OCR Text |
Show 12 PYTHAGOREAN SYSTEM. chaotic egg, engrafted by Orpheu~ upon their o~n mytholo~y, was turned into ridicule by Anstophanes. 'I hat comedtan introduced his birds singing, in a ·solemn hymn, " How sable-plumaged night conceived in. the .boundless bos?m of Erebus, and laid an egg, from winch, m the revolutiOn of ages, sprung Love, resplendent with golden pinions. Love fecundated the dark-winged chaos, and gave origin to the race of birds >K' ." Pythagoras, who resided for more than twenty years in Egypt, and, according to Cicel'O, had visited the East, and conversed with the Persian philosophers, introduced into his own country, on his return, the doctrine of the gradual deterioration of the human race from an original state of ' 'irtue and happiness; but if we are to judge of his theory concerning the destruction and renovation of the earth, from the sketch given by Ovid, we must concede it to have been far more philosophical than any known version of the cosmologies of Oriental or Egyptian sects. Although Pythagoras is introduced by the poet as delivering his doctrine in person, some of the illustrations are derived from natural events which happened after the death of the philosopher. But notwithstanding these anachronisms, we may regard the account as a true picture of the tenets of the Pythagorean school in the Augustan age; and although perhaps partially modified, it must have contained the substance of the original scheme. Thus considered, it is extremely curious and instructive; for we here find a comprehensive and masterly summary of almost all the great causes of change now in activity on the globe, and these adduced in confirmation of a principle of perpetual and gradual revolu-tion inherent in the nature of our terrestrial system. These doctrines, it is true, are not directly applied to the explanation of geoloyical phenomena; or, in other words, no attempt is made to estimate what may have been, in past ages, or what may hereafter be, the aggregate amount of change brought about by such never-ending fluctuations. Had this been the case, we might have been called upon to admire so extraordinary an anticipation with no less interest than astronomers, when they endeavour to divine by what means the Samian • Aristophanes' Birds, 694. PYTHAGOREAN SYSTEM. 13 philosopher came to the knowledge of the Copernican theory. Let us now examine the celebrated passages to which we have been adverting *:- ''Nothing perishes in this world; but things merely vary and change their form. To be born, means simply that a thing begins to be something different from what it was before ; and dying, is ceasing to be the same thing. Yet, althouah nothing retains long the same image, the sum of the whole r~mains constant." These general propositions are then confirmed by a series of examples, all derived from natural appearances, except the first, which refers to the golden age giving place to the age of iron. The illustrations are thus consecutively adduced. 1. Solid land has been converted into sea. fl. Sea has been changed into land. Marine shells lie far distant from the deep, and the anchor has been found on the summit of hills. 3. Valleys have been excavated by running water, and floods have washed down hills into the sea t. 4. Mar·shes have become dry ground. 5. Dry lands have been changed into stagnant pools. . 6. During earthquakes some springs have been closed up, and new ones have broken out. Rivers have deserted their channels, and have been re-born elsewhere ·; as the Erasinus in Greece, and l\fysus in Asia. 7. The waters of some rivers, formerly sweet, have become bitter, as those of the Anigris in Greece, &c. t 8. Islands have become connected with the main land by the growth of deltas and new deposits, as in the case of Antissa joined to Lesbos, Pharos to Egypt, &c. 9. Peninsulas have been divided from the main land, and have become islands, as Leucadia ; and accordina to tradition Sicily, the sea having carried away the isthmus. 0 10. Land has been submerged by earthquakes: the Grecian • Ovid's Metamor. lib. 15. t ~luvio mons est deductus in mquor, v. 267. The meaning of tlus last verse Is som~what obscure, but taken with the context, may be supposed to allude to the abradmg power of floods, torrents, and rivers. t. The impregnation from new mineral springs, caused by earthquakes in vol· caruc countnes1 is, perhaps, here alluded to. |