Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/154

80 men of great reading and diffuse knowledge, who after Diogenes, wrote the life of the same Pythagoras, would not have omitted any material thing of that kind if they had anywhere met with it.

Amongst his other journeys Sir William Temple mentions Pythagoras's journey to Delphi. What that voyage of his is here remembered for, it is not easy to guess. Apollo's priestesses are not famous for discovering secrets in natural or mathematical matters, and as for moral truths, they might as well be known without going to Delphi to fetch them. in his Discourses of the Heathen Oracles has endeavoured to prove that they were only artifices of the priests, who gave such answers to enquirers as they desired—when they had either power or wealth to back their requests. If Van Dalen's hypothesis be admitted, it will strengthen my notion of Pythagoras very much, since when he did not care to live any longer in Samos, because of tyranny, and was desirous to establish to himself a lasting reputation for wisdom and learning amongst the ignorant inhabitants of Magna Graecia, where he settled upon his retirement, he was willing to have them think that Apollo