The history of philosophy - v. 2 Author:William Enfield Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: off virtue herfelf ;—together with many others, not inferior in merit, who flourished at this period. But we muft haften to conlider more diftinftly the ftate of... more » the feveral fedts of philofophers under the Emperors. 1 Tac. An. 1. v. c. 20. 1. xvi. c. 21. Plin. I. viii. ep. 22. Vidend. Fabr. Bib. (Jr. v. ii. p. 815. Bib. Tat. 1. i. c. 4. t. ii. p. 38-. 364; Gaudentius. c. 124. Cudworth. c. v. § 4. § 29. c. iv. § 14. 20. Stoll. riift.- Mor. Gent. § 195, 208. SECT. 2. OF THE PHILOSOPHERS WHO REVIVED THE PYTHA- GORIC SECT. AFTER the fociety of the Pythagoreans in Magna Grada was broken up, the fedt was never revived as a diftinft body, fubjeft to the inftitutions of its founder. Even at Athens, where fo many regular fchools of philofophy flourifhed, this was never attempted. We are not therefore to expert, that, in the time of the Roman Emperors, when, as Seneca complains", " no one attended to philofophy, or any liberal ftudy, except to fill up the tedious intervals of public amufements, or to occupy the heavy hours of a rainy day," the Pythagoric feft fhould appear with all the formalities of an eftablifhed fchool. But we fhall find, during this period, philofophers who embraced the doctrines of Pythagoras as far as they were then known, or who attempted to introduce a mode of living, in fome degree fimilar to that of the antient Pythagoreans. There Qu. Nat. 1. vii. c. 32. werewere alfo many who boafted, that they poflefled the true Pythagorean wifdom, but who in faft perverted and corrupted it, by blending with it the doctrines of Plato and other philofophers. Thefe latter, who are diftinguimed by the name of Eclectics, will be treated of in a diftindt fedtion. Of the former, the philofophers, whofe celebrity entitles them to particular notice, are Anaxila...« less