mathematics.

The doctrine of Thales, that water was the first elementary principle, is exactly that of the ancient Hindoos, who held that water was the first element, and the first work of the creative power. This idea was not completely exploded even up till the 18th century. We find Van Helmont affirming that all metals, and even rocks, may be resolved into water; and Lavoisier, so lately as 1770, thought it worth while to communicate an elaborate paper “On the nature of water and the experiments by which it has been attempted to prove the possibility of converting it into earth.”

Pythagoras, perhaps the greatest of all Greek philosophers, it is known, travelled very widely, spending no less than twenty-two years in Egypt. He also spent some considerable time at Babylon, and was taught the lore of the Magi.

In the famous satire of Lucian on the philosophic quackery of his day (about 120 A.D.), “The Sale of the Philosophers,” we have a most interesting account of the system of Pythagoras.

Scene—A Slave Mart. Jupiter, Mercury, philosophers, in the garb of slaves, for sale. Audience of buyers.

Jupiter.—Now, you arrange the benches, and get the place ready for the company. You bring out the goods and set them in a row; but trim them up a little first, and make them look their best, to attract as many customers as possible. You, Mercury, must put up the lots, and bid all comers welcome to the sale. Gentlemen,—We are here going to offer you philosophical systems of all kinds, and of the most varied and ingenious description. If any gentleman happens to be short of ready money he can give his security for the amount, and pay next year.

Mercury (to Jupiter).—There are a great many come; so we had best begin at once, and not keep them waiting.

Jupiter.—Begin the sale, then.

Mercury.—Whom shall we put up first?

Jupiter.—This fellow with the long hair—the Ionian. He’s rather an imposing personage.

Mercury.—You, Pythagoras, step out, and show yourself to the company.

Jupiter.—Put him up.

Mercury.—Gentlemen, we here offer you a professor of the very best and most select description. Who buys? Who wants to be a cut above the rest of the world? Who wants to understand the harmonies of the universe and to live two lives?

Customer (turning the philosopher round and examining him).—He’s not bad to look at. What does he know best?

Mercury.—Arithmetic, astronomy, prognostics, geometry, music, and conjuring. You’ve a first-rate soothsayer before you.

Customer.—May one ask him a few questions?

Mercury.—Certainly—(aside), and much good may the answers do you.

Customer.—What country do you come from?

Pythagoras.—Samos.

Customer.—Where were you educated?

Pythagoras.—In Egypt, among the wise men there.

Customer.—Suppose I buy you, now, what will you teach me?

Pythagoras.—I will teach you nothing—only recall things to your memory.

Customer.—How will you do that?

Pythagoras.—First, I will clean out your mind, and wash out all the rubbish.

Customer.—Well, suppose that done, how do you proceed to refresh the memory?

Pythagoras.—First, by long repose and silence, speaking no word for five whole years.

Customer.—Why, look ye, my good fellow, you’d best go teach the dumb son of Crœsus! I want to talk and not be a dummy. Well—but after this silence, and these five years?

Pythagoras.—You shall learn music and geometry.

Customer.—A queer idea, that one must be a fiddler before one can be a wise man!

Pythagoras.—Then you shall learn the science of numbers.

Customer.—Thank you, but I know how to count already.

Pythagoras.—How do you count?

Customer.—One, two, three, four——

Pythagoras.—Ha! what you call four is ten, and the perfect triangle, and the great oath by which we swear.

Customer.—Now, so help me, the great ten and four, I never heard more divine or more wonderful words!

Pythagoras.—And afterwards, stranger, you shall learn about Earth, and Air, and Water, and Fire—what is their action, and what their form, and what their motion.

Customer.—What! have Fire, Air, or Water bodily shape?

Pythagoras.—Surely they have; else, without form and shape, how could they move! Besides, you shall learn that the Deity consists in Number, Mind, and Harmony.

Customer.—What you say is really wonderful.

Pythagoras.—Besides what I have just told you, you shall understand that you yourself, who seem to be one individual, are really somebody else.

Customer.—What! do you mean to say I’m somebody else, and not myself, now talking to you?

Pythagoras.—Just at this moment you are; but once upon a time you appeared in another body, and under another name; and hereafter you will pass again into another shape still.

(After a little more discussion of this philosopher’s tenets, he is purchased on behalf of a company of professors from Magna Græca for ten minæ. The next lot is Diogenes, the Cynic.)

Apuleius says in the Florida, Section XV., in reference to Pythagoras, that he went to Egypt to acquire learning, “that he was there taught by the priests the incredible power of ceremonies, the wonderful commutations of numbers, and the most ingenious figures of geometry; but that, not satisfied with these mental accomplishments, he afterwards visited the Chaldæans and the Brahmins, and amongst the latter the Gymnosophists. The Chaldæans taught him the stars, the definite orbits of the planets, and the various effects of both kinds of stars upon the nativity of men, as also, for much money, the remedies for human use derived from the earth, the air, and the sea (the elements earth, air, and water, or all nature).

“But the Brahmins taught him the greater part of his philosophy—what are the rules and principles of the understanding; what the functions of the body; how many the faculties of the soul; how many the mutations of life; what torments or rewards devolve upon the souls of the dead, according to their respective deserts.”

There is ample evidence, therefore, that the Greeks had communication with, and borrowed the philosophy of, both Persia and India at a very early date.

That there was intimate intercourse with India in very ancient times there can be no doubt. In addition to the classical sources of information collected chiefly by the officers of Alexander the Great, Seleucus and the Ptolemies, and which was condensed and reduced to consistent shape by Diodorus, Strabo, Pliny, and Arrian, within the first century before and the first century after Christ,