Page:Early Greek philosophy by John Burnet, 3rd edition, 1920.djvu/308

294 in the Philolaic fragment, with the "hull of the sphere." Whatever we may think of the authenticity of the fragments there is no reason to doubt that this is a genuine Pythagorean expression, and it must be taken in close connexion with the word "keel" applied to the central fire. The structure of the world was compared to the building of a ship, an idea of which there are other traces. The key to what we are told of the dodecahedron is also given by Plato. In the Phaedo, which must have been written before the doctrine of the regular solids was fully established, we read that the "true earth," if looked at from above, is "many-coloured like the balls that are made of twelve pieces of leather." In the Timaeus the same thing is referred to in those words: "Further, as there is still one construction left, the fifth, God made use of it for the universe when he painted it." The point is that the dodecahedron approaches more nearly to the sphere than any other of the regular solids. The twelve pieces of leather used to make a ball would all be regular pentagons; and, if the material were not flexible