_Gorg._ 493 A. I once heard one of the wise men say that now we are dead and the body is our tomb, and that that part of the soul where desires are, it so happens, is open to persuasion, and moves upward or downward. And, indeed, a clever man—perhaps some inhabitant of Sicily or Italy—speaking allegorically, and taking the word from ‘credible’ (πίθανος) and ‘persuadable’ (πιστικός), called this a jar (πίθος); and he called those without intelligence uninitiated, and that part of the soul of uninitiated persons where the desires are, he called its intemperateness, and said it was not watertight, as a jar might be pierced with holes—using the simile because of its insatiate desires. _Gorg._ 507 E. And the wise men say that one community embraces heaven and earth and gods and men and friendship and order and temperance and righteousness, and for that reason they call this whole a universe, my friend, for it is not without order nor yet is there excess. It seems to me that you do not pay attention to these things, though you are wise in regard to them. But it has escaped your notice that geometrical equality prevails widely among both gods and men. PASSAGES IN ARISTOTLE REFERRING TO THE PYTHAGOREANS. _Phys._ iii. 4; 203 a 1. For all who think they have worthily applied themselves to such philosophy, have discoursed concerning the infinite, and they all have asserted some first principle of things—some, like the Pythagoreans and Plato, a first principle existing by itself, not connected with anything else, but being itself the infinite in its essence. Only the Pythagoreans found it among things perceived by sense (for they say that number is not an abstraction), and they held that it was the infinite outside the heavens. iii. 4; 204 a 33. (The Pythagoreans) both hold that the infinite is being, and divide it. iv. 6; 213 b 22. And the Pythagoreans say that there is a void, and that it enters into the heaven itself from the infinite air, as though it (the heaven) were breathing; and this void defines the natures of things, inasmuch as it is a certain separation and definition of things that lie together; and this is true first in the case of numbers, for the void defines the nature of these. _De coel._ i. 1; 268 a 10. For as the Pythagoreans say, the all and all things are defined by threes; for end and middle and beginning constitute the number of the all, and also the number of the triad. ii. 2; 284 b 6. And since there are some who say that there is a right and left of the heavens, as, for instance, those that are called Pythagoreans (for such is their doctrine), we must investigate whether it is as they say.