Page:Early Greek philosophy by John Burnet, 3rd edition, 1920.djvu/122

108 was seven, justice was four, and marriage three. These identifications, with a few others like them, we may safely refer to Pythagoras or his immediate successors; but we must not attach too much importance to them. We must start, not from them, but from any statements we can find that present points of contact with the teaching of the Milesian school. These, we may fairly infer, belong to the system in its most primitive form.

53. Now the most striking statement of this kind is one of Aristotle's. The Pythagoreans held, he tells us, that there was "boundless breath" outside the heavens, and that it was inhaled by the world. In substance, that is the doctrine of Anaximenes, and it becomes practically certain that it was taught by Pythagoras, when we find that Xenophanes denied it. We may infer that the further development of the idea is also due to Pythagoras. We are told that, after the first unit had been formed—however that may have taken place—the nearest part of the Boundless was first drawn in and limited; and that it is the Boundless thus inhaled that keeps the units separate from each other. It represents the interval between them. This is a primitive way of describing discrete quantity.