[584] Compare To the Cuckoo, vol. ii. p. 289—
A wandering Voice.—Ed.
[585] 1836.
O for some soul-affecting scheme
Of moral music, to unite
Wanderers whose portion is the faintest dream 1835.
[586] 1836
... they ... 1835.
[587] 1835.
There is a world of spirit,
By tones and numbers guided and controlled;
And glorious privilege have they who merit
Initiation in that mystery old.
MS. copy by Dorothy Wordsworth.
[588] The fundamental idea, both in the intellectual and moral philosophy of the Pythagoreans, was that of harmony or proportion. Their natural science or cosmology was dominated by the same idea, that as the world and all spheres within the universe were constructed symmetrically, and moved around a central focus, the forms and the proportions of things were best expressed by number. All good was due to the principle of order; all evil to disorder. In accordance with the mathematical conception of the universe which ruled the Pythagoreans, justice was equality ([Greek: isotês]ισότης), that is to say it consisted in each one receiving equally according to his deserts. Friendship too was equality of feeling and relationship; harmony being the radical idea, alike in the ethics and in the cosmology of the school.—Ed.