The Golden Verses of Pythagoras — with commentary (1917)

« Cic6r., Acad. Qwest., 1. iv., c. 24; Sext. Empir., Hypotyp., 1. i., c. 4 et 12.

* Diog. Laert., 1. iv., §10; Cicer., Acad. Qucest., 1. iv., c. 18.

<^ Desland, Hist. Critiq. de la Philosqph., t. ii., p. 258.

<* Euseb., Prcip. Evan., 1. xiv., c. 4.

< The Greek word is derived from the verb (coXuir/neti', to cover with a veil.

Examinations of the Golden Verses 201

good and evil, and of being unable to distinguish virtue from vice." Dismal effect of an early error! Arcesilaus became the convincing proof of what I have repeated touching the golden mean and the similitude of extremes: once having left the path of truth, he became through weakness and through superstition the head of a crowd of audacious atheists, who, after having called in question the principles upon which logic and morals repose, placed there those of religion and overthrew them. Vainly he essayed to arrest the movement of which he had been the cause by establishing two doctrines: the one public, wherein he taught skepticism; the other secret, wherein he maintained dogmatism*: the time was no longer favourable for this distinction. All that he gained was to let another usurp the glory and to give his name to the new sect of doubters. It was Pyrrho who had this honour. This man, of a character as firm as impassive, to whom living or dying was a matter of indifference, who preferred nothing to something, whom a precipice opening beneath his feet would be unable to swerve from his path, gathered under his colours all those who made a philosophical profession of doubting everything, of recognizing nowhere the character of truth, and he gave them a sort of doctrine wherein wisdom was placed in the most complete uncertainty, felicity in the most absolute inertia, and genius in the art of stifling all kinds of genius by the accumulation of contradictory reasonings." Pyrrho had much contempt for men, as was obvious from the doctrine which he gave them. He had constantly on his lips this

1 Bayle, Diet, crit., art. Arc^silas.

* Sextus Empiricus, who was not a man to advance anything thoughtlessly, alleges that Arcesilaus was only a skeptic in semblance and that the doubts which he proposed to his listeners had no other aim than that of seeing if they had enough genius to understand the dogmas of Plato. When he found a disciple who evinced the necessary force of mind, he initiated him into the true doctrine of the Academy {Pyrrh. hypotyp., 1. i., c. 33).

' Sext. Empir., Pyrrh. hypotyp., 1. i., c. 4, 12, 15; 1. ii., c. 4, etc.

202 The Golden Verses of Pythagoras line of Homer: "Even as are the generations of leaves such are those likewise of men.""

I pause a moment here, in order that the reader may observe, that although the thought of Hesiod, concerning the veil that the gods had spread between them and men, and which gave rise to Arcesilaus establishing his acatalepsy, had originated in India,* it had never had the same results there; and this, because the Brahmans, in teaching that this veil existed and that it even bewildered the vulgar by a series of illusory phenomena, have never said that it was impossible to raise it ; because this might have been an attack on the power of the will of man and its perfectibility, to which they put no limit. We shall see further on that such was also the idea of Pythagoras. Let us return to the Skeptics.