for such Pherecydes is reputed to have been-operated like faseination on his soul, cultured, if it did not originate, his taste for philosophic pursuits, and excited in him an earnest and enthusiastic love of wisdom, which he determined, so far as in his power, to satisfy. At that time the universe was man's only text-book, and travel, or converse with those who had travelled, the only means of reading it. In this wisdom-search Pythagoras set out, and went, first, to the wonder-land of Egypt. That country was familiar to the Samian mariners, and it is probable, from his father's position, that he may have enjoyed the friendship of many of the wealthy and noble. It is said that he had received from Polycrates, afterwards tyrant of Samos, letters of introduction to Amasis, king of Egypt, and that in consequence thereof he was initiated, by that sovereign's commands, into all the mysteries of the priest-caste there. From them he may have had his notions on the immortality of the soul modified; many traditions regarding the gods interpreted; the secret symbol writing of the time expounded; the institutions of the country-sacerdotal, civil, and social-explained; and some elements of arithmetical and geometrical science added to his knowledge. It is very certain, at least, that a man of acute and observant mind, whose chief purpose in travel was the acquisition of knowledge, could not have witnessed the workings of the strange polity which prevailed in that country, without learning therefrom much that might afterwards be valued and useful. On leaving Egypt, after a long sojourn, he passed into Chaldæa, and from the Magi of his day learned all the witching lore they had acquired, and the "pleasing sorcery" by which, making the fancy minister to thought, they knit together the fortunes of men with the influences and aspects of the orbs of heaven, at the same time that he witnessed the mode in which their dynasts wielded power. Nay, even to far Hindostan he penetrated, and, from the gymnosophist ascetics there, wormed out the secrets of their close-kept faith. Carrying with him, as he must have done, the teachings of Pherecydes, as well as the popular versions of the maxims of the sages and the Thaletian prolocutions, as the groundwork of his observations and inquiries, he must have been led to reflect on the ignorance of moral and political truth which his compeers exhibited, and been induced to scan, with minute care, the diverse systems of government and laws under which the human race lay bound "as with an iron rod." Having done so, and witnessed their dire effects in the entire prostration of intellect-the stereotyping of a dead brute-level of soul amongst the classes who stood beyond the circle of king, noble, and priestand being connected, by birth and sympathy, with the merchantclass, most subject to tyrannous spoliation, there is little to be wondered at in his forming some legislative scheme by which, while men should be subjected to wholesome discipline, they might

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be gradually elevated and made self-ruling. Hastening home with the ardent hopefulness of a reformer, what was his disappointment at finding his native island suffering severely from the ambitious designs of his quondam friend, Polycrates, the most enterprising, luxurious, and arbitrary tyrant of Samos-and himself exposed to jealousy as a dangerous man"-as all thinkers truly are to overweening despots. Upon seeing this the state of matters, he set sail for continental Greece, where he again appeared as a competitor in the Olympic games, and took a tour through the greater part of the peninsula. It was in this journey-while yet the recollections of the exciting days of the festival were fresh in his mind-that, having entered Phliuswhither the fame of his learning had forerun himself on being saluted by Leontius, the king, by the title of sophist, then usually applied as a term of respect and honour to those men who belonged to the peerage of thought, he, with becoming modesty, rejected the implied compliment, and adopted the more humble title of philosopher; at the same time, with singular beauty and felicity, explaining the signification which he wished to be attached to that word by an unrivalled simile, to this effect; viz.:

We

The life of man may be compared to the Olympic games. In those grand assemblages, some strive for glory and the ennobling palm of the victor; many, by the sale or purchase of merchandise, seek profit; and a multitude have no higher aim than the mere pleasure and excitement which the concourse affords; while there are but few who come there to survey calmly the whole of the groups, and acquire a knowledge of their several interests, and hopes, and desires. Even so in this world-life of ours. leave our heaven-home to enter into being here, where the festival of life is to be wrought out or witnessed. Many exert themselves to acquire fame and power, or the good repute of men; more endeavour to earn wealth; and a multitude seek pleasure only; while there but a few who, free alike from vanity, avarice, or appetence, seek to employ themselves in the contemplation of the works of nature and in the search for truth; these last are philosophers-lovers, although it may not perhaps be that they are gainers, of the truth. In this class he ranked himself, and thus at once gave a reason for his extended travels, as well as forth-shadowed his views of the highest aims of life; viz., that which, when the time of action is over, gives place to the calm pleasures of thought-contemplative reasoning on men and things.

It will be afterwards seen, that although he regarded thought as the grandest element in life, he did not seek to confine men to resultless thought, but that he desired to make men contemplative, that they might be more truly and earnestly active and capable when the hours of action came. He passed through

Elis, Sparta, Olympia, and visited Crete and Delphi. In these journeyings he studied, with the greatest care, the various political constitutions under which men lived, and was doubtlessly maturing that sublime legislative scheme, in which were to be combined the finesse and craft of the Egyptic and other priest-politics, with the noble training and legal system which many of the republics of Greece exhibited. Nor could he fail to be stimulated by the fame of Solon of Athens, Lycurgus of Sparta, Zaleucus of Locri, Charondas of Catana, Pittacus of Lesbos, and Bias of Priené. It is not improbable, either, that having elaborated his plan, and settled on the aim and purpose of his life, he kept ever before his mind's eye how needful it was to find a fitting place for his experiment. Hence he not only traversed over continental Greece, but extended his voyaging into those colonies which the energetic Locrians had established in Southern Italy.

There, not far from the Tarentine gulf, and near the present Capo delle Colonne, stood Crotona, at that time an oligarchy, on the verge of revolution. The fame of Pythagoras had, of course, been bruited abroad, even to Crotona; and, no less probably, had the difficulties of the Crotoniats reached his ears, and, perhaps, induced his journey thitherwards. For it is in unsettled states that speculators are ever most ardently welcomed, and in these, too, they have the widest scope for experiment, as well as the men and means to carry out their views. The senate of Crotona went forth to meet him, and complimented him as the person whose fame most unequivocally pointed him out as a fitting arbiter and adviser. There was, probably, some duplicity in their intentions-some design of wielding him as a tool of their own; but on his side it appears that a similar design as to themselves had been speedily formed; and although he abjured the outward offices and trappings of government, there can be little doubt but that he in a short space of time became the virtual lawgiver and ruler of that state. He had now attained the ripe age of forty, had seen much and thought more, and was especially skilled in those arts by which man governs men.

The detail of his doctrines will fall to be considered in our expository sketch, and therefore we can only mention incidentally here that his highest purpose in this institute was to rear and culture those men who were likely to have consigned to their charge the reins of government, upon whom, consequently, the welfare of men would depend; and he justly believed, that those who could most readily receive the willing homage and obedience of the people, would eventually be able to elaborate the most perfect social code, and the most efficacious means of attaining a happy life and prosperous nationalities.

In this he most admirably succeeded for a time; so much so, that three hundred of his disciples sat in the legislative halls of

Crotona, while numerous other members of his school held power in the cities of Italy and Sicily, as well as in islands which lie in the Egean Sea; thus realizing, in its larger and truer significance, his ambition to become the legislative benefactor of his race.

But it is seldom given to man to survey the successful issue of his plans. Nor was it so with Pythagoras. In the neighbourhood of Crotona lay the city Sybaris, whose wealth and luxurious magnificence have been written in the proverbs of many nations. The governors of that city had resolutely rejected any modifications of their law-codes in accordance with the Pythagorean scheme, and hence had arisen discord and dissension within it, and a quarrel between the Sybarites and the Crotoniats. The latter, under the leadership of Milo, a favourite pupil of the Samian philosopher, completely overcame the former, and the proud city of Sybaris fell. But success is not always prosperity. A faction arose in Crotona, headed by Cylon, an artful and ambitious demagogue, who had been refused admission into the Pythagorean league. Excited by the desire of sharing in the wealth of the conquered city, they became clamorous, because denied the right of spoliation. In their fury, they set the senate house in flames during a sederunt of its members. Pythagoras fled to Metapontum, where he shortly afterwards died, about B.C. 504,-and Crotona suffered the penalty of its folly by a speedy and irretrievable decay. The reaction, however, had commenced; similar outbreaks sprang up everywhere; and the system, strong-built though it was, was shattered by popular commotions. The outward form perished for a while, but with a true metempsychosis its spirit still survives, and permeates many systems of thought. Like a mighty shade, the author stands away in the time-distance, and among the grey mists of the past. Fable has limned those mists with many fancies, and her gorgeous tracery has been accepted as the real and true; but the glory of earth's earliest and best Utopian, though perceptible only through the twilight haze of antiquity, is still vivid to the eye, and posterity has not ceased to remember him, not only as a lover of wisdom, but also as a creator of the good and the true. Echo has repeated his name from age to age for twenty-four centuries, and the muses have unanimously translated him to the upper sanctuary of Fame.

In our next we shall present an expository resumé of his teaching, when it will become more evident than now how full of the spirit of wisdom he was.

MAKING OTHERS HAPPY.-Have you made one happy heart to-day? How calmly you can seek your pillow! how sweetly sleep! In all this world there is nothing so sweet as giving comfort to the distressed, as getting a sun-ray into a gloomy heart.

Religion.

HAVE WE SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE, APART FROM SCRIPTURE, TO BELIEVE IN THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL?

NEGATIVE ARTICLE.-I.

THIS question, as we understand it, includes another “Can man, without the aid of revelation, attain to the belief that he is immortal?" In endeavouring to solve this problem, our first duty is to realize, as far as possible, what would have been the amount of our knowledge on this and kindred subjects, had we not received the teachings of revelation. In order that our verdict may be impartial and unbiassed, it is absolutely necessary that we place ourselves, in imagination, in the position of those who have not a particle of revealed truth (if there be such), while we prosecute our inquiry by the light of nature and reason. We must avoid the error of some opponents of scripture, who, after enjoying the light of divine truth from their infancy, and having had their thoughts and feelings influenced by it, have asserted that there is no necessity for a written revelation, and that reason itself is sufficient for the discovery of all truth.

Now it is in the matter of discovering moral and spiritual truths that we think man's powers are deficient. Reason, assisted by the light of nature and the dictates of conscience, might perhaps lead man to infer the existence of some superior being, who was the ruler of the universe and the arbiter of the race, to whom he owed allegiance, and whose favour it was his duty to seek by some kind of worship; but when conscience accused him of having incurred the anger of the Deity, we think he would have no idea of the way in which he could conciliate offended majesty; and for the discovery of the fundamental principles of true morality, history evidently shows that his powers are vitally deficient. Neither would reason and the light of nature alone be sufficient to assure him with certainty of his destiny, of his existence, or the duration of that existence beyond the present life. The certainty of a future state and its character, are subjects upon which the mind of man, unassisted by revelation, can afford no satisfactory information. It is impossible to say to what extent the ideas of the heathen, who have no written revelation relative to the great truths of the existence of a God, the necessity under which man lies to propitiate his favour by means of sacrifices, the existence of a future state, and the im