Page:Early Greek philosophy by John Burnet, 3rd edition, 1920.djvu/310

296 moist, and things of that sort, our soul is a sort of temperament and attunement of these, when they are mingled with one another well and in due proportion. If, then, our soul is an attunement, it is clear that, when the body has been relaxed or strung up out of measure by diseases and other ills, the soul must necessarily perish at once." This is clearly an application of the theory of Alkmaion (§ 96), and is in accordance with the views of the Sicilian school. It completes the evidence that the Pythagoreanism of the end of the fifth century was an adaptation of the old doctrine to the new principles introduced by Empedokles.

It is further to be observed that, if the soul is regarded as an attunement in the Pythagorean sense, we should expect it to contain the three intervals then recognised, the fourth, the fifth and the octave, and this makes it extremely probable that Poseidonios was right in saying that the doctrine of the tripartite soul, as we know it from the Republic of Plato, was really Pythagorean. It is quite inconsistent with Plato's own view of the soul, but agrees admirably with that just explained.

150. The planetary system which Aristotle attributes to "the Pythagoreans" and Aetios to Philolaos is sufficiently remarkable. The earth is no longer in the middle of the world; its place is taken by a central fire, which is not to