Mal.—I am no more mad than you are; make the trial of it in any constant question.
Clown.—What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild-fowl?
Mal.—That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird.
Clown.—What thinkest thou of his opinion?
Mal.—I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his opinion.
Clown.—Fare thee well. Remain thou still in darkness: thou shalt hold the opinion of Pythagoras ere I will allow of thy wits, and fear to kill a woodcock, lest thou dispossess the soul of thy grandam. Fare thee well.
At an early age, Walter Savage Landor transmitted to Dr. Samuel Parr an essay on the origin of the religion of the Druids. His biographer, John Forster, thus summarises its argument:—"It appeared to Landor that Pythagoras, who settled in Italy, and had many followers in the Greek colony of the Phocæans at Marseilles, had engrafted on a barbarous and bloodthirsty religion the human doctrine of the metempsychosis; for that finding it was vain to say, 'Do not murder,' as none ever minded that doctrine, he frightened the savages by saying, 'If you are cruel even to beasts and insects, the cruelty will fall upon yourselves; you will be the same.' He explained also the 'beans' of the old philosopher in the exact way that Coleridge took credit for afterwards originating; though in this both moderns had been anticipated by sundry other discoverers, beginning with Plutarch himself." The answer of the "kindly old scholar" is both learned and characteristic. He says, "I thank you for your very acute and masterly reasoning about Pythagoras, but I am no convert to his being in Gaul; for the doctrine of transmigration is much older, and prevailed among the Celts and Scythians long before Pythagoras. It is believed, even now, in the north of Europe, and would naturally suggest itself to any reflecting barbarian. However, you have done very well in your hypothesis."
According to Herodotus, the Egyptians were the first who believed in the immortality of the soul. After the demise of the body the soul was supposed to pass from one of the lower animals to another, until it had been duly located in the forms of all, terrestrial, aquatic, and winged. After this had been accomplished, the human form was again assumed. Three thousand years were considered necessary to the effecting of this complete metempsychosis.
The Pythagorean doctrine appears to have been originally regarded in the light of a purification. One commentator thus summarises it:—"The souls, previous to their entering into human bodies, floated in the air, from whence they were inhaled by the process of breathing at the moment of birth. At the moment of death, they descended into the lower world, where they were probably supposed to dwell a certain number of years, after which they again rose into the upper world, and floated in the air, until they entered into new bodies. When by this process their purification had become complete, the souls were raised to higher regions, where they continued to exist, and to enjoy the presence and company of the gods."
It is a general opinion that the history of no ancient sage or philosopher has been so much obscured as that of Pythagoras. The fables and miracles interwoven into the biographies of Porphyrius, Diogenes Laertius, and Iamblicus, have largely contributed to this result.