Page:Early Greek philosophy by John Burnet, 3rd edition, 1920.djvu/293

Rh cold. It was only after birth that the cold was introduced by respiration. The connexion of this with the old Pythagorean theory is clear. Just as the Fire in the macrocosm draws in and limits the cold dark breath which surrounds the world (§ 53), so do our bodies inhale cold breath from outside. Philolaos made bile, blood, and phlegm the causes of disease; and, in accordance with this theory, he had to deny that the phlegm was cold, as the Sicilian school held. Its etymology proved it to be warm. We shall see that it was probably this preoccupation with the medicine of the Sicilian school that gave rise to some of the most striking developments of later Pythagoreanism.

140. Such, so far as I can judge, was the historical Philolaos, though he is usually represented in a very different light and has even been called a predecessor of Copernicus. To understand this, we must turn our attention to the story of a literary conspiracy.

We have seen that there are one or two references to Philolaos in Plato, but these hardly suggest that he played an important part in the development of Pythagorean science. The most elaborate account we have of this is put by Plato into the mouth of Timaios the Lokrian, of whom we know no more than he has chosen to tell us. It is clear at least that he is supposed to have visited Athens when Sokrates was still in the prime of life, and that he must have been practically a contemporary of Philolaos. It hardly seems likely that Plato should have given him the credit of discoveries which were really due to his better known contemporary. However, Plato had many enemies and detractors, and Aristoxenos was one of them. We know he made the extraordinary statement that most of the Republic was to be found in a work by Protagoras, and he