Pythagoras: His Life and Teaching, a Compendium of Classical Sources (33 page)

CHAPTER
2

O
F
THE
G
ENERATION
OF
A
NIMATE
C
REATURES

A
nimate creatures are generated of one another by seed (but of earth nothing can be generated).
⁸²³
Seed is a distillation from the brain of the foam of the most useful part of the blood, the superfluity of the aliment, as blood and marrow. This being injected
[“in the womb”], purulent matter, moisture, and blood issue from the brain, whereof flesh, nerves, bones, hair, and the whole body consists. (The power of seed is incorporeal as the motive mind; but the effused matter corporeal.) From the vapor comes the soul and sense; it is first compacted and coagulated in forty days. And being perfected according to harmonical proportions in seven, nine, or ten months (at the farthest), the Infant is brought forth, having all proportions of life; of which (aptly connected according to the proportions of harmony) it consists; all things happening to it at certain times. Thus Alexander, out of the Pythagorean commentaries.

The proportions themselves are more exactly delivered by Censorinus thus.
⁸²⁴
Pythagoras said that generally there are two kinds of births: one lesser, of seven months; which comes into the world the 207th day after the conception. The other greater, of ten months; which is brought forth in the 274th day. The first and lesser is chiefly contained in the number six. For that which is conceived of the seed (as he says) the six first days, is a milky substance; the next eight days, bloody; which eight with the six make the first concord, Diatessaron. The third degree is of nine days; in which time, it is made flesh. These to the first six are in sesquialtera proportion, and make the second concord, Diapente. Then follow twelve days more in which the body is fully formed. These to the same six consist in duple proportion, and make the Diatessaron concord. These four numbers, six, eight, nine, twelve, added together make thirty-five days; nor without reason is the number six the foundation of generation. For the Greeks call it
we perfect; because its three parts perfect it. Now as the beginnings of the seed and that milky foundation of conception is first completed by this number, so this is the beginning of the man now formed. And, as it were, another
foundation of maturity which is of thirty-five days, being multiplied by six, makes 220 days in which this maturity is fulfilled.

The other (greater) birth is contained in the greater number seven. And as the beginning of the former is in six days, after which the seed is converted into blood, so that of this is in seven. And as there the members of the Infant are formed in thirty-five days; so here in about forty. These forty days being multiplied by the first seven, make 280 days, that is forty weeks. But forasmuch as the birth happens on the first day of the last week, six days are subtracted, and the 274th observed.

He held that mankind had ever been; and never had beginning.
⁸²⁵

CHAPTER
3

T
HE
S
OUL:
I
TS
P
ARTS
A
ND
F
IRST
OF
THE
I
RRATIONAL
P
ART

T
he power of number, being greatest in nature,
⁸²⁶
Pythagoras defined the soul as a self-moving number.
⁸²⁷

Of the Pythagoreans, some affirm that the soul is the motes in the air; others, that it is that which moves those motes.
⁸²⁸

The soul is most generally divided into two parts, rational, and irrational, but more especially into three.
⁸²⁹
For the irrational they divide into irascible and desiderative. These are termed
[“intelligence”],
[“reason”], and
[“passion”].
[“intelligence”] and
[“passion”] are in other living creatures,
[“reason”] only in man.
⁸³⁰

Yet, the souls of all animate creatures are rational, even of those which we term irrational. But they act not according to reason because of the ill temperament of the body and want of speech: as in apes and dogs,
who talk but cannot speak.
⁸³¹

The beginning of the soul comes from the heat of the brain. That part which is the heart is
[“passion”], but
[“reason”] and
[“intelligence”] are in the brain. The senses are distillations from these: the rational part is immortal, the rest mortal. The soul is nourished by blood, and the faculties of the soul are spirits. Both the soul and her faculties are invisible, for Aether is invisible. The fetters of the soul are veins, arteries, and nerves. But when she is strong, and composed within herself, her fetters are reasons and actions.

Every sense is derived from its proper element. Sight is from Aether, hearing from air, smelling from fire, taste from water, touch from earth.
⁸³²

Sense in general, and particulary sight, is a vapor very hot. For this reason we are said to see through air and through water, for the heat pierces the cold. For if that which is in the eyes were a cold vapor, it would fight with the air—which is like it hot. In some places, he calls the eyes the gates of the Sun; the same he determined concerning hearing and the rest of the senses.

Sight is the judge of colors.
⁸³³
Color they call the superficies of a body. The kinds of color are black, white, red, pale.
⁸³⁴
Or, as the anonymous writer delivers the opinion of Pythagoras, ten: black, white, and the rest between them, yellow, tawney, pale, red, blue, green, bright, grey.
⁸³⁵
The differences of colors are derived from the mixture of the elements, and, in living creatures, from variety of place and of air.

The image in a mirror is made by reflection of the sight.
⁸³⁶
This, being extended to the brass, and meeting with a thick smooth body, is pushed back and returns into itself, as when the hand is stretched forth and again brought back to the shoulder.
⁸³⁷

Hearing is the judge of voice, sharp and flat.
⁸³⁸
Voice is incorporeal; for not air, but the figure and superficies of air, by a stroke becomes voice. But no superficies is a body.
⁸³⁹
And though it follows the motion of the body, voice itself has no body; as when a rod is bent, the superficies suffers nothing, the matter only is bent.

Smelling judges of odors, good and ill and the four between them: putrid, humid, liquid, vaporous.
⁸⁴⁰

Taste judges of flavors, sweet, bitter, and the five between them. For they are in all seven: sweet, bitter, sharp, acid, fresh, salt, hot.

Touching judges many things: heavy, light, and those that are between them; hot, cold, and those that are between them; hard, soft, and those that are between them; dry, moist, and those that are between them. The other four senses are seated in the head only and confined to their proper organs. But touching is diffused through the head, and the whole body. It is common to every sense, but exhibits its judgment most manifestly by the hands.