Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/128

 than transcribers or commentators of the ancient learning. Now to consider at what sources our ancients drew their water, and with what unwearied pains. It is evident Thales and Pythagoras were the two founders of the Grecian philosophy: the first gave beginning to the Ionic sect, and the other to the Italic; out of which all the others celebrated in Greece or Rome were derived or composed. Thales was the first of the Sophi, or wise men famous in Greece, and is said to have learned his astronomy, geometry, astrology, theology, in his travels from his country, Miletus, to Egypt, Phœnicia, Crete, and Delphos. Pythagoras was the father of philosophers, and of the virtues, having in modesty chosen the name of a lover of wisdom, rather than of wise; and having first introduced the names of the four cardinal virtues, and given them the place and rank they have held ever since in the world. Of these two mighty men remain no writings at all; for those golden verses that go under the name of Pythagoras are generally rejected as spurious, like many other fragments of Sibyls, or old poets, and some entire poems that run with ancient names: nor is it agreed, whether he ever left anything