RUFUS PERRY, ESQ @ PYTHAGORAS

“It is to Pythagoras that we are indebted for the term ‘Philosopher’. Being asked the art in which he most excelled, he replied that he did not claim to be a master of any art, but was a ‘Philosopher’, that is a ‘lover of wisdom.’ “Leontius of Peloponnesus was the questioner and did not understand the term ‘Philosopher’. Pythagoras to inform his friend more fully observed: ‘This life may be compared to the Olympic Games: for in this assembly some seek glory and the crowns; some by the purchase or the sale of merchandise seek gain ; others , more noble than either , go there neither for gain or for applause, but solely to enjoy this wonderful spectacle, and to see and know all that passes. We, in the same manner, quit our country, which is Heaven, and come into the world, which is an assembly where many work for profit, many for gain, and where there are but few, who, despising avarice and vanity, study nature. It is these last whom I call Philosophers; for as there is nothing more noble than to be a spectator without any personal interest , so in this life, the contemplation and knowledge of nature are infinitely more honorable than any other application. “He taught that ‘Number’ was the actuating force of nature; that God was ‘unity’, the universal mind—, in all things, the source of all life, and the intrinsic cause of all motion. “The ‘Divine Mind’ was the primary unit from which all human minds sprang, and to which they are related as units of a lower order. That is, the human soul is a fractional unit of the divine soul, that pervades nature .” P.7-8, SKETCH OF PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEMS by Rufus L. M. H. Perry, Esq. (1918)