the first who devoted themselves to mathematics, and, by
exclusive attention to that study, they were led, at first,
to consider their principles as the principles of entities;
but as numbers must be before mathematics, they were
brought to perceive many resemblances to beings and
conditions in numbers, rather than in fire or earth, water
or air. Thus, they assumed that a particular combination
of numbers is justice, that another is Vital Principle and mind, another proportion or fitness; and further, perceiving
the proportions and impressions of harmonic sounds to be
numbers, and other things appearing to bear a resem-
blance to numbers, and numbers to be the first of created
entities, they assumed that the elements of numbers must
be the elements of entities; and that the heavens and
every kind of harmony must be numbers. But some,
while they held that numbers are elements, believed odd
and even to be the origin of numbers, and, therefore,
elements in a stricter sense; and, as the unit is derived
from odd and even, they regarded it as the origin of all
numbers. Enough, however, has been said for rendering
apprehensible to the general reader, the import of the terms
and the tenour of the argument; and it would be idle, even
were the doctrine fully known, to attempt any such dis-
quisition as would be required for a full elucidation of this
the most abstruse, perhaps, of all the topics of antiquity.
Note 9, p. 22. There are writers who have combined, &c.] Simplicius[1] and Philoponus attribute this opinion to
- ↑ Vide Trendel. Comment.
