When discussing the Pythagorean system, Aristotle always refers it to “the Pythagoreans,” not to Pythagoras himself. That this was intentional seems to be proved by the phrase οἱ καλούμενοι Πυθαγόρειοι, which occurs more than once (_e.g._ _Met._ Α, 5. 985 b 23; _de Caelo_, Β, 13. 293 a 20). Pythagoras himself is only thrice mentioned in the whole Aristotelian corpus, and in only one of these places (_M. Mor._ 1182 a 11) is any philosophical doctrine ascribed to him. We are told there that he was the first to discuss the subject of goodness, and that he made the mistake of identifying its various forms with numbers. But this is just one of the things which prove the late date of the _Magna Moralia_. Aristotle himself is quite clear that what he knew as the Pythagorean system belonged in the main to the days of Empedokles, Anaxagoras, and Leukippos; for, after mentioning these, he goes on to describe the Pythagoreans as “contemporary with and earlier than them” (ἐν δὲ τούτοις καὶ πρὸ τούτων, _Met._ Α, 5. 985 b 23). Footnote 209: The fragments of the Πυθαγορικαὶ ἀποφάσεις of Aristoxenos are given by Diels, _Vors._ pp. 282 sqq. Footnote 210: _V. Pyth._ 19 (R. P. 55). Footnote 211: See Diels, _Dox._ p. 150; and “Ein gefälschtes Pythagorasbuch” (_Arch._ iii. pp. 451 sqq.). Cf. also Bernays, _Die Heraklitischen Briefe_, n. 1. [Sidenote: Transmigration.] 42. In the first place, then, there can be no doubt that he really taught the doctrine of transmigration.[212] The story told by the Greeks of the Hellespont and Pontos as to his relations with Salmoxis could never have gained currency by the time of Herodotos if he had not been known as a man who taught strange views of the life after death.[213] Now the doctrine of transmigration is most easily to be explained as a development of the savage belief in the kinship of men and beasts, as all alike children of the Earth,[214] a view which Dikaiarchos said Pythagoras certainly held. Further, among savages, this belief is commonly associated with a system of taboos on certain kinds of food, and the Pythagorean rule is best known for its prescription of similar forms of abstinence. This in itself goes far to show that it originated in the same ideas, and we have seen that the revival of these would be quite natural in connexion with the foundation of a new religious society. There is a further consideration which tells strongly in the same direction. In India we have a precisely similar doctrine, and yet it is not possible to assume any actual borrowing of Indian ideas at this date. The only explanation which will account for the facts is that the two systems were independently evolved from the same primitive ideas. These are found in many parts of the world; but it seems to have been only in India and in Greece that they were developed into an elaborate doctrine. Footnote 212: