planets, in a manner corresponding to the proportion of the notes
in a musical scale. Hence the "music of the spheres." From what
can be gathered of the astronomical doctrine of Pythagoras, it
has been inferred that he was possessed of the true idea of the
solar system, which was revived by Coper'nicus and fully
established by Newton. With respect to God, Pythagoras appears
to have taught that he is the universal, ever-existent mind,
the first principle of the universe, the source and cause of all
animal life and motion, in substance similar to light, in nature
like truth, incapable of pain, invisible, incorruptible, and only
to be comprehended by the mind. His philosophy and teachings are
thus pictured by the poet THOMSON:

Here dwelt the Samian sage; to him belongs
The brightest witness of recording fame.
He sought Crotona's pure, salubrious air,
And through great Greece his gentle wisdom taught.
His mental eye first launched into the deeps
Of boundless ether; where unnumbered orbs,
Myriads on myriads, through the pathless sky
Unerring roll, and wind their steady way.
There he the full consenting choir beheld;
There first discerned the secret band of love,
The kind attraction, that to central suns
Binds circling earths, and world with world unites.
Instructed thence, he great ideas formed
Of the whole-moving, all-informing God,
The Sun of Beings! beaming unconfined--
Light, life, and love, and ever active power:
Whom naught can image, and who best approves