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."[1] 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.[2]
150.The central fire. The planetary system which Aristotle attributes to "the Pythagoreans" and Aetios to Philolaos is sufficiently remarkable.[3] The earth is no longer in the middle of the world; its place is taken by a central fire, which is not to
- ↑ Plato, Phaed. 86 b 7–c 5.
- ↑ See J. L. Stocks, Plato and the Tripartite Soul (Mind N.S., No. 94, 1915, pp. 207 sqq.). Plato himself points to the connexion in Rep. 443 d, 5 συναρμόσαντα τρία ὄντα, ὥσπερ ὅρους τρεῖς ἁρμονίας ἀτεχνῶς, νεάτης τε καὶ ὑπάτης καὶ μέσης, καὶ εἰ ἄλλα ἄττα μεταξὺ τυγχάνει ὄντα (i.e. the movable notes). Now there is good ground for believing that the statement of Aristides Quintilianus (ii. 2) that the θυμικόν is intermediate between the λογικόν and the ἄλογον comes from the musician Damon (Deiters, De Aristidis Quint. fontibus, 1870), the teacher of Perikles (p. 255, n. 2), to whom the Platonic Sokrates refers as his authority on musical matters, but who must have died when Plato was quite young. Moreover, Poseidonios (ap. Galen, De Hipp. et Plat. pp. 425 and 478) attributed the doctrine of the tripartite soul to Pythagoras, αὐτοῦ μὲν τοῦ Πυθαγόρου συγγράμματος οὐδενὸς εἰς ἡμᾶς διασῳζομένου, τεκμαιρόμενος δὲ ἐξ ὧν ἔνιοι τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ γεγράφασιν.
- ↑ For the authorities see R. P. 81-83. The attribution of the theory to Philolaos is perhaps due to Poseidonios. The "three books" were doubtless in existence by his time.
