The Academic Questions

Alcmæon of Crotona was a pupil of Pythagoras; but that is all that is known of his history. He was a great natural philosopher; and is said to have been the first who introduced the practice of dissection. He is said, also, to have been the first who wrote on natural philosophy. Aristotle, however, distinguishes between the principles of Alcmæon and Pythagoras, though without explaining in what the difference consisted. He asserted the immortality of the soul, and said that it partook of the divine nature, because, like the heavenly bodies themselves, it contained in itself th