PYTHAGOREAN INTELLIGIBLE NUMBERS DISCUSSED.
5. What then is the nature of number? Is it a consequence, and partially an aspect of each being, like man and one-man, essence and one-essence? Can the same be said for all the intelligibles, and is that the origin of all numbers? If so, how is it that on high (in the intelligible world) the pair and triad exist? How are all things considered within unity, and how will it be possible to reduce number to unity, since it has a similar nature? There would thus be a multitude of unities, but no other number would be reduced to unity, except the absolute One. It might be objected that a pair is the thing, or rather the aspect of the thing which possesses two powers joined together, such as is a composite reduced to unity, or such as the Pythagoreans conceived the numbers,[11] which they seem to have predicated of other objects, by analogy. For instance, they referred to justice as the (Tetrad, or) group-of-four,[12] and likewise for everything else. Thus a number, as for instance a group-of-ten, would be considered as a single (group of) unity, and would be connected with the manifold contained in the single object. This, however, is an inadequate account of our conception of "ten"; we speak of the objects after gathering (ten) separate objects. Later, indeed, if these ten objects constitute a new unity, we call the group a "decad." The same state of affairs must obtain with intelligible Numbers. If such were the state of affairs (answers Plotinos), if number were considered only within objects, would it possess hypostatic existence? It might be objected, What then would hinder that, though we consider white within things, that nevertheless the White should (besides) have a hypostatic substantial existence? For movement is indeed considered within essence, and yet (it is agreed that) movement possesses a "hypostatic" substantial existence within essence. The case of number, however, is not similar to that of movement; for we have demonstrated that movement thus considered in itself is something unitary.[13] Moreover, if no more than such a hypostatic substantial existence be predicated of number, it ceases to be a being, and becomes an accident, though it would not even then be a pure accident; for what is an accident must be something before becoming the accident (of some substance). Though being inseparable therefrom, it must possess its own individual nature in itself, like whiteness; and before being predicated of something else, it already is what it is posited. Consequently, if one be in every (being), one man is not identical with man; if "one" be something different from "man"[14] and from every other (being), if it be something common to all (beings), one must be anterior to all men and to all other (beings), so that man and all other beings may be one. The one is therefore anterior to movement, since movement is one, and likewise anterior to essence, to allow for essence also being one. This of course does not refer to the absolute Unity that is recognized as superior to essence, but of the unity which is predicated of every intelligible form. Likewise, above that of which the decad is predicated subsists the "Decad in itself," for that in which the decad is recognized could not be the Decad in itself.