Note 588 — 1828

The fundamental idea, both in the intellectual and moral philosophy of the Pythagoreans, was that of harmony or proportion. Their natural science or cosmology was dominated by the same idea, that as the world and all spheres within the universe were constructed symmetrically, and moved around a central focus, the forms and the proportions of things were best expressed by number. All good was due to the principle of order; all evil to disorder. In accordance with the mathematical conception of the universe which ruled the Pythagoreans, justice was equality ([Greek: isotês]ισότης), that is to say it consisted in each one receiving equally according to his deserts. Friendship too was equality of feeling and relationship; harmony being the radical idea, alike in the ethics and in the cosmology of the school.—Ed.