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Aristotle - Metaphysics
Atec Февраль 16 2008 19:57:08
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. This is how
Eurytus decided what was the number of what (e.g. one of man and
another of horse), viz. by imitating the figures of living things with
pebbles, as some people bring numbers into the forms of triangle and
square. Or (2) is it because harmony is a ratio of numbers, and so
is man and everything else? But how are the attributes-white and sweet
and hot-numbers? Evidently it is not the numbers that are the
essence or the causes of the form; for the ratio is the essence, while
the number the causes of the form; for the ratio is the essence, while
the number is the matter. E.g. the essence of flesh or bone is
number only in this way, 'three parts of fire and two of earth'. And a
number, whatever number it is, is always a number of certain things,
either of parts of fire or earth or of units; but the essence is
that there is so much of one thing to so much of another in the
mixture; and this is no longer a number but a ratio of mixture of
numbers, whether these are corporeal or of any other kind.
Number, then, whether it be number in general or the number
which consists of abstract units, is neither the cause as agent, nor
the matter, nor the ratio and form of things. Nor, of course, is it
the final cause.
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One might also raise the question what the good is that things get
from numbers because their composition is expressible by a number,
either by one which is easily calculable or by an odd number
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