On the Antiquity of the Chemical Art | Page 6

perhaps the greatest of all Greek philosophers, it is known,
travelled very widely, spending no less than twenty-two years in Egypt.
He also spent some considerable time at Babylon, and was taught the
lore of the Magi.
In the famous satire of Lucian on the philosophic quackery of his day
(about 120 A.D.), "The Sale of the Philosophers," we have a most
interesting account of the system of Pythagoras.
Scene--A Slave Mart. Jupiter, Mercury, philosophers_, in the garb of

slaves, for sale. Audience of buyers._
Jupiter.--Now, you arrange the benches, and get the place ready for the
company. You bring out the goods and set them in a row; but trim them
up a little first, and make them look their best, to attract as many
customers as possible. You, Mercury, must put up the lots, and bid all
comers welcome to the sale. Gentlemen,--We are here going to offer
you philosophical systems of all kinds, and of the most varied and
ingenious description. If any gentleman happens to be short of ready
money he can give his security for the amount, and pay next year.
Mercury (to Jupiter).--There are a great many come; so we had best
begin at once, and not keep them waiting.
Jupiter.--Begin the sale, then.
Mercury.--Whom shall we put up first?
Jupiter.--This fellow with the long hair--the Ionian. He's rather an
imposing personage.
Mercury.--You, Pythagoras, step out, and show yourself to the
company.
Jupiter.--Put him up.
Mercury.--Gentlemen, we here offer you a professor of the very best
and most select description. Who buys? Who wants to be a cut above
the rest of the world? Who wants to understand the harmonies of the
universe and to live two lives?
Customer (turning the philosopher round and examining him).--He's
not bad to look at. What does he know best?
Mercury.--Arithmetic, astronomy, prognostics, geometry, music, and
conjuring. You've a first-rate soothsayer before you.
Customer.--May one ask him a few questions?

Mercury.--Certainly--(aside), and much good may the answers do you.
Customer.--What country do you come from?
Pythagoras.--Samos.
Customer.--Where were you educated?
Pythagoras.--In Egypt, among the wise men there.
Customer.--Suppose I buy you, now, what will you teach me?
Pythagoras.--I will teach you nothing--only recall things to your
memory.
Customer.--How will you do that?
Pythagoras.--First, I will clean out your mind, and wash out all the
rubbish.
Customer.--Well, suppose that done, how do you proceed to refresh the
memory?
Pythagoras.--First, by long repose and silence, speaking no word for
five whole years.
Customer.--Why, look ye, my good fellow, you'd best go teach the
dumb son of Croesus! I want to talk and not be a dummy. Well--but
after this silence, and these five years?
Pythagoras.--You shall learn music and geometry.
Customer.--A queer idea, that one must be a fiddler before one can be a
wise man!
Pythagoras.--Then you shall learn the science of numbers.
Customer.--Thank you, but I know how to count already.

Pythagoras.--How do you count?
Customer.--One, two, three, four----
Pythagoras.--Ha! what you call four is ten, and the perfect triangle, and
the great oath by which we swear.
Customer.--Now, so help me, the great ten and four, I never heard more
divine or more wonderful words!
Pythagoras.--And afterwards, stranger, you shall learn about Earth, and
Air, and Water, and Fire--what is their action, and what their form, and
what their motion.
Customer.--What! have Fire, Air, or Water bodily shape?
Pythagoras.--Surely they have; else, without form and shape, how
could they move! Besides, you shall learn that the Deity consists in
Number, Mind, and Harmony.
Customer.--What you say is really wonderful.
Pythagoras.--Besides what I have just told you, you shall understand
that you yourself, who seem to be one individual, are really somebody
else.
Customer.--What! do you mean to say I'm somebody else, and not
myself, now talking to you?
Pythagoras.--Just at this moment you are; but once upon a time you
appeared in another body, and under another name; and hereafter you
will pass again into another shape still.
(After a little more discussion of this philosopher's tenets, he is
purchased on behalf of a company of professors from Magna Græca for
ten minæ. The next lot is Diogenes, the Cynic.)
Apuleius says in the Florida, Section XV., in reference to Pythagoras,
that he went to Egypt to acquire learning, "that he was there taught by

the priests the incredible power of ceremonies, the wonderful
commutations of numbers, and the most ingenious figures of geometry;
but that, not satisfied with these mental accomplishments, he
afterwards visited the Chaldæans and the Brahmins, and amongst the
latter the Gymnosophists. The Chaldæans taught him the stars, the
definite orbits of the planets, and the various effects of both kinds of
stars upon the nativity of men, as also, for much money, _the remedies
for human use derived from the earth, the air, and the sea_