THE NOTION OF THE SUBJECT ONE DOES NOT COME FROM THE SUBJECT ITSELF.
13. To begin with, it is unreasonable to insist that the notion of the subject one comes to us from the subject itself (which is one), from the visible man, for instance, or from some other animal, or even some stone. Evidently the visible man and the One are things entirely different, which could not be identified[28]; otherwise, our judgment would not be able (as it is) to predicate unity of the non-man. Besides, as the judgment does not operate on emptiness for the right side, and other such things, seeing a difference of position when it tells us that an object is here, or there; likewise, it also sees something when it says that an object is one; for it does not experience there an affection that is vain, and it does not affirm unity without some foundation. It cannot be believed that the judgment says that an object is one because it sees that it is alone, and that there is no other; for, while saying that there is no other, the judgment implicitly asserts that the other is one. Further, the notions of "other" and "different" are notions posterior to that of unity; if the judgment did not rise to unity, it would not assert either the "other" nor the "different"; when it affirms that an object is alone, it says, "there is one only object"; and therefore predicates unity before "only." Besides, the judgment which affirms is itself a substantial (being) before affirming unity of some other (being); and the (being) of which it speaks is one likewise before the judgment either asserts or conceives anything about it. Thus (being) must be one or many; if it be many, the one is necessarily anterior, since, when the judgment asserts that plurality is present, it evidently asserts that there is more than one; likewise, when it says that an army is a multitude, it conceives of the soldiers as arranged in one single corps. By this last example, it is plain that the judgment (in saying one body), does not let the multitude remain multitude, and that it thus reveals the existence of unity; for, whether by giving to the multitude a unity which it does not possess, or by rapidly revealing unity in the arrangement (which makes the body of the multitude), the judgment reduces multitude to unity. It does not err here about unity, any more than when it says of a building formed by a multitude of stones that it is a unity; for, besides, a building is more unified than an army.[29] If, further, unity inhere in a still higher degree in that which is continuous, and in a degree still higher in what is not divisible,[30] evidently that occurs only because the unity has a real nature, and possesses existence; for there is no greater or less in that which does not exist.