Note 208 — Chapter II · SCIENCE AND RELIGION

When discussing the Pythagorean system, Aristotle always refers it to “the Pythagoreans,” not to Pythagoras himself. That this was intentional seems to be proved by the phrase οἱ καλούμενοι Πυθαγόρειοι, which occurs more than once (e.g. Met. Α, 5. 985 b 23; de Caelo, Β, 13. 293 a 20). Pythagoras himself is only thrice mentioned in the whole Aristotelian corpus, and in only one of these places (M. Mor. 1182 a 11) is any philosophical doctrine ascribed to him. We are told there that he was the first to discuss the subject of goodness, and that he made the mistake of identifying its various forms with numbers. But this is just one of the things which prove the late date of the Magna Moralia. Aristotle himself is quite clear that what he knew as the Pythagorean system belonged in the main to the days of Empedokles, Anaxagoras, and Leukippos; for, after mentioning these, he goes on to describe the Pythagoreans as “contemporary with and earlier than them” (ἐν δὲ τούτοις καὶ πρὸ τούτων, Met. Α, 5. 985 b 23).