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.g. a
house or a ring) of which they say there are no Forms. Clearly
therefore even the things of which they say there are Ideas can both
be and come into being owing to such causes as produce the things just
mentioned, and not owing to the Forms. But regarding the Ideas it is
possible, both in this way and by more abstract and accurate
arguments, to collect many objections like those we have considered.
6
Since we have discussed these points, it is well to consider again
the results regarding numbers which confront those who say that
numbers are separable substances and first causes of things. If number
is an entity and its substance is nothing other than just number, as
some say, it follows that either (1) there is a first in it and a
second, each being different in species,-and either (a) this is true
of the units without exception, and any unit is inassociable with
any unit, or (b) they are all without exception successive, and any of
them are associable with any, as they say is the case with
mathematical number; for in mathematical number no one unit is in
any way different from another. Or (c) some units must be associable
and some not; e.g. suppose that 2 is first after 1, and then comes 3
and then the rest of the number series, and the units in each number
are associable, e.g. those in the first 2 are associable with one
another, and those in the first 3 with one another, and so with the
other numbers; but the units in the '2-itself' are inassociable with
those in the '3-itself'; and similarly in the case of the other
successive numbers
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