172 NOTES TO PYTHAGORAS.
This certainly may have been the case; but, yet, I must confess that it seems somewhat strange that so many of the philosophers should appear to have followed in the same track, without perhaps, feeling any great impulse from the motive so kindly attributed to Socrates. That Pythagoras was a believer in the existence of one God, the Sovereign Lord and Creator of the Universe, there can be no doubt, since in his Theological system he maintained, that the world was created from a chaotic mass of matter by God, who was himself the living principle of its existence-its mover, its supporter, its soul; and that this same all-powerful and sole Creator and supporter of the Universe infused into his work symmetry, beauty, order, and harmony, which no chance or power but himself could produce, and which was the most infallible proof of his incomparable skill, wisdom, and greatness. But, notwithstanding this correct and sublime view of the Deity, we yet find him using the phraseology of polytheism, and thus forcing a conviction on our minds that he held some vague notion of the existence and power of various Divinities.
Note B, page 163.
Let foul debauch a stern subjection own,
And Sleep's domain, with Sloth's rank weeds o'ergrown;
Lust's foul desires should stoop to stern control,
And Anger's breath that shakes the troubled soul.
Nothing could exceed in rigor and severity of discipline the system which Pythagoras adopted with his scholars. While they were under what was called their probation, he never
