SOURCE: B. A. G. Fuller, "Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans," in History of Greek Philosophy: Thales to Democritus, Henry Holt and Company, 1923, pp. 103-17.

In the following essay, Fuller summarizes the contributions of Pythagoras to the fields of music, mathematics, medicine, and astronomy. He notes the influence of the Pythagorean ideas of duality and their distinction between the concepts of "form" and "matter" on later philosophical thought.

There is no figure in the history of philosophy so mysteriously shrouded in the phosphorescent mists of legend as the person of Pythagoras. Revered by his more immediate followers as a superior being, he acquired among later disciples the majesty of a demigod. He was variously reputed to be the son of Apollo in his present existence, and to have been the child of Hermes in a prior incarnation.

Like the Bodhisattvas on the threshold of Nirvana and Buddhahood, he was said...