Note 288 — PART II. THE ETHICS OF BUDDHISM; AN IDEAL OF SELF-CONQUEST AND UNIVERSAL BENEVOLENCE

Zeller represents Pythagoreanism as springing from an effort to give an ethical content to life. “We may consider it proved,” he says, “that the school of Pythagoras, believing in the almighty favor of the gods, and in future retribution, enforced purity of life, moderation and justice, minute self-examination and discretion in all actions, and especially discouraged self-conceit” (History of Philosophy (1881), vol. i, p. 496). Oldenberg (Ancient India (1896), p. 87) conceives Pythagoreanism—together with the Orphic worship—as “a bit of Buddhism in the midst of Greek civilization.”