Page:Early Greek philosophy by John Burnet, 3rd edition, 1920.djvu/209

Rh scanty, but sufficient to show that he treated the subject systematically.

His astronomy seems very crude for one who stood in close relations with the Pythagoreans. We are told that he adopted Anaximenes' theory of the sun and Herakleitos's explanation of eclipses. If, however, we were right in holding that the Second Part of the poem of Parmenides represents the view of Pythagoras, we see that he had not gone very far beyond the Milesians in such matters. His theory of the heavenly bodies was still "meteorological." It is all the more remarkable that Alkmaion is credited with the view that the planets have an orbital motion in the opposite direction to the diurnal revolution of the heavens. This view, which he may have learnt from Pythagoras, would naturally be suggested by the difficulties we noted in the system of Anaximander. It doubtless stood in close connexion with his saying that soul was immortal because it resembled immortal things, and was always in motion like the heavenly bodies. He seems, in fact, to be the author of the curious view Plato put into the mouth of the Pythagorean Timaios, that the soul has circles in it revolving just as the heavens and the planets do. This too seems to be the explanation of his further statement that man dies because he cannot join the beginning to the end. The orbits of the heavenly bodies always come full circle, but the circles in the human head may fail to complete themselves.

Alkmaion's theory of health as "isonomy" is at once that which most clearly connects him with earlier inquirers