PURIFICATION

4 . Be a good son, just brother, spouse tender, and good father.

     The aim of the doctrine of Pythagoras was to enlighten men, to purify
them of their vices, to deliver them from their errors, and to restore them
to virtue and to truth; and after having caused them to pass through all the
degrees of the understanding and intelligence, to render them like unto the
immortal gods.
     This philosopher had for this purpose divided his doctrine into two
parts: the purgative part and the unitive part.  Through the first, man
became purified of his uncleanness, emerged from the darkness of ignorance,
and attained to virtue: through the second, he used his acquired virtue to
become united to the Divinity through whose means he arrived at perfection.
These two parts are found quite distinct in the Golden Verses.  Hierocles,
who has clearly grasped them, speaks of it in the beginning of his
"Commentaries" and designates them by two words which contain, he said, all
the doctrine of Pythagoras, Purification and Perfection.  The Magians and
the Chaldeans, all of whose principles Pythagoras had adopted, were agreed
on this point, and in order to express their idea, made use of a parabolical
phrase very celebrated among them.  "We consume," they said, "the refuse of
matter by the fire of divine love."  An anonymous author who has written an
history of Pythagoras, preserved by Photius, said that the disciples of this
great man taught that one perfects oneself in three ways: in communing with
the gods, in doing good in imitation of the gods, and in departing from this
life to rejoin the gods.  The first of these ways is contained in the first
three lines of the Golden Verses which concern the cult rendered, according
to the law and according to the faith, to the Gods, to the glorified Heroes,
and to the Spirits.  The second, that is, the Purification, begins at the
fourth line which makes the subject of this Examination.  The third, that
is, the union with the Divinity, or Perfection, begins at the fortieth line
of my translation:

          Let not sleep e'er close thy tired eyes.

     Thus the division that I have believed ought to be made of this short
poem is not at all arbitrary, as one sees the judicious Bayle had remarked
it before me.
     It is worthy of observation, that Pythagoras begins the purgative part
of his doctrine by commending the observance of natural duties, and that he
places in the rank of primary virtues, filial piety, paternal and conjugal
love.  Thus this admirable philosopher made it his first care to strengthen
the ties of blood and make them cherished and sacred; he exhorts respect to
children, tenderness to parents, and union to all the members of the family;
he follows thus the profound sentiment which Nature inspires in all sentient
beings, very different in this from certain legislators, blinded by false
politics, who, in order to conduct men to I know not what power and what
imaginary welfare, have wished, on the contrary, to break those ties,
annihilate those relationships of father, son, and brother, to concentrate,
they said, upon a being of reason called Country the affection that the soul
divides among those objects of its first love.  If the legislators had cared
to reflect a moment, they would have seen that there existed no country for
the one who had no father, and that the respect and love that a man in his
virile age feels for the place of his birth, holds its principle and
receives its force from those same sentiments that he felt in his infancy
for his mother.  Every effect proclaims a cause; every edifice rests upon a
foundation: the real cause of love of country is maternal love; the sole
foundations of the social edifice are paternal power and filial respect.
>From this sole power issues that of the prince, who, in every well-organized
state, being considered as father of the people, has right to the obedience
and respect of his children.
     I am going to make here a singular comparison which I beg the reader to
observe.  Moses, instructed in the same school as Pythagoras, after having
announced the Unity of God in the famous Decalogue which contains the
summary of his law, and having commanded its adoration to his people,
announces for the first Virtue filial piety.  Honour, he said, thy father
and thy mother, that thy days may be multiplied in this country of Adam,
that Jhoah, thy Gods, has given thee.
     The theocratic legislator of the Hebrews in making this commandment
places recompense by the side of precept: he declares formally that the
exercise of filial piety draws with it a long existence.  Now, it must be
remarked that Moses being content with enclosing in his doctrine the sole
purgative part, doubtless judging his people not in a position to support
the unitive part, spoke to them nowhere of the immortality which is its
consequence; contenting himself with promising the joys of temporal
blessings, among which he carefully placed in the first rank a long life.
Experience has proved, relative to people in general, that Moses spoke with
a profound understanding of the causes which prolong the duration of
empires.  Filial piety  is the national virtue of the Chinese, the sacred
foundation upon which reposes the social edifice of the greatest and the
most ancient people of the world.  This virtue has been to China, for more
than four thousand years, what love of country was to Sparta or to Rome.
Sparta and Rome have fallen notwithstanding the sort of fanaticism with
which their children were animated, and the Chinese Empire which existed two
thousand years before their foundation, still exists two thousand years
after their downfall.  If China has been able to preserve herself in the
midst of the flux and reflux of a thousand revolutions, to save herself from
her own wrecks, to triumph over her own defects, and to subjugate even her
conquerors, she owes it to this virtue which, raising itself from the
humblest citizen to the Son of heaven seated upon the imperial throne,
animates all the hearts with a sacred fire, of which Nature herself provides
the nourishment and eternalizes the duration.  The Emperor is the father of
the state; two hundred million men, who regard themselves as his children,
compose his immense family; what human effort could overthrow this colossus?