Note 477 — Chapter IV · PARMENIDES OF ELEA

I do not discuss the interpretation of περὶ ὃ πάλιν πυρώδης which Diels gave in Parmenides Lehrgedicht, p. 104, and which is adopted in R. P. 162 a, as it is now virtually retracted. In the second edition of his Vorsokratiker (p. 111) he reads καὶ τὸ μεσαίτατον πασῶν στερεόν, <ὑφ’ ᾧ> πάλιν πυρώδης [sc. στεφάνη]. That is a flat contradiction. It is of interest to observe that Mr. Adam also gets into the interior of the earth in his interpretation of the Myth of Er. It is instructive, too, because it shows that we are really dealing with the same order of ideas. The most heroic attempt to save the central fire for Pythagoras was my own hypothesis of an annular earth (1st ed. p. 203). This has met with well-deserved ridicule; but all the same it is the only possible solution on these lines. We shall see in Chap. VII. that the central fire belongs to the later development of Pythagoreanism.