Numbers: Their Occult Power and Mystic Virtues

PYTHAGORAS, HIS TENETS AND HIS FOLLOWERS.

Pythagoras, one of the greatest philosophers of ancient Euroj^e, was the son of Mnesarchus, an engraver, he w^as born about the year 580 B.C. either at Samos an island in the ^gean Sea, or as some saj-, at Sidon in Phoenicia. Very little is known of his early life, beyond the fact that he won prizes for feats of agility at the 01}-mpic Games; having attained manhood, and feeling dissatisfied with the amount of knowledge to be gained at home, he left his native land and spent many years in travel, visiting in turn most of the great centres of Learning. History narrates that his pilgrimage in search ot wisdom extended to Egypt, Hindostan, Persia, Crete, and Palestine, and that he gathered from each country fresh stores of information, and succeeded in becoming well acquainted with the Esoteric Wisdom as well as with the popular esoteric knowledge of each.