Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/137

 monwealths: He had much more Knowledge, than any Man of that Age in Italy, and knew how to make the most of it. He took great Delight in Arithmetical Speculations, which, as Galileo (z), not improbably, guesses, he involved in Mysteries, that so ignorant People might not despise him for busying himself in such abstruse Matters, which they could not comprehend; and if they could have comprehended, did not know to what Use to put them. He took a sure Way to have all his Studies valued, by obliging his Scholars to resign up their Understandings to his Authority and Dictates. The great Simplicity of his Manners, with the Wisdom of his Axioms and Symbols charmed an ignorant Age, which found real Advantages by following his peaceful Measures; much above those that were formerly procured by Rapin and Violence. This seems to be a true Account of Pythagoras, in the History of whose Reputation, there is nothing extraordinary, since Civilizers of Nations have always been as much magnify'd as the Inventors of the most useful Arts: But one can no more conclude from thence, That Pythagoras knew as much as Aristotle or Democritus, than that Friar Bacon was as great a Mathematician as