The famous doctrine of the Metempsychosis or Transmigration of Souls also was, doubtless, a prominent feature in the Pythagorean system; but it is probable that we may presume that by it Pythagoras intended merely to convey to the “uninstructed,” by parable, the sublime idea that the soul is gradually purified by a severe course of discipline until finally it becomes fitted for a fleshless life of immortality.[10] We are chiefly concerned with his attitude in regard to flesh eating. There can be no question that abstinence was a fundamental part of his system, yet certain modern critics--little in sympathy with so practical a manifestation of the higher life, or, indeed, with self-denial of any kind--have sometimes affected either to doubt the fact or to pass it by in contemptuous silence, thus ignoring what for the after ages stands out as by far the most important residuum of Pythagoreanism. In support of this scepticism the fact of the celebrated athlete Milo, whose prodigies of strength have become proverbial, has been quoted. Yet if these critics had been at the pains of inquiring somewhat further, they would have learned, on the contrary, that the non-flesh diet is exactly that which is most conducive to physical vigour; that in the East there are at this day non-flesh eaters, who in feats of strength might put even our strongest men to the blush. The extraordinary powers of the porters and boatmen of Constantinople have been remarked by many travellers; and the Chinese coolies and others are almost equally notorious for their marvellous powers of endurance. Yet their food is not only of the simplest--rice, dhourra (_i.e._, millet), onions, &c.--but of the scantiest possible. Moreover, the elder Greek athletes themselves, for the most part, trained on vegetarian diet. Not to multiply details, the fact that, upon a moderate calculation, two-thirds at least of the population of our globe--including the mass of the inhabitants of these islands--live, _nolentes, volentes_, on a dietary from which flesh is almost altogether necessarily excluded, is on the face of it sufficient proof in itself of the non-necessity of the diet of the rich. While the general consent of antiquity and of later times has received as undoubted the obligation of strict abstinence on the part of the immediate followers of Pythagoras, it seems that as regards the uninitiated, or (to use the ecclesiastical term) _catechumens_, the obligation was not so strict. Indeed relaxation of the rules of the higher life was simply a _sine quâ non_ of securing the attention of the mass of the community at all; and, like one still more eminent than himself in an after age, he found it a matter of necessity to present a teaching and a mode of living not too exalted and unattainable by the grossness and “hardness of heart” of the multitude. Hence, in all probability, the seeming contradictions in his teaching on this point found in the narratives of his followers.