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Again, some things are one by contact, some by intermixture,
some by position; none of which can belong to the units of which the 2
or the 3 consists; but as two men are not a unity apart from both,
so must it be with the units. And their being indivisible will make no
difference to them; for points too are indivisible, but yet a pair
of them is nothing apart from the two.
But this consequence also we must not forget, that it follows that
there are prior and posterior 2 and similarly with the other
numbers. For let the 2's in the 4 be simultaneous; yet these are prior
to those in the 8 and as the 2 generated them, they generated the
4's in the 8-itself. Therefore if the first 2 is an Idea, these 2's
also will be Ideas of some kind. And the same account applies to the
units; for the units in the first 2 generate the four in 4, so that
all the units come to be Ideas and an Idea will be composed of
Ideas. Clearly therefore those things also of which these happen to be
the Ideas will be composite, e.g. one might say that animals are
composed of animals, if there are Ideas of them.
In general, to differentiate the units in any way is an
absurdity and a fiction; and by a fiction I mean a forced statement
made to suit a hypothesis. For neither in quantity nor in quality do
we see unit differing from unit, and number must be either equal or
unequal-all number but especially that which consists of abstract
units-so that if one number is neither greater nor less than
another, it is equal to it; but things that are equal and in no wise
differentiated we take to be the same when we are speaking of numbers
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