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. And all the properties of numbers and scales which they
could show to agree with the attributes and parts and the whole
arrangement of the heavens, they collected and fitted into their
scheme; and if there was a gap anywhere, they readily made additions
so as to make their whole theory coherent. E.g. as the number 10 is
thought to be perfect and to comprise the whole nature of numbers,
they say that the bodies which move through the heavens are ten, but
as the visible bodies are only nine, to meet this they invent a
tenth--the 'counter-earth'. We have discussed these matters more
exactly elsewhere.
But the object of our review is that we may learn from these
philosophers also what they suppose to be the principles and how these
fall under the causes we have named. Evidently, then, these thinkers
also consider that number is the principle both as matter for things
and as forming both their modifications and their permanent states,
and hold that the elements of number are the even and the odd, and
that of these the latter is limited, and the former unlimited; and
that the One proceeds from both of these (for it is both even and
odd), and number from the One; and that the whole heaven, as has
been said, is numbers.
Other members of this same school say there are ten principles,
which they arrange in two columns of cognates-limit and unlimited, odd
and even, one and plurality, right and left, male and female,
resting and moving, straight and curved, light and darkness, good
and bad, square and oblong
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