Note 850 — Chapter VII · THE PYTHAGOREANS

See Diels, Elementum, pp. 16 sqq. Parmenides had already called the original Pythagorean “elements” μορφαί (§ 91), and Philistion called the “elements” of Empedokles ἰδέαι. If the ascription of this terminology to the Pythagoreans is correct, we may say that the Pythagorean “forms” developed into the atoms of Leukippos and Demokritos on the one hand (§ 174), and into the “ideas” of Plato on the other.