nothing retains its own form;
But Nature, the great renewer, ever makes up forms
from other forms.
Be sure there's nothing perishes in this whole universe;
It does but vary and renew its form.
WVhat we call birth is but a beginning to be other
than what one was before;
And death is but cessation of a former state.
Though, perchance, things may shift from there to
here and here to there,
Still do all things in their sum total remain unchanged.
Nothing, I feel sure, lasts long under the same appearance.
Thus the ages have come from gold to iron;
Thus often has the condition of places changed.
I have myself seen what once was solid land changed
into sea;
And again I have seen land made from the sea.
Seashells have been seen lying far from the ocean,
And an ancient anchor has been found on a mountaintop.
What once was a level plain, down-flowing waters
have made into a valley;
And hills by the force of floods have been washed into
the sea.
What was once a marsh is now a parched stretch of
dry sand.
And what once was dry and thirsty now is a marshy
pool.




The PYTHAGORON


19


Here Nature sends forth fresh fountains, there seals
them up;
And rivers, stirred by some inward quakings of the
earth,
Leap forth, or, dried up, sink out of sight.
The old inhabitants of that region used to say that
Laucas was once part of the mainland;
But now the waves wash clear around it.
Zankle also is said to have been a part of Italy until the
sea washed away their common boundary
And thrust back the land by the intervening water.
If you seek for Helice and Buris, once cities of Achaia,
you will find them beneath the waves;
And the sailors still show you the sloping cities with
their buried walls.
For if the earth is of the nature of an animal,
Living and having many breathing-holes which exhale
flames,
She can change her breathing-places and, as often as
she shakes herself,
Can close up these and open other holes;
Or if swift winds are penned up in deep caverns and
drive against rocks
And substance containing the seeds of flame, and this
catches fire from the friction of the stones,
Still the caves will become cool again when the winds
have spent their force;
Or if it is pitchy substances that cause the fire, and
yellow sulphur, burning with scarce-seen flames,
Surely, when the earth shall no longer furnish food
and rich sustenance for the fire,
And its strength after long ages has been exhausted,
and greedy Nature shall feel lack of her own nourishment,
Then she will not endure that hunger and, being
deserted, will desert her fires.




20


The PYTHAGORON


Then again, do you not see the year assuming four
aspects, in imitation of our own lifetime?
For in early spring it is tender and full of fresh life,
just like a little child;
At that time the herbage is bright, swelling with life,
But as yet without strength and solidity, and fills the
farmers with joyful expectation.
Then all things are in bloom and the fertile fields run
riot with their bright-coloured flowers;
But as yet there is no strength in the green foliage.
After spring has passed, the year, grown more sturdy
passes into summer
And becomes like a strong young man.
For there is no hardier time than this, none more
abounding in rich, warm life.
Then autumn comes, with its first flush of youth gone,
but ripe and mellow,
Midway in time between youth and age, with
sprinkled gray showing on the temples.
And then comes aged winter, with faltering step and
shivering,
Its locks all gone or hoary.
The life of man is like the seasons of the year: each
with its peculiar beauty.
Twenty years a boy: this is spring; twenty years a
youth: this is summer; twenty years a young man: this
is autumn; and twenty years an old man: this is winter.
Whatever be the season, choose the life that is noblest,
for custom can make it sweet to thee.
Take by all means the shorter and nobler life, instead of one that is longer but of less account.
Our own bodies also go through a ceaseless round of
changes,
Nor what we have been or are today shall be tomorrow.




The PYTHAGORON


21


There was a time when we lay in our first mother's
womb, mere seeds and hopes of men.
Then Nature wrought with her cunning hands,
Willed not that our bodies should lie cramped in our
strained mother's body,
And from our home sent us forth into the free air.
Thus brought forth into light, the infant lay without
strength;
But soon it lifted itself up on all fours after the manner
of the beasts;
Then gradually in a wabbling, weak-kneed fashion it
stood erect, supported by some convenient prop.
Thereafter, strong and fleet, it passed over the span
of youth;
And when the years of middle life also have been
spent,
It glides along the downhill path of declining age.
This undermines and pulls down the strength of
former years;
And Milon, grown old, weeps when he looks at those
arms,
Which once had been like the arms of Herakles with
their firm mass of muscles,
And sees them now hanging weak and flabby.
Helen also weeps when she sees her aged wrinkles in
the looking-glass,
And tearfully asks herself why she should twice have
been a lover's prey.
O Time, thou great devourer, and thou, envious Age,
together you destroy all things;
And slowly gnawing with your teeth, you finally consume all things in lingering death!
But be not dismayed; change, not death, is the essence
of the universe,
And life and evolution are the eternal order of all
things.




The PYTHAGORON


The whole face of Nature is flushed with the bloom
of immortality.
The innermost recesses of her vitals are impregnated
with life ever ready to burst forth.
At every hand is to be seen life, evolution and change,
Everywhere is implanted seeds of life, even among the
relics of death.
Slimy mud contains seeds that produce green frogs,
without legs at first,
But soon it gives them legs adapted to swimming
And, that these may be fitted for taking long leaps
also, the hind-legs are longer than the fore.
Do you not see how the larvae of the honey-bearing
bees, which the hexagonal waxen cell protects,
Are born mere memberless bodies, and later put on
feet and wings?
Hera's bird, which wears starry spots on its tail,
And the weapon-bearing bird of Zeus, and Cytherea's
doves, and the whole family of birds --
Who would believe, who did not know the facts, that
these could be born from the inside of an egg?
If these amaze you, more amazing still is the metamorphoses of the funereal butterfly;
The age-old symbol of man's own evolution and immortality.
First is the exquisitely sculptured egg, yet so tiny that
the eye can scarcely see,
Lying upon its leafy cradle, apparently devoid of life,
the mere seed and hope of immortality.
Then in due season from the egg emerges the caterpillar, homely but wondrously fashioned, withal,
Which feeds and sports upon the tender plants that
sustain and protect it.
In its brief and fitful season the industrious worm
weaves the white cocoon of gossamer silk,
Which will become its tomb, and which at length
enfolds it.




The PYTHAGORON


The caterpillar is indeed forever gone, but not forever dead; for there is no death, but merely change.
So the worm is in due season changed; transformed
into a chrysalis,
Hanging by its encasing casket from some leafy shelf,
as though suspended in Eternity.
There outwardly dead; inwardly undergoing mighty
workings; the chrysalis changes to the imago.
Amidst dull regions of evil and death it gains the
wings which will yet lift it aloft.
At long last and in due season, unable to prevail
against the aromatic moisture and the scented breath of
Spring,
The stark and sered walls of the prison-tomb burst
asunder,
And then ushers forth, like immortality triumphant,
the beautiful butterfly,
Its gorgeous wings expectantly expanded, poised for
instant flight into the vast beyond.
Finally arrives the long awaited moment when on airy
pinions soars aloft
The creature that was first an egg, then a fantastic
worm, then a nondescript thing,
And which apparently had been sleeping the sleep of
death in its cerements
Thenceforth, useful in felicity, it is the messenger of
the flowers which feed it on nectar and honey-dew;
And is the companion of the Zephyrs and raindrops,
the sunshine and the moonbeams, which lovingly lave its
wings.
A river flowing onward continuously replenishes itself
and undergoes constant change;
So that at no time and at no place along its turbulent
course is it the same river which it was in the beginning,
Or was a moment before or will be a twinkling instant
hence;
So that it is impossible ever to step into the same river
twice.




24


The PYTHAGORON


Thus mortal Man, as he moves onward in the course
of life,
Is not the same man he was the instant before, or will
be the instant hence.
He changes like all things, imperceptibly but continually;
And he that is changed is never the same person.
But unlike matter, which revolves around and slips
away,
Man grows up, many around one appearance and
common model.
As yesterday has died into today, and today is dying
into tomorrow,
Man dies and is reborn every instant of his existence,
And casts off the old and puts on the new:
So why then, should man fear one death when he has
already died, and will die, so many?
No one remains - nor is One - save God, who never
changes,
And the Soul of Man which, like its original, is unchangeable.
For if the Soul be not the Man Himself,
Then where is the man of yesterday who died into
today?
And where the man of today who is dying into tomorrow?
Take thought therefore and with it courage, that life
belongs to the living and not to the dead;
And that the man who lives need not unless he wills
it, weight himself with cast-off clothing of yesterday's dead.
He that hath confidence in God hath no fear neither
of life nor death.
For the same Power which brought thee into being at
the first will sustain thee.
Throughout life, in death, and beyond the Veil.




The PYTHAGORON


25


III.
The Sage discourseth upon God and the
Soul of the World, or Logos, the Tripartite
Soul of Man, Divinity of Man, the Seniority
of Soul, Destiny of Souls of the Just, Fate of
Divulsed Souls of the Depraved, Souls of
Animals, Mortal Death, Vanity of Funerary
Luxury, Cycle of Birth, Suicide, and Cultivation of Soul Power; and Exhorteth against
divulsion of Soul.
In the beginning was God, and with God in the beginning was the Soul of the World, [the Logos.]
Being the eternal efflux of the Essence of God Himself, and by which the Kosmos was ordered.
The Soul of the World, therefore, is eternal and
never dies.
The Soul without reason and the body without form
did mutually ever coexist.
And neither of them had generation or beginning.
But after the Soul did partake of Reason and
Harmony,
And being through consent made wise, it wrought a
change in matter;
And being stronger than the other's motions, it drew
and converted these motions to itself.
So the body of the world drew its original Form from
the Soul,
And became conformable and like unto it.




26                              The PYTHAGORON
God formed the Soul of the World with three constituents - Identity, Difference, Being.
And the Soul of the World is not indeed separated
but increases continually;
Being the eternal efflux of the Essence of the All-One.
The Soul of Man is attracted out of the Soul of the
World, being part thereof,
When new earthly life is engendered: being the direct
gift of God, of Himself.
The Soul is attracted to the body by a Harmony
simultaneously immortal and incorporeal,
And is retained to the body by Harmonic Attraction.
The Soul of Man, being part of the Soul of the World,
is its express image, being the image of God:
So that when man reveals Soul he reveals God.
The Soul of Man without consciousness of Ego did
exist from the beginning, before the foundation of the
Kosmos.
It comes into the present life for the sake of acquiring
ego, experience and education.
It is in the earthly life it first becomes conscious of
ego and retains impressions.
As God formed the Soul of the World with three
constituents,
So with the tripartite Soul of Man; it having also,
Identity, Difference and Being.
It is invisible to mortal eye, but participates of
ratiocination and harmony,
And possesses intelligence, insight and power, both
here and hereafter.
There are two motions -. one of the body, which is
irrational, and one of the soul which is the result of
deliberate choice.
that which ceases to move ceases also to live.




The PYTHAGORON


27


The Soul of Man is tripartite.
It is divided into intuition [nous], reason [phren], and
mind [thumes].
That part that is immured in the body is called the
Soul;
But the most potent part is called the mind,
And the vulgar think that it is within them,
As likewise they imagine the image reflected from a
glass to be in that.
But the more intelligent, who know it to be without,
call it a Daemon,
(Which is like a silver cord, upholding and directing
the subsidiary part of the soul).
Therefore those stars which you see extinguished,
Imagine to be souls whose whole substances are
plunged into bodies;
And those that recover their light and rise from below,
That shake off the ambient mist and darkness, as it
were clay and dust,
To be such as retire from their bodies after death;
And those that are carried up on high are the Daemons
of wise men and philosophers.
The whole air is full of souls: the entire Kosmos is
permeated with soul.
There exists celestial goodness proportionate to each
degree of Virtue,
And there is for the Souls different ranks and magnitudes, according to the luminous body with which they
are clothed.
The supreme happiness belongs only to the Soul which
has recovered itself, by its ultimate union with the
Intelligence,
Whose essence, changing its nature, has become entirely spiritual.
It is necessary that this Soul be raised to the knowledge
of universal truths,




28                             The PYTHAGORON
And that it should have found, as far as it is possible
for it, the principle and the end of all things.
Then having attained to this high degree of perfection.
being drawn into this immutable region
Whose aethereal element is no more subjected to the
descending movement of generation,
It can be united by its knowledge to the Universal All.
and reflect in all its Being the ineffable Light
With which the Being of Beings, God Himself 
fills unceasingly the Immensity.
The Soul, partaking of mind, reason and harmony, is
riot only the work of God, but part of Him;
Not only made by Him but begot by Him.
Wherefore Man is the Son of God, and hath God
unto his Father.
As Orpheus saith, Thou art a child of the earth and
of the starry heavens.
The Soul of Man is eternal: it is incorruptible for it
never had a beginning,
And was with God from the beginning, before the
heavens or the earth were brought forth.
The Soul of Man is uncreated because it moves itself;
it has perpetual motion.
It anteceded the body in which it reposes, because it
existed before ever the body was.
God did not make the Soul a junior to the body, and
it was not subsequent to the body.
God most certainly composed the Soul excelling the
body both in seniority of source and in power.
As the Soul of man never had a beginning, but was
with God from the beginning, so it never can have an end.
Its destiny is ultimate reunion with the Godhead which
is its original source.
It is not possible that that which is born in Time should
exist always,




The PYTHAGORON


29


Nor that which never had a beginning should have an
end,
But the Soul which had no beginning exists for eternity.
The Soul of Man is immortal: beauty and music are
the wings which lift it heavenward.
The enchantment of music, the ecstasy of love, the
rapture of charity,
Are but stray notes from the symphony of the soul.
The Soul is immortal: when it departs from the body
it retreats into the Soul of the World,
Out of which it was extended, and which is a being
of the same nature with it.
The purest part of the Soul is that which leaves the
body: Man himself.
Man is nothing else but Soul.
Each of us is a Soul, not a body, which is only a
possession of the Soul.
The body is the horse, the Soul is the rider.
While a man lives, the body is the bond of the Soul:
When he dies, the Soul is left, as it were, his monument:
A monument which bears its own record, for the Soul
bears its own inscription.
WVhile all bodies are passible and are divisible into
infinity,
Only the infinite God and the immortal Soul can pass
through the Veil, for naught can bar them.
The Souls of the dead do neither give a shadow or a
wink;
But those which are liberated by death ascend into
the pure Aether, with individual identity, difference, being
and power;
And are as Spirits of Light; impervious to hurt, and
increasing in growth and power throughout eternity.




30


The PYTHAGORON


The Soul being of the efflux of God is pure and incorruptible,
It has no passions, and never can become impure or
corrupted;
Hence, it is incapable of sin and is not the subject of
punishment.
It is a spark of divinity, and is extended into the body
as a tiny seed,
Which can be made to glow, and to flourish and to
flower, according to the care bestowed upon it.
One's soul shines out through his face.
The Soul of Man, being between the spirits who
always contemplate the Divine Essence and those who are
incapable of contemplating it,
Can raise itself to the one, or sink itself to the other.
The Soul is man's greatest possession, being his real
Self, [Ego], and is his first and greatest concern.
The care of the Soul and its luminous body is in
practicing Virtue, in embracing Truth, and in abstaining
from all impure things.
The fear of death renders a man sad through the
ignorance of his Soul.
O race of men, stunned with the chilling fear of death,
Why do you dread the Styx, the shades and empty
names, the stuff that poets manufacture,
And their fabled sufferings of a world that never was?
As for your bodies, whether the burning pyre,
Or long lapse of time with its wasting power shall
have consumed them,
Be sure they cannot suffer any ills.
Of a certainty no evil can befall a just man in this life
or after death.




The PYTHAGORON


31


Our souls are deathless, and ever when they have left
their former seat,
Do they live in new abodes and dwell in bodies that
have received them.
All things are changing; nothing dies.
The spirit wanders, comes now here, now there, and
occupies whatever frame it pleases.
Progressing ever towards its eternal destiny but never
perishes.
And, as the pliant wax is stamped with new designs,
does not remain as it was before nor keep the same form
long,
But is still the selfsame wax,
So do I teach that the Soul is ever the same, though it
passes into ever-changing bodies.
We have no right to doubt that animals have souls
the same as men.
Therefore, lest your piety be overcome by appetite, I
warn you as a seer,
Do not drive out by impious slaughter the souls of
kindred creatures,
And let not life be fed on life.
Death is not to be dreaded. In no case could it be
an evil.
Old age is not to be considered with reference to an
egress from the present life, but to the beginning of a
blessed one.
Death and decay are part of the natural process of
change and mutability,
Which pertains only to the beings that are unreal, and
not to those that are real,
And by which all things are renewed and restored to
balance.
It is a beneficent thing, without which there could be
no progress.
It levels all things and brings all again to balance; it
renews all things.




32


The PYTHAGORON


The Soul rises to the pure Aether: the body disintegrates forever into the elements.
Therefore make not sepulchral chests of cypress, nor
build mausoleums of marble or stone;
Nor seek to preserve forever the deserted body, that it
may become a curious spectacle for future ages.
Rather reverently observe the salutary ordinances of
Orpheus.
Rob not the living to adorn the dead, lest the living
he tempted to rob the dead.
Luxury, when associated with death, is impious and a
hollow mockery.
Shun funereal display and pageantry: avoid ostentation, mournful dirges, and long supplications.
Why lavish upon the whole cadaver what would not
be bestowed upon a part of it?
If one truly so believe that the Soul alone is the real
Ego,
It is impossible to lament the passing of a god into the
pure Aether.
For is it not written, From a man thou hast become
a god? Thou art an immortal god, mortal no more?
Death is only of the body, and not of the Soul; for
the Soul is immortal.
Death is the separation of the Soul from the body:
the release of the Soul from its prison-house,
The deliverance of Soul from all evils and all
afflictions.
And when, after having divested thyself of thy mortal
body, thou arrivest in the most pure Aether,
Thou shalt be a god, immortal, incorruptible; and
death shall have no more dominion over thee.
For the Souls of the just are in the hands of God, and
death hath no torment for them.
They shall shine like rays of crystal light and be of
great power.
They have eternal peace.




7010 PYTHIAGORON


5 o

7i PYTLIA CORON                           53


Such is the case with the just who preserve their Souls
to the last;
But not so with the unjust who part company with
Soul before the end.
Matter and form do not flow into one another
spontaneously,
Because the matter of one substance does not receive
the form of the other without something to impress it.
When the Soul departs out of a man, the body does
not become brass or iron;
Neither is wool made out of a stone.
There is a third principle which unites them; and that
principle is God.
For the Soul is bound to the body by the Attraction
of Divine Harmony;
And if the custodian show no mark of Virtue, but consign himself to depravity and corruption,
The body becomes no longer a congenial habitation
for the Pure Soul,
And the Attraction which binds the Soul to the body
is broken,
And the Soul is divulsed during mortal life, and retreats into the Soul of the World,
But without individual indentity or difference; there
to await a happier Destiny.
He who unjustly expels a wise man from the body,
confers a benefit on him by his iniquity;
For he thus becomes liberated, as it were, from bonds.
The wretched man, bereft of Soul, will continue to live
to his appointed end,
But thenceforth is nothing else but body.
When at length he dies he leaves neither monument
nor memory to mark his mundane stay.
For he is dead, indeed; blotted out of the Book of the
Living,
And gone into eternal oblivion as though he had
never lived.
For the Soul is Man Himself, and his only monument,
and is aught which survives mortality.




34


The PYTHAGORON


WAhat therefore can compensate the loss of immortality?
The Soul which is put off in mortal existence remains
with the Soul of the World, without individual identity,
Until it is again attracted to extend into some earthly
body in one of the worlds,
And continues the Cycle of Birth until at length it
bears impress of individual identity.
But the Souls of the just progress to God.
Although death is a blessing, it is unlawful for a man
to take his own life.
The reason, which is a high doctrine, and not easy
to understand,
Is that our Souls are bound in the prison-house of the
body, until the purposes of God be fulfilled;
And we have no right to escape until God gives the
signal.
There is a doctrine whispered in secret that man is
a prisoner, who has no right to open the door and run away.
God is our guardian.
The Soul is a Harmony and the body its prison.
No one should leave his post or station of life without command of his general,
That general is God.
God has not a place in earth more allied with His
Nature than the Pure and Holy Soul.
Since the roots of our nature are established in God,
from whom else we are produced, we should tenaciously
adhere to our root;
For streams of water, and other offspring of earth,
when their roots are cut off, become rotten and dry.
As land must be diligently tilled by him who wishes
to obtain from it the most excellent fruit;




The PYTHAGORON


35


Thus also the greatest attention should be paid to the
Soul, that it may produce fruit worthy of its nature.
He is a wise man, and beloved of God, who studies
how to labor for the good of his Soul,
As much as others labor for the sake of the body.
Learn how to produce eternal children; not such as
may supply the wants of the body in old age,
But such as may nourish the Soul with perpetual food.
It is necessary to search for those wives and children
which will remain after liberation from present life.
As we live through Soul, it must be said that by virtue
of this we live well;
Just as because we see through the eyes, we see well
through the virtue of these.
Choose rather to be strong in Soul than in body.
An abundance of nutriment is noxious to the body;
but the body is preserved when the Soul is disposed in a
becoming manner.
The Soul is illumined by the recollection of Deity.
Assert that which possesses Wisdom in thee to be the
True Man.
Where that which is wise in thee resides, there also
is thy good.
He who loves the goods of the Soul will love things
more divine;
But he who loves the goods of its transient habitation
will love things human.
Accustom thy Soul after it has conceived all that is
great of Divinity,
To conceive something great of itself.
That which is not noxious to the Soul, is not noxious
to man.
It is not death, but a bad life, that destroys the Soul.
An evil disposition is the distress of the Soul; but injustice and impiety are the death of it.




36


T/he PYTHAGORON


As a bodily disease cannot be healed if it be concealed
or praised,
Thus also, neither can a remedy be applied to relieve
a beleaguered Soul,
Which is badly guarded and protected.
As it is better for a part of the body which contains
purulent matter to be burnt, than to continue in the state in
which it is,
Thus also it is better for a depraved man to die than
to live, and the sooner release his Soul from bondage.
He who unjustly expels the Soul from the body confers a benefit on the Soul, by his iniquity,
For it thus becomes liberated, as it were, from Hell.
Preserve thy Soul unto the end, and in thy friendships
Endeavor both in deeds and words to exhort thy
friends to preserve the divine mixture,
The union of body and Soul, and communion of inte!ect and divine Soul,
And not to divulse the God within them.




The PYTHAGORON


37


IV.
The Sage discourseth upon God and the
Kosmos; the Nature and Unity of God, His
Name and Attributes, Nationalistic Conception of Him, the Logos and Forms, Real and
Unreal Being, Deceptiveness of the Senses,
Nature and Evolution of the Kosmos, its
Perfection, Self-Sufficiency and Indestructibility, the Comprehension of End in Beginning, the Unity of One and Many, and explaineth the Nature of the Monad and the
Wisdom of Number.
All comes from One: The All-One is the First Cause
of all being.
There is but One God: perfect unity, indivisible, unchangeable.
God embraces all and actuates all, and is but One.
All life is one, and God is one.
Man is prone to make God in his own image, and
each race of men gives God its characteristics;
Thus the Aethiopians make their gods black and
snubbednose like themselves;
The Thracians make theirs fair with red hair and
blue eyes;
And who could fail to recognize the nationality of the
gods of the Greeks?
WVhat fools such mortals be!




3_8


The PYTHAGORON


Let us contemplate God!
God is without parts and throughout alike: a pure
Spirit of Light.
He has no resemblance to the bodily form of man, nor
are his thoughts like man's.
God is a Light incapable of receiving its contrary,
darkness.
Throughout He is Reason, and Intelligence, and
Omnipotence,
And He rules the Kosmos without trouble by Reason
and Insight.
He understands by sensual perception; and not only
thinks, but sees, and hears throughout:
And such is the destiny of the Soul of Man.
God is that which is One, hath its original from its
own self, is of a singular subsistence,
And is One, Only Being perfectly good.
As He is God from the beginning, so He hath no end,
being immortal and eternal.
Unity is God, and God is Unity: wherefore, God
is indivisible and unchangeable.
Do not investigate the name of God, because thou
wilt not find it.
For every thing which is called by a name, receives
its appellation from that which is more worthy than itself;
So that it is one person that calls, and another that
hears.
Who is it, therefore, that has given a name to God?
God, however, is not a name to God, but an indication
of what we conceive of Him.
God exists: He is so disposed towards the human race
that he inspects and does not neglect it.
God is not the author of any evil.
God is good: Therefore only good can come from
God.




The PYTHAGORON


39


Men act ridiculously in searching for good anywhere
else than from God.
God is wise and unerring; therefore, nothing which
He hath brought forth is worthless or valueless.
Anger is foreign from Divinity, since it arises from
circumstances arising contrary to the will;
But nothing contrary to the will can happen to a god.
God is from the beginning; therefore, nothing never
was.
First there was the essence of God, and from his
efflux was formed the Soul of the World,
The Logos, of which and by which all being is formed,
ordered, and sustained.
All being is of one substance, so that God is in all,
around all, above all, and sustains all.
God hath stablished the Kosmos with a portion of
Himself, yet remaineth separate.
All things are Forms or Transforms of the same substance and are mutually interchangeable.
By the Logos the first four primordial elements were
formed of the same substance, and in order:
Aether, Air, Moisture, and Fire; and from these the
Kosmos evolved;
And the stars and the planets were in time brought
forth.
And the earth came into existence, and Time began.
In the course of Time, aetherial space became filled
with myriads of worlds, each of surpassing beauty and
order;
So that the universe may be called Kosmos, because
of its beauty and order.
The survey of all Heaven, and of the stars that revolve
in it, is indeed beautiful; when the order of them is considered.
For they derive this beauty and order by the participation of the First and the Intelligible Essence.




40


The PYTHAGJORON


But that First Essence is the nature of Number and
Reason, productive principles, which pervade all things;
And according to which all these celestial bodies are
elegantly arrayed, and fitly adorned.
The Kosmos hath neither height nor depth, but is infinite in extent.
The sages say that One community embraces Heaven
and Earth, and God and Men,
And Friendship and Order and Temperance and
Righteousness;
For which they call this VWhole a Kosmos, or orderly
universe.
The Forms which substance assumes are varied,
mutable, and undergo change continuously,
But Matter is indestructible and eternal.
Every Form which substance assumes is perfect for
its form; for all that comes from God is perfection.
Consider that the colors of the Iris are seven,
Yet all may be produced from three, and all may be
contained in one;
And yet the Form of each is perfect.
Because all Forms are derived from a single substance,
what is apparent to one sense can be made obvious to all
the rest;
So that what can be heard can be seen, and what can
be seen can be heard, and what can be heard can be felt.
But what the senses regard as real is actually unreal,
and the senses are deceptive.
For what may be perceived by the senses undergoes
continual change.
It is the incorporeal things which are unchangeable
and are therefore real;
And these may be seen only with the mind, through
mathematical disciplines.




The PYTHAGORON


41


Mark well the difference between things real and
things unreal, the true Values and false.
God is real, and after Him, the Soul of the World, the
Soul of Man, and the Kosmic Structure;
They being of his efflux. These alone are real being,
though incorporeal.
All else, though corporeal and visible, are unreal
things, Forms which are never permanent,
But are constantly undergoing evolution, transformation, mutation and change.
They shall disintegrate and decay, but the real being
shall never pass away.
Beings are immaterial and eternal natures, and alone
possess an efficacious power, such as incorporeal essences.
But the rest of things are only homonymously beings,
and are so denominated through the participation of real
beings,
And such are corporeal and material Forms, which are
generated and corrupted, and never truly are.
Wisdom is the science of things which are properly
beings, but not of such as are homonymously so.
For corporeal natures are neither the objects of science
nor admit of a stable knowledge;
Since they are infinite and incomprehensible by
science,
And are, as it were, non-beings when compared with
universals,
And are incapable of being properly circumscribed
by definition.
Therefore, it is through the mind we see and hear all
things: all else is deaf and blind.
For the senses are dull and do not perceive all things
that surround us, but a few.
Therefore do not doubt the reality of being because
thou canst neither see, hear, feel, taste, nor touch them.




42


The PYTHAGORON


For animals, birds, and fishes, see, hear, and feel
existent things, beyond the capacity of mortal man.
Neither do they perceive all that is to be perceived.
But through the Mind and Soul all things may be
perceived and understood.
It is by mathematical disciplines and speculations,
Which are the intermediate between the physical and
incorporeal realm,
That all things not perceived by the senses may be
seen with the mind.
For like bodies they have a three-fold dimension and
yet share the impassibility of incorporeals,
As degrees of preparation to the contemplation of the
really existent things,
Whose manner and state never remain in the same
condition,
To a desire for true spiritual food.
By means of these mathematical sciences, therefore,
may be had an artistic introduction of truly existent things.
Thus thou shalt see and hear through thy mind and
Soul wonders which do not exist to the senses;
Such as the passibility and interpassibility of things:
Fresh water through salt; sound through silence, heat
through cold: light through darkness; spirit through matter;
And Truth pervading all things.
The Kosmos is infinite, because there is an infinity of
causes.
If the Kosmos was finite and the causes producing it
were finite, it follows that the Kosmos likewise would be
finite.
For where all causes concur, there the effect also must
appear, let the causes be what they will, whether atoms or
elements.
Everything is produced by Cause and Effect. The
First Causes are incorporeal beings;
But those that are caused by condition or participation
become corporeal substances.
By this means the earth is corporeal.




The PYTHAGORON


43


The Kosmos was framed by God, through the Logos,
and being corporeal, is obvious to the senses,
But in its own nature is obnoxious to destruction.
It shall never perish, it being preserved by the Providence of God.
For while all matter and being continually changes,
matter itself is imperishable and indestructable.
The universe is indestructible. It remains eternally.
It cannot be destroyed by any other, nor can it
spontaneously destroy itself.
Neither within it, nor without it, can be found a force
greater than itself, able to destroy it.
The Kosmos is perfect; and being perfect it must need
be complete within itself.
Nor could it be complete if it were at any time ever
incomplete;
Nor if anything at any time be lacking, or there be
defect, or excess, or anything to be supplied.
The Kosmos could not be complete and perfect if it
did not within itself include all beings and all things;
Nor could it give true resemblance of its Original and
Exemplar if it were not the one only begotten thing of full
perfection.
Therefore the Kosmos contains within itself everything needful
And the answers to all questions; and the healing of
all ills.
Therefore thou canst never be in want of anything
which thou mayst have need of in this life.
Those things which the body necessarily requires are
easily to be procured by all men, without labor and molestation;
But those things to the attainment of which labor
and molestation are requisite, are objects of desire, not to
the body, but to depraved opinion.




44


The PYTHAGORON


He who thinks there is a God and that nothing is
taken care of by Him, differs in no respect from him who
does not believe there is a God.
The bad man does not think there is a Providence.
It is better to live lying on the grass, confiding in God
and thyself, then to lie on a golden bed with perturbation.
The Kosmos being complete, the end of all things was
created with the beginning of all things:
The last of all to be was contained in the first that
was.
In the seed of the Kosmos is the seed of all things
that were, are, and are yet to be; each blossoming forth at
the right season.
For, as Orpheus hath said, The egg was before the
bird.
The first men contained within themselves the types
or germs of all succeeding generations;
But God Himself is the fountain whence all human
souls proceed.
Nothing in the universe is entirely new. The same
events occur again.
The Kosmos is self-sufficient.
It hath within itself all things it hath need of, and is
nourished, replenished and augmented of itself;
The other parts being mutually changed into one
another.
God is the beginning and end of all being. He encompasses man and all earthly things.
God, the universal principle, is an Unity. He alone
is One, and not the counterpart of any other.
In all else there be unities of Duads, the parts of which
may be known, harmonized, and unified by the application
of the principle of Numbers.
From the One comes the Many, but the Many together
constitute a unity, which is the Monad.
Unity and the Monad have a natural affinity; but yet
they differ.




The PYTHAGORON


4S


The Monad is the basis of things; but the Monad is
different from the One, which is God;
For the Point implies a preceding Monad, and God is
without precedent or beginning.
The One is the Better Monad, thus we call God the
Great Monad, because there is no precedent;
And we call the Monad the Throne of God, as representing his majesty and dominion.
As we cannot represent God, but only symbolically,
The Monad is used to represent the Throne of God
placed in the center of the empyrean,
And we symbolize this disposition by the hierogram
of a Point placed within a circle or an equilateral triangle,
To exemplify equally the unity of the Divine Essence,
and His Eternity, which has neither beginning of years nor
end of days.
And likewise we place the Monad as the apex of the
Quaternary Triangle: *
This is because the Monad or Point is the original and
cause of the entire numerical system,
The Monad, of Number is the sacred source; From it
Number emanates and holds the Virtues,
With which shines the Tetrad, Universal Mother,
which produces all things and conceals in its depths the
immortal Dekad, honoured in all places.
As God is the cause of all things, being the only and
great Creator on whom everything depends.
Therefore the Monad represents the great and good
Creator, and his indivisible unity.
By that pure, holy. Four-Letter NAME on high.
Nature's eternal fountain and supply,
The parent of all souls that living be,
By Him, with faithful oath, I swear to thee.
Oath of Pythagoras, as given in Oliver.
The Pythagorean Triangle, p. 103.




46


The PYTHAGORON


The Monad is the beginning of all things:
Just as a point is the beginning of a line, a line of a
surface, and a surface of a solid, which constitutes a body.
A point implies a preceding Monad, so that it is really
the principle of bodies,
And all of them arise from the Monad.
The Monad is the principle of all things:
From the Monad came the indeterminate Duad, as
matters subjected to the cause, Monad;
From the Monad and indeterminate Duad, Numbers;
From Numbers, Points; Points, Lines; from Lines,
Superfices; from Superfices, Solids;
From these, solid Bodies, whose elements are five:
Aether, Air, Moisture, Fire and Earth;
Of all of which, transmuted and totally changed, the
Kosmos consists.
The world is divided into Opposite powers:
The One is the Better Monad, Light, right, equal,
stable, and straight;
The Other is an inferior Duad: darkness, left
unequal, unstable, and moveable.
The Monad dwells in the intelligible realm, while the
One dwells among Numbers (divinities);
The Two exists among numerable things, while the
Duad is indeterminate.
The Monad expresses equality and measure: the
Duad expresses excess and defect.
Mean and measure cannot admit of more or less:
While excess and defect, which proceed to infinity,
admit it.
That is why the Duad is called indeterminate;
Since because of the all-inclusion of the Monad and
Duad, all things refer to Number.
All things are assimilated unto Number: all things
accord with Number.




The PYTHAGORON


'47


The Duad is the only principle of Purity: yet not
even, nor evenly even, nor unevenly even, nor evenly uneven.
The Duad is a symbol of fortitude and courage.
By it we learn that as a man ought to do no wrong,
neither ought he suffer any, without a due sense and
modest resentment of it.
The Monad is a symbol of love and friendship; and
from it we learn to forgive injuries done us;
For will not a man, who is a brother, or even any
casual person who deserves greater attention than a brute,
Be changed to milder manners by proper treatment,
though he should not entirely forsake his rusticity?
The wisest of things is Number; the next is he who
gave names to things.
By Number is signified the intelligible order, which
comprehends the multitude of intellectual Forms.
Number is the ruler of Forms and Ideas, and is the
cause of gods and daemons.
To the most ancient and artificially ruling Deity,
Number is the canon, the artificial reason, the intellect also,
And the most undeviating Balance of the composition
and generation of all things.
Number contains the secret of things; and God is)
universal Harmony.




48


The PYTHAGORON


V.
The, Sage discourseth upon Man and his
relationship to God, the Tripartite Nature of
Man, his Kinship to all Nature, Man as a
Microcosm, the Fallacy of Birth-Sin and
Universal Condemnation, the Evolution of
Man, his acquisition of Mind and Free-Will,
Man as Son of God, Nature of Good and
Evil, Relativity of all things, Values, Cosmic
and Human Laws, and Justice; and Exhorteth Man to seek the Abundant Life.
After all, What is Man that he is the lord of the
earth?
Man is tripartite, being composed of Soul, Mind and
Body.
The Soul is Divine, a part of God; the Body is
material and mortal.
The Mind correlates and partakes of both body and
soul.
Man is doubly kin to all Nature through both his body
and soul.
Through his soul which he derives directly from God
he partakes of divinity
And has kinship with God, all Soul, and all people
of Soul.
Through his mortal body he has kinship with every
creature which has been, is, and is yet to be.




The PYTHAGORON


49


For his mortal body is composed of the same elements
of the Kosmos,
Which for ages past formed and sustained the bodies
of other living creatures,
And which when the bodies disintegrated, returned to
their elementary states.
The mortal body of the man of today is destined to
follow the eternal cycle of change,
And become the constituency of living things yet to be.
Man is a Microcosm, because he is a compendium of
the universe:
Not because, like other animals, (even the least), he
is constituted by the Five Elements,
But because he contains all the powers of the universe.
The world contains God, and the Five Elements, the
animals and plants, which emanated from God.
All of these powers are contained in Man.
However, in each of these he is inferior to the others.
Containing God, he is inferior to God; and having
less of each of the elements, is inferior to any one of them.
Constituted therefore of different powers, Man has a
difficult life to live.
All the elements operate unintermittently:
There is no intermission with God, and things near to
Him in mind and reason;
And all things are continuously nourished day and
night.
While all other things are ruled by one nature only,
Man is ruled by many.
Man is drawn by all the different powers which he
contains.
But he who, like a vigilant and expert charioteer, within himself cultivates the Divine Element,
Will be able to utilize the other powers by a mingling
of the elements, just as far as may be necessary.




50


The PYTHAGORON


There inheres in man latent, natural and spiritual
powers akin to divinity,
The existence, nature and operation of which he is
unaware, due to his ignorance.
It is through Knowledge of God and Knowledge of
Self that man discovers his powers,
And the knowledge of what his soul is, whence it
came, and whence it goes.
He attains mastery of divine powers, the power of
Number, the divine art,
In proportion to the degree in which he attains
mastery of himself through Wisdom,
And in which he is able to converse with God and
receive consummate knowledge of all Truth.
The theologians tell the tale that the gigantic Titans
for their crime against the gods
Were blasted out of existence by a thunderbolt of
Zeus, and that mankind emerged from their ashes;
That mankind are divine because their ancestors, the
Titans, had eaten the young god, Zagreos,
But also are under universal condemnation to suffer
eternally in Hades for their ancestors' fault.
Thus all mankind, because of the original sin of their
ancestors,
Are tainted with birth-sin, and stand in need of the
redeeming god, Dionysos.
That story is a myth and a fable for the consumption
of the vulgar and the ignorant, and the enrichment of the
venial.
Man has never fallen but ever has risen.
Mortal man is a product of evolution; rising throughout the vastness of eons from minute to higher forms.
Like all else, he is still undergoing evolution and
change, and will continue to do so until the end of time.
It is obvious to the intelligent that mortal man could
not have had his genesis in his present form;




The PYTHAGORON


51


For he would have been helpless, and it would have
been impossible for him to have survived.
It is the order of things that one form builds upon
another.
The cradle of man was the great deep, for moisture is
the principle of animated life.
Man is evolution from the pisciform, graduating
through many stages to what he now is.
Thus mankind has never fallen from high estate to
low;
But has constantly risen from low degree to high.
Nor has mankind ever been under universal damnation,
Which such a state would be inconsistent with the
nature of God.
God is kindly disposed toward all his creatures.
God condemns no man. Rather it is man who condems himself.
No one is fated to suffer eternally in Hades for crimes
he did not commit;
But many are compelled to suffer in this life the
natural consequences of forebearers' errors.
This is under the universal principle of Cause and
Effect.
At the beginning of his existence Man was without
Reason and had instinct as his only guide.
But when Man freed himself from his aquatic prison
he gradually acquired Mind.
Thus Man emerged from water with ignorancedarkened mind into a World of Light.
Darkness is slow to comprehend Light, for all appears
dark to the unillumined mind.
Reason is the window through which the Light of
Knowledge filters.
The immortal Mind of Man is as much more excellent
than his sensitive irrational nature
As the sun is more excellent than the stars.




52


The PYTHAGORON


God endowed man with Reason that he might use it to
open the Mind to the World of Light,
And befittingly take his exalted place as a Son of
God.
People of Soul, ye are children of Light!
But God unfolds his Wisdom slowly and by degrees,
as man prepares himself to receive it.
For not beforetime can all be made known.
Man possesses Free-Will, but this like all else is
relative.
It is only spiritually that the Wll can be entirely
free.
Even then it is free only to the extent the mind is
freed from ignorance.
It is apparent that in material things no will can
be entirely free where there are other wills to oppose it;
Or where the powers of Nature cannot be made to
yield to it.
The principle of life is about the heart, but the principle of Reason and Intelligence is in the head.
All wrong consists in deviation from right Reason, or
in contradiction to it.
And the cause of wrong is Ignorance.
The ignorance of what is excellent is the cause of
hamartia. *
It is impossible for a wise man to do wrong.
Ignorance produces faults, and knowledge seeks the
opportunity.
All hamartia [Sin] therefore is Ignorance of the nature
of the Kosmos in the Light of Justice;? Hamartia - missing the mark.




The PYTHAGORON


53


Whereby man fails to recognize the correct principles
and true Values governing it;
And understands not Measure nor the limitation of
Measure.
Man therefore hopes for the things for which he ought
not hope;
And seeks for the things which he ought not to find;
And expects to receive the things which he will not
receive.
Thus he throws his life out of Balance, and deludes
and disappoints himself, and undermines his confidence
in God.
By his own Ignorance of the principles of life, he
condemns himself.
Remember.- God condemns no man. It is man that
condemns himself.
God is not the author of any evil.
Men possess self-chosen woes. Though the good is
near, they neither see nor hear it.
Few are those who know release from evils. Such is
the fate that blinds the understanding of mortals.
Evils proceed from hamartia alone, while God is the
cause of good and of any advantages;
Though in the meantime we slight His beneficence,
and surround ourselves with voluntary evils,
Thus, as the poet says, That mortals blame the gods
as if they were the causes of their evils!
Though not from Fate, but for their crimes they suffer
woe!
The world is informed with a Soul, and is governed
by Reason and Providence.
The Kosmos is governed from the beginning for all
eternity by fixed, unchangeable, and unerring laws,




54


The PYTHAGORON


By which all being is brought to harmony, order and
balance.
The eternal regimen of the Kosmos is Evolution, Order
and Harmony.
Divine Laws perpetually self-operate to bring all
things into Measure, and restore all things to Balance.
The Kosmos and its governing principles are geometrically symmetrical and harmonious;
For God is the Perfect Geometer, and geometrizes
continually.
What flows in ebbs out; what empties refills; what
is displaced is replaced.
There is no vacuum. Everything is always filled.
All things have their counterpart, which compensates
and brings again to Balance.
And there is no Right or Wrong which is not brought
to exact Balance by Retributive Justice.
As God is perfection, perfection is the standard of
things and should be the goal of men.
Perfection for its particular kind of Form is the
standard of each thing.
Perfection in any Form means equality and balance
and freedom from excess and defect.
All natural bodies take the spherical form, because
in the natural movement is the proportion of equality;
For everything moves in proportion:
And this proportion of equality is the only one which,
when it occurs, produces circles and spheres,
Because it returns on itself.
Therefore, everything within each Form is relative and
is in degree, proportion and season.
Likewise, everything in the Kosmos itself is relative
and is in degree, proportion and season, to all else.




The PYTHAGORON


55


The Kosmos is a unity, a composite of all Forms within it.
Thus every Form is One of Many and part of Unity,
and related to all other constituents of Unity.
Also each Form has its own definite and distinctive
Value, which is relative within itself,
And is relative to the Values of every other Form;
All in degree, proportion, and season;
And the values of all Forms as among themselves are
likewise relative, and in degree and proportion.
Every Form therefore is to be judged according to its
own relative kind and its own relative Value.
Nothing existent is pure, inasmuch as earth participates of fire, fire of air, air of water, and water of spirit.
Likewise, the beautiful participates in the deformed,
the just in the unjust,
So that from this principle human impulses, by proper
direction, may be turned in either direction.
Everything being relative and every kind having its
special value, all in degree,
Whatever may be good at one time or season, may be
bad if at another, and all in proportion.
What may be bad under certain circumstances may
be good under others, all in degree.
Things inferior are like unto things superior:
Both unite their invincible forces to produce one sole
thing, the most marvellous of all;
And as all things are emanated by the will of One
unique God,
Thus all things whatsoever must be engendered by
this sole thing, ^ by a disposition of Universal Nature.
There is no thing of Nature which is in itself wrong
or evil. Wrong is in manner of use.
Hamartia lies in wrong or unseasonable use.
Many things that are very good in themselves become
bad when they are done out of season.




56


The PYTHAGORON


Unseasonable pleasures bring forth pains.
Likewise, things that are good in themselves become
bad by excess or defect of use.
Exceed due measure and the most delightful things
become the least delightful.
It has been said, Between good and evil there is a
medium, which is neither good nor evil.
Polities may be likened to three lines whose extremities join, forming a triangle containing one right angle;
The lines being as four, three and two; so that one
of them is as four to three, and other as three to two,
And the other, three, is the arithmetical medium between two and four.
Hence, it is that the middle path between extremes,
and the moderation of the passions,
Is the ideal of the good and brings happiness to all.
Seek the true Value of all things, and enjoy all gifts
of God according to Measure.
The universe and all the works of Nature are perfect
and good, as befits order, beauty and harmony.
All imperfections, wrong and evil which ever existed
in the universe were introduced by man alone.
They are impositions of the imperfect mortal mind in
its emergence from darkness to Light,
And are the handiwork of ignorance and, which is the
same thing, superstition.
There is no thing naturally appurtenant to the universe that is evil, bad, or wrong, in itself.
Every evil associated therewith has been engendered
by man's misconception of the nature of things,
Or by his ignorant misuse of forces and things that
are in themselves good and beneficient.
All things which are naturally pure remain pure
despite man's perversion of their use.
Thus every attendant evil is a consequence of the
mind of man.




The PYTHAGORON


57


Unto the pure in mind every thing is good. All is evil
to him who thinks evil.
Those things which are not natural order of the universe are the creatures and products of man's mind.
Emanating from a source so imperfect, they are artificial and unnatural, and are themselves imperfect.
Of these artificial things there are some that are
relatively good, and some that are good only because
thought good.
And there are some that are positively bad in themselves, and some that are bad only because they are thought
to be bad.
Good and evil in this realm therefore are largely states
of mind, and are always relative and matters of degree.
Therefore examine all matters in Truth's clear Light,
and reserve thy judgment until thou hast investigated all
particulars.
And thus determine if that which is thought to be
good is actually good, and if that which is thought to be
bad is actually bad;
And in what relative degree.
Consider the distinction between divine law and manmade law.
Cosmic, or Natural Law, is the only true law, and,
consequently, is the only divine law.
All of its material principles are primarily valid, which
cannot be true of human law.
The divine law is infused in the universe itself and
proclaims itself to all creation.
Those who comprehend and heed its injunctions, perfect themselves and attain the abundant life.
Those who ignore or neglect them do so at their peril
and invite upon themselves condign penalty.
Ignorance of divine law is intrinsic wrong and the only
real sin,




58


The PYTHAGORON


Whereas wrong in connection with infraction of
strictly human laws exists in mind alone,
Divine laws are living principles of the universe which
sustain life itself,
And possess inherent power to work change in Form
and Matter, and enforce themselves.
By them the entire universe is integrated; everything
contained in the world is made naturally congruous with it;
And the whole world is made to harmonize and symphonize with itself.
Cosmic law is perfect, is universal in scope, and pertains to all things contained within the Natural Order of
things;
The animate and inanimate, the corporeal and incorporeal, and the spiritual and material;
But it has no cognizance of artificial conditions
effected by men, except to the extent such conditions involve natural principles.
Thus divine law comprehends the actions and conduct
of men insofar as they involve natural principles of justice.
But does not concern itself with purely artificial and
arbitrary regulations of men.
In the very nature of things every natural or divine
law is at once a spiritual and material law;
So that every natural physical law is a moral law, and
every natural moral law is a physical law.
Cosmic law has this peculiarity, that it is not dependent upon any other source of power for enforcement.
It is at once a legislator, inspector, magistrate and
executioner, being omnipotent.
Divine justice is strictly compensatory and is never
vindicative.
It is compensatory because it rewards adherence as
well as punishes infraction.
It is non-vindicative because it is dispassionate, and
the elements of wrath and vengeance are absent from it.




The PYTHAGORON


59


It is no respector of persons or excuses: all are equal
within its compass.
Every infraction of Cosmic law is inevitably noticed
and visited, irrespective of knowledge, or ignorance, motive
or intent, mode or manner.
It is the eternal principle of divine justice that initiation of commensurate consequence inheres in every condition;
And that the condition is infallibly compensated, with
peculiar appropriateness and in finite degree;
And that during present existence.
The eternal regimen of the universe is Harmony,
Order, Equality, Balance,
Which is perpetually maintained by Cosmic Law.
It behooves him, then, who would have the abundant
life,
To address himself to the knowledge of the Nature of
Things, and understand the good that is near to him.
Moreover he must know and understand all these according to Justice and Truth,
So that he may distinguish true Values from false, and
the Right Season from the wrong;
And arrive at due Balance and Measure.
He must know the Divine Principles which activate all
things;
That he may conform thereto, and not run counter
thereto.
Thus he will not project impossibilities, or longer
delude or disappoint himself and others;
Nor bring down upon himself his own misfortunes;
but may deliver himself from evil.
We choose our own Destiny and are our own Good
or Bad Fortune.
We are our own children.




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The PYTHAGORON


VI.
The Sage discourseth upon Truth, which he
declareth to be the Only Voice of God, and
assureth that no Man need be deceived concerning the Will of God; and admonisheth
Men to Speak the Truth; and commenteth
upon Prophecy and Divination.
God is the living and absolute Verity clothed with
Light.
Truth is so great a perfection that if God would
render himself visible to men,
He would choose Light for his body and Truth for
his Soul.
The two best things given to men from above, are love
for truth and love of doing good.
The mighty Voice of God is eternal Truth: all men
in all ages understand it alike;
For Truth. like Music, is an universal language. God
Himself comprehends no other.
It is impossible for God to lie, or err, or deceive.
For, as it is spoken, If gods do aught dishonest they
are no gods.
God speaks only with the voice of Truth, which is
His only voice.
Falsehood and deception lie not either in his voice or
works.




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61


God needeth no man to declare his Will.
He hath Himself declared it in the Kosmos from the
beginning for eternity.
God without any voice by His works reveals His
meaning to the wise.
The Kosmos declareth his Truth and beareth his
record. His works, they declare him.
As above, so below; as below, so above.
There is nothing hid which cannot be uncovered.
Truth is the key to all Mysteries.
The Soul of Man is of divine origin; hence faculty
for true prophecy may exist;
But true prophecy must come from the Soul, guided
by the Spirit of Truth.
A true assertion respecting God is an assertion of God,
but a false assertion cannot be.
True divination may exist; but it comes from Wisdom
based upon mathematical disciplines,
And not from signs, symbols, or auguries.
It is never necessary that man be deceived as to
whether a thing is of God.
Man has within himself sure means of detecting
fallacy and demonstrating Truth.
Is it not Reason? Then to Reason we may trust.
Reason is immortal. All else is mortal.
For if any man diligently seek Truth in the light of
Reason, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God
or man.
For whatever is false or erroneous cannot be of God.
Truth demonstrates itself.
As God eternally speaks Truth, so Sons of God should
always speak the truth.
Speak the truth or not at all! Deceive no man to his
undoing. Deceive not thyself.




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The PYTHAGORON


Every man ought to so train himself as to be worthy
of belief without an oath.
Our children must be taught to speak the truth as a
most sacred duty,
For to lie is servile and hateful in all men.
Hide not the light of Truth under a bushel.
He buries gold who hides Truth. Concealing Truth is
like burying gold.
The noblest gifts of heaven to man are to speak the
truth and to do good.
These two things resemble the works of Deity.
Speaking Truth deifies Man.
Truth is to be sought with a mind purified from the
passions of the body.
Having overcome evil things, thou shalt experience
the union of the immortal God with the mortal man.




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63


VII.
The Sage discourseth upon the Olympian
and Orphic religions, the pretensions of the
Hierarchy, the nature of Exoteric and of
Esoteric teachings, the Validity of the
Hierologos, Priests, Temples, Images, IdolWorshipping, Luck    Charms, Sacrifices,
Sacraments, Gifts, Offerings, Violence to
Animals, Purificatory Rites, the Essentials of
Salvation, the Practical Side of Superstitious
Teachings, the true nature of Superstition,
and the Futility of Atoning Sacrifice; and
denounceth the Mythological Gods.
Even as there are three divine notions and three intelligible regions, so there is a triple word;
For the hierarchial order always manifests itself by
threes.
These are the word simple, the word hieroglyphical,
and the word symbolic.
Stated otherwise, there is the word that expresses,
the word that conceals, and the word that signifies.
The whole hieratic intelligence is in the perfect knowledge of these three degrees.
Again, sacred doctrines are of two kinds, exoteric and
esoteric.
The first is freely diffused to the vulgar, the ignorant,
the credulous, the venial.




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The PYTHAGORON


The latter is secret to the vulgar and profane, and is
reserved for the elect.
For not unto all should all be made known aforetime.
It is to the elect that I now address myself.
If these teachings be hid from the profane by their
own ignorance, it is meet,
In order that those who are genuinely instructed be
dearly partakers of them,
And that the profane may be pained in the midst of
what they hear,
In consequence of receiving no delight therefrom; the
doctrines being beyond their comprehension.
Remember thou that God is Holy: do not discuss Him
lightly, nor speak of Him in many words.
To use too many words when speaking of God,
produces an ignorance of God.
It is dangerous, and the danger is not small, to speak
of God even things which are true.
Speak not of God to every man. Dare not speak of
God to the multitude.
Neither dare to speak of God to a depraved person.
It is by no means safe to discourse concerning God
with men of false opinions;
For the danger is equally great in speaking to such
things either fallacious or true.
Argue not about God, for God needs no vindication.
Reverence thy religion. Respect the religion of others.
True religion consists in the Knowledge of God, the
Knowledge of Self, and the Following of God.
The sole means of enlightenment is Truth; the only
preceptor is the Spirit of Truth.
There can be no higher religion than Truth itself.
It is obvious that we should do those things in which
God delights.




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65


Not easy, however, is it for a man to know which these
are,
Unless he obtains the knowledge from one who has
heard God,
Or he has heard God himself; or he procures it through
divine art.
The hierologos are hierologos indeed only insofar as
they are actually true and coincide with All Truth.
It is impossible for anything to be from God which
is false, erroneous, or deceptive,
For God, if truly god, can neither lie, err, nor deceive,
but can shew Truth alone.
God has revealed Himself understandingly to man
and all creation in the universe itself.
His Truth is written in the Kosmos and not in the
books of men.
No one is wise who looks downward to the earth.
The limit of the earth is seen at our feet; but below its
roots stretch to infinity.
All things follow the heavens.
As above, so below; as below, so above.
Know God! Know Thyself!
The hierarchs and the hierophants aver that they know
what the will of God is,
And that they are representatives of the gods on earth,
with power over Heaven and Hell.
They declare themselves to be depositaries of the
hierologos, or divinely inspired writings,
In which are revealed all the awful secrets and
mysteries of the gods and Nature.
They assume power to bless and to accurse, to forgive
sins and to cleanse souls,
And to remit punishment for sins both on earth and in
the infernal regions.




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The PYTHAGORON


God never at any time has instituted holy orders;
The only valid holy order is the Order of Pure Men.
The erudite, chaste and wise Soul is the prophet of
the Truth of God.
The man that is worthy of God is also a god among
men.
The chaplet and the woolen bands are mere pretense
if a priest is not girt with religion.
God is not in want of hierophants or servants to assist
Him in the governance of the universe;
For He produces and provides for all things at once
by His own immediate energy.
But the cooperation of subordinate divine powers with
Him is necessary to the proper participation of Him by the
different beings which the universe contains.
The bond between God and man is so close and
eternal that naught can wedge between.
Hence there is no room for an intermediary between
God and man, nor is any required.
Each man stands face to face with God and in direct
relationship to him.
Salvation is the responsibility of each individual and
cannot be assumed by any other.
Every man is by nature a priest unto himself and a
high-priest unto his own household.
Temples built with earthly hands confer no glory upon
God; but are unstable monuments to man's vanity.
All temples that man's pride throughout the ages
rear, in time become taunting ruins and mocking dust.
The soul of man is more durable than the most
adamant granite and marble.
Temples crumble into dust and disappear, but the soul
of man endures forever.
The Kosmos alone is the true temple of God; no
earthly temple can contain Him.




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67


Any place where the mind of man can be undisturbed
is a suitable place for the worship of God.
Thou hath in thyself something similar to God; therefore use thyself as the Temple of God.
If thou buildest thy temple God will enter in. If thou
keepest thy temple holy the Spirit of God will abide therein.
You shall honor God best by becoming godlike in your
thoughts.
Whoso giveth God honor as to one that needeth it,
that man in his folly hath made himself greater than God.
The wise man only is a priest, is a lover of God, is
skilful to pray;
For that man only knows how to worship, who begins
by offering himself as the victim.
He fashions his own soul into a divine image,
And furnishes his own mind as a temple for the reception of the divine light.
Wherever we look, whether in the temples, the groves,
the houses, or along the ways,
We behold statues, idols, images, and figurines of the
gods and other sacred things.
The vulgar bow down to them, worship them, and give
them reverence,
Glorying in their own self-abasement.
They should know, but never seem to think,
That all these holy things are but creatures of man's
own brain and hand.
There is also another widespread superstition among
the ignorant vulgar,
That of continually wearing or having about their
persons
Necklaces, rings, bracelets, amulets, and charms, all
bearing effigies of the gods.




AO


The PYTHAGORON


These trinkets, esteemed to be holy because the priests
have blessed them,
Are believed by the vulgar to be potent to bring good
fortune and fend off bad.
Symbols are illuminating and instructive, but images
are debasing and tend to superstition.
Personification and images sooner or later produce
idolatry.
Therefore do not think of the Supreme as either finite
or a personality.
Do not think of God or represent Him in the form of
man, beast, or other creature,
Nor possess or wear any painted, graven, or fashioned
image of any deity or holy thing.
Do not wear God's image on a ring.
To such base objects deem it impious to liken the
All-Highest.
Keep free and pure your temples, chapels, dwelling
houses and sacred ways
From all idols, images and statues of holy persons
and things.
Right-minded persons stand in need of no such to
remind them of deity,
Or to inspire within them pious thoughts.
The people should not worship and pray to the gods
by the way,
But should go out from their homes direct to the
temples with their minds set upon that duty.
Do not give a name to any god, as such is most
impious.
It is irreverent to mention or call any god by name.




The PYTHAGORON


69


Save those of the divine Apollo, which alone are pure
and undefiled,
All temples of the gods are slaughterhouses, and their
altars reek with blood.
The Bakchoi bring within the temple of Dionysos a
bullock without blemish and of perfect form.
Marked off with fillets and with gilded horns, he is
set before the altar.
The hierophant [mantes] declares that those who are
initiate into the mysteries of Dionysos
Rank above other men in the present life and have
preferred place in eternal glory.
And that by partaking of the sacrament about to be
administered
The initiates shall become one with the slain and
resurrected deity,
And be gods! [Bakchoi].
Then with prayers, incantations, and mystical signs,
the priest, clad in butcher's garb,
Undertakes to transform the bull into the person of the
slain and risen god.
So to thereby provide for the Bakchante a divine
sacrificial victim.
The poor bull hears the priest's prayer, not knowing
what it means,
Watches the barley-meal sprinkled between his horns,
(Barley meal which he himself labored to produce),
And then, smitten to his death, he stains with his
blood the knife
Which he has perchance already seen reflected in the
clear pool.
Like ferocious beasts from the near-by mountains, the
worshippers pounce upon the stricken victim.
With their bare hands they tear the victim's quivering
flesh to pieces,
And in frenzied ecstasy they eat his flesh and drink
his blood.




70


The PYTHAGORON


Meanwhile the priest tears the entrails from the
beast's living breast, views them with care,
And seeks to find revealed in them the purposes of
heaven.
The votaries profess to believe that by eating the flesh
and drinking the blood of the bull
They are eating the flesh and drinking the blood of
the god, and become filled with the god;
And thereby attain condition of holy esctasy or inspiration which enables them to prophesy.
They assert that they further may attain union with
the god through orgaistic rites,
Including sexual connexion, eating, drinking, wild
music and dancing.
Thus for days and nights they engage in drunken
orgies in the sacred groves.
Pure worship may be offered only at altars unstained
by blood.
Let not victims be brought for sacrifice; for God
requireth not a victim.
Gifts and victims confer no honor on God, nor can He
be adorned with offerings suspended in temples.
The sacrifices of fools are the aliment of the fire;
And the offerings which they suspend in the temples
are the supplies of the sacrilegious.
Remember always when thou worship God, in the
temples, or in the temple of thy heart,
That God, if truly God, does nothing want and does
nothing need.
But is due man's praise and thanksgiving.
Therefore show gratitude to God and to good men.
God indeed is not in want of anything: but the wise
man is in want of God alone.
He therefore who is in want but of few things, and
those necessary, emulates Him who is in want of nothing.
Make no sacrifice of anything animate: let they burntoffering be only frankincense.




The PYTHAGORON


71


Bloody things are obnoxious to God; and the shedding
of blood is a profanation of the Most High.
For, as Orpheus saith, Blood is Life, the gift of life
from God above,
Wherefore blood of no creature should be shed without stern necessity:
Animals have a right to live as well as men.
Much less should a brother shed a brother's blood, or
partake of civil strife;
For such is accursed in the sight of God and man.
And, as hath been said of old, it is forbidden that
anyone injure man, or be violent to animals.
The only acceptable offering to God is a pure heart
and a chaste life.
God is a Spirit, and he may be worshipped only in
spirit and in righteous living.
A Soul divinely inspired solidly conjoins us with God;
for it is necessary that like should approach to like.
In the worship of the Virgin Mother of the Gods, and
of the goddesses of love,
It is esteemed holy that at least once in her life
Every woman should give herself in the temples or in
the sacred groves,
To whatever man throws her silver, be he her father,
son, or brother, or a stranger,
And place the price of her virtue on the altar as a
most acceptable offering to deity.
It is declared to be holy for a man to know his mother,
daughter, or sister,
If done with piety within sacred precincts for communion with deity.
It is unholy for any to have sexual connexions apart
from marital relationship.
Men should have no connexion with any but their
wives,




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The PYTHAGORON


Women should have no connexion with any but their
husbands.
No man should have connexion with a woman who is
his mother, daughter, or sister,
Either in a temple, or in a public place, or anywhere
else.
It is also impious to give birth in a temple or to go
there for the purpose of dying.
The missionaries of Orpheus wander from city to city
and preach in the streets and public places:
That all men are born in sin and stand under condemnation of eternal tortures in Hades
Because of the crime which their ancestors, the Titans,
did commit against the gods.
Thus, they exhort all men to stand continually in
need of the redeeming grace of the gods,
And that of Dionysos in particular.
They offer mystic rites of catharses by the means of
which men can be purified from sin,
Become one with the god and obtain eternal salvation.
Then there are the mystagogues of the same cult who
with motive less pure offer to sell salvation.
They come before the doors of those who have the
required price
And promise by sacrifices, expiatory songs, and mystic
rites, to release them from their own sins and those of their
forefathers.
And these mendicants prove their authority and power
by heaps of hierologos, which they carry with them.
Participation in mystical rites and ceremonies can no
more make a bad man good,
Or release him from the consequences of his evil life,
or bestow salvation upon him,
Than it can make a poor man rich, an illiterate man
literate, or make a dead man live.




The PYTIJAGORON                                  73
Mystical or sacramental rites are without efficacy to
make pure that which is impure,
Or to make regenerate that which is in fact unregenerate.
Purification exists alone in cleanliness of heart and
mind which are the result of virtue.
Salvation subsists alone in the perfecting of man's
nature;
Thus does salvation come to every man who perfects
his nature by good thoughts, good words, and good deeds.
The deliverance of man from evil depends upon Virtue
and upon Truth.
We are told that when it is futile to appeal to the
reason, conscience and justice of men,
It is necessary to resort to superstitious hopes and fears
of dark and venial minds,
In order to induce the ignorant and depraved to refrain from violence, lawlessness and injustice.
Accordingly there is held out to ignorant or venial
minds hopes of everlasting felicity in Elysium,
For those who temper their violence and refrain from
lawlessness and injustice;
And threats of eternal damnation and horrible torture
in Hades for those who do not.
Thus the hierarchs teach -
If a man be morose and indocile, let the punishment
that comes from law and reason follow him;
Bringing with it the fears ever in the stretch, both
those that originate in Heaven or in Hell;
How that punishments inexorable are below laid up
for the unhappy,
As well as those ancient Homeric threats of retaliation
for the wickedness of those defiled by crime.
For as we sometimes restore bodies to health by means
of diseased substances, if they will not yield to the more
healthy,




74


The PYTHAGORON


So if the mind will not be led by true reasoning, we
restrain it by false.
Strange indeed would those punishments be called,
since by a change,
The souls of cowards enter into the bodies of women
who are inclined to insulting conduct;
And those of the blood-stained may be punished by
being introduced into the bodies of wild beasts;
Of the lascivious, into the bodies of sows and boars;
Of the light-minded and frivolous into shapes of
aeronautic birds;
And those who neither do, learn, or think of nothing,
into the bodies of idle fish.
Furthermore, between transmigrations their souls shall
spend seasons in Hades,
There to be eternally burned by fire and brim-stone,
Or kept hung up in excruciating agony, like those who
wrote lies about the gods,
Or else be forever immersed in slimy mud.
Thus, it is explained, turns the eternal cycle of
necessity.
For judgment is dispensed in Hades,
Where the soul and its essence and the first nature
of beings, are accurately appraised.
Such is the exoteric method of restraining men from
injustice: the fear of judgment;
Which is the method which can be taught to the
ignorant and the depraved,
For fear is often able to suppress injustice.
But those who believe in Hades and eternal damnation
do not know God, or the Soul,
Or the constitution of the universe.
Superstition is degrading, being the product of
ignorance; superstition is worse than atheism.
Atheism is reason deceived. Superstition is a passion
arising out of false reasoning and brings on fear.




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73


Death is the appointed limit of the life of mankind:
but to superstition not even death is the limit.
It leaps over the boundaries of life into the hinder side
of the Veil,
And makes fear longer lived than life; and tacks on
to death the imagination of never ending woes.
Superstition is an evil no less great than atheism;
But let all take heed that when seeking to escape from
superstition,
They leap not over true Religion and fall headlong
into atheism.
There is one superstition which, erroneous, may be
encouraging to Virtue:
That of placing among the gods noble men and
women who have been benefactors to mankind.
But it is better that they be regarded simply as venerable men and women,
Whose worthy lives should be imitated, but without
worshipping or adoring any of them.
In religion pure and undefiled it is the Creator and
not the creatures who should be worshipped.
To God are thanks due for the excellence of his
creatures.
What I have said to thee concerning these and other
matters
Is high doctrine which the multitude is yet unprepared
to receive.
Withal the Olympian gods should be honored and not
neglected:
Not because any of them actually exist, or ever existed,
Or any of the things related of them ever in truth
happened;
But because their worship is established and ordained
by Law,
(Which does not restrict freedom of personal opinion),




76


The PYTHAGORON


And all men ought to uphold the Law and shun lawlessness.
Whatever men believe or think cannot alter Geometric
Truth,
Nor make true what is false, or make false what is
true;
Nor can it alter God's ultimate Destiny for the Soul
of Man.
Popular religion, like all else in the Kosmos, is
evolutionary
And reflects the state of enlightenment of the times.
Like all things, it evolves gradually according to
preparedness;
And Truth and True Religion cannot be made to root
and flourish
Before their time - when Reason has prepared man
to receive them.
Man cannot be compelled to believe what he is not
prepared to believe.
Wisdom comes only in orderly fashion with Education
and Reason.
Therefore in thy dealings with the religion established
by Law,
Oppose not the multitude, stir up no tempest, and
avoid violence.
When you hear false doctrines, be patient, be gentle.
Do not attempt to enlighten the stupid, nor cast pearls
before swine,
Lest thou do everlasting hurt to the cause of Truth
and Wisdom.
The example of wise living is the best testimonial to
Truth.
When, therefore, thou hearest the fables the priests
tell about the gods, r
Their wanderings, cuttings to pieces, and many such
like mishaps, -




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77


And the benefits which mankind may derive therefrom -
Do not suppose that any of them happened or was
done in the manner related.
For it is impossible for a god, if truly god, to divest
himself of his divinity,
And take upon himself the form of a man, a beast,
a bird, or any other creature,
Or to suffer death, as is related of the gods, Zagreos,
Dionysos, and Orpheus.
Because, being divine, it is impossible for a god, if
truly god, to ever die.
And nothing contrary to the will can happen to a god.
However contained in the myths are symbols of divine
truths,
Which the wise man may discern to his advantage.
We must, therefore, until comes a more enlightened
age, endure the gods;
Not indeed worshipping these creatures,
But discerning through their medium (as in clearer
mirrors) the work of Nature and such Divine Truths and
Principles as may be exemplified by them;
Conceiving rightly that which is Divine as being the
instrument and act of God who ordereth all things;
And paying our real worship to the creator and not
the creatures.




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VIII.
The Sage discourseth upon Approach to
True Worship, Spiritual Communion with
God, Oneness of Life and Religion, Relationship of God and Man, Inferiority of
Heroes, Relationship of Wise Men arid God,
Theory of Prayer, All-Providence, Intellectual Honesty, Remembrance of the Dead,
Theory of Abstemtion from Sin, Self-Examination, Confession, Reparation, Absolution,
Reconciliation, Contemplation of God, and
Invocations at Meals, and commendeth the
Precepts of Orpheus.
Man is at his best when walking toward God: nor is
God ever far off.
If thou art out of contact with God and his AllProvidence,
It is thou who hast separated thyself from God, and
not He who hath withdrawn himself from thee.
Consider all the time to be lost to thee in which thou
dost not think of God.
Therefore think of God more often than thou breathest.
Moreover, Follow God!
God is One.
There is One Truth.
One community embraces both heaven and earth.




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79


All Life is One, and God is One.
Life and Religion, they are inseparably One.
The worship of God is One: not to be evil.
There is but One Way: To Follow God!
The end of life is to live conformably to God.
The truly happy life is that of Measure:
In which gratification of desire is strictly regulated by
regard for justice and sophrosyne.
The first requisite to a life of Measure is to honor God.
It is written, Know God! Know Thyself!
No mortal man ever did or ever shall know God and
the Kosmos thoroughly,
But much he can know by meditation and contemplation.
Let us contemplate God!
It is indeed in Him and by Him that we live.
We as truly live by God as an unborn child lives by
its mother.
Man can improve himself in three ways: First, by
conversation with God,
For to Him none can approach unless he abstain from
all evil, imitating the Divinity, even unto assimilation;
Second, by well doing, which is a characteristic of the
Divinity.
Third, by dying.
For if the slight soul-separation from the body resulting from discipline improves the Soul so that she begins to
divine in dreams;
And if the divine ecstasies produce visions; then the
Soul must surely improve far more when entirely separated
from the body by death.
He who knows God will know how to worship Him.
He who does not know God does not worship Him.
If you know Him by whom thou wast made thou wilt
Know Thyself.




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The PYTHAGORON


Bear in mind that the All-Pervading Spirit, which
gives light to the entire Kosmos
Is even the same in kind as thee, though infinitely
distant in degree.
Recognize what God is, and what that is in you which
recognizes God.
A Soul divinely inspired conjoins us with God;
For it is necessary that like should approach to like.
Blessed is the man who has seen the worship.
Orpheus hath said, All men are brothers, having God
to their Father;
Hence no one ever can be an orphan or ever alone;
for God is ever with thee.
In all thy dealings with men remember who thou art
and who they are: the offspring of God.
The First Principle of Being transcends sense and
passion, is invisible and incorrupt,
And is only to be apprehended by abstract intelligence.
All access to God is impossible, except by the pure
act of the intellect.
God is a Spirit and may be worshipped only in Spirit
and in Truth.
True worship of God consists in spiritual communion
with Him,
Wherein the Mind and Soul are flooded and bathed
with the Spirit of Truth.
Nothing but God should be adored by a wise man.
Pay not equal worship to God and Heroes: To God
alone belongs true worship:
To the Heroes belong only veneration and respect.
Offer thy worship to God in the morning, for it is the
first-fruits of the day.
Give thy praise to Heroes only from midday onward,
and only after purification.




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81


Offer thy worship to God always with reverent silence,
clad in white robes;
For white represents the nature of the good and pure;
black the nature of ignorance and evil.
God dwells in the intellect of the wise man. The intellect of the wise man is always with God.
The wise man participates of God.
The wise man follows God, and God follows the Soul
of the wise man.
The wise man, and the despiser of wealth, resemble
God.
A king rejoices in those whom he governs: therefore
God rejoices in the wise man.
He who governs likewise is inseparable from those
whom he governs;
Therefore God is inseparable from the Soul of the
wise man, which He governs and defends.
The wise man being sent hither naked, should naked
invoke Him by whom he was sent;
For he alone is heard by God, who is not burdened
with foreign concerns.
Those who come to worship or to offer sacrifice should
leave their worldly shoes outside,
When they come to stand face to face with God in
spirit.
The foundation of piety is continence; but the summit
of piety is the love of God.
No one can truly love God without at the same time
loving all of His creatures.
Whatever thou honor above all things, that will have
dominion over thee.
But if thou yield thyself to the domination of God,
thou wilt thus have dominion over all things.
Honor God above all things, that he may rule over
thee.




82


The PYTHAGORON


The greatest honor which can be paid to God is to
know and imitate him.
The knowledge and imitation of God are alone sufficient to beatitude.
A scientific knowledge of God causes a man to use
few words.
A loquacious and ignorant man, both in prayer and
sacrifice, contaminates a divine nature.
The wise man, therefore, is alone a priest, is alone
a friend of God, and alone knows how to pray.
God does not principally esteem the tongue, but the
deeds of the wise;
For a wise man, even when he is silent, honors God.
Therefore make not repetitious prayers and petitions,
nor keep tally of thy prayers,
But glorify God for His great glory and the beauty of
the Kosmos;
And give Him sincere thanks for the gift of thy life
and Soul;
And for His All-Providence, and for His Wisdom
which healeth all things.
Pray, Holy God, Grant me Beauty Within.
Pray always; for in prayer man hath communion in
spirit with God.
But when thou prayest, pray for naught in particular;
For man hath not sufficient wisdom to know for what
to pray:
And God hath anticipated and already provided all
things for all creatures from the beginning.
Rather seek Wisdom and understanding to find the
good that is already at thy hand;
And from which thou art kept only by thy ignorance.
It is impossible that one can truly believe in God and
doubt his All-Providence.




The PYTHAGORON


83


Pray, Holy God, Grant us good whether prayed for or
unsought by us;
But that which we seek amiss, do thou avert.
Those things which the body necessarily requires are
easily to be procured by all men, without labor and molestation;
But those things to the attainment of which labor and
molestation are requisite,
Are objects of desire, not to the body, but to depraved
opinion.
If thou possess a knowledge of God, thou wilt not be
very ambitious.
He who thinks that there is a God and that nothing
is taken care of by Him,
Differs in no respect from him who does not believe
that there is a God.
It is better to live lying on the grass, confiding in God
and thyself,
Than to lie on a golden bed with perturbation.
Ask those things of God which thou canst not receive
from man.
Ask of God only those things which it is worthy of
God to bestow.
Ask not of God that which when obtained thou cannot preserve.
For no gift of God ever can be taken away;
And on this account He does not confer that which
thou art unable to retain.
Despise all those things which when liberated from the
body thou wilt not want.
Ask that what is expedient and not what is pleasing
may happen to thee.
He who loves that which is not expedient will not love
that which is expedient.
It is impossible to receive from God any gift greater
than Virtue.
He is dear to God, who considers those things alone
to be precious which are esteemed to be so by God.




84


The PYTHAGORON


Shame not thyself by foolhardiness in seeking to bend
the will of God to thine own desires;
For God neither lies nor changes His mind.
The will of God is established for eternity and is unchangeable: and his statutes are wise.
Rather seek to know from God the Truth of His will
and abide therein.
If when thou prayest, thou putteth thyself in a state
of Good-Will and Intellectual Honesty,
And seek, in Truth, to know what is right and good
for thee, rather than the fulfillment of thine own desires;
Thy prayer assuredly will be answered.
It is bad to let others deceive thee, but it is worse to
deceive thyself.
It is by Intellectual Honesty everything is seen in
right perspective, and things can be correctly appraised for
what they actually are.
Intellectual Honesty is the golden key to successful
living.
Intellectual dishonesty warps the perspective of life.
When thou prayest forget not the Friends who have
passed the Veil;
For Friendship is more lasting than death; its ties
are eternal.
A Friend remembered is never dead; and remembrance
is sweet to his Soul.
Sin should be abstained from, not through fear, but
for the sake of the becoming.
He who believes that God beholds all things will not
sin either secretly or openly.
Neither do nor even think of that which you are not
willing God should know.
Thou wilt not be concealed from God when thou
actest unjustly, nor even when thou thinkest of doing so.
If thou art always careful to remember that in whatever place either thy Soul or body accomplishes any deed,




The PYTHAGORON


85


God is present as an inspector of thy conduct;
In all thy words and deeds thou wilt venerate the
presence of an inspector from whom naught can be concealed;
And will at the same time possess God as an intimate
associate.
Invoke God as a witness to whatever thou doest.
Accustom thyself always to look to God.
Before thou doest anything, think of God that His
light may precede thy energies.
In all thy actions place God before thine eyes.
Before thou doest a base thing, reverence thyself.
If thou remember that God standeth by to behold and
visit all that thou doest,
Whether in the body or in the Soul, thou surely wilt
not err in any prayer or deed;
And thou shalt have God to dwell with thee.
As the Kosmos would not be complete if it did not
contain all things,
So it would not be complete if it did not contain within
itself means of enforcing Divine Justice.
Nor would the system of Divine Justice be complete
if it did not already provide for Relief of Conscience.
Divine Forgiveness hath been provided already and
is always at hand.
So that Conscience and Peace of Mind may be restored to Balance.
Divine Forgiveness hath but One Price and Penance — Repentance and Reparation which when paid
obtain Forgiveness;
Which thou shalt know of thine own self.
But though thou mayst be restored in Conscience and
Peace of Mind,
Remember always, thou canst never recall, nor entirely
erase, the effects of thy causing.
The natural consequences remain for all eternity.




86


The PYTHAGORON


Eternity is the ever existing present.
Futurity is long.
In the forum of Intellectual Honesty search thy conduct with the Light of Truth.
Unfailingly admit to thyself thy faults for what they
are,
And never seek to justify thy faults in the forum of
thine conscience.
Sow mallows but never eat them.
Freely acknowledge to thy friends wrongs thou mayst
have done them, and make reparation;
But confess thy sins to God alone; for he alone hath
power of forgiveness.
As in death, so in life, every man must face God for
himself; nor can any other answer for him.
God condemneth no man. It is man that condemneth
himself, and initiateth the penalty.
Hence thou art a priest in the temple of thine own
Conscience.
Thy Soul hath been constituted as thy confessor and
judge.
Subject thyself to rigid Self-Examination: probe thy
heart.
Twice each day examine thyself with sincerity and
Truth, and in Intellectual Honesty give true judgment,
At night when thou retirest and in the morn when
thou awakest.
Let not sleep fall upon thine eyes tilI thou hast thrice
reviewed the transactions of the day just ended.
Ask thyself, Wherein have I turned aside from
rectitude? What have I been doing?
What have I done which I ought not have done?
What have I left undone which I ought to have done?
Begin thus from the first act and proceed with each
successive one, till thou hast come to the end;
And in conclusion, at the ill which thou hast done
be troubled, and rejoice for the good.




The PYTHAGORON


87


And if thou remembrest any hurt by thought, word,
or deed, to a fellow-creature,
Retirest not to thy slumbers till thou hast gone forth
and righted every wrong, if thou canst.
Let not the sun set upon thy anger, or thy variance
with a Friend.
If thou remembrest aught amiss thou hast done thy
brother,
Seek him before the sun goes down and reconcile thyself to him in justice and righteousness.
If thou remembrest aught which thy Friend hast done
to thy hurt,
Nurse not the recollection of the wrong, but remember
the kindnesses received.
Reconcile all differences speedily that new grievances
may not be added to old,
Or that ancient wrongs may not be resurrected from
long forgotten graves.
Seal thy reconciliation with the Sacred Dekas.
Arise with the sun and contemplate the heavens and
behold those bodies which continually do the same things,
And in the same manner perform their work;
And remind thyself of the constancy of God and His
Providence.
And when in morning or night thou lookest to the
heavens and behold those bodies,
Be reminded of their purity and nudity; for there is no
veil over a star.
As Orpheus hath said, Contemplate divine nature;
illumine thy mind;
Govern thy heart; walk in the path of justice;
That the God of heaven and earth may be always
present to thine eyes.
He only self-exists; all being derive their existence
from Him; He sustains all.




88


The PYTHAGORON


He has never been seen by mortals; but He sees all
things.
Thou wilt honor God perfectly if thou behavest thyself so that thy Soul may become His image.
Thou wilt do well if thou heedest the Seven Precepts
of Orpheus:
Kill not thy fellow-man; be merciful to all creatures;
be pure and chaste;
Be truthful; be just to all men; be temperate in all
things; and be hospitable to strangers.
Thou ought to live always in perfect holiness.
Thou shouldest verily make thy nature perfect.
Let thy speech of God be renewed day by day: Aye,
rather than thy meat and drink.
When thou takest meat and drink, remember God
who hath provided for all needs of man, from the beginning.
It is well to invoke God at the beginning and end of
every repast.
Not because God is in want of anything of the kind,
But in order that the Soul may be transfigured by the
recollection of divinity.
For since we proceed from God, and participate in a
divine nature, we should honor Him.
Since also God is just, we should act justly in all
things.
Pray, Holy God! Inspire me so to live each day that
I never may be afraid to die.
Even as the sun doth not wait for prayers and incantations to rise, but shines forth and is welcomed by all,
So thou also wait not for clapping of hands and shouts
of praise to do thy duty.
Nay, do good of thine own accord, and thou wilt be
loved like the sun.




The PYTHAGORON


89


IX.
The Sage discourseth upon the First Principles of Things, Necessity for Confidence in
God, Knowledge as basis of Confidence,
Real and Imaginary World, Values, Unity
and Duality, Opposites, Evolution, Numbers, Cause and Effect, Fate, Election,
Fortune, Compensatory Justice, Retribution,
Cycles and their operation, Harmonical Proportion, Music of the Spheres, Indestructibility of Thought, Word, or Deed, AllProvidence, Free-Will, Attraction, Man's
Natural Powers, and Opportunity.
The First Principle of all things, and the last, is God,
In the knowledge of Whom, and of His Divine Laws,
man derives abundant life:
He that hath not such knowledge, or who setteth his
course counter thereto,
Is like a mariner without chart and log-book embarked
upon a perilous sea.
For of a certainty no man can shake off the yoke of
Divine Laws.
Knowledge is the foundation of confidence, and is the
property of the wise.
It is through knowledge of God and the principles of
the Kosmos that men attain true confidence in God and
His All-Providence,




ful


The PYTHAGORON


Whereby they free themselves from needless anxiety
and worry, and attain Peace of Mind,
Which crowns a Life of Measure.
In thy quest for knowledge of God and the principles
which govern the Kosmos,
Know that everything in the universe has a Value and
a Relative Value;
And that it is necessary that these be ascertained and
rightly comprehended.
Know also that there are things as they really are, and
things as they appear to be;
And that therein lies a great difference.
Thus a vast difference generally exists between the
world as it actually is and the world as it appears to be.
The real world is substantial and actually is what it
is, and is in every wise consistent with itself.
All things, of the real world when perceived and conceived in Truth must appear alike to all;
For there is but One Truth.
Although the' real world actually exists whether or
not any man be conscious of its existence;
It exists for each man, and each man exists for himself,
only as he is conscious of its or his own existence.
Thus man becomes the measure of all things.
Also, the world exists for each man, and each man
exists for himself, only to the extent of his percepts and
concepts.
Thus God exists to each man only to the extent he has
knowledge of Him.
That is why we say that, He who does not know God
does not worship Him.
And that is why we say, also, that Man withholds
praise from God in proportion to his ignorance of God's
wonders.
For how can a man truly praise that of which he is
ignorant?




The PYTHAGORON


91


A man's percepts and concepts of the universe and of
himself are apt to be incomplete or erroneous,
According to his ignorance of Truth.
For man usually perceives parts only of the universe,
and these not always aright.
The nature of the principle of things cannot be ascertained by surveying parts of things alone;
And consequent conclusions cannot be sound when
the true principles are unknown or are mistaken.
However false or fictitious a man's mental concepts of
reality may be,
They may be nevertheless very real to him, until his
ignorance is removed.
Thus appearance of reality is often mistaken for reality
itself.
This is indeed a great danger to be guarded against
by every possible means;
So that a man will act upon real instead of fictitious
Values in all his affairs of life.
Know that there are Real Values, Artificial Values,
and Fictitious Values.
Among first principles are Unity and the Indefinite
Binary Number.
God is Unity, and the nature of Unity is only good;
therefore only good, and no evil, can come from God.
God being Unity, He is unchangeable and His laws
are unalterable forever.
The First Principle ends in an efficient and forming
Cause.
Save God alone, Who is infinite Unity, all else has
indefinite duality,
Each Duality or antithesis of Opposites being nevertheless an Unity;
For without The One there would not be The Other;
nor any media of evaluation and appreciation.




92                              The PYTHAGORON
Thus there be light and darkness, cold and heat,
height and depth, solid and fluid,
Hardness and softness, roughness and smoothness,
calm and tempest,
Prosperity and adversity, life and death.
But neither Opposite is intrinsically an evil.
There, too, are the unlimited or infinite, and the
limited, or finite;
The even, the odd; the one, the many; the right, the
left;
Male and female, rest and motion, straight and
crooked, square and rectangle.
None of them are evil of themselves.
For evil is what man thinks; and evil is he who thinks
evil.
To the pure mind all things are good.
The world began to form from the center outwards.
Reckoned from this center, the top is entirely identical
to the base:
Still you might say that what is above the center is
opposed to what is below it.
As for the base, the lowest point would be the center;
As for the top, the highest point would still be the
center; and likewise for the other parts.
In fact, in respect to the center, each one of the opposite
points is identical, unless the whole be removed.
And this Principle, which produces Dualities and
Opposites, is the Indefinite Binary Number, the Infinite,
which is called Science.
The principle of the Indefinite Binary Number is that
everything in the Kosmos
Revolves about every other thing, under the influence
of Mutual Attraction;
And that the multitude of being, material and immaterial, visible and invisible, throughout the Kosmos is
related;




The PYTHAGORON


93


And that all together constitute a Unity.
It is for this reason we say that everything accords with
Number:
Because by the indeterminate Duad the Unlimited is
Limited [subdivided]
And all Form is thereby produced;
And Form and Transform take their nature from
conditions fixed by Proportion.
And again, the number Two is most honorable in a
house, in a city, in a camp, and in all such like systems.
Chance is a word devoid of sense. Nothing can exist
without a cause.
In this world there is no such thing as accident or
chance, supernaturalness, or true Mystery;
And nothing is hidden, nor is meant to be hidden,
from us.
Everything is produced by Cause and Effect.
A cause is that by which any thing is produced, or
by which any thing is effected.
God Himself is the First and Forming Cause. The
first causes are incorporeal beings.
Four Causes operate in the affairs of men: God,
Fate,* Man's Election, and Fortune.
God already has made His All-Providence for every
need of man and all earthly creatures.
Fate is that condition beyond the control of a man and
which he cannot avoid.
For example, we cannot choose our parents, our
heredity, or our nationality,
Nor can we avoid death any more than we could have
avoided birth.
Election is the exercise of the Free Will with which
man is endowed.
Thus we may choose a friend or a wife, and (subject
to restrictions) to do or not do.
Fat&-mofr (grasp of Fate).




94


The PYTHAGORON


Fortune is spontaneous and casual, and may be
propitious or unpropitious.
It springs alike from either Fate or Election.
Each of these Causes, save the First Cause alone, is an
effect of another Cause.
The controlling principle of the Kosmos and all being
is Order,
Which comprises the Ideas of Harmony, Equality,
Measure, Balance and Justice;
To maintain which the Law of Compensation, or
Retributive Justice, has been divinely instituted.
Wickedness creates its own pain and torment, and
pays the penalty of its own misdeeds,
Not afterwards but at the time of ill-doing. God takes
cash and defers no payments.
As every malefactor about to pay the penalty of his
crime, in his person bears his cross,
So vice fabricates for itself each of its own torments.
It is the nature of things that every thought, word, or
deed, however slight,
Innately sets in operation the sequences which must
bring them again to Balance;
So that no man ever escapes the consequences of his
own doings.
The consequences, either good or evil, are always commensurable with the deed.
For each deed forms a Cause; and each Cause sets in
motion its Effect, which in turn becomes another Cause;
Until the Cycle has been completely run and Balance
has been restored.
Since the principles of things are neither similar nor
congenerous,
It is impossible for them to be brought to Order, except
by the intervention of Harmony [harmonia],
"See Chapter XVI, and footnote on page 176, post, for explanation of term harnonia.




The PYTHAGORON


95


Whatever may have been the manner in which it took
place.
Like and homogeneous things, indeed, would not have
required Harmony;
But as to the dissimilar and unsymmetrical such must
necessarily be held together by Harmony, if they are to be
contained in a world of Order.
Hence God provided from the beginning for administration of Divine Justice.
Equal Retribution is a Square Number.
Therefore take no thought of revenge or retaliation,
for thou hast not the wisdom of God.
Neither revile others nor exact vengeance of those who
revile thee.
If thou art defamed, answer not back. Talk convinces
no one.
Thy life and character proclaim thee more than any
argument thou canst put forth.
Gentleness is catartysis, or the elegance of manners.
Add not fuel to the flames lest thou bum thine own
hands, and provoke Retributive Justice upon thine own
self.
It is not for us to punish men nor avenge ourselves for
slights, wrongs and insults.
Wait and thou shalt see that Nemesis unhorses the
man intent upon calumny.
Rest assured that in this life there is no wrong left unrighted,
And that, too, in exact Measure, and all things restored to Balance.
The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.
The gods may be slow, but they never forget.
Most Retributive punishments are secret, silent, certain, and unbeheld by man.
They are peculiarly, particularly, precisely and,
appropriately evolved to strike the most sensitive part of
each man.




96


The PYTHAGORON


Their operation is usually perceived and understood
by the individual affected alone.
The Second Principle which governs the Kosmos and
the affairs of men is the Cycle.
This is high doctrine, scientific, and one not always
easy to understand.
There is nothing entirely new in the Kosmos.
The Cycles do eternally rotate and the same events
periodically re-occur.
The last is the first and the first is the last.
The Circle is the most perfect of plane forms, because
it hath neither end nor beginning,
And represents the operating principle of the universe
and the manner of life,
And enters into all things, visible and invisible; and
is therefore sacred.
The Sphere is the glorification of the Circle and is its
highest form, being the most perfect form of solids.
In it is contained the principle of the Divine
Quaternion, the fount of all being.
Its surface is fourfold the area of its Great Circle.
The Globe exemplifies both Equality and perfect
Balance.
The Sphere is the form divine, being that of the
Kosmos itself, and that of all the myriad of worlds which
compose it.
Its principle is reflected in all manners of Form, from
the tiny dew-drop on the quivering leaf,
To the greatest fiery orb racing through unlimited
space.
The spheres rotate in circular motion about their own
axes:
And move in unerring Cycles around their own orbits.
and radiate spheres of Light.




The PYTHAGORON


97


The Kosmos is fashioned according to the principles
of musical proportion.
The seven planets which govern the nativity of mortals
have a harmonious motion and intervals corresponding to
musical diastemes:
And they render various sounds according to their
several distances.
In their movements through the vault of heaven the
Spheres exude divine music,
Which fills all space, and which God and the angels
hear, but man in general unnotices,
Because his senses are dulled by accustomed hearing.
But the ear of listening Genius catches the wave of
the rhythm;
And from it philosophers, poets, and musicians receive
Divine Inspiration.
The Nine Muses, they say, are constituted by the
sounds made by the seven planets, the sphere of the fixed
stars.
That Mnemosyne, or Memory, is the composition, symphony, and connexion of them all,
Which is eternal and unbegotten as being composed
of all of them.
Look where thou wilt, the principle of the Circle is
present everywhere;
Even in the circular arc of the Iris, with its gorgeous
spectrum of seven colors,
Symbolic of the Sacred Tercenary, because it hath
both Limit and Unlimit,
The beginning, the end, and the intermediate.
The same principle which governs the heavenly
spheres also governs the life of man.
Like the Circle, the bounds of his life are prescribed,
but increased or restricted at choice.
Like the orbit, the course of his life may be traced, and
be limited by Attraction.




98


The PYTHAGORON


All that concerns and affects him is influenced by the
Cycles which control his life.
There is a Cycle of Birth and there is a Cycle of
Death: these are the Limits;
And there is the Cycle of Life, which is the intermediate.
The three Great Cycles, like the Kosmos itself, are
each composed of many lesser Cycles.
Thus the span of life consists of Cycles of seven years
duration;
And the activities of life of seven stages.
Thus, each of us is, as it were circumscribed by many
concentric circles;
Some of which are less, but others larger, and some
comprehend, but others are comprehended,
According to the different and unequal habitudes with
respect to each other.
For the first and most proximate circle is that which
everyone describes about his own mind as a center,
In which circle the body, and whatever is assumed for
the sake of the body, are comprehended.
For this is nearly the smallest circle, and almost
touches the center itself.
The outermost and greatest circle, and that which
comprehends all the other circles, is that of the whole
human race.
With the Cycle of the Cube of Six are all things
regenerated;
And within the Binary of the Cycle appear Teachers
to the nations.
Rotate with the Cycle and life is kept in Balance:
rotate against the direction of the Wheel and life is difficult,
There is naught in this world that is not of consequence, and that does not set in motion Cycles which
affect all else.




The PYTHAGORON


99


Plummet a pebble into the placid waters of the broad
sea,
And from the vortex will spread forth widening
ripples to the uttermost ends of earth,
Working a change in all being, though none be aware
of the cause,
And thou thyself may not know the effect thou hast
wrought.
Similarly, whatsoever thou sayest, or thinkest, or doest,
will, like the pebble plummeted into water, radiate forth,
And their ever-widening Cycles will'affect all being
throughout the earth forever.
Take care therefore what thou thinkest, sayest, or
doest, that it may be for good and not for evil.
There is no word or action but has its echo in eternity.
Thought is an Idea in transit, which when once released, never can be lured back, nor the spoken word recalled.
Nor ever can the overt act be erased entirely without
trace.
All that thou thinkest, sayest, or doest bears perpetual
record of itself, enduring for eternity.
Whenever thou art in doubt whether an action is
good or bad, abstain from it.
Only good can come from God: His powers and their
fruits are only good.
They are initiated for the well-being of all creatures
alike:
The just and the unjust, the worthy and the unworthy,
without distinction;
And never for the one in opposition to the many, nor
against the many because of the one;
Nor to single out men, to reward one and punish another.




100


The PYTHAGORON


Forget not that every good and needful thing for every
creature has been provided already from the beginning, and
is ever at hand.
God never withdraws it from thee.
If thou art in want of anything it is because thy
ignorance separateth thee from it.
All things which God hath provided are good, and
have been wisely provided and in ample abundance.
All of them have intrinsic worth and value. It is thou
that dost not perceive it.
Time and necessity ultimately reveals true worth.
Only good can come from God: and no manifestation
of His power can ever hurt,
If man useth his instinct and Reason to know whereof
and wherefore the same cometh.
For if a man setteth himself in the face of oncoming
storm and avalanche, which are good and needful in themselves,
His ignorance does not make bad that which in itself
is good, nor make personal that which in nature is impersonal.
The wise and godly man therefore strives diligently
to know God and His operations, that he may live consonant therewith and not counter thereto.
The Will of man is Free, and he is the author of his
own Fortune.
Wherefore man ought to Know God and Know Himself.
The WilI of man is Free, and voluntary election is
his, indeed;
But man's ability to effect Will into Action is not so
free;
By reason of the Third Principle, which Limits all
things, and restricts freedom of action.
Free-Will is not Absolute, but Relative.




The PYTHAGORON


101


Man is ever subject to the organic laws of the universe
and the Cycles which encompass him.
He cannot by Free-Will choice alone rid himself of
the limitations of the body,
Nor free himself from the divine forces which pinion
him to earth.
The Third Principle is the Attraction of all things,
the divine law of Action,
Which pertains to the invisible and incorporeal as
well as to the visible and corporeal,
And to Soul and body, and to matter and spirit, alike.
It is the law of God that all things and being stand
in attraction and relation to each other;
And that there is naught in the Kosmos which does
not influence all else, including the manner and course of
life of man.
The principle of Attraction assumes many Forms and
enters into all things.
Paradoxically, it both attracts and repels; brings together and holds asunder.
If it were withdrawn all things would fall apart and
crumble into dust.
The principle of Attraction embraces Duality or
Opposites;
For each thing contains opposite poles, and attracts
and is attracted;
And in the principle is exemplified Duality in Unity.
Man is surrounded by Forces which influence him for
good or ill;
And he contains within himself Forces which influence others for good or ill.
Therefore seek to discern the things which attract thee
and which thou attract,
And which influence the course of thy Fortune, and
consider them well.




102


The PYTHAGORON


Strengthen and make harmonious those which thou
findest doeth thee well,
And obstruct not their natural operation with respect
to thee.
But those which, thou findest, work hurt to thee, or do
thee ill,
By thy Free-WiII, taught by Reason, remove thyself if
thou canst, and go to a better sphere.
Thou canst by thy Free-Will deliver thyself from evil.
But remember, it is hard to pursue many of life's paths
at the same time.
A life entangled with Fortune is like a torrent:
It is turbulent and muddy, hard to pass, and masterful of mood; noisy and of brief continuance.
In thy duality thou art a pole of Attraction to other
men.
No thought, word, or deed of thine is ever a matter
of indifference to the universe.
For whatsoever is thought, said, or done by any man;
be he small or great, fool or Sage,
In some degree alters the course of events for all else
for all time.
Therefore temper thy deed, control thy tongue, guard
thy thoughts,
That thou mayst do no ill to any creature and have
cause to regret.
Fill thy mind with good thoughts, for Thought is
powerful.
Thought is an Idea loosed in transit; it travels faster
than lightning.
It never can be recalled.
There is a certain various and multiform use of an
opportune time.
For of those that are enraged and angry, some are
so seasonably, but others unseasonably.




The PYTHAGORON


103


And again, of those that aspire after desire and are
impelled to any thing appetible,
An opportune time is the attendant on some, and an
unseasonable time on others.
The same thing may be said concerning other passions
and actions, dispositions and meetings.
An opportune time is to a certain extent to be taught.
That which happens contrary to expectation, is
capable of receiving an artificial discussion;
But when it Is considered universally and simply, none
of the above particulars pertain to it.
Nearly, however, such things are the attendants on
It, as follow the nature of opportune time, viz,
What is called the florid, the becoming, the adapted,
and whatever else may be homogeneous to these.
The principle, or the beginning, is in the universal
Unity, and is the most honorable of things;
And in a similar manner it is so in science, in experience, and in generation.




104


The PYTHAGORON


X.
The Sage discourseth upon Virtue as a
Natural Law and part of Natural Justice;
Education, Institution, Preceptors, SelfMastery, Self-Determination, Method and
Rule, Counsel before Action, Self-Will,
Prudence, Fortitude, Courage, Magnanimity, Self-Reverence, and Eternal Warfare
against Desire and Ignorance.
Learn now that Virtue is not merely an Ideal but is
the Law of Life.
Be virtuous because it is right to be so; not because
it is expedient.
The beneficent man is one who does not look to
Retribution, but who deliberately intends to do well.
Virtue is its own reward: therefore perform what is
right, because it is right to do so.
Virtue consists in living consonant with Natural
Justice, and is automatically rewarded by operation of
Compensation.
Defection from Virtue is also compensated by the
same Retributive Justice.
Propriety is that which ought to be.
This requires neither addition nor detraction, being
what it should be.




The PYTHAGORON


105


The improper is of two kinds: excess and defect.
Virtue is a habit of propriety
Hence it is both a climax and a medium, of which are
proper things.
They are media because they fall between excess and
deficiency.
They are climaxes because they endure neither increase nor decrease,
Being just what they ought to be.
The sole principle of piety: indeed the whole life of
the noble is arranged with a view to Follow God.
Vigor and strength of body are the nobility of cattle;
but the rectitude of manners is the nobility of man.
The principles of Virtue are three: Knowledge,
Power, and Deliberate Choice.
Virtue is the power of getting good with Justice.
Happiness does not consist in the possession of Virtue,
but its use.
No Virtue is real that hath not been tested.
To live is not in our power, but to live rightly is.
It is necessary to be good, rather than to appear so.
A wise man is always similar to himself.
To be always intending to act renders action imperfect.
Do not even think of doing what ought not to be done.
Emulate the works and actions and not the words of
Virtue.
It is a dreadful thing to imitate the bad and to be unwilling to imitate the good.
There are three kinds of things that deserve to be
pursued and acquired:
Those that are honorable and virtuous; those that
conduce to the use of life; and those that bring pleasures
of the blameless, solid and grave kind.
Of pleasures there are two kinds: one that indulges
the belly and lusts by a profusion of wealth,




106


The PYTHAGORON


Which are likened to the murderous songs of the
Sirens;
The other consisting of things honest, just, and necessary to life,
Which are just as sweet as the first, without being
followed by repentance.
These pleasures are like unto the harmony of the
Muses.
Virtue is Harmony, and so are Health and All Good,
and God Himself.
This is why we say that all things are constructed
according to the Law of Harmony.
The Soul that companies with Virtue is like an everflowing source.
It is a pure, clear and wholesome draught; sweet,
rich and generous of its store, that injures not, neither
destroys.
Goodness is the health of the Soul.
Gold cannot be injured by rust, nor Virtue by baseness.
Those who are naturally well disposed know things
beautiful and are themselves emulous of them.
We should betake ourselves to Virtue as to an inviolable temple,
That we may not be exposed to any ignoble insolence
with respect to communion with and continuance with life.
WVe should confide in Virtue as in a chaste wife; but
trust to Fortune as to an inconstant mistress.
It is better that Virtue should be received accompanied
with poverty, than wealth with violence;
And frugality with health, than voracity with disease.
Things of a laborious nature contribute more than
pleasure to Virtue.
True goods are never produced by indolent habits.
Wish that those things which labor ought to precede
may be possessed by thee after labor.
It is requisite to choose the most excellent life, for
custom will make it pleasant.




The PYTHAGORON


107


Wealth is a weak anchor, and glory cannot support
a man.
Wealth is an infirm anchor; glory is still more infirm;
and in a similar manner, the body, dominion and honor;
For all these are imbecile and powerless.
Which anchors, then, are strong? Prudence, Magnanimity, Fortitude. These no tempest can shake.
This is the law of God: that Virtue only is strong:
and that everything else is a trifle.
A ship should not ride on a single anchor, nor life on
a single hope.
Fortify thyself with contentment: that is an impregnable stronghold.
Happiness lies in Virtue and Education, and not in
adventitious advantages.
A right education is not only of importance to the individual, but also to the interests of the State.
The best education is citizenship in a well-governed
State.
It is by Education men differ from beasts, men differ
from men, free men from slaves, and philosophers from the
vulgar.
Those who have Education have in general this
advantage: that they run swifter than their fellows.
Learning is the common nobility of those who have
been First in every kind;
For their inventions were the Institutions of the rest.
Remember that the body is transitory and destined to
dust.
Its care, therefore, is like that of evil friends, which
will soon forsake us;
But Institution, like the good, will stay with a man
till death,
Procuring to many immortal glory after death.
We admonish thee to love and revere Learning.




108


T1 he PYTHAGORON


Neither can a house, nor a city, be well instituted,
unless each has a true ruler, who governs those that voluntarily submit to him.
For it is necessary that in both these the governor be
willing to rule, and the governed to obey.
So it is with respect to disciplines;
When they are taught with proper effect, it is necessary that there should be a concurrence in the will both
of the teacher and the learner.
if there is a resistance on the part of either, the
proposed work will never be accomplished in a proper
manner.
Thus, therefore, it is beautiful to be persuaded by
rulers, and to be obedient to preceptors.
There are commendable things that it is not possible
to communicate one to another.
Among these are strength, beauty, health, and
courage.
There are also some which, if a man imparts, he cannot have for himself:
Among such are riches, government, and like things.
But of Learning, one may receive it from another
without loss to the giver,
And may impart it to another without loss to himself.
There are some commendable things which one cannot
gain if he would.
He may receive Institution If he will: then he may
apply himself to the affairs of his country -
Not upon self-confidence, but Institution.
All power is innate.
The Power initially lies within a man and cannot be
imparted first from without.
Naught can be made to flourish from barren ground,
and cultivation where no seed is planted is vain.
Many are the wand-bearers and few are the mystics.
Not every kind of wood is fit for the making of a
Mercury.




The PYTHAGORON


109


Virtue cannot be taught but can be inspired, directed
and cultivated.
We cannot approve of those who offer disciplines for
sale;
Who open their souls like the gates of an inn to every
man who has the price,
And require a reward from young men for those things
that are without price.
Knowledge comes not with mere desire but by hard
application and exercise.
The half is the whole's beginning: a half-truth containeth the kernel of the whole lie.
For perfect development of moral excellence three
things must meet together:
Natural Ability, Theory, and Practice.
If any one of them be wanting, excellence must be so
far deficient.
For natural ability without training is blind; and training without natural ability is defective;
And practice without both natural ability and training
is imperfect.
Happy at any rate and dear to the gods is he to whom
Deity has vouchsafed all elements.
But if anyone thinks that those who have not good
natural ability.
Cannot to some extent make up for the deficiencies of
Nature by right training and practice,
Let such a one know that he is very wide of the mark,
if not out of it altogether.
Ability and necessity dwell near each other. Power,
indeed, dwells hard by necessity.
Good natural parts are impaired by sloth; but inferior
ability is mended by training.
While simple things escape the eyes of the careless,
difficult things are reached by the painstaking.




110


The PYTHAGORON


Perfection is only attained by practice. Water continually dropping wears away rocks.
Withal, train the memory.
Mastery lies in the mastery of sound principles.
But the nature of principle is difficult to be surveyed
and apprehended in all the above-mentioned particulars.
For in sciences, it is not the province of any casual
understanding to learn and judge, by well surveying the
parts of things,
What is the nature of the principle of these.
It makes a great difference, and there is danger with
respect to the knowledge of the whole of things,
When principle is not rightly assumed.
For none, in short, of the consequent conclusions can
be sane, when the true principle is unknown.
Be master of Rule and not its slave. Become not the
servant of thine own creature.
Choose always the way that seems the best, however
rough it may be. Custom will soon render it easy and
agreeable.
The most laborious path is the best, just as the
pleasurable one is generally the worst;
Inasmuch as we entered into the present life for the
sake of education, which proceeds by chastening.
It is better that counsel should precede actions than
that repentance should follow them.
Do nothing thou dost not understand; but learn all
the things thou shouldst.
And thou shalt pass a most pleasant life.
Perform great things, at the same time promising
nothing great.
Do that which you judge to be beautiful and honest,
though you should acquire no glory from the performance;
For the vulgar is a depraved judge of beautiful deeds.
Do nothing without previous deliberation and disquisition;




The PYTHAGORON


1'll


But form a plan in the morning of what ought to be
done in the course of the day;
And at night take cognizance of how the same has
been followed.
That which I am going to tell thee, do thou, in every
case accomplish it;
Let no man either by word or deed persuade thee to
do or say what is not best for thee.
Deliberate before thou act, lest folly arise; for it is
the part of a wretched man to act and to speak unwittingly.
But fulfill those things which will not later weaken
thee.
Admit nothing as pleasant which is not advantageous.
Do those things which shall not harm thee, and reflect before thou act.
Do not accustom thyself to be thoughtless about any
thing.
To neglect things of smallest consequence is not the
least thing in human life.
Always do that which cannot harm thee; and before
thou actest, think.
Do not the least thing unadvisedly.
Prudence is the strength, the fortress, the armour, of
the wise.
If vigor of sensation is considered to be an eligible
thing, we should much more strenuously endeavor to obtain
Prudence.
For it is, as it were, the sensitive vigor of the practical
intellect which we contain.
As through the former we are not deceived in sensible
perceptions,
So through the latter we avoid false reasoning in
practical affairs.
Harmony is the most beautiful. Mental decision is
the most powerful. Felicity is the most excellent.




112


The PYTHAGORON


Felicity is naught else than the use of Virtue in
prosperity and in adversity.
It is the same thing to think greatly of thyself in
prosperity, as to contend in the race on a slippery road.
He is indeed to be esteemed the most unfortunate of
men who has not himself learned how to bear misfortune.
No human casualties ought to be unexpected by those
who are endued with intellect;
But they should expect everything may happen which
it is not in their power to prevent.
Do not lament thy misfortunes: do not make abject
entreaties.
Refrain from illiberal adulation. Bear thy ills with
fortitude and manly dignity.
Fortitude is the art of avoiding as well as enduring.
Rail and complain not if Fortune hath not favored
thee, or if matters have gone awry.
These only tend to make matters worse, and do not
improve them.
Concerning all the woes that mortals have through
divine Fortune,
Whatever portion thou hast, bear this, and be not
vexed;
But it is befitting, insofar as thou canst, to remedy it.
Restrain thy tears; preserve composure; maintain
fortitude.
Bear that which is necessary, as it is,necessary.
Whatever pains thou hast from the gods bear them.and murmur npt..
Whatever Fate thou hast, bear it, nor murmur..Endure all things in order that thou mayst live conformably to God.
Danger is to be encountered with a firm and manly
mind.
It is well to sustain and shew wounds, if they are in
the breast,
But not if they are behind.




The PYTHAGORON


113


As there can be none happy before their death; so
none is to be esteemed unhappy while he lives.
It is the province of the wise man to bear poverty with
equanimity.
It is a great thing to be wise where we ought in
calamitous circumstances.
Fools frequently become wise under the pressure of
misfortunes.
Since we are men, it is not becoming to deride, but
bewail the calamities of other men.
Above all things reverence thyself.
Remember the highest point in the heavens is always
over thine own head.
Conduct thyself as befits a Son of God.
As such, think not meanly nor degenerately concerning
thyself, nor hide dark thoughts.
He that hath Light within himself hath a bright day
though surrounded by darkness.
To the noble all things are pure.
All the parts of man, like those of a statue, ought t6
be beautiful.
Think of all parts of thy body as beautiful, and no
part as mean or base.
Deport thyself as becomes a free man, remembering
that no man is free who has not empire of himself.
Freedom is the name of Virtue; Slavery, of vice. None
is a slave whose acts are free.
Support the Law: wage war on lawlessness; for no
evil is greater than anarchy.
It is only necessary to make war with five things:
With the maladies of the body; with the ignorance of the
mind;
With the passions of the body; with the sediments of
the city; and with the discords of families.
War can make no havoc of Virtue.




114


The PYTHAGORON


XI.
The Sage discourseth upon Diet, the properties of foods and beverages; he denounceth
the eating of flesh and blood; and describeth
the Universal Triangular Friendship, the
Love of Fellow-Creatures, Rights of Animals, and Benefits of Abstention from Flesh;
he warneth against Intoxicating Liquors, the
dangers of Intemperance in All Kinds, Inordinate Desires and Secret Vices; and
Exhorteth to Virtue.
What, when and how we eat and drink, and the
manner in which we live, affect our religion and our attitude
towards God.
And how we love and know God, and know ourselves,
affects what, when and how we eat and drink and the
manner in which we live.
Thus life and religion are inseparably one.
Eat and drink temperately and with gratitude, and
thou wilst eat and drink acceptably to God.
Eat moderately, bathe plentifully, exercise much in the
open air,
Walk far, and climb the hills alone.
Above all things, learn to keep silence. Hear all and
speak little.




The PYTHAGORON


115


Diet is governed by scientific laws, like all the rest.
and should not be taken at hazard.
Each kind of food introduced into the body becomes
the cause of a certain peculiar disposition.
Each food has its own properties, which help or hinder
some particular part of the body.
Certain foods impede the vigilance and genuine
energies of the body and the reasoning power,
And bring about disorders and disease;
But others bring health and increase of power of brain
and brawn.
Therefore attend what I would say and be advised.
The simplest and most natural foods, partaken in
virginal state, as nearly as possible, are best for men.
Green foods strengthen the teeth, give glow to the
check, and aid elimination.
Above all, abstain from meat and flesh of animals.
Such is not a natural food for man.
Those who project violence or injury to animals, or
who disturb or uproot any work of Nature,
Should bear in mind that divine Friendship is Triangular.
There is the Friendship of God for all creatures.
There is the friendship of men and all creatures for
God;
And the friendship of men and all creatures for one
another.
No one can truly love God without at the same time
loving all His creatures.
No one can love his fellow-creatures and shed their
blood without ster necessity,
Much less eat them.
God, the Kosmos and all creation are a unity.
All animated beings are kin, and should be considered
as belonging to one great family.




116


The PYTHAGORON


Keep the precept of Orpheus,
Clothed in raiment all white, shun the birth of men,
nor touch the coffins of the dead;
And keep thyself from the eating of food which has
had life.
I enjoin abstinence from flesh of living beings, because it conduces to peace.
For those accustomed to abominate the slaughter of
other animals as unjust and unnatural,
WilI think it yet more unjust and unlawful to kill a
man, or to engage in war.
Rulers and legislators in particular should abstain
from eating flesh;
Since how can they pretend to enjoin justice, when
they themselves violate all justice
By sacrificing to cruel gluttony beings so closely allied
to us by nature?
For, through community of life and of the same
essential elements,
And the close sympathy that ought therefore to subsist,
They are conjoined to us, as it were, by a fraternal
alliance.
Ol Mortals! do not pollute your bodies with a food so
impious!
You have the fruits of the earth, you have apples
bending down the branches with their weight,
And grapes swelling to ripeness on the vines;
You have also delicious herbs and vegetables which
can be mellowed and softened by the help of fire.
Nor are you without milk or honey, fragrant with the
bloom of thyme.
The earth, prodigal of her wealth, supplies you her
kindly sustenance
And offers you food without bloodshed and slaughter.
Flesh is the wild beasts' wherewith they appease their
hunger,




The PYTHAGORON


117


And yet not all, since the horse, the sheep and the
cattle live on grass;
But those whose nature is savage and untamed,
Armenian tigers, raging lions, bears and wolves,
All these delight in bloody food.
Oh, how criminal it is for flesh to be stored away in
flesh,
For one greedy body to grow fat with food gained from
another,
For one live creature to go on living through the
destruction of another living thing!
And so in the midst of the wealth of food which Earth,
the best of mothers, has produced,
It is your pleasure to chew the piteous flesh of
slaughtered animals with your savage teeth,
And thus to repeat the Cyclops' horrid manners!
And you cannot, without destroying another life,
Appease the cravings of your greedy and insatiable
maw!
But, ye sheep, what did you ever do to merit death,
a peaceful flock, born for man's service,
Who bring us sweet milk to drink in your full udders,
ATho give us your wool for soft clothing,
And who help more by your life than by your death?
WAihat have the oxen done, those faithful, guileless
beasts, harmless and simple, born to a life of toil?
Truly inconsiderate he and not worthy of the gift of
grain
Who could take off the curved plow's heavy weight
And in the next moment slay his husbandman;
Who with his axe could smite that neck which was
worn with toxI for him,
By whose help he had so often renewed the stubborn
soil and planted so many crops.
Nor is it enough that we commit such infamy:
They made the gods themselves partners of their
crimes




118


The PYTHAGORON


And they affected to believe that the heavenly ones
took pleasure in the blood of the toiling bullock!
Thence (so great is man's lust for forbidden food!) do
you dare thus to feed.
O race of mortals!
I pray you, do not do it, but turn your minds to these
my words of warning,
And when you take the flesh of slaughtered cattle in
your mouths,
Know and realize that you are devouring your own
fellow-labourers.
How surely is he impiously preparing to shed human
blood, who cuts a calf's throat with the knife
And listens all unmoved to its piteous cries!
Or who can slay a kid which cries just like a little
child,
Or feed on a bird to which he himself has just given
foodl
How much does such a deed as that fall short of actual
murder?
What is the end of such a course?
Let the bull plow and let him owe his death to length
of days;
Let the sheep arm you against the rough north wind;
Let the she-goats give full udders to the milking.
Have done with nets and traps, snares and deceptive
arts.
Catch not the bird with the limed twig; no longer mock
the deer with fear-compelling feathers,
Nor conceal the barbed hook beneath fair-seeming
food.
Kill creatures that work you harm,
But even in the case of these let killing suffice.
Make not their flesh your food, but seek a more harmless nourishment.




The PYTHAGORON


119


It is best for a man to accustom himself to eat no flesh
at all;
For the earth affords plenty of things fit not only for
nourishment, but for delight and enjoyment;
Some of which may be eaten without preparation; and
others may be made pleasant by adding divers things to
them.
The best foods are those which are inexpensive and
easily procurable.
And what meal is the least expensive? One for which
no animal is put to death.
Flesh is the most costly item of a meal. Eliminate it
and the cost of living is small.
There are many other reasons for abstention from
animal food.
Firstly, there is the matter of health. Flesh eating not
only is unnatural to men's bodies,
But also by clogging and cloying them, it renders their
very minds and intellects gross.
Such food transmits to the user some of the worst
qualities of the animal,
Corpulency, heaviness, sluggishness, density, and
faulty elimination;
Resulting in bodily disorders and diseases, injury to
the teeth, and impairment of longevity.
Think, the animal eaten becomes part of the body of
the devourer.
Secondly, use of flesh and blood as food unduly excites
the animal passions of man,
Inspiring lust, anger, contention, pugnacity, and
blood-thirst,
Inclining the mind to brutality, bloodshed and destruction; and undermining Virtue.
Thirdly, abstention from flesh is productive of peace.
For those who are accustomed to abominate the
slaughter of animals as iniquitous and preternatural,




120


The PYTHAGORON


Will think it to be more unlawful to kill a man, or
engage in war.
War is the leader and legislator of slaughter.
For by this it is increased and becomes strong and
powerful.
Always eat to live and never live to eat. Avoid
gluttony.
Superfluity is gluttony. Avoid excess of flesh.
Akin to the eating of flesh is the drinking of intoxicants.
Cut not into the grape. Exaltation coming from wine
is not good.
Thou hopest too much in this condition, so are afterwards depressed.
Drink of the fruit of the vine soberly and advisedly.
Pure water is better.
Wine drunken in small quantities at seasonable times
is not deleterious, particularly if mixed with water.
Wine should not be drunken during the day, but with
the evening meal.
Wine, being sharp and fiery, increases the disturbances of the body,
Exasperates them, and inflames the passions.
If thou remark such ill effects, abate wine from thy
diet.
Remember it is lawful to sacrifice to Bakchos without
wine.
Intoxication is the preparation for insanity. Intoxication is the mediation of insanity.
Drunkenness and ruin: they are identical. Strong
drink is a snare.
Fly from intoxication as thou wouldst from insanity.
Strength of mind depends upon sobriety, for this keeps
Reason undiverted by passion.




The PYTHAGORON


A wine-bibber might be cured of intoxication if he
frequently considered what his actions are during intoxication.
Temperance is adorable in all things; more particularly
in youth, when the desires flourish most, and the time when
control must be most effective.
While temperance is universal in its application: to
all ages, boy, virgin, woman, or aged;
Yet this special Virtue is particularly applicable to
youth.
Moreover, this special Virtue applies universally to all
goods -
Those of the body and of the Soul - preserving both
the health and studiousness.
Intemperance produces lawless marriages, lusts, intoxications, unnatural enjoyments,
And passionate impulsions which drive headlong into
pits and abysses.
The unbridling of desires has removed the barriers
against incest with either mothers or daughters;
And tyrants who have flaunted the laws and
desecrated the institutions of their country,
Have been dragged to the depths of degradation.
Avarice, also, produces rapine, robbery, parricide,
sacrilege, sorcery, and kindred evils.
Such being the case, these surrounding thickets infested with passions,
Will have to be cleared out with systematic disciplines, as if with fire and sword;
And when the Reason will have been liberated from
so many and great evils,
We are in a position to offer to it, and implant within
it, something useful and good.




1.22


The PYTHAGORON


Avoid pleasure as a danger demanding the utmost
caution.
More than anything else does this passion deceive us,
and mislead us into error.
It is wiser never to do anything whose end is pleasure,
whose results are usually shameful and harmful.
We should adopt as our end the beautiful and fair,
and do our duty.
Only secondarily should we consider the useful and
advantageous.
In these matters there is no need to consider considerations of chance.
It is a shame that one who sweetens his drink with
the gifts of the bee should embitter God's gift - Reason -
with vice.
Chastise thy passions that they avenge not themselves
upon thee.
Do nothing in private which thou wouldst be ashamed
for all to see.
Remember, thou art never alone: for God is ever with
thee and seeth all;
And the angels of thy friends are not far away.
A man of noble purpose will by no act of his do
violence to his manhood.
Desire itself is a certain tendency and impulse of the
body, and an appetite of a plentitude of sense,
Or of an emptiness and absence of it, and of nonperception.
There are three most known species of erroneous and
depraved desires:
The indecorous, the incommensurate, and the unseasonable.
The desire is either immediately indecorous, troublesome and illiberal,
Or it is not absolutely so, but is more vehement and
lasting than is fit,




The PYTHAGORON


123


Or in the third place, it is impelled when it is not
proper, and to objects to which it ought not to tend.
Desire, I say, is a passion which is various, laborious
and very multiform.
Of desires, however, some are acquired and adventitious, but others are comnascent.
Desire itself is a certain tendency, impluse and
appetite of the body,
Wishing to be filled with something, or to enjoy the
presence of something,
Or to be disposed according to some sense-enjoyment.
There are also contrary desires, of evacuation and
repulsion, and to terminate some sensation.
This passion is manifold, and is almost the most
Protean of human experiences.
However, many human desires are artificially acquired, and self-prepared.
That is why this passion demands the utmost care and
watchfulness,
And physical exercise that is more than casual.
That when the body is empty it should desire food is
no more than natural;
And then it is just as natural that when it is full it
should desire evacuation, appropriate evacuation.
But to desire superfluous food, or luxurious garments,
or coverlets, or residences, is artificial.
This is true also to furniture, dishes, servants, and
cattle raised for slaughter.
It is not in the passions themselves that evil is found,
But the evil effects they produce by the disordered
movement that the understanding allows them to take.
Do not seek to destroy the passions, but to moderate
their ardor, and to guide them well.
The passions are given to be aids to Reason. It is
necessary that they be its servants and not its masters.




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Besides, human passions are never permanent, but
are ever changing, even to infinity.
That is why education of the youth should begin at
the earliest moment possible,
That their aspirations may be directed towards ends
that are proper, avoiding those that are vain and unnecessary,
So as to be undisturbed by, and remain pure from such
undesirable passions;
And may despise such as are objects of contempt, because subjected to changeable desires.
Yet it must be observed that senseless, harmful, superfluous and insolent desires,
Subsist in the hearts and minds of such individuals
who are the most powerful;
For there is nothing so absurd that the soul of such
boys, men and women would not lead them to perform.
Know that these things are thus: but accustom thyself
to master the following:
First, gluttony, then sleep, lust and anger.
Depraved affections are the beginning of sorrow.
Be sober, and remember to be disposed to believe, for
these are the nerves of Wisdom.
Spare thy life lest thou consume it with sorrow and
care.
Behave not shamelessly to any one.
Do no base act, either with another or alone; but most
of all, respect thyself.
Neither is it possible to conceal fire in a garment, nor
a base deviation from rectitude in time.
Repentance after base actions is the salvation of life.
It is impossible that he can be free who is a slave to
his passions.
It is a harder lot to be a slave to one's passions than to
tyrants.




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To desire immoderately is the province of a boy, and
not of a man.
Think that you suffer a great punishment when you
attain the object of corporeal desire;
For the attainment of such objects never satisfies
desire.
Every desire is insatiable, and therefore is always in
want.
Vehement desires about any one thing render the Soul
blind with respect to other things.
Remember, that of pleasures, those which occur most
rarely give the most delight.
Despise all things which thou will not want when
liberated from the body;
And exercise thyself in those things of which thou wilt
be in want when liberated from the body.
Be sure to invoke God to become thy helper.
Looking to the beautiful and decorous, we should do
whatever is to be done.




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XII.
The Sage discourseth upon Peace of Mind
and how to attain it; he sheweth the Selfishness of Seclusion, Evasion of Responsibilities, and Celibacy; he discusseth Avarice,
Ambition, Envy, Anger, Pride, Luxury,
Acquisition and Mutability of Worldly
Possessions, Injustice as basis of Sin, the
Abundant Life of Measure, Order, Method,
Even Temper, Freedom from Worry, Anxiety and Vain Regrets, Value of Self in
Scheme of Life, the Body, its Value and
Care, Health, Exercise, Daily Routine,
Ever-Preparedness for Death, and arousing
Envy as Injustice.
Learn now that Peace of Mind is the Seal of every
successful life, and the true goal of thy seeking;
But that to attain it thou must live a Life of Measure,
in the knowledge of correct Values;
So that thou mayst ever distinguish the true from the
false.
The utmost happiness is to be found in Peace of Mind.
If thou hast Peace of Mind, which is the Peace of God,
thou hast the greatest gift Life can offer;
For Peace of Mind and Freedom are identical.
What is by nature Free cannot be restrained by anything but Self.




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Peace of Mind, and Beatitude also, can be attained
only by consciousness of conscientious fidelity to every
ordinary duty of life.
He is selfish and unjust, also, who in order to attain
Peace of Mind, or Beatitude, avoids the responsibilities of
procreating children.
It is the law of God that His creatures should multiply
and replenish the earth;
And that there shall be old to nurture and protect the
young in their helplessness,
And that there shall be young to sustain and care for
the old in their declining years.
Thus it is the order of Nature that we shall bury our
parents, and that our children shall bury us.
How could that man live without dissension, who finds
a pleasure in living, and willingly continues in life,
As one who was properly brought into existence by
his parents,
And yet conceives that for him procreation and nurture
of offspring is something to be rejected?
Selfish and unjust is that man who refuses to be
burdened and annoyed with children of his own,
And who expects the children of other men to perpetuate society
And to provide him with care and comforts in his old
age, and at the last to bury him;
So that meanwhile he can be free to spend his life in
quest of Peace of Mind, or Beatitude, without the annoyances that afflict other men.
Consider therefore the five things that destroy Men
and States, and disturb the Peace of Mind of Men and the
Peace of Nations.
They are Avarice, Ambition, Envy, Anger, and Pride.
Avarice, Greed and Luxury are the ruin of Men and
States, and destroy Virtue and Character, and are the seeds
of Wars.




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Avarice, Greed and Covetousness also are snares
which men lay for their own feet.
It is indeed difficult to cheat a just man.
Most men are undone through their own greed,
cupidity and lack of justice.
The life of the avaricious resembles a funeral banquet:
for though it has all desirable elements no one rejoices.
Therefore learn to distinguish true Values from false.
Man was endowed with Life that he might abundantly
enjoy it, with Measure.
He was made to live conformably to Nature and to
Divine Law.
There is no thing provided by God which is in itself
wrong or evil;
For only good can come from God; and no wrong or
evil.
Hamartia lies in wrong or unseasonable use.
The bases of all sin [hamartia] are Luxury and Injustice, which are children of Ignorance.
Luxury and great wealth are not natural things, but
are artificial beings fabricated by man.
They are not in themselves good ends to be sought,
nor the means of attaining good ends.
They are rather destructive of Virtue and true happiness.
Debauchery, riot, splendor, luxury, are attempts to
get a pleasure out of life that is not our due;
And so Nemesis provides her penalty for the idle and
gluttonous.
Shun luxury as thou wouldst the plague.
Only the wise are rich.
True happiness is not to be found in wealth, luxury,
or power, but in the more simple things of life.




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All the greatest things of life are free, bestowed from
on High.
Every gift of God is given to be enjoyed, but in Measure and Justice.
All evil lies in exceeding due Measure and Proportion.
The greatest strength and wealth is Self-Control.
Therefore be moderate and restrained in all things.
The course of justice, industry, courage, moderation,
silence: means that thou shalt receive thy due of every
good thing.
Remember that nothing that thou hast is ever thine.
Possess not treasures except those things which no
man can take from thee.
Be sure that nothing is thine save that which thou
possesseth intellectually.
Know that to die has been ordained for all.
Know that possessions are sometimes acquired and
sometimes lost.
Know that corporeal possessions must be left behind
when the Soul is liberated.
Consider nothing worth while which cannot be taken
with thee.
Esteem nothing so precious which a bad man may
take from thee.
Possess those things which no one can take from thee.
There is not any gate of wealth so secure which the
opportunity of Fortune may not open.
Thou wilt never be in want of anything which it is
within the power of Fortune to give and take away.
A man should not possess more than sufficient for his
needs.
Everything which is more than necessary to man is
hostile to him.
The self-sufficient and needy philosopher lives a life
truly similar to Divinity,




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And considers the non-possession of external and
unnecessary goods as the greatest wealth.
The wise man is independent of Fortune.
Consider that man rich who is contented with what he
hath.
He that doth not expect much never can be overly
disappointed.
The acquisition of riches sometimes inflames desire;
But not to act in any respect unjustly is sufficient to
the enjoyment of a blessed life.
No man can be deemed happy who depends either on
his friends or children, or on any fleeting and fallen nature;
For all these are unstable and uncertain.
But to depend on oneself and on God is alone stable
and firm.
Travelling teaches a man frugality, and the way in
which he may be sufficient to himself;
For bread made of milk and flour, and a bed of grass,
are the sweetest remedies of hunger and labor.
It is not indeed useless to procure wealth, but to procure it from injustice is the most pernicious of all things.
It is a horrible crime to wipe off the sweat with iron.
Ill-Fortune betides him who begets wealth with injustice.
It is not possible for a horse to be governed without
bridle, nor riches without prudence.
Glory and wealth without wisdom are not secure possessions.
Do not spend thy substance out of season like one
ignorant of proprieties; but do not be illiberal.
Measure in all things is best.
It is better to have nothing, than to possess much and
impart it to no one.
You can keep only by giving away.
Labor together with continence precedes the acquisition of every good.




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131


Acquire continence as the greatest strength and
wealth.
Go not beyond the beam of the Balance: go not
beyond Measure in anything.
Practice self-restraint; be chaste and virtuous; and
be temperate in all things.
Be the master and not the slave of pleasure.
Exceed due Measure, and the most delightful things
become the least delightful.
God gave thee thy life that thou might enjoy it with
Measure.
Thou shouldst therefore strive to lead a most pleasant
life.
Be not at one time cheerful, and at another sad, but
be ever mildly joyful with uniformity.
WVise men are neither cast down in defeat nor exalted
by success.
Do not wear sullen looks, nor give vent to anger;
neither give outburst to boisterous laughter.
Never wear a tight band around thy life; be thyself,
and give thyself space in which to live.
Eat not the heart. That is, let not thy heart be heavy.
Spare thy life and do not wear out thy Soul.
Do not eat out thy heart or mind with worry, anxiety,
dread, or fear.
Add not to thy grief by discontent. In no case become
despondent, or ever despair.
In no case ever can there be reason for worry, anxiety,
dread, fear, or apprehension,
If thou knowest the true Values of things.
God hast constituted thee proof to withstand all things
that can possibly befall thee.
This is the Law of Balance; that all things are restored
again to Balance.




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Remember that no one thing that can happen is of
much moment;
And that the things which presently give thee concern
will be of no moment a few years hence.
If thou be troubled or ill in mind, body or estate, consider well whether thy complaint be real, artificial, or fictitious.
Whatever Nature hath evolved, Nature hath power
to relieve,
What artifice hath brought about, Art may have the
cunning to correct.
What exists by Mind alone, Mind acting through
Mind, can abate.
As said of old, When you have come to the end of a
journey, do not look back.
That is do not spend your life in vain regrets. Do
not wish to live your life over.
Whenever you conclude that your former ways have
been erroneous, amend your ways and face the future.
Ever remember that only good can come to thee from
God, and no evil.
Have confidence in God and his All-Providence, well
knowing that good and healing are ever at hand.
Know God[ Know Thyself! If thou dost, thou wilt
know that thou canst always touch the good at hand,
And amend, correct, or heal, every ill that may befall
thee.
Whatever may be thy state or condition never despair
of thy Value in the scheme of Life.
Remember there is neither excess nor defect in the
Kosmos, but it is ever complete;
And that the Kosmos could not be complete if thou
were absent in thy season.
Remember also that naught that God hath wrought
is worthless or valueless,
So that thou that he hath begotten can never be valueless or worthless.




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Remember finally that the Mind and the Soul are
Free, however tightly the body may be bound.
Everything that cometh from God hath its choice
Value.
Think that thy body is the garment of thy Soul; and
therefore preserve it pure.
Reverence thy body and keep it in Health and exercise; but value the body no more than thou ought;
For no man who values his body more than he ought
is free.
Prize thy Health and do not waste it.
Health means retention of Form: Disease is its destruction.
Thou must not be indifferent to the Health of the
body; but of drink, food and exercise, take due Measure:
And by due Measure, I mean that which will not
weaken thee.
Thou shouldst not possess more than the use of the
body requires.
The equal is beautiful in everything; but excess and
defect are not so.
So attend thy body that it might always remain in
the same condition,
And not at one time be lean, but at another abounding in flesh. For this is an indication of an anomalous life.
It is impossible that the same person can be a lover
of pleasure, a lover of body, a lover of riches, and a lover
of God.
For a lover of pleasure is also a lover of body; but a
lover of body is entirely a lover of riches.
A lover of riches is necessarily unjust; and the unjust
is necessarily profane towards God, and lawless with
respect to men.
Hence though he should sacrifice hecatombs, he is
only by this means the more impious, unholy, atheistic and
sacrilegious, with respect to his intentions;




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And on this account it is necessary to avoid every
lover of pleasure as an atheist and polluted person.
Sleep during the hours when sleep is most refreshing.
Arise with the sun; or arise with the clarion call of
the cock.
When thou ariseth in the morning, make up thy bed
with dispatch, for night is the time for sleep and repose,
But the day is for thy labors and attendance to duties.
A man asleep is of no more use than one dead. A
man asleep is the same as a man dead.
See that thy mind be wakeful: for somnolence is here
closely akin to death itself.
A Life of Measure is also a Life of Order and Method.
Be attentive to Order and Method as long as thou
livest.
As soon as ere thou wakest, in order lay the actions
to be done that day.
Exact from each day the utmost advantage, and avoid
idleness and slothfulness.
Leave no duty unfinished.
No man is so old, but thinks he may live another day.
So arrange thine affairs that thou wilst have made
reparation the day before thou diest.
Always order thy life as if today were thy last.
A man ought to order his life as if he were fated to
live both a long and a short time.
Always have your bed packed up.
Commune daily with Nature, for in Nature is Health
and Peace and Calm,
And the ineffable secret of healing both of mind and
body.
The Kosmos contains the answers to all questions.
Man is a microcosm and the primordial elements from
which his nature is taken will replenish him,




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135


And give him Health and strength.
Breathe deeply of the pure air; purify thy body with
the sunlight;
Drink plenteously of pure water, and with it cleanse
thy body.
Often recline against the breast of Earth and absorb
her healing properties.
Swell thy Soul with draughts of the pure Aether and
the Spirit of Truth.
Nature contains the remedies for all ills.
When thou art on a journey let exertion and slackening alternate.
Do not dip into a sprinkling vessel, nor wash in a
public bath, and abstain from using common drinking
vessels.
For these agencies are of uncertain cleanliness.
Accustom thyself to a mode of life that is chaste and
unaffected.
Endeavor to be great in the estimation of God, but
among men avoid envy.
Strive to inspire only emulation of thy virtue and never
envy of thy possessions.
Virtue is Harmony, Health and Universal Good.
Guard against doing those things which produce envy.
Be not envious, jealous, or covetous, thyself.
Strive not to be great in the estimation of others by
living unbecoming to thy means,
Or in such a manner which is inimical to Virtue and
thy best good.
For such is merely vanity catering to depraved opinion,
and is the invitation to destruction.
Abstain from pretense, or show of luxurious living;
from costly raiment and adornment, and vainglorious display.




136                            The PYTHAGORON
Wear only what is decent and needful for thee.
Poverty is no grievance.
Avoid ambition and vainglory: these but excite envy.
Be unostentatious. Seek Virtue, not notoriety.
Do not parade in the public streets. Shun the presence
of crowds.
So live each day that thou shalt never work injustice
to thy fellow.
Do naught that will discontent him with the worldly
goods which he hath.
Neither arouse in him envy or malcontentment by any
act of thine;
Nor cause his hand to be lifted against thee or thine.




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137


XIII.
The Sage discourseth upon Justice as the
Law of God, and commenteth upon Injustice
to Oneself, to Posterity, to Fellow-Creatures,
and upon Just Behavior towards God, WiseMen, Parents, Elders, Spouses, Servants,
Neighbors, and Mankind in General; and
sheweth how Gossip, Slander, Idle Conversation, Anger and Hasty Judgment are Unjust; and adviseth Charity, Tolerance, Silence, Prudent Conversation, Truth-Speaking, Refraint from Retaliation and Revenge,
Conservation of Natural Resources; and
warneth against Flatterers and heeding
opinions of the Vulgar.
God Himself is Justice and Right and Perfection of
all laws.
God tempteth not, neither doth He condemn: it is
Man who condemneth himself.
The likeness of God is found in Wisdom and understanding, not in sacred symbols.
God governs the Kosmos in Justice and in Truth.
There is no sin that is not tinged with injustice. There
is no sin that hath not injustice for its ingredient.
Injustice is the greatest and the only sin.
Thou canst best serve thy fellow creatures by restraint
of injustice,




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And by withholding from intermeddling in affairs that
do not concern thee.
Be just to all creatures: do no man wrong. Be more
afraid of doing than of suffering ill.
He who transgresses against another also transgresses
against his own self.
He who gives hurt to another hurts himself also.
Man can be unjust to himself alone.
The votary of passion and injustice has a heavy
reckoning to await, both here and hereafter.
The fundamental basis of all Justice is Equality;
wherefore all things should be common.
Justice is reciprocity.
In the natural order of things, no man ultimately owns
anything.
That which he possesses is never his exclusively, but
is only his to use.
All material things he must leave behind when he
passes through the Veil.
The Idea of ultimate possession is the cause of wars,
tumult and sedition.
Deem nothing thine own: for thou art a sojourner,
and many are yet to follow thee.
Remember that God hath ordered the Kosmos with
wisdom and according to what is best.
Therefore disturb not Nature, nor the orderly courses
thereof, without necessity.
Neither kill nor injure trees, and uproot them not, without necessity.
Contaminate not the earth or the air, nor pollute the
waters.
Be kind to all creatures. Be sparing of the shedding
of blood.
Abstain from all cruelty and inhumanity to the brute
creation.
Kill not the birds for sport or food.




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139


Throw back the draught of fishes into the sea from
which they came, and eat them not.
It is forbidden that anyone injure man or be violent
to animals.
Animals have the right to live as well as men.
There is such a thing as Justice to Posterity.
Conserve the natural resources. Supply thy necessities without stint, but waste nothing.
The next basis of Justice is sociability: association
with one's fellows.
Injustice is produced by unsociability and the neglect
of other people.
Association with men introduces Justice;
But alienation, and a contempt of the common genus,
produce injustice.
The next basis of Justice is Prudence and Providence.
Penury and want often compel men to act contrary
to Justice and Truth.
This should be avoided on one's own part by prudence
and economy.
While one should be generous and liberal in all his
dealings,
He should always retain a just sufficiency to provide
his necessities,
And make good all his honest obligations.
The just man is true to every trust and faithful to
every obligation.
A deposit of money or of teachings should be faithfully preserved by the trustee.
Make no promises that cannot be fulfilled; incur no
obligations that cannot be met.
Disappoint no man to his loss or discomfiture.
Guide those who trust in thee to goodness and to
Truth.




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Be generous and merciful in thy dealings with men,
but be prudent.
As a horse is not to be judged because he is sumptuously caparisoned;
Neither is the man who possesses great wealth; but
he whose soul is generous.
It is better to confer a favor than to receive one.
Do not be illiberal, but be prudent in thy liberality.
When about to bestow a favor, previously consider
him who is to receive it;
Lest being a fraudulent character he should return evil
for good.
Small favors seasonably bestowed become things of
the greatest consequence to those who receive them.
It is proper to receive favors, at the same time determining that the retribution shall surpass the gift.
Readily hearken to the importunities of those in distress, and relieve necessity.
There is a certain various and multiform use of an
Opportune Time.
Opportunity is the only good in any action.
Do not haggle or be niggardly in thy Charity.
Extend Charity in the particular case because it is
right to do so, and with no other motive.
Whenever thou givest a gift, or grantest a boon. do
so with generosity and grace.
Generosity is the salt of the gift.
Do not assist a man in laying down a burden, (which
encourages him to loiter),
But assist him in undertaking something whereby he
can help himself.
Injustice frequently results from insolence, luxury and
lawlessness.
For which reason men ought always to support the
laws and shun lawlessness.




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141


Luxury is the first evil that usually glides into houses
and cities.
Luxury therefore should be excluded and expelled by
all possible means.
From birth men should be accustomed to live temperately and in a manly manner.
It is also necessary that men abstain from bad language and vulgarism,
Whether it be piteous, or provocative, or reviling, or
insolent, or scurrilous.
Man is naturally prone to be insolent, and changeable
in impulse, desire and passion.
Therefore keep tight the bridle-rein of self-restraint.
The worst fortune that can betide humanity is the
holocaust resultant from anarchy, violence and bloodshed.
Which are the progeny of disordered and evilly disposed minds.
Minds disordered by insanity, lust, hate, vengefulness,
envy, ambition or vainglory usually throw Reason to the
winds,
And are incapable of calm reflection or perception of
Truth and sound principles.
Anarchy, violence, and bloodshed are contagious and
spread like wild fire, increasing confusion.
Minds disordered by passion, prejudice, or thoughts
of revenge, are vulnerable to the machinations of the unscrupulous,
Who bend them to their own selfish aims, to the
prejudice of Truth, Virtue and Justice.
No existing evil can be worse than the violence and
bloodshed used to remove it.
Reforms effected by violence and bloodshed usually
accomplish actually little and are of short duration,
Much as is the case where compromise sacrifices principle to expediency.
It generally results that where reforms are attempted
by disorder, violence and bloodshed,




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That new evils are introduced which are more baneful
than the ones suppressed,
And, also, that good institutions are apt to be uprooted by the upheaval and buried under the debris of
order.
Violence and bloodshed contain in themselves the
seeds of never ending future woes.
No man who is a lover of money, of pleasure, or glory,
is likewise a lover of men:
But only he that is a lover of whatsoever things are
fair and good.
God teaches us to account that which is Just equal,
and not that which is equal Just;
For that equality which many affect, (being often the
greatest injustice), God, as much as possible, taketh away;
And useth that proportion which respects every man's
deserts, geometrically defining it to Law and Reason.
It is inconceivable that God could have brought the
Kosmos into being,
And at the same time failed to provide an enforceable
system of Natural Justice to keep all things in Balance;
By which evil might be punished and good rewarded.
Nor has He failed to do so:
He hath instituted Retributive Law as a Divine Force
of the Kosmos, as real as any that sustains the universe.
Divine Justice is ever present in this life and is not
postponed to a future world.
Rash words and acts are their own punishment.
Judgment is already in the world; wherefore it is never
necessary for thee to condemn thy fellow.
If he be subject to judgment, he is condemned already.
Never be hasty to judge the actions of others; but if
thou must judge, let not sentiment usurp the place of judgment.




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143


Remember always in judging the conduct of thy fellow-men, that no Virtue is real which hath not been tested.
Take care therefore that unjust condemnation be not
yours;
For what to thy mortal sight may seem a stain, may
oft in God's clearer vision prove a wound worthily sustained.
Learn and judge not by any single hasty glance, but
by a thorough examination of every detail.
There is grave danger of entire misapprehension of
things when the whole truth is unknown,
Do not give sentence in another tribunal till thou hast
thyself been judged.
It is indeed shameful for a judge to be judged by
others.
In whatever thou settest about, first take care to put
thy shoe on the right foot.
Honor that which is Just, on this very account that
it is Just.
The felicity of a man does not consist either in body
or in riches, but in upright conduct and Justice.
Those alone are dear to God who are hostile to injustice.
It is not possible for a man to live conformably to God
unless he acts modestly, well and justly.
Practice Justice both in word and deed.
Love and honor God: He guides our ways and
watches over us in our sleep.
After God, a man's first thought should be of his
father and mother,
Next to these his wife, then his children.
Honor thy elders, as age and worth entitle them to
thy respect:
For as in this world sunrise comes before the end of
day,




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So in human life, the beginning was before the end;
and in all organic life birth comes before death.
That which is precedent in time hath the first place
of honor.
Therefore respect thy elders, and reverence thy parents as thou wouldst the gods.
To thy father and mother is due that reverence which
is due the immortal gods.
The gods themselves in justice cannot but pardon
those who reverence parents equal to them.
To thy father and mother belong that esteem and
gratitude that a dead man might owe to him who should
raise him again to life.
Parents therefore are first, because they gave thee
life, and it is from them we first learn to worship God.
Towards thy elders observe the respect and esteem
thou hast for thy parents;
And toward thy neighbors observe the same love
which thou shewest for thy brethren.
Act by everyone in the same manner as if you supposed yourself to be him, and him to be you.
A servant will be well treated by one who considers
how he would like to be treated if the positions were reversed,
And if the servant was the master and the master
himself was the servant.
The same principle might be applied between parents
and children, and vice versa;
And, in short, between all men.
Never ask another to do what thou hast not done, nor
that which thou are not willing to do thyself.
Such as thou wish thy neighbor to be to thee, such
also be to thy neighbor.
In all thy dealings with men remember who thou art
and who they are: the offspring of God.




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145


When thou comest to preside over men, remember
that God also presides over thee.
Use all men in such a way as if thou wert the common
curator of all things after God.
He who uses mankind badly, uses himself badly.
He who does an injury is more unhappy than he who
receives one.
The unjust man suffers greater evil while his mind
is tormented with a consciousness of guilt, than when his
body is scourged with whips.
It is good not only to refrain from doing an injury,
but even from the very wish.
When thou deliberate whether or not thou shall injure another, thou wIlt previously suffer thyself the evil
thou intendest to commit.
If thou injure no one thou wilt fear no one.
It is much more holy to be injured than to kill a man.
Wish that you may be able to benefit thy enemies.
Disturb not thy mind with thoughts of vengeance.
Forgiveness is better than revenge. Futurity is long,
and Retributive Justice is sure.
The wise man hates no man, but loves only the virtuous.
Remember it is both more noble and delightful to do
than to receive a kindness.
Neither must thou expect any good from the evilly
disposed;
For the manners of everyone are correspondent to bis
life and actions.
Not only is he an enemy who acts unjustly, but even
he who deliberates about so acting.
He who is perfectly vanquished by riches can never
be just.
It is beautiful to impede an unjust man; but If this
be not possible, it is beautiful not to act in conjunction
with him.




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The PYTHAGORON


An envious man is the cause of molestation to himself
as to an enemy.
A just man who is a stranger is not only superior to
a citizen, but is even more excellent than a relation.
The love is just which, unattended wih injury, aspires
after things becoming.
It hath been said that, Those whom the gods would
destroy they first make mad.
Control of temper therefore is the first means to SelfMastery.
Control of the tongue is the next step; then control
of the desires.
The secret of Power is to keep an even temper.
Neither provoke anger in others, nor suffer thine own
to be kindled.
If anger obsesses thee, depart; else remain silent.
Never raise thy voice in anger, but speak always in
kindness.
In anger thou shouldst refrain from both speech and
action.
In Justice and kindliness are the Peace of God.
Be purified from all malediction, whether it be that
which is lamentable, or that which excites hostility.
And whether it be of a reviling, or insolent, or scurrilous nature.
Take care that no passion, such as desire, or anger,
be rashly excited, and in a bad and erroneous manner.
And the same is true of the remaining passions and
dispositions.
If at any time thou art in a rage, or oppressed with
sorrow, or the like kind,
Separate thyself from thy associates, and by thyself
alone endeavor to digest and heal the passion.
In wrath restrain thy hand and tongue. Make not
angry retort; for hatred ceaseth not by hatred, but by love.




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147


Neither give way to unbridled laughter, nor wear
sullen looks.
Anger begins in folly and ends in repentance.
When two are talking and one of them is in a passion,
he is the wisest who first gives away.
Never when angry either punish a servant, nor admonish a free man;
But do thou wait until thy mind is restored to its former
tranquil condition.
MWait in silence and quiet until such restoration comes.
No species of anger, or threatening, or boldness, is
becoming in a younger towards an elderly person,
But all unseasonable conduct of this kind should be
cautiously avoided.
Hatred should not be voluntarily entertained against
those who are not perfectly bad.
Silence is golden.
Silence is a cure for many ills.
Silence is a tonic to memory.
Silence is divine, because God reveals his meaning to
the wise without voice.
Silence at the proper season is Wisdom and better
than any speech.
He who would be wise: let him declare a truce from
words.
No one ever yet repented of his silence, while multitudes have repented of their speaking.
What has not been said is easy to say; but what has
been once said never can be recalled.
Taciturnity and not expressing those things which it
is wrong to speak is pleasing.
It is better either to be silent, or to say things of more
value than silence.
Speak not out a word which were better left unsaid.
Sooner throw a pearl at hazard than an idle or useless word.




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The PYTHAGORON


Neither keep a blunt knife nor an ill-disciplined looseness of tongue.
Word is Number manifested by Form.
The voice is corporeal and bears perpetual record of
itself. The same is true of thought.
Be careful that thy conversation may never be negligently and casually performed, but with modesty, benevolence and good order.
Say nothing without previous deliberation. Think
before thou speakest.
Engage either in speaking or acting only after long
deliberation;
For thou hast not ability to recall thy words or to undo
thy deeds.
Nature hath given men one tongue but two ears, that
we may hear from others twice as much as we speak.
Exercise thyself in hearing in order that thou mayst
be able to speak.
Thou shouldst never, to the utmost of thy power, become the cause of dissension;
But thou shouldst as much as possible avoid the
source of it.
It is better to converse with thyself than others.
When the wise man opens his mouth the beauties of
his soul present themselves to view like the statues in a
temple.
Do great deeds, without making great promises.
Show rather in thy actions what should be done, than
in thy words what should be thought.
When you come to the frontiers do not turn back.
That is, when you leave your own country to travel
in a foreign land,
Leave all your prejudices and predilections at the
frontier,
It is indeed bad taste to be always extolling your own
country while travelling in foreign climes.




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149


Freedom of speech requireth character behind it.
The grace of freedom of speech, like beauty in season,
is productive of greater delight.
To have a blunt sword is as improper as to use freedom of speech ineffectually.
As little could thou deprive the world of the sun, as
freedom of speech from erudition.
Speak the truth or not at all.
It is necessary to be a speaker of truth, and not to be
loquacious.
Every man ought so to train himself as to be worthy
of belief without an oath.
Call not the gods to witness the truth of thy speech.
Swear not if thou canst avoid it.
Rather strive to make thine own word carry conviction.
Right has the force of an oath.
Use lying like poison.
To lie is to deceive in life, and to be deceived.
Lies return to plague those who repeat them.
Deceive no man to his undoing. Do not deceive thyself.
Do not say a little in many words, but a great deal
in a few.
The sword is sharper than all things except calumny.
Curiosity and adultery are cousins.
Defamation of character is sure to go with curiosity.
A wound from a tongue is worse than a wound from a
sword; for the latter affects only the body, the former the
spirit.
Be unwilling to admit accusations against the man
who is studious of Wisdom.
It is requisite to defend those who are unjustly accused
of having acted injuriously;
But to praise those who excel in a certain good.




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The PYTHAGORON


Many reasonings, both good and bad, assail mankind.
Do not be startled at these, nor permit thyself to be
depressed; and if that which is false be spoken, be gentle.
It is the province of a magnanimous man to bear with
mildness the errors of others.
Consider that as great erudition through which thou
art able to bear the want of erudition in the ignorant.
Pander not to lewd tastes with insulting jests and
vulgar tales.
Neither give way to unbridled laughter when they are
uttered.
Be not anxious to please the multitude.
Esteem that to be eminently good, which communicated to another will be increased to thyself.
It is the province of a stupid man to pay attention to
the opinion of everyone, especially to that of the multitude.
It is the part of a fool to attend every opinion of all
men: above all to that of the mob.
Only a very few are qualified to apprehend and opine
rightly; for evidently this is limited to the intelligent, who
are very few.
To the crowds such a qualification of course does not
extend.
But to despise the opinion of every one is also stupid;
for such a person will remain unlearned and incorrigible.
The unscientific should study that of which he is
ignorant, or lacks scientific knowledge.
A learner should also defer to the opinion of the
scientific, or one who is able to teach.
A man given to contradiction, and very attentive to
trifles, is naturally unadapted to learn what is proper.
Continually to speak without being willing to hear
is arrogance.
Yield all things to their kindred and ruling nature
except liberty.




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151


He who is depraved does not listen to the Divine Law,
and on this account lives without law.
By honoring a wise man thou wilt honor thyself.
Honors with wise men are capable of effectiving the
greatest things, if at the same time they understand they
are honored.
It is proper to speak well of good works;
But to do so of such as are base is the property of a
fraudulent man and an imposter.
As one who is clothed with a cheap robe may have
a good body-habit;
Thus, also, may he whose life is poor possess freedom of speech.
Many who have not learnt to argue rationally still
live according to reason.
Many who commit the basest actions often exercise
the best discourse.
Fraudulent men, and such as are only seemingly good,
do all things in words and nothing in deeds.
Those who praise the unwise do them a great injury.
It is better to be praised by another than by oneself.
Shun flatterers, gossips, and curious persons, for they
will undo thee.
The flatterer is a counterfeit friend; the curiosityseeker hath hooked claws.
The anger of an ape: the threat of a flatterer: these
deserve equal regard.
Crows pick out the eyes of the dead, when the dead
no longer have need of them;
But flatterers mar the Soul of the living and Her eyes
they blind.
Prefer those that reprove to those that flatter.
Be rather delighted with those that reprove than with
those that flatter thee;
But avoid flatterers as worse than enemies.




152


The PYTHAGORON


Shun the man who asks advice while seeking something else.
Humility is no virtue. All humble men are flatterers;
and all flatterers are humble.
If thou canst not reconcile to thyself the praises thou
receivest, think that thou art being flattered.
He who praises the soul of man and accuses his body
is not speaking of the same object.
To him who asks for counsel, give none but the best,
for counsel is a sacrament.
Guide those that trust in thee to goodness and to
Truth.
It is not so difficult to err as not to reprove him who
errs.
As a bodily disease cannot be healed if it be concealed or praised,
Thus also can neither a relief be applied to a beleaguered Soul, which is badly guarded and protected.
It is better to reprove thine own errors than those of
others.
Endeavor not to conceal thine errors by words, but
to remedy them by reproofs.
Understand that no dissimulation can be long concealed.
A good man pays no attention to the reproofs of the
depraved, but heeds those of the wise.
It is good to sustain, and to have wounds in the
breast; but it is bad to have them behind.
If thou hast a secret keep it to thyself.
Trust no secrets even to a friend, which, if reported,
would bring infamy.
Conceal thy domestic ills.




The PYTHAGORON


155


No man is free who has not obtained the empire of
himself.
Conduct thyself to all men without suspicion; and be
accommodating and cautious in thy behavior.
By being troublesome to others thou wilt not easily
escape molestation thyself.
It is a shameful thing for a man to be employed about
the affairs of others, but to be ignorant of his own.
Endeavor that thy familiars may reverence rather than
fear thee; for love attends upon reverence, but hatred upon
fear.
Remember, he is honored who withholds not from
others honors due them.
Rest satisfied with doing well; and leave others to
talk of thee as they please.
Do what thou believest to be right, though it be at
the sacrifice of thy reputation:
For the mob is a bad judge of noble conduct.
Thou shouldst do those things that thou judgest to
be beautiful, though in doing them thou shouldst lack
renown;
For the rabble is a bad judge of a good thing.
Do what thou believest to be right, whatever people
think of thee.
Despise alike their censure and their praise.
The wise man whose estimation with men was but
small while he was living, will be renowned when he is
dead.
There is a still more beautiful kind of justice, the
legislative, which both orders what to do and what not
to do,
Resembling medicine which heals the diseased, but
differs in this, that it is preventive, planning the health
of the soul from afar.




114


The PYTHAGORON


XIV.
The Sage discourseth upon Friendship and
its Nature and Duties, the Triangular
Friendship, the Fatherhood of God and the
Brotherhood of Men, and the Sanctity of
Friendly Counsel, the peculiarity of Friendships with Parents, Elders, and Benefactors,
Paedartases, Quarrels amongst Friends,
Test of Real Cause of Controversy, Arbitrament and Reconciliation, and the Sacred
Dekas.
Ye have been shewn that Friendship is of Divine
Origin, and that in its universality Friendship is Triangular.
That there is the friendship of God for all creatures;
the friendship of all creatures for God;
And the friendship of all creatures for one another.
And how that no one can truly love God without at
the same time loving all his creatures,
As a necessary consequence, he who considers all
beings as existing in the Supreme Spirit,
And the Supreme Spirit as prevading all beings,
Cannot view with contempt any creature whatsoever;
much less his fellow-man.
It is by community of Soul and the Triangular Friendship that all men are brothers, having God as their common
Father.




The PYTHAGORON


155


The real friend is one soul that lives in two bodies.
Friendship is not to be conceived as a simple individual affection alone,
But as an universal benevolence which should be
extended to all men in general,
And to all good people.
This Virtue is what we call Philanthropy.
Friendship is a creature that goeth in pairs and runneth not in herds or maketh noise.
Friendship therefore is a Duality: Friendship is
Equality.
True Friendship hath three main requirements: Virtue, Familiarity and Usefulness.
Friendship stimulates every virtue.
Faith should never be separated from Friendship,
neither seriously nor in jest.
Unless full faith and confidence exists there is no
real Friendship.
For whatever Friends have is common, and Friendship is to be used, not abused.
The foundation of Friendship therefore is Mutual
Moral Worth.
A constant Friend is a rare thing and hard to find:
therefore friends are few.
Do not give thy right hand to everyone; that is, do
not make many friends.
A man hath not sufficient time for many friendships;
for each requireth much.
Friends are as companions on a journey who ought to
aid each other to persevere in the road to a happier life.
A Friend in an alter ego, thine other self; he must
be honored as a god.




156


The PYTHAGORON


Each Friend is the counterpart of the other; the twain
being bound in mystical unity so firm even death cannot
break.
When one suffers, the other suffers; when one rejoices, the other rejoices; when one prospers, the other
prospers.
What one has, both have: the love of Friends is just
concord and Equality.
All is common with Friends, even the purse, which
is of the least account.
Many turn from their friends, if from affluence they
fall into adversity;
But a Friend offers his services in prosperity, and does
not object to sharing adversity.
A Friend is more necessary than fire and water.
He is unworthy to live who has not one worthy Friend.
He who loves no one does not appear to me to be
loved by any one.
Honor thy parents and those nearest of kin; but of
others, make him thy Friend who is best in Virtue.
The Friendship of one wise man is better than that
of every fool.
Esteem those to be eminently thy Friends who assist
thy Soul rather than thy body.
Choose for thy Friends those who will speak their
mind;
True Friends correct a fault as well as commend a
Virtue.
Seek always to have the full and perfect measure of
him who would be thy Friend.
Put not confidence in all men, but in those that are
worthy;
For to do the former is the province of stupid men.
but the latter of wise men.




The PYTHAGORON


157


Give no man thy perfect confidence until thou hast
proved him worthy.
Make trial of a man rather from his deeds than his
discourses; for many live badly and speak well.
Those whose manners are well ordered will be orderly
in their lives.
A worthy and an unworthy man are to be judged
not from their actions only, but also from their will.
Friendship which is well and soundly tested is like
a mighty fortress;
But an untested friend is like counterfeit money.
Old Friends are best.
In thy dealings with men remember that many who
appear to be friends are not;
And others who do not appear to be Friends are so;
therefore take care to slight no one.
In thy dealings with men so behave thyself that thou
mayst never become enemy to thy Friends,
But rather may soon become Friends to thine enemies.
Friendship should not be affected by misfortune or
other human vicissitude;
And the only rejection of friendship which is commendable is that which follows definite and incurable vice.
Appraise not a man because of his possessions but
for his Virtue.
To find a friend in prosperity is very easy; but in
adversity it is the most difficult of things.
It is necessary to guard against a depraved man, lest
he should take advantage of opportunity.
Men who delight to blame others are not naturally
adapted to Friendship.
Friendship is a sacred Trust: be true to the trust.
Honor thy Friend's wife, and love his children, and
guard his honor, as thou wouldst thine own.




158


The PYTHAGORON


Implicit faith never can be separated from Friendship.
Friendship leaves when selfishness enters.
It is not easy for Friendship to remain in a sane condition when falsehood insinuates itself into the manners
of those who assert themselves to be Friends.
In the Friendship which is intended to be pure, the
greater part of the things pertaining to it ought to be definite and legitimate;
And these should be properly distinguished, and
should not be casual.
Friendship is a refuge in time of trouble.
To the Friend who asks thy counsel, give him none
but the best, for counsel is a sacrament.
But no Friend participates in any matter until his
advice has been first asked,
And then only advisedly, when he has put the matter
to the test.
Unlike the flatterer and curiosity-seeker, a Friend
never intermeddles.
Rebuke not a Friend in public, but give him thy
counsel in private.
Listen patiently to the admonitions of thy Friend, for
he meaneth thee well.
Yield to his mild words and helpful deeds.
Strife should be removed from true friendship. This
applies to all friendship
But at all events towards parents, elders, and benefactors.
Have no rivalry with a friend, much less parents,
elders and benefactors.
Existing friendships with such as these cannot be
preserved, but are destroyed,
By rivalry, contention, anger, and subsequent graver
passions.
Existing friendship cannot survive the insinuation of
conceit between professors of friendship.




The PYTHAGORON


159


The scars and ulcers which their advice sometimes
cause should be minimized as much as possible,
Which will be effected if the younger, especially, of
the twain learns how to yield and subdue his angry emotions.
On the other hand, the so-called paedartases, or
corrections and admonitions,
Of the elder towards the younger should be made
with much suavity of manners and great caution;
Also with much solicitude and tact, which makes the
reproof all the more graceful and useful.
Be slow to anger with thy Friend: Friendship without
patience is not long enduring.
Do not hate thy Friend because of a slight fault; be
patient as long as thou canst.
W\hen thou art tempted to become angered with thy
Friend, recall to mind the kindnesses received.
If thy Friend's temper rise, restrain thine own, and
take refuge in Silence.
It taketh two to make a quarrel.
The enmity of relations is far more bitter than that
of strangers.
There are times when men of mild and quiet mien
may have cause to dissent from others.
But when such time comes they must take care that
the main difference be kept confined to the thing in dispute itself,
And that the passions be not too much concerned.
They must rather have a regard to Justice and to the
Truth of things;
And if they cannot of themselves compose their own
differences, they should commit the matter to arbitrament;
And as soon as they have done so, immediately discharge their thoughts of it;




160


The PYTHAGORON


For fear too much ruminating and nursing of the
recollection may leave a deep impression on the mind,
And render it hard to be forgotten, and former wrongs
be revived and magnified.
When among Friends, upon the ending of a difference, all discord ceases betwixt them,
It is proof that the cause lay in the matter of the difference only:
But if the discord survive the decision of the controversy, it is plain that the precluded matter served only
for a false scar,
Drawn over on purpose to hide the cause of an incurable wound.
Moral wounds conceal themselves but never heal and
easily open when touched.
If at any time Friends in a passion use sharp or
unseemly words toward each other,
Let not the sun set before they reconcile themselves
and give ore another their hands,
And, with the clasp, a discharge from all injuries and
Seal to Friendship.
The Sacred Debas is a symbolical manifestation of
the Triangular Friendship and of the Sacred Quaternary.




The PYTHAGORON


161


Xv.
The Sage discourseth upon Marriage, Horne,
and Family, and explaineth the Nature and
Basis of Marriage, Eugenics, Sins of the
Fathers, Proper Choice of Spouse, Qualities
of Good WVomen, Duties of Spouses, Purpose of Marriage, Sexual Life, Venery, Procreation, Parents as Priests, Rearing of
Progeny, Precept of Example, Hospitality,
and Economy and Routine of Households.
The hearth and home are sacred and holy to God.
Tlnhe home is the fountain of the race, and a never
closed temple of God,
The shrine which the astral light from the Soul of the
World enters to incept the Soul of Man.
But unless the foundation of a house be well laid,
the descendants must of necessity be unfortunate.
Marriage is the cornerstone of the home. Marriage
is ordained by Divine Law and is pure and holy.
Happy and successful marriage is based upon Mutual
Attraction, and Mutual and Equal Moral Worth; and
upon no other consideration.
Marriage is Duality in Unity.
It is best that a man should marry; but that he should
marry with discretion;
Not in haste, but with deliberation, and in his own
walk of life.




162


The PYTHAGORON


But first he should determine whether it be just that
he marry at all.
For although God condemneth no man, but it is man
who condemneth himself,
It is the Law of Compensation that parents and progenitors either benefit or injure their progeny, prior to birth,
And transmit to them strengths and virtues, or weaknesses and depravities,
As the indigeneous inheritances of the body.
For it is in procreation that the virtues and sins of the
fathers are visited upon the children.
Hence before a man marry, he ought, in justice to
progeny yet unborn, ponder well,
That he may not be the cause of visitation upon the
innocent and helpless of never ending woes.
Great providential attention should be paid to their
progeny by those who think to beget children.
The first therefore and the greatest care which should
be taken by him who applies himself to the procreation of
children is:
That he live temperately and healthfully, that he
neither fills himself with food unseasonably,
Nor use such aliments as may render the habits of
the body worse than they were,
And above all things, that he avoid intoxication.
For depraved seed is produced from a bad, discordant,
and turbid temperament.
None but an indolent and inconsiderate person would
attempt to produce an animal, and lead it into existence,
Without providing with all possible diligence that
its ingress into being and life might be most elegant and
pleasing.
For those that are lovers of dogs, pay every possible
attention to the generation of whelps,
In order that they may be produced from such things
as are proper, and in such a way as is proper, and when
it is proper;




The PYTHAGORON


163


And thus they may become good offspring.
The same attention also is paid by those who are
lovers of birds.
And it is evident that others also who are studious
about the procreation of generous animals,
Endeavor by all possible means, that the generation
of them may not be in vain.
It would be absurd therefore that men should pay no
attention to their own offspring,
But should both beget them casually and with perfect
carelessness.
And, after they are begotten, nourish and educate
them with extreme negligence.
For this is the most powerful and most manifest cause
of the vice and depravity of the greater part of mankind.
For with the multitude the procreation of children is
undertaken in a beastly and rash manner.
If a man deliberate long and well before he choose
a Friend:
How much more care should he bestow upon the
choice of a wife?
Friends become One in Soul, but spouses become
One in body and Soul.
First of all, a man should marry in his own walk of
life.
Men err who enter into the connubial state without
regarding the magnitude of the Power of Fortune, or Public Utility,
But direct their attention to wealth, power, dignity
of birth, or voluptuous lust;
(The powers and appetites ministering to copulation
were implanted in men by Divinity,
Not for the sake of voluptuousness, but for the perpetuation of the race).
For in consequence of this, instead of uniting with
women who are young and in the flower of their age,




164


The PYTHAGORON


They become connected with extremely old women;
And instead of having wives with a disposition according with, and similar to, their own,
They marry those who are of an illustrious family, or
are extremely rich, or are morally degenerate.
On this account they procure for themselves discord
instead of concord,
Whereas the harmony of marriage lies in philosophy
and concord.
The wife who surpasses her husband in wealth, in
birth, or in friends, contests for the mastery.
A man should not hope to beget children from a
woman who is rich,
For her mind is filled with desires for worldly pleasures, in the pursuit of which children are a hindrance.
A marriage made upon any consideration other than
Mutual Attraction and Mutual Moral Worth is doomed
to disaster.
Love of husband and wife is requisite for parentage
on its highest plane.
Wind increases fire, but custom love.
The foundation of marriage must be made firm, for
the separation of parents from their children is the greatest of evils.
Hence husbands should so associate with their wives
as the companion of life
As to be mindful that other compacts are engraved
on tablets and pillars, but those with wives are inserted
in children.
A good man should never marry a prostitute, but a
woman of Virtue and rectitude.
It is Man's opinions, combined with ignorance, which
demand the inanities and superfluities which make many
good women appear to be what they are not,




The PYTHAGORON


165


And produces the luxury which ultimately results in
poverty and grief.
A good woman should be a harmony of prudence and
temperance.
She should be zealous to acquire Virtue, that she may
be just, brave, prudent, industrious, frugal, and a despiser
of vain-glory.
Equipped with these virtues, she will, when she becomes a wife
Act worthily towards herself, her husband, her children, and her family.
She should possess a correct attitude towards Life
and Living.
Her body should be trained to moderation in food,
clothes, massage, and bejeweled adornment.
She should be a despiser of luxury, show, and superfluities,
Well Inowing that luxury unbalances the economy of
a household as well as that of a state.
For luxury does not give value for value.
Sumptuous eating, drinking, garments, and jewels
are superfluous and harmful.
It is sufficient to satisfy hunger and thirst, and this
from easily accessible things.
It is a vice to feed on things brought from distant
countries and bought at great price.
The body itself demands no more than to be saved
from cold and nakedness, for the sake of propriety.
Garments of the simplest description are all it requires.
Elegant and gaudy garments merely gratify vanity,
and set a bad example.
No woman should be decorated with gold, nor with
gems from India, nor with ornaments from any country.
No liberal and ingenuous woman should wear gold,
but only courtesans.
Free women should be unadorned.
A woman's ornaments should be modesty, simplicity,
Truth, obedience.




166                             The PYTHAGORON
Women should be modest and dignified in their attire; and abstain from make-up and elaborate coiffures.
Nor should she be perfumed with Arabian perfumes,
nor paint her face so that it may be more white or red.
She should illuminate her face, not by powder or
rouge, but by the natural glow from the towel;
Adorning herself with modesty, rather than by art.
Nor should she give a dark tinge to her eyebrows and
her eyes,
Nor artificially dye her gray hair; nor bathe continually.
A woman of this sort is hunting a spectator of female
intemperance.
The beauty produced by prudence, and not by these
particulars, pleases women that are well born.
Neither should she consider it necessary to be noble,
rich, live in a great city, have glory, and the friendship of
renowned or royal men.
The presence of such should not cause her any annoyance,
But should they be absent, she should not regret them;
Their absence will not hinder the prudent woman
from living properly.
Her soul should not anxiously dream about them, but
ignore them.
They are really more harmful than beneficial, as they
mislead to misfortune.
They inevitably invite treachery, envy, and calumny,
so that their possessor cannot be free from perturbation.
She should venerate God, thereby hoping to achieve
felicity;
Also by obeying the laws and the sacred institutions
of her country.
Honor be to woman on earth as in heaven: She enables us to understand that Mighty Woman,-Nature.




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167


She is the sanctified image of Nature, and helps us
to mount gradually to the Soul of the World,
Which gives birth, preserves, and renews; and bears
along the people of souls in her Mantle of Light.
As said of old, The consorts of men bear divine appellations: being first called Virgins, then Brides, then
Mothers.
A certain divine man perceiving that the genius of
woman is most adapted to piety,
Gave to each of their ages the appellation of some
divinity.
Hence he called an unmarried woman Kore, which
is Prosperine; but a bride, Nympha; the woman who has
brought forth children, Mater;
And a grandmother, in the Doric dialect, Maia.
The oracles in Dodona and at Delphi are unfolded
into light through a woman.
Soul has no sex. Man and Woman are equal in
dignity before God;
Wherefore there are both priests and priestesses in
the temples of the gods.
As the sun was made to rule the day, and the moon
to rule the night,
Each sex is superior in its own domain, and equal in
worth and nobility.
Use no woman ill, for she is a suppliant;
Wherefore, indeed, we bring her from the Vestal
hearth, with libations,
And take her by the right hand, and bring her home,
in the presence of God Himself.
Remember that but for accident of birth thou mightest
have been a woman.
A husband should bear in mind that to his wife the
bridal chamber will be a school either of Virtue or of vice.
No man can have in the same woman both wife and
mistress.




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A wife, being so much more noble than a mistress,
should be honored as a wife, and not debased into a mistress.
As there is but one Truth, there is but one Law of
Virtue for both men and women.
Therefore no man should ever go in to a woman who
is not his wife.
Husbands should be careful not to have connexion
with any but their wives;
In order that the wives may not in retaliation bastardize the race through the neglect and vicious conduct
of the husbands.
Marriage was not instituted for the sake of voluptuousness, but for the perpetuation of the race.
Cohabitation should not be effected solely for pleasure; but the pleasures incident thereto are legitimate.
However, not frequently man to man; that is, not too
frequently indulge in venereal connexions.
In this, as in all else, do not exceed due Measure;
For in excess that which is most delightful becomes
least delightful.
Keep to the winter for sexual pleasures; in summer
abstain; they are less harmful in autumn and spring.
But they are always harmful and not conducive to
Health at any season, when carried to excess.
Forget not that seed is the sediment of that which
nourisheth us, the froth of the purest blood,
Of the same nature as the blood and marrow of our
bodies, and the efflux of the brain.
Hence seed is life itself.
It is unholy to have sexual connexions in a temple;
or to give birth in such a place.
Conjugal caresses and endearments ought always be
in private.
Lawful venereal connexion is holy: spouses do not
thereby become impure.




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169


It is holy for a woman, after having been connected
with her husband, to perform sacred rites on the same day;
But this is never holy, after she has been connected
with any other man.
It is beautiful and advantageous that there should be
numerous impediments to this energy.
Preternatural generations, and those which are effected in conjunction with wanton insolence, should be
entirely prevented from taking place;
But those should be suffered to remain, which are
according to nature, and subsist with temperance, and
which take place in the chaste and legal procreation of
children.
Beget not children in drink;
For those children that their parents beget in drink
are wont to be fond of wine, and apt to turn out drunkards.
Nothing is more venerable than the quality of fatherhood: Motherhood is divine.
It is necessary to guard against untimely offspring.
For neither untimely plants, nor animals, are good;
But prior to their bearing fruit, it is necessary that a
certain time should intervene,
In order that seeds and fruit may be produced from
strong and perfect bodies.
It is requisite therefore that boys and virgins should
be accustomed to labors and exercise, and appropriate
endurance;
And that food should be given to them adapted to a
life of labor, temperance and endurance.
There are many things in human life which it is better
to learn at a late period; and among these is the use of
venery.
It is necessary therefore that a boy should be so educated as not to seek after such a connexion as this within
the twentieth year of his age.




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But when he arrives at this age, he should use venery
rarely.
This, however, will be the case, if he thinks that a
good habit of body is an honorable and beautiful thing.
For intemperance and a good habit of body are not
very much adapted to subsist together in the same person.
The harmony of marriage lies in philosophy and concord.
In a well-regulated household everything is done by
mutual consent;
But the husband's supremacy is exhibited, and his
wishes are consulted.
A wise wife conforms herself to her husband's position, and eschews luxury and extravagance, and keeps
herself within bounds.
Strife is always defeat.
Violent women are even more displeasing to the gods
than violent men. Both are destroying themselves.
A woman should not be given to loquacity, for it is
a dangerous thing.
Nor should she be given to gadding about or to gossip;
for these are productive of untold mischief.
Women should in the highest degree esteem equity
and modesty,
In order that the gods may be readily disposed to hear
their prayers.
They should offer to the gods only such things as they
have produced with their own hands,
Such as cakes, honey-combs, and frankincense; and
bring them to the altars without the assistance of servants.
They should not worship divinity with blood, and
dead bodies;
Nor offer many things at one time, as if they never
meant to sacrifice again.




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171


Woman's particular Virtues are Fortitude, Justice
and Prudence;
And above all-Temperance.
In a becoming manner she should bear any stroke of
Fortune that may strike her husband;
Whether he is unfortunate in business, or makes
ignorant mistakes, or is sick, or troubled.
Unless she is entirely devoid of harmony, she will
consider pleasant or unpleasant such things which are
thought so by her husband.
Admonitions and plain-speaking between the spouses
ought always to be in private.
A wife should not divert or diminish her husband's
love for his mother.
A dutiful son is apt to make a dutiful husband.
As soon as thou hast builded thy house, raise thy
family altar, and thenceforward diligently attend it.
For thou art priest and thy wife priestess of the Most
High; and thou art high-priest unto thy wife and children.
Let thy household gather round the altar in the spring
of the morning, and again at the waning of the day;
And thou, (or thy wife, if thou be absent), shall
teach them to love and worship God, and give thanks for
His All-Providence;
And reverence the heroes and benefactors.
And thou shalt teach them always to pray and never
to blaspheme,
And to honor the father and mother, and ever nourish
them, and never use them ill.
And thou shalt enjoin them to commit to mind the
Seven Precepts of Orpheus,
And to remember the Friends who have passed
beyond the Veil.
And in so doing thou wilt lay the foundations of Virtue
in thy children, and strengthen the foundations of thine
own.




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Teach thy children to speak the Truth as a most
sacred duty.
Parents should endeavor to be beloved by their offspring; not through nature, of which they are not the
causes,
But through deliberate choice; for this is voluntary
beneficence.
What can men be thinking of, who move heaven and
earth to make money,
While they bestow no attention on the sons they are
going to leave that money to?
Youth should be accustomed to obedience, for it will
thus find it easy to obey the authority of Reason.
Children should never contradict those who are older
than themselves;
For thus hereafter, they wIll justly think it right that
neither should they be injured by their juniors.
A son ought to honor his father and mother as the
representatives of Divinity.
Parents are given to us, not by chance, as some suppose,
But in accordance with a previous, a superior order,
called Fortune or Necessity.
To honor our parents is an obligation: but a Friend
must be chosen.
As soon as children have entered the path which they
intend to proceed to old age,
They should follow the steps of the wise men who
have preceded them.
Keep thy boys from association with bad men, for
they will catch some of their villainy.
Generally, youths who wish to be saved should attend to the opinions of their elders, or of those who have
lived well.




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173


[)uring the course of human life there are certain ages,
called endedasmenae,
Which cannot be connected by the power of any
chance person.
Unless a man from his birth is trained in a beautiful
and upright manner, these ages antagonize each other.
A well educated child, formed to temperance and
fortitude, should devote a great part of his education to
the state of adolescence.
Similarly, when the adolescent is trained to temperance and fortitude, he should focus his education on the
next age of manhoodo
Nothing can be more absurd than the way in which
the general public treats this subject.
They fancy that boys should be orderly and temperate, abstaining from everything troublesome or indecorous;
But as soon as they have arrived at the age of adolescence, they may do anything they please.
In this age, therefore, there is a combination of both
kinds of errors, peurile and virile.
To speak plainly, they avoid anything that demands
diligence and good order,
While following anything that has the appearance
of sport, intemperance and petulance,
Being familiar only with boyish affairs.
Their desires should be developed from the boyish
stage into the next one.
In the meanwhile ambition and the rest of the more
serious and turbulent inclinations and desires of the virile
age,
Prematurely invade adolescence;
Wherefore this adolescence demands the greatest
care.
In general, no man ought to be allowed to do whatever he pleases;
But there is always need of a certain inspection, or
legal and cultured government,




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To which each of the citizens is responsible.
For animals, when left to themselves, and neglected,
rapidly degenerate into vice and depravity.
Why are boys generally trained to take food in an
orderly and moderate manner,
Being compelled to learn that order and decency are
beautiful, and their contraries, disorder and intemperance,
base;
While drunkards and gormandizers are not held in
great disgrace?
For if none of these temperate habits are to be continued into the virile age,
To accustom us, as boys, to such temperate habits,
is useless.
IThe same argument holds good in respect to other
good habits to which children are trained.
Such a reversal of training is not seen in the case of
the education of other lower animals.
From the very first a whelp and a colt are trained
to do,
And learn those tricks which they are to exercise
when arrived at maturity.
Remember parents that you yourselves were once
young.
It is good to seem not to notice some faults, but extend to them the weak eyes and deafness of old age,
So as seeing not to see, and hearing not to hear, the
doings of our children.
It is far better for a father to be hot-tempered than
sullen;
For to continue hostile and irreconcilable looks like
hating one's son.
Be hospitable to strangers, as Orpheus hath enjoined;
But open not thy doors to gossipers, curiosity-seekers,
or back-biters;




The PYTHAGORON                                  175
Nor entertain idle or worthless men, or those of illrepute.
Let the manners of thy household be decent, but
simple. Let Peace and Harmony ever dwell within.
Bring always salt to table to remind thee of what is
right; for salt preserves whatever it find,
And it arises from the purest sources, -. the sun and
the sea.
Do not break bread: for Friends meet over one loaf.
Divide not that which brings them together.




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XVI.
The Sage discourseth upon Harmony, and
enjoineth the use of Music, Singing, Dancing, Poetry, Color, Imagery and Contemplation, for purification of Mind, and preservation of Health, and for Healing; and warneth
against dangers of unscientific use of Harmonic Forms.
When it is considered that the health of the Kosmos
depends upon divine Harmony, [harmonial,*
It is apparent that the health and well-being of men
likewise depend upon Harmony.
For we learn that the world's nature is a harmonious
compound of the infinite and the finite.
Similar, indeed, is the totality of the universe in itself,
and of all it contains.
All beings are necessarily infinite or finite, or simnultaneously finite and infinite;
But they could not all be infinite only.
Now, since it is clear that the beings cannot be formed
neither of elements that are all infinite,
It is evident that the world in its totality and its included beings are a harmonious compound of finite and
infinite beings.
All things, at least those we know, contain Number;
For it is evident that nothing whatever either can be
thought or known without Number.
Hanrmona-fitting together; attuning a complete pattern.
Symphoraia_-harmony. as modernly understood.




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177


Each of the subspecies of Number is susceptible of
many very numerous varieties; which each manifests individually.
The Harmony is generally the result of contraries;
for it is the unity of multiplicity, and the agreement of
discordances.
This is the state of affairs about Nature and Harmony:
The essence of things is eternal;
It is an unique and divine nature, the knowledge of
which does not belong to man.
Still it would not be possible that any of the things
that are, and are known by us, should arrive to our knowledge,
If this essence was not the eternal foundation of the
principles of which the world was founded;
That is, of the finite and infinite elements.
Now, since these principles are not mutually similar,
neither of similar nature,
It would be impossible that the order of the universe
should have been formed by them,
Unless the Harmony had intervened, in any manner
whatever.
Of course, the things that were similar, and of similar
nature, did not need the Harmony;
But the dissimilar things, which have neither a similar
nature, nor an equivalent foundation,
Must be organized by Harmony, if they are to take
their place in the connected totality of the world.
The melodious Music of the Universe is the result of
dissimilar and varying sounds, speeds, magnitudes and
intervals,
Arranged with reference to each other in a certain
musical ratio, producing a convoluted motion most musical,
if gentle.
Thus it is divine Harmony that holds all things together in a Kosmos of beauty and order, and welds everything into one vast Unity.




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The PYTHAGORON


The fusing Harmony is infused into everything, spiritual and material, and Opposites, alike.
There is Music in everything.
Harmony has its fullest expression in Music, which
includes every art over which the Muses preside, or which
the Graces adorn.
Harmony all-includes the aesthetic and beautiful in
life; order, rhythm, melody, symphony, imagery, inspiration,
beauty, and elevated thought.
These find their most common expression in the Forms
we know as Music, Singing, Dancing, Poetry, Chromatics,
Imagery and Contemplation.
It is through the principle of Harmony that men have
Health and Well-Being;
And it is by recourse to these Forms of Harmony that
men retain and restore Health and Well-Being.
The antitheses of Harmony are Disorder, Destruction,
Disease and Death.
Harmony expands the wings which raise men aloft.
Therefore, be assiduous in thy courtship of the Muses
and the Graces.
The first attention of the senses should be addressed
to the Harmonic;
The contemplation of the matchless beauties of
Nature,
The perception of beautiful figures and forms, and
the participation in beautiful rhythms and melodies.
The first erudition is that which subsists through
Music's melodies and rhythms.
From these may be obtained remedies of human manners and passions,
And the restoration of the pristine harmony of the
faculties of the Soul.
Forasmuch as Music, Singing, Dancing, Poetry, Oratory, Color, and Imagery are each a Form of Harmony,




The PYTHAGORON


179


And each in some degree affects the Senses, Feelings,
Emotions, Passions and Thoughts, and induces State of
Mind,
It is necessary that none of these be used in any careless way, but with scientific knowledge of their natures,
powers and effects.
When properly used, Music greatly contributes to
Health.
Harmony is a tonic for the Soul, and is a specific for
retention and restoration of Form.
Hence all men for the preservation of Health and correction of disorders should use each day as many Forms
of Harmony as possible;
But should use them scientifically and advisedly.
According to their manner, season and degree of use,
the Forms of Harmony may effect mighty changes in man,
for good or III.
They possess the power to raise him to heights of
ecstasy, or to plunge him into the depths of despondency
and despair.
They may bring about sanity or insanity, sobriety or
intoxication, contentment or ambition, love or hate, peaceful-calm or martial-ardor.
On the one hand they may attune the mind to the
beauty of holiness, and inspire fervor of devotion, peace of
mind and generosity to all creatures;
While on the other, they may be productive of insolence, prodigality, fear, worry, anxiety, moroseness, despondency, despair, atheism and suicide;
And are also contributory in bringing into existence
other diseases and disorders of the mind and body.
Some musical instruments have an influence towards
insolence, being theatrical, and by no means liberal;
And some tunes have the effect of arousing fury and
exciting the passions and desires.




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The PYTHAGORON


What has been produced in the mind and what exists
in the mind alone also may be removed or remedied by
the mind,
Aided by Harmony, tutored by Reason, and guided
by the Spirit of Truth.
We distinguish three states of mind, exartysis, or
readiness, synarmoge, or fitness, and epaphe, or contact;
All of which convert the mind to contrary passions;
and these can be produced by certain appropriate rhythms.
For Music is good medicine; and on many occasions,
Music is better than medicine.
It is through scientifically contrived minglings of
certain diatonic, chromatic and enharmonic melodies,
That body and mind may be kept in Health or may be
restored to Health,
There are certain odes and hymns which will soothe
the mind, and will produce tranquil sleep, and few, but
good, dreams;
And there are musical sounds alone, without words,
which we call the epode, which may have like effect.
Again, there is selected poetry and lofty verse, either
sung to soft instruments, or recited by voice alone, which
are most beneficial.
Dancing, when rhythmic and properly used and accompanied by scientifically selected Music, performed on
soft instruments,
Has great corrective and curative powers, and makes
the body healthy, vigorous and graceful.
Color in the spectrum, the natural or the artificial,
contains great healing potencies, when either used alone
or in combination with other Forms of Harmony.
Music and good conscience are companions.
Music is closest to the Soul, since it is a Harmony
produced by different elements;
By melodies and by rhythms; intensifying what is
relaxed and relaxing the intense.




The PYTHAGORON


181


Music is supreme tonic for the Soul. It is a sovereign
remedy for disorders of mind and body.
When thou retirest to sleep, use Music to liberate
thy mind from the day's perturbations and tumults,
And to purify thy intellective powers from the influxive and exfluxive waves of corporeal nature,
Thereby bringing calm unto thyself, and quieting thy
sleep, and rendering thy dreams pleasant and prophetic.
When thou ariseth in the morning and before thou
goeth forth to thy duties,
Again use Music to free thee from the night's loginess,
coma and torpor, and catharise thy mind and attune thy
Soul.
Although the mortal ear may be deaf to the Music
of the Spheres, it may be heard through the mind.
Fix thy intellect on the sublime symphonies of the
universe.
Strive to grasp the universal Harmony and consonance
of the spheres, and of the stars that are moved through
them,
Which produce a melody fuller and more intense than
anything effected by mortal sounds.
These divine sounds may be heard of all the inhabitants of the earth by the wise,
As if coming from the central spring and root of
Nature.
God is the Supreme Music, the nature of which is
Harmony.
Music, like Truth, is an universal language, understood by all men equally.
Philosophy is the highest Music.




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The PYTHAGORON


XVII.
The Sage discourseth upon the Virtue of
Rulers. 
Senators:
You express yourselves as pleased with the concord
which at this instant prevails in Krotona, and throughout
Italy and Sicily.
When men have known both war and peace, and
strife and concord, they best appreciate the advantages of
peace and good-will.
Being so blessed, it should be the foremost concern
of all that the existing concord be preserved.
The blessings and glories of peace ever must be kept
in mind and memory.
The memory of man is a truant. It needs must be
constantly reminded.
What more appropriate reminder of our present felicity
could be reared than a temple to the Muses themselves?
For the Muses are the daughters of Memory [Mnemosyne] and Zeus, and the inspirers of all that is beautiful
in life.
Then, too, they are the children of the earth and the
starry heavens;
*The foregoing reconstruction is taken from the author's biography, PYTHAGORAS. which also contains reconstructions of the following addresses of the Sage:
To the Boys; To the Youths; To the Women; and In Defense of the Exiles.
The address here contained was made by the Sage to the Senate of Krotona
ca. 531 B.C.




The PYTHAGORON


183


The iris-like arch which spans the vault between the
gods and men.
Consider that all nine of these divinities are called
by but one common name - The Muses - that they subsist in conjunction with each other, and rejoice in common
honors.
In short, there is always one and the same choir of
the Muses. In this there is the harbinger of unity.
The Muses, too, comprehend in themselves, symphony,
harmony, rhythm and all things which produce concord.
Therein is an omen of peace and good-will.
Finally, the Muses also evince that their power extends not alone to the most beautiful theorems, but also
to the symphony and harmony of things.
Hence, under such inspiration each man may pursue
the fine and useful arts of peace and aspire to peace of
mind.
But what advantageth it, if the gods send their divine
gifts, and men neglect to receive them?
The example should be set by rulers of men.
First of all, it is necessary that the rulers should apprehend that they have received their country as a depositum from the multitude of the citizens, and act towards it
as a public trust.
They should so govern it that they may transmit it not
only to posterity enriched in worth,
But also in such a manner that they can render an
account to their own children of a trust faithfully executed.
Nor should rulers be ever unmindful that while they
preside over people, God presides over them also.
The first requisite to good government is Justice.
Good government can be firmly effected if the rulers
are equal in all things to the citizens, and surpass them
in nothing else than justice.
Throughout the ages men have esteemed Justice above
all else.




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The PYTHAGORON


Men, knowing that every place requires justice, have
asserted in fables that Themis has the same order with
Zeus; that Dike, who is Justice, is seated by Hades:
And have established Law in all cities in order that
he who does not act justly in things which his ran!< in
society requires him to perform, may at the same time
appear to be unjust towards the whole world.
It is hardly likely that rulers can administer justice,
unless they themselves be men of justice, integrity and
truth. It is said, it is equally dangerous to give a sword to
a madman, and power to a depraved man.
It is hard indeed to be governed by those who are
worse than ourselves. But it is better to be governed by,
than to govern, the stupid.
A ruler should be such a lover of Truth that his utterances may be believed without attestation of an oath.
Therefore, it would be proper if the senators did not
make use of any of the gods for the purpose of an oath,
but possess such integrity as to render them worthy of belief without oaths.
Justice with rulers should begin with themselves, their
families and their homes. It is mockery that one who
cannot rule himself, and subdue his own passions, should
rule others. Who that is not himself just can in good faith
mete justice to others?
Therefore, every ruler should so manage his own
domestic affairs, as to make the government of them the
object of his deliberate choice.
He should be genuinely disposed towards his own
offspring, for such feeling is peculiar only to men.
He should be chaste and virtuous in his private and
family life.
He should so associate with a wife, the companion
of life, as to be mindful that while other compacts are engraved on tablets or pillars, those with wives are embodied
in children.




The PYTHAGORON


185


He should likewise endeavor to be beloved by his
offspring; not through nature, of which he is not the cause,
but through deliberate choice, for this is voluntary beneficence.
Exemplification of justice in private life demands that
rulers should not consort with courtesans or prostitutes,
and should have connexion with none other than their own
wives.
This is not only because rulers should set for the citizens the example of exemplary lives, and be able in conscience to suppress vice in others; but also not to provoke
reprisals on the part of their wives, thereby bastardizing and
degenerating the race.
Their wives they should honor and hold in high estimation. They should consider that they received their wives
from the Vestal hearth with libations, and brought them
home as if they were suppliants, in the presence of the gods
themselves.
It should never be overlooked that loose or depraved
manner of life undermines the home, and separates families. Children under the laws of nature require the supervision of both parents. The divulsion of parents and
children from each other is, therefore, the greatest of injuries.
Hence, by orderly conduct and temperance, rulers
should become examples both to their own families, and
to the city in which they live.
The next requisite to good government is economy,
both in the home and in the government. A just arrangement of domestic concerns is the principle of all good order
in cities; for cities are constituted from houses.
The State is but a magnified household, and the economy of domestic establishments is the same principle of all
good order and economy in the State, both as to virtue,
justice and economy.




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The PYTHAGORON


That which is called Luxury is the first evil that
usually glides into houses and cities; the second is insolence; and the third destruction,
Luxury is as ruinous to States as it is to individual
character. Hence luxury should by all possible means be
expelled from every house and city.
Men should be accustomed from their birth to a
temperate and manly life.
Insolence, luxury, and a contempt of the laws, frequently impel men to injustice. On this account both
rulers and citizens should give assistance to law and be
hostile to illegality. Everything incommensurate should
be cut off as if with fire and sword.
Consider, therefore, the five things which destroy men
and states. They are avarice, ambition, envy, anger and
pride.
The life of the avaricious resembles a funeral banquet; for although it has all desirable elements no one
rejoices.
Avarice, greed and luxury are the ruin of men and
states, and destroy virtue and character.
Nay, in them we find the seeds of war and the enemy
of peace.
Here, too, the private life of the ruler should be consistent with his public trust.
He should so manage his domestic economy that he
should not provoke the envy or covetousness of anyone;
and therein set a salutary example for his fellow-citizens.
The best city is that which contains the worthiest
men. The best governed state is one in which none are too
rich and none are too poor. The soul of popular states is
equality.
The final requisite to good government is enforcement
of law.
Citizenship in a well-governed state is the best education.




The PYTHAGORON


187


Laws should be few but ample.
Legislative justice is a thing of beauty; but as soon
as laws are necessary for men - that is, when it is necessary to legislate men into honesty and morality - men are
no longer fit for freedom.
Virtue itself is the highest natural law. Virtue itself
should be the only necessary law.
It is requisite here, as in the other things, that the
rulers themselves set examples of obedience to the laws.
It is indeed a mockery of justice when rulers punish
others for infractions which they themselves commit.
The laws should be enforced with impartiality and
vigor.
Rulers should take care to prevent everyone from acting viciously, lest offenders, not fearing punishment of
the laws, should be concealed.
Those who do not punish the wicked are willing that
the good should be injured.
But rulers, reverencing beautiful and worthy manners
should be impelled to justice.
In every public, as well as private, act, sluggishness
should be expelled from all actions. Opportunity is the
only good in every action.
Rulers of men should aspire to excellence. The power
of rulers extends not only to the excellent, but also to the
concord and harmony of beings.
Concord, harmony, rhythm and all things which
procure unanimity are comprehended.
He is thought the greatest person who can of himself
foresee what is advantageous.
The next to him is he who, by those things which
happen to other men, observes what is good for himself.
The worst is he who stays to learn what is best by
the experience of suffering ill.




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The PYTHAGORON


Those who are desirous of glory will not do amiss, if
they imitate those who are crowned for running; for these
do no harm to their adversaries, but only desire that they
themselves may obtain the victory.
Those who aim at true glory must be indeed as they
desire to appear to others.
It beseemeth magistrates not to be rigid to those who
contradict them, but to benefit those who obey them.
Listen to counsel with patience. It is not so sacred
a thing to be advised by another, as to be praised for what
is done. For one is only requisite to men, the other much
more used by the gods.
If thy country hath acted unjustly toward thee, act
towards it as thou wouldst to thy mother.
This great city happened to be founded by Herakles,
at that time when he drove the oxen through Italy, having
been injured by Lalinius;
And when giving assistance by night to Kroton, he
slew him through ignorance, conceiving him to be an
enemy.
After which Herakles promised that a city should be
built about the sepulchre of Kroton, and should be called
from him Krotona, when he himself had become a partaker
of immortality.
Hence, it is fit that we all return thanks for the benefit
which we have received at the hands of the gods.




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XVIII.
The Sage concludeth his Sacred Discourse
with the Exhortation to Know God and Imitate His Perfection.
The discourse of a Philosopher is vain if no passion
of man is healed thereby.
I have spoken to those who would be wise and be
virtuous for Virtue's sake;
Leaving the unlearned and the indifferent to be deterred from evil and excess
By fear of the eternal judgment of Hades; which for
them is sufficient.
For they prefer to believe that the Soul is mortal and
compensation is postponed.
Tartarus and the Elysian Fields exist only in fable
and in imagination;
But are realities in the minds of the ignorant.
But to the wise I have said what I have said:
As there is but One God, there is One universal Soul
diffused through all things -
Eternal, invisible, unchangeable; in essence like Truth,
in substance like Light;
Not to be represented by any image; to be comprehended only by the Nous.
Not, as some conjecture, exterior to the Kosmos, but
in itself entire,
Pervading the sphere which is the Kosmos; for all
Nature is animate.
The Soul is extended through the nature of all things
and is mingled with them.




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The Soul extends into Men, and there is a relationship
between Men and God,
Because Men partake of the Divine Principle and are
Sons of God;
God being eternally in us, with us, about us, and
above us.
By our extension from the Deity we gain the wings
which raise us towards Celestial Being,
Though we are precipitated into the region of death
where all so-called evils dwell.
But by putting away earthly passions and devoting
ourselves to Virtue,
Our wings will be renewed, and we shall rise to that
immortal existence
Where we shall find the true good without any admixture of evil.
To the wise, I say that Man is perfected, first, by conversing with God,
Which he can do only in the language of Truth and
by abstinence from evil,
And by striving to resemble the full perfection of the
Divine Nature.
Secondly, by doing good to others, which is an imitation of God;
And, thirdly, by leaving the mortal body.
Likeness to Deity should be the aim of all our endeavors.
The nobler, the better, the man, the more godlike he
becomes; for God is the guardian and guide of men.
The greatest honor which can be paid to God is to
know and imitate His perfection.
Whatever we see when awake is death, and when
asleep is a dream.
Be sleepless in the things of the Spirit, for sleep in
them is akin to death.


IPSE DIXIT




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191


XIX.
THE PYTHAGOREAN NUNC DIMITIS
Depart in Peacel
As thou depart hence this night, bear with thee these
truths:
That thou art a Son of God and always should act
as such.
In all thy dealings with men, remember who thou art.
and who they art, Sons of thy common Father.
Think and speak piously of God, and seek diligently
to Know Him.
Honor thy parents and benefactors and those that
have done thee good.
Forget not that in this life nothing that thou hath is
ever thine.
Therefore disturb not unnecessarily the Works of
Nature;
Nor injure or uproot mild and fruitful plants or trees.
Neither destroy any beast or bird which is not noxious
to the human race.
But preserve same for posterity.
Uphold Justice, assist Law, and support Order;
And abstain from violence and bloodshed.




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XX.
THE GOLDEN VERSES
1. In the first place honor the immortal gods, as they
are established by law.
2. Reverence the oath, and next the illustrious heroes.
3. Honor likewise the terrestrial daemons by fulfilling
their lawful rites.
4. Honor likewise thy parents and those nearest of kin.
5. But of others, make him thy friend who is best in
virtue.
6. Yield to his mild words and helpful deeds.
7. Do not hate thy friend because of a slight fault; be
patient as long as thou canst.
8. Power, indeed, dwells hard by necessity.
9. Know that these things are thus; but accustom thyself to master the following:
10. First gluttony, then sleep, lust and anger.
11. Do no base act, neither with another, nor alone;
12. But most of all, respect thyself.
13. Then practice justice both in word and deed,
14. And do not accustom thyself to be thoughtless about
anything:
15. But know that to die has been ordained for all,
16. And that possessions are sometimes acquired and
sometimes lost.




The PYTHAGORON                                 193
17. Concerning all the woes that mortals have through
divine fortune,
18. Whatsoever portion thou hast, bear this, and be not
vexed:
19. But it is befitting, insofar as thou canst, to remedy it.
20. And do thou consider this: that not upon the good
does fate bestow the most of these things.
21. Many reasonings, both good and bad, assail mankind;
22. Do not be startled at these, nor permit thyself to be
depressed:
25. And if that which is false be spoken, be gentle.
24. But that which I am going to tell thee, do thou, in
every case, accomplish it:
25. Let no man either by word or by deed persuade thee;
26. To do or to say that which is not best for thee.
27. Deliberate before thou act, lest folly arise:
28. For it is the part of a wretched man to act and speak
unwittingly.
29. But fulfill those things which will not later weaken
thee.
30. Do nothing thou dost not understand;
31. But learn all the things thou shouldst, and thus thou
shalt pass a most pleasant life.
32. Thou must not be indifferent to the health of the
body;
33. But of drink and of food and of exercise take due
measure.
34. And by due measure, I mean the following: that
which will not weaken thee.
35. Accustom thyself to a mode of life that is chaste
and unaffected.




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36. Guard against doing those things which produce
envy.
37. Do not spend thy substance out of season, like one
ignorant of proprieties;
38. But do not be illiberal: measure in all things is best.
39. Do those things which shall not harm thee and reflect
before thou act.*
40. Never let thy drowsy eyes welcome sleep,
41. Till thou hast reasoned over each deed of the day;
42. Wherein have I transgressed? What have I done?
What have I omitted that I ought to have done?
43. Beginning from the first do thou proceed, and for the
evil deeds rebuke thyself;
44. But for the good, rejoice.
45. Labor hard at these things; practice them diligently;
thou oughtest to love them;
46. For these will put thee on the track of divine virtue.
47. Yes, I swear it by him who transmitted to our soul
the tetractys, the source of over-flowing nature.
48. But before thou approachest a task, pray to the gods
to complete it.
49. Having mastered these things,
50. Thou shalt know the constitution of immortal gods
and of mortal men:
51. In what way each thing parts and in what way holds
fast.
52. And thou shalt know how, by divine law, nature is
in everything alike.
53. So thou shalt not hope for that which is without hope:
nor shall aught be hidden from thee.
*According to Porphyrios, there is lacking in the Golden Verses as given by Hierocles,
two lines...
On the moment of awakening, consider calmly
What are thy duties, and what thou shouldst accomplish.
d'OLIVET, The Golden Verses, p. 227.




The PYTHAGORON                                 195
54. Thou shalt likewise know that men possess selfchosen woes, reckless beings that they are!
55. Though the good is near, they neither see nor hear it.
56. Few are those who know release from evils.
57. Such is the fate that blinds the understanding of
mortals!
58. And like cylinders they roll now here, now there,
enduring woes without end.
59. For baneful strife, an inborn comrade, secretly harms
them,
60. They ought not to lead it on, but yielding, escape it.
61. Oh! Zeus, Father of Menl thou couldst free all men
from manifold ills,
62. If thou wouldst show them of what daemon it is
they make use.
63. But do thou be of good cheer, since the race of mortals
is divine.
64. To them sacred nature bringing to light each thing,
reveals it.
65. If thou hast a share in aught of these, thou shalt
master the things which I bid thee.
66. Having healed thy soul thou wilt save it from these
pains.
67. But abstain thou from the meats which we have forbidden thee,
68. And both in the purifications and in the deliverance
of the soul, do thou discriminate, giving heed to each
thing:
69. Having established noblest reason as a charioteer,
from on high,
70. And when, having put aside thy body, thou cometh
into the most pure aether,
71. Thou shalt be a god, immortal, imperishable, and
death shall have no more dominion over thee.




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ENIGMAS*
Pythagoras received lessons in Egypt from Oenuphis of
Heliopolis; and he, being probably the most admired of the
Grecian sages, and himself admiring the people, copied their
symbolical and mysterious style, and wrapped up his doctrines in
enigma; for the most part of the Pythagorean precepts do not fall
short of the so-called hieroglyphic writings in obscurity.
PLUTARCH
1.  When you go abroad don't turn around at the frontier:  When you are travelling abroad, look not back at
your own borders. (See Nos. 40, 60 and 88)
That is, when you visit a foreign country leave your
prejudices and national customs behind. Do not belittle
foreign customs or constantly extol virtues of your own
land. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." This
enigma is sometimes confused with No. 40, and the suggested answers have been often interchanged.
2. Abstain from eating animals.
This is meant literally as well as enigmatically. In
the latter sense, Do not devour opinions of the mob. Have
no conversation with unreasonable men.
3. Abstain from flesh of animals that die of themselves.
This is meant both literally and enigmatically. Do
not feast on carrion. Avoid filthy or obscene conversation
and thoughts.
*No one knows certainly the meanings of the Pythagorean Enigmas, some of which
may be as old as civilized man. The Pythagoreans, in many cases, adopted the forms
of ancient wise-saws and gave them meanings of their own. The answers given in
connection with the foregoing Enigmas are those suggested by various ancient
authorities. For convenience in reference, the Enigmas as herein presented have been
arranged alphabetically according to some important word contained therein.




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197


4. Don't touch the balance above the beam; or Don't
step over the beam of a balance; or, Do not go beyond the
balance.
That is, avoid defect and excess in all things; live
according to Due Measure. We must pay the greatest
attention to Justice and not go beyond it. Do not overstep
the bounds of equity and Justice. Transgress not Justice.
Do not cheat. Keep proper proportion.
5. Abstain from beans.
This is the most misunderstood of the Pythagorean
Enigmas. Although never meant literally, most writers
have so interpreted it. The Pythagoreans did eat beans.
Enigmatically it means, Do not become entangled in affairs
of State or in civil war or violence, nor get too involved
in partisan politics. Anciently, voting was done by placing
beans in jars. The "field of beans," in which Pythagoreans
are said to have preferred to die rather than cross, was
initiating, or participating in, rebellion, or armed violence,
or civil bloodshed, even in self-defense.
6. As soon as you have risen, ruffle the bed-clothes; or,
Leave not in the bedclothes the print of thy body; or, Always roll your bed clothes up. (See Nos. 60, 63).
These were meant literally as well as enigmatically.
There may be a distinction between the first two alternatives.
Observe order and method in all things. Remove
temptations to and facilities for luxury, ease, or impairment
of efficiency, or diversion from the proper task. When
working, hanker not for luxurious ease. In the day time all
conveniences for sleeping should be romoved as soon as
we get up, so as to erase the idea of sleeping during the
day, and remove temptation of going back to bed. Night
is for repose, and daylight is for energy.
Be decent and modest, and do not leave any thing
which might produce harmful thoughts in yourself and
others. It is not decent that the mark and (as it were)
stamped image should remain to be seen by others in the
place where a man hath lain with his wife.




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When you have attained wisdom, obliterate all traces
of your former ignorance.
7. Do not touch black tails; or, Eat not fish whose tails
are black.
That is, do not associate with bad men (black sheep),
for evil communications corrupt good manners. Have
nothing to do with evil. Frequent not the company of men
without reputation. (See No. 25). Frequent not the
company of infamous men who have had their reputations
blackened by iII actions.
8. Never break the bread.
Do nothing that will separate thee from thy friends.
It was considered that friends usually gather around a loaf
(at meals), and the thing which brings friends together
should not be torn asunder. In other words, love binds
friends together, and love should not be undermined or
destroyed. Another suggested answer is, When giving
charity, do not pare too close. Also, Do not utter a part
truth.
9. Do not cross over a broom; or, Do not cross a besom;
or, Do not step over a broom; or, Do not step over a besom.
That is, do not put obstacles in your own way, or raise
obstacles for yourself, or go out of your way to stir up
trouble.
10. Take not off any man's burden from him but lay on
more; or, Don't help a man off with a load but help him on;
or, Do not aid men in discarding a burden, ibut in increasing one. (See Nos. 64, 102).
That is, Do not weaken a man by relieving him from
responsibilities which are properly his. Men should not
be encouraged to shirk their responsibilities. Men should
be industrious, and not encouraged to laziness. Help a
man to help himself. Encourage not idleness but virtue.
One authority has it that it relates to suicide, and prohibits
the taking of one's own life. Another that it relates to the
soul.
I 1. Place not the candle against the wall.




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199


That is, persist not in attempting to enlighten the
stupid or the stubborn. Do not deprive yourself of full
value of a thing by thoughtlessness or indifference. Do
not obscure any part of Truth. Speak full truth, nor part
truth.
12. Do not put your food in the chamrber-pot; or, Put not
meat in a foul vessel.
That is, do not waste what is precious. Do not give
good precepts to a vicious person. Do not throw your pearls
before swine. Do not contaminate that which is good.
1 3. Eat not in the chariot.
That is, when you travel, travel. Attend strictly to
the business at hand, and do not become diverted. Do
everything at proper season. Take ample time for your
meals. Eat not in midst of hurried, important business.
14. Leap not from the chariot with your feet close together.
That is, do nothing inadvisedly or inconsiderately.
Do not throw yourself out of balance. Do not do foolish
things.
15. Worship the cock.
That is, be orderly, methodical, dependable, and attentive to duty. Early to bed and early to rise, makes a
man healthy, wealthy and wise.
16. Feed the cock, but sacrifice him not, for he is sacred
to the sun and the moon.
That is, serve none ill who serve you faithfully, but
reward them. Cherish people who warn you, and never
sacrifice them to expediency or resentment. Bring about
you people who are influences for good.
17. Nourish nothing that has crooked talons or nails; or,
Keep not in your house creatures that have hooked claws;
or, Don't keep birds with hooked claws; or, Do not cherish
birds with crooked talons; or, Feed not animals that have
crooked claws.
That is, do not retain in your nature traits which will
rend you or your character. Do not associate with, or assist, persons who are cruel, vengeful, spiteful, slanderous,




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or ungrateful. To your family admit no thief or traitor.
Cultivate only kindliness of disposition.
18. Tear not to pieces the crown; or, Pluck not a crown.
That is, do not undermine, injure or traduce your own
country. Support the laws and do not violate them. Do
not be a joy-killer. Do not belittle what is great or noble.
Do not destroy what is noble. Do not be hypercritical.
19. Do not pick up fallen crumbs; or, Pick not up what
is fallen under the table; or, Never pick up what falls from
the table. (See No. 104)
That is, do nothing that is not worth the effort. Put
out of mind inconsequential matters which are past and
gone. Do not create troubles for yourself. Do not be petty
or mean. Deal not in trifles.
Do not be penurious; leave something for unfortunate
men and animals. Do not be greedy. Do not begrudge
to others what you do not require.
Let the dead bury the dead; fallen crumbs belong to
the dead.
20. Never catch the cuttle-fish.
That is, do not become entangled in any situation
which may result in stained reputation. Do nothing that
will harm yourself. Undertake no dark, intricate affairs
that may wound or besmirch you.
21. Abstain even from a cypress chest. (See No. 104)
That is, refrain from luxury in death as well as life.
Do not over-emphasize the importance of the body, or seek
to preserve the cadaver. (Chests of cypress were coffins
not subject to rot). Shun the presence of death, that is,
bloody sacrifice.
22. Honor marks of dignity, the throne, and the Ternary.
That is, give honor where honor is due. Worship
God, respect magistrates, venerate kings, heroes and
geniuses.
23. Lay not the whole faggot on the fire.
That is, always keep something in reserve. Provide
for the future. Live thriftily and do not spend all at once.




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201


24. Honor a figure and step before a figure and a tribolus.
(See Nos. 33, 66).
That is, philosophize and discipline yourself. (The
Titans, after tearing the god to pieces, put a certain caldron
on a tripod and, throwing into it the limbs of the god,
boiled them first then put them on spits and roasted them).
25. Eat no fish whose fins are black.
That is, have no dealings of questionable propriety.
Have nothing to do with men whose deeds are dark.
Avoid men of questionable repute. (See No. 7)
26. Stir not up the fire with a sword; or, Do not stir the
fire with a sword; or, Don't stir the fire with a sword.
That is, control your temper. Do not increase passion. Do not provoke an angry person, but yield to such.
Do not further inflame the quarrelsome. Do not return
angry words to an angry person. Do not stir the passions
of the swelling pride of the great. We ought not to inflame
persons who are already at odds.
27. Give way to a flock that goes by.
That is, do not oppose the multitude.
28. Adore the gods, but sacrifice barefoot.
That is, when worshipping God dismiss all thoughts
of worldly affairs, and make Deity your sole thought. Be
sincere in worship. Pray and sacrifice in humility.
29. Stick not iron into the footsteps of a man. (See No.
81)
That is, say what you have to say to the face and not
behind the back. Mangle not the memory of a man. Do
not place obstacles in the way of another. Do not try to
confuse a man.
30. It is a crime to throw stones into fountains.
That is, do not stop the flow of knowledge. Obstruct
not the teachings of the wise. Do not impede a man from
following God. It is a crime to persecute good men.
It is criminal to stop the mind from wisdom and truth.
31. Do not give everyone your right hand; or, Don't




202


The PYTHAGORON


shake hands too eagerly; or, Not easily shake hands with
a man. (See No. 32)
That is, do not be too ready to strike up a friendship.
Make no ill-considered friendship..52. Do not offer your right hand lightly. (See No. 31)
That is, do not plight your word unadvisedly. Do
not make pledges which you will not, or cannot, keep.
33. Do not eat the heart; or, Do not devour your heart;
or, Eat not the brain; or, Never devour either your heart
or your brain. (See Nos. 24, 66)
That is, never give yourself up to useless anxiety, or
to intensive study. Do not waste your life in troubles,
pains, or worries. Do not over-tax the brain. Take time
out for exercise and refreshment. Do not glut the brain
with intoxication. Do not build up false hopes, nor permit yourself to be disappointed.
Perceive that which is divine. (The Titans did not
eat the Sacred Heart of Zagreos, and from it was reincarnated the god, Dionysos).
34. Go not in the public way; or, Don't walk the highway; or, Go not by the public way; or, Do not walk in the
main street. (See No. 93)
That is, do not be influenced by popular applause or
censure. Do not court popular applause, nor yield to popular clamor. Go not the broad popular way that leads to
destruction. Avoid the unconsidered opinions of the multitude, but adopt those of the learned few. We ought not
to follow the opinions of the people, but the counsels of
the wise.
35. Never eat the gurnet.*
That is, bear your misfortunes without murmur. Never
emit complaints. Avoid revenge, or thoughts of revenge.
36. Approach not gold in order to gain children.
That is, do not marry for money. Do not buy your
way through life but make your way by merit and worth.
Do not buy adherents. Beware of all teachers who sell
The gurne is a fish''which, when pressed, emits a peculiar grunt.




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203


things of the Spirit. Do not expect to gain virtue through
riches.
37. Don't put God's image on the circle of a ring; or,
Wear not the image of God on your ring; or, Inscribe not
the image of God on a ring; or, Wear not the image of God
on your jewelry.
That is, do not worship idols, images, or personalities.
Do not think of the Supreme as either finite or a personality. Do not parade your religion, or make of it a proud or
boastful thing. Do not discuss opinions concerning God
with the vulgar. Profane not the name- of God.
38. It is a horrible crime to wipe off the sweat with iron.
That is, it is criminal to deprive a man by force of
what he has earned by labor. It is wrong to take an unfair
profit.
39. Do not touch the ivy.
That is, shun intoxication and debasing orgies. Do
not those things that will harm yourself. Restrain pride
and ambition. (This may have reference to the Mysteries).
40. When you have come to the end of a journey, do not
look back; or, Having arrived at the frontiers, turn not back.
(See Nos. 1, 60, and 88)
That is, do not spend your life in vain regrets. Do
not wish to live your life over. Having concluded present
ways to be erroneous, amend them, and face the future.
When people are going to die and see their end is
near, they ought to take it easily and not be dejected. Those
who are departing this life should not set their heart's desire
on living, nor be much attracted by the pleasures of this life.
4 1. Place not a lamp under a bushel.
That is, do not exclude Truth from your mind. Do
not deceive yourself. Conceal not truth from men.
42. Do not indulge in immoderate laughter.
This is meant both literally and enigmatically. Keep
yourself under strict discipline, and restrain the unstable
parts of your nature.




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The PYTHAGORON


43. Never feed yourself with your left hand; or, Feed not
yourself with you left hand.
That is, get your living openly and avoid all lefthanded
dealings. Support yourself honestly. and not by robbery
or unfair dealings.
44. Never let your left leg cross your right; or, Never
put thy left leg across the right by preference.
That is, do not wittingly throw obstacles in your own
way, or cross yourself up. Never voluntarily expose your
faults or weaknesses.
45. Make thy libations to the gods by the ear; or, Offer
libations to the gods just to the ears of the cup.
That is, worship God in secret and alone, or in private.
(The reference to ears of the cup has to do with the sanitary
measure of not drinking out of a common cup.) Let your
sacrifice be a chaste and virtuous life. Beautify thy worship
by music. We ought to worship and celebrate the gods
with music, for that penetrates through the ears. Drink
in moderation.
46. Sow mallows but never eat them.
That is, soothe the feelings, or assuage the irritation
of others, but do not be mild with yourself. Pardon all
things in others, but nothing in yourself. Iamblichos says,
"This plant is the first messenger and signal of the sympathy of celestial with terrestrial natures."
47. Do not eat the matrix; or, Eat not the womb of
animals.
This is meant both literally and enigmatically. Respect
the principle of generation and do not misuse it. Avoid that
which leads to moral degeneracy or to lower affections.
48. Never sacrifice without meal.
That is, sacrifice should be personal. Let your offerings be of your own handiwork. Sacrifice should come from
the heart, or be personal. Offer bloodless offerings. Encourage agriculture. Do not withhold anything that is due.
49. Do not sit on a measure (choenix) (a corn measure);
or, Don't sit down on your bushel; or, Set thou not down




The PYTHAGORON


205


upon a bushel measure; or, Thou shalt not make a peckmeasure thy seat to sit on.
That is, be industrious and provident. Get busy and
fill your measure rather than use it for a seat. Do not loaf
on your iob. Do not be lazy, but earn tomorrow's bread as
well as today's. Have the same care of today and the future.
a bushel being the day's ration. Do not live ignobly.
50. Don't wipe up a mess with a torch; or, Do not wipe
a seat with a lamp. (See No. 86)
Do not try to reason with an angry mob.
51. Do not look in a mirror by lamplight.
That is, do not see your actions in a false light. Important matters should be seen in Reason's clearest light.
Do not be misled by the phantasies of the senses, but be
guided by the pure, bright light of spiritual knowledge. Do
not consider matters in a false or imperfect light.
52. When making sacrifice, never pare the nails. (See
No. 99)
That is, when engaged in worship, do not distract
yourself with other matters. Do not be guilty of impiety.
One thing at a time. Never wind the clock at an inopportune hour.
53. Never take an even number in preference to the odd.
That is, never choose to take a loss rather than a profit.
Always prefer to do that which is profitable or fruitful.
54. To the celestial gods sacrifice an odd number, but to
the infernal, an even; or, When thou sacrificest to the
celestial gods, let it be with an odd number, and when to
the terrestrial, with an even.
That is, to God consecrate the indivisible soul; to
oblivion consecrate the body.
55. Don't commit a nuisance towards the sun; or, Do not
urinate against the sun.
That is, do not make public thy private affairs. Be
modest. Do not be brazen or indecent.
56. Do not spill oil upon the seat.




206


The PYTHAGORON


That is, do not embarrass or inconvenience others. Do
not be malicious. Be frugal, not wasteful. Do not flatter
the great, or princes. Praise God only.
57. One, Two.
That is, Know God, Know Thyself. God and Nature.
All things are known in God.
58. Pare not your nails during the sacrifice. (See Nos. 52
and 99)
59. Do not plant a palm tree.
That is, do not be overly ambitious and seek great
glory. Do nothing but what is good and useful. Do no
frivolous thing.
60. Always keep your things packed up; or, Always have
your bed packed up. (See No. 6)
That is, never leave anything unfinished. So order
your life that you may be prepared to die at any time, and
leave no unfinished duty. Always be prepared for emergencies.
61. When treading the path, divide not.
That is, Truth is One, but falsehood is multifarious.
Choose that philosophy in which there is no inconsistency
or contradiction.
62. Do not look backwards while you plow; or, He who
would run a straight furrow should not look back.
That is, keep a straight and undeviating course ahead.
Keep to set purpose. Do not go around in circles. Never
falter.
63. Leave not the print of the pot in the ashes; or, Leave
not the (least) mark of the pot on the ashes; or, Efface the
traces of a pot in the ashes. (See No. 6)
That is, wipe out the past and forget it; look to the
future. After reconciliation, forget the disagreement. Do
not leave any plain marks of anger, but as soon as the
passions hath done boiling, lay aside all thoughts of malice
and revenge.




The PYTHAGORON


64. Quit not your post without your general's orders. (See
Nos. 10 and 102)
That is, do not commit suicide.
65. Do not wear a tight ring; or, Wear not a narrow ring.
That is, let your life be free. Be natural. Do not bind
yourself with chains of your own forging. Be free from
ignorance and superstition. Seek freedom, avoid mental
slavery.
66. Roast not what is boiled; or, What is boiled should
not be roasted. (See Nos. 24 and 33)
That is, plenty is a sufficiency. Be contented with
sufficiency. Do not overdo anything. Leave well-enough
alone. Mildness has no need of anger. Anger should not
be substituted for mildness. Never take in ill part what is
done in simplicity and ignorance.
(The Titans, after boiling the flesh of Zagreos, then
roasted it). Thus, do not add to thy blasphemy.
67. Always put salt on the table; or, Always have salt on
your table.
That is, take unverified reports "with a grain of salt."
Always use the principle of Justice to settle problems. This
was also taken literally, salt at table being the symbol of
purity.
68. Kill not the serpent that chances to fall within your
walls.
That is, do not be treacherous. Harm no enemy who
chances to become your guest or suppliant. Take no
advantage of the helpless.
69. Put on your right shoe first, but wash your left foot
first.
Before admonishing others, first put your own house in
order. Act uprightly and honestly, washing away all impurities. Prefer an active life to one of ease and pleasure.
70. Never sing without harp-accompaniment.
That is, make the harmony of life full and complete.
Make of life as a whole.




208


The PYTHAGORON


71. Sit down when you worship.
That is, never worship in a hurry. Be deliberate about
all things. Concentrate on what you are doing.
72. Sleep not on a grave.
That is, do not live in idleness on estates inherited
from parents. Do not live in the past.
73, Do not sleep at noon,
That is, do not waste the fullness of life. Do not continue in darkness or ignorance.
74. Never write on snow.
That is, trust not your precepts to persons of an ineonstant character. Throw not away instruction upon
weak and imbecile minds. Place no dependence in the unstable.
75. Speak not in the face of the sun.
That is, make not public the thoughts of your heart.
Do not talk too much in public places. Do not defy
authority. Do not deny the obvious truth.
76. Spit not (or, don't make water) upon the cuttings of
your hair or the parings of your nails. (See No. 99)
That is, do not add insult to injury. Do not be ungrateful. Do not despise those who have been of use when
no longer needed. Do not have contempt for the insignificant. Abhor desires.
77. Threaten not the stars.
That is, do not attempt the impossible, or make meaningless gestures. Be not angry with your superiors, or those
beyond your hurt.
78. Feed storks sparingly.
That is, be not too free to admonish others.
79. Receive not a swallow into your house; or, Have no
swallows about your house; or, Do not cherish swallows
under your roof.
That is, do not entertain idlers, babblers, gossipers,
or cuiosity-seekers. 'Pythagoras, setting the swallow for
an example of a wandering, unthankful man, adviseth us




The PYTHAGORON


209


not to take those who come to us for their own need and
upon occasion into our familiarity, and let them partake
of the most sacred things, our house and fire."
80. Avoid the two-edged sword; or, Avoid a sharp sword.
That is, those who bring tales, carry them. Have no
conversation with slanderers, or two-faced persons, and
refrain from gossip and slander yourself. Avoid cutting
remarks.
81. Do not pierce foot-prints with a sword. (See No. 29)
That is, do not talk about one behind his back. Do not
follow or recall one who is leaving in order to resume a
quarrel.
82. Do not break the teeth.
That is, do not revile bitterly. Do not be sarcastic.
Do not overtax your ability.
83. During a tempest, worship the echo; or, When winds
blow, adore the echo. (See No. 85)
That is, it is better to hear the reports of violence than
to have been present. While civil broils endure, withdraw into retirement. During revolts, flee to deserts. During a quarrel, keep silent. Be mindful of the aftermath.
84. Stop not at the threshold.
That is, do not stop anything before you have hardly
begun it. Always finish what is begun. Be not wavering,
but choose your side.
85. When it thunders, touch the ground. (See Nos. 85,
96)
That is, give heed to danger. Do not defy the powers.
Appease God by humility.
86. Wipe not out the place of the torch. (See No. 50)
That is, do not lose your head, or self-control. Let not
all the lights of Reason be extinguished.
87. Do not primp by torchlight. (See No. 51)
That is, do not become conceited. Retain clear vision
of all things. Look at all things in the light of Reason. Do




210


The PYTHAGORON


not do in a dim light what you would be ashamed to do in a
bright.
88. When you are travelling abroad, turn not back, for
the Furies will go with you. (See Nos. I and 40)
That is, not to dally or cry over spilt milk, but hasten
to accomplish whatever you have begun; otherwise, you
will fail and remorse and sorrow will thereafter attend you.
89. Turn away from yourself every sharp edge.
That is, do not injure others. Avoid those things which
will harm you. Control your passions.
90. Turn round when you worship.
That is, the fullest appreciation of the greatness and
beneficence of God is requisite for true worship. Behold
and understand His works.
91. Do not go under a vine.
That is, do not let wine go to your head. Avoid intoxication.
92. Leave vinegar at a distance; or, Keep far from you the
vinegar-cruet.
That is, be uniformly pleasant and gentle. Refrain
from sour humor. Avoid back-biting, malice, spite, and
sarcasm.
93. Leave the public ways; walk in unfrequented paths.
(See No. 34)
That is, live your own life. Lead a spiritual, not a
worldly, life.
94. Refuse the weapons a woman offers you.
That is, reject all suggestions revenge inspires.
95. Avoid the weasel.
That is, avoid association with sly, cunning, cruel,
ruthless and bloodthirsty persons, ever seeking a prey. Do
not entertain those idle persons who would live off thy
sustenance. (Blood-suckers). Avoid tale bearers.
96. When the winds blow, give heed to the sound. (See
Nos. 83 and 85)




The PYTHAGORON


211


That is, do not lightly regard a warning. Guard yourself when the warning comes. When Deity speaks, attend
closely.
97. Offer not to the gods the wine of an unpruned vine.
That is, cultivate yourself so as to produce the best
fruit. Make the most of your talents, and offer to God the
best within you. A man should always give his best.
Agriculture is a great piece of piety. Prayers should be
sincere and advised.
98. Cut not wood on the public road.
That is, never turn to private use what belongs to the
public. There is a proper place and season for everything.
99. Do not defile; and do not stand upon the parings of
your nails, or the cuttings of your hair. (See Nos. 52, 76)
100. Do not eat the erythinus.
Beware of bloody deeds. Do not touch bloody things.
101. Do not eat the fish melanurus.
Do not emit dark thoughts. Do not swallow evil
doctrines.
102. Do not lay down a burden, but help others to carry
their's. (See Nos. 10 and 64)
Philolaus indicates that this refers to the soul. Do not
divulse the soul. Help others to save their own.
103. Not without light speak about Pythagoric affairs.
We ought not discuss matters about which we know
nothing.
Not to all should all be made known. Do not cast thy
pearls before swine. Do not attempt to enlighten the
ignorant.
Do not discuss God lightly.
104. Shun the presence of birth and death. (See Nos.
19, 21)
Forever seek the heavenly, shunning the earthly.
This may be a prohibition against participating in
bloody sacrifice or indulging in religious sexual orgies.
105. Do not kill lice in a temple.
That is, do not degrade God. Never hold God in
contempt.




212


The PYTHAGORON


BIBLIOGRAPHY
Pythagoron has been drawn from literally hundreds
of sources, principally among them the following:
Jamblichi, Chalcidensis, ex Coele-Syrie, De Vita
Pythagorice, Liber Graece et Latin: Ex codice MS. a
quamplurimis mendis, quibus Editio Arceriana scatebat,
purgatus, Notisque perpetuis illustratus a Ludolpho Kustero.
Versionem Latinam, Graeco textui adjunctam, confecit vir
illustris Ulricus Obrechtus. Accedit Malchus, sive Porphyrius, De Vita Pythagorae: cum notis Lucae Holstenii, &
Conradi Rittershusii. Itemque anonymus apud Photium
De Vita Pythagorae. Amstelodami: Apud Viduam
Sebastiani Petzoldi, &c. 1707.
Guthrie, Kenneth Sylvan. Pythagoras Source Book
and Library. North Yonkers, New York: The Platonist
Press, 1919. (This appears to be a translation of the first
cited, together with writings of numerous Pythagoreans.)
lamblichus, De Vita de Pythagorica. Translation by
Thomas Taylor.
Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent
Philosophers, with English translation by R. D. Hicks,
M.A. London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1931. Loeb
Classical Library. (2 vols.)
Delatte, A. Etudes sur la litterature Pythagoricienne.
Paris: E. Champion, 1915.




The PYTHAGORON


Fairbanks, Arthur. The First Philosophers of Greece.
London: Regan, Paul Trench 6 Co., 1898. (Contained
therein is much of Stobaeus.)
Plutarch, Complete Works of. Lives (3 volumes),
Essays and Miscellaneous (3 volumes). New York-San
Francisco: The Wheeler Publishing Company, 1909.
Dacier, Andre. Commentary of Hierocles on the
Golden Verses of Pythagoras. Translated by N. Rowe.
London: The Theosophical Publishing Society, 1906.
Watters, Hallie, The Pythagorean Way of Life.
Adyar, India; Theosophical Publishing House, 1926. (Mrs.
Watters translation of the Golden Verses has been used in
this work, with exception of the 70th verse.)
Publius Ovidius Naso. Metamorphoses. Translation
by Frank Justus Miller. London: William Heinemann,
1916. Loeb Classical Library. The translation by Dryden
was also consulted and partially used.
d'Olivet, Fabre, The Golden Verses of Pythagoras,
translated from the French by Nayan Louise Redfield.
New York and London, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1925.
Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, included in The
Works of Voltaire, (Edition de la Pacification), Paris, New
York, E. R. Dumont, 1901. Volumes V to XIV, both inclusive.
Reference is made to the Bibliography of the author's
biography Pythagoras for other sources.
N.B. Since the PYTHAGORON was written, the author's
attention has been directed to a similar conception with relation to
the teachings of Socrates, the same being Miles Menander Dawson,
The Ethics of Socrates, New York and London, G. P. Putnam's
Sons, 1924. Socrates was a pupil of Pythagort.ead, in the
opinion of the author, his views more closely followed Pythagoras
than those of Plato.




214


The PYTHAGORON


THE PYTHAGOREAN, or EGYPTIAN SQUARE
18  25  2  9
8  1  6 —i  16i   3  2  13  17  24  1  8  15  17
- - - 5  10  11  8  23  5  7  14  16  23
9  67  12     4 6  13 2 2  4
4  15 l 14   1  10 1   2 1  3  10
11 8 L-Z 2 9
The above illustration is reproduced from Encyclopaedia
Britannica, Volume 14, page 627, with permission of the publishers.
Reference is made to the article MAGIC SQUARE appearing at
that citation for explanation. The figure was known variably as
the "Pythagorean" or "Egyptian" Square, and is popularly known
as "Magic" Square.




The PYTHAGORON


213


ADVISEMENT
Pythagoras conceived his mission in this life to be the moral
regeneration of mankind through education.
I"t agoras
A BIOGRAPHY
By
HOBART HUSON, LL. B., B. 0.


A Companion Work to the PYTHAGORON


PART 1.
PART II.
PART III.


Preparation. The ancestry, birth, education, travels and early life of the Sage,
to his settlement at Krotona.
Fulfillment. Life and Work of the Sage
from settlement at Krotona to his death at
Metapontum, with history of the Pythagorean School, Order, and Community.
Achievement. A detailed treatment subject by subject of the great contributions
of the Sage to civilization.


To Be Published Privately During 1948
This is probably the most comprehensive, authentic
and scholarly biography of the First Philosopher so far
attempted, and represents almost a quarter of a century of
research and study. The work will contain about 1000
printed pages, and will be exhaustively documented.
Europe has been combed for materials for illustrating
this book.
Those desiring to have copies reserved for themselves
should communicate with the author, HOBART HUSON,
Box 54, REFUGIO, TEXAS.




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