Plotinos - 1918 Author:Plotinus Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PYTHAGOREAN INTELLIGIBLE NUMBERS DISCUSSED. 5. What then is the nature of number? Is it a consequence, and partially an aspect of each being, like man and one... more »-man, essence and one-essence ? Can the same be said for all the intelligibles, and is that the origin of all numbers? If so, how is it that on high (in the intelligible world) the pair and triad exist? How are all things considered within unity, and how will it be possible to reduce number to unity, since it has a similar nature? There would thus be a multitude of unities, but no other number would be reduced to unity, except the absolute One. It might be objected that a pair is the thing, or rather the aspect of the thing which possesses two powers joined together, such as is a composite reduced to unity, or such as the Pythagoreans conceived the numbers,11 which they seem to have predicated of other objects, by analogy. For instance, they referred to justice as the (Tetrad, or) group-of-four,12 and likewise for everything else. Thus a number, as for instance a group-of-ten, would be considered as a single (group of) unity, and would be connected with the manifold contained in the single object. This, however, is an inadequate account of our conception of "ten"; we speak of the objects after gathering (ten) separate objects. Later, indeed, if these ten objects constitute a new unity, we call the group a "decad." The same state of affairs must obtain with intelligible Numbers. If such were the state of affairs (answers Plotinos), if number were considered only within objects, would it possess hypostatic existence? It might be objected, What then would hinder that, though we consider white within things, that nevertheless the White should (besides) have a hypostatic substantial existence? For movement is indeed considered ...« less