Euery whole thing is greater than any of his partes.
This sentence nedeth none example. For the thyng is more playner then any declaration, yet considering that other common sentence that foloweth nexte that.
[ The tenthe common sentence.]
Euery whole thinge is equall to all his partes taken togither.
It shall be mete to expresse both wt one example, for of thys last sentence many mẽ at the first hearing do make a doubt. Therfore as in this example of the circle deuided into sũdry partes
it doeth appere that no parte can be so great as the whole circle, (accordyng to the meanyng of the eight sentence) so yet it is certain, that all those eight partes together be equall vnto the whole circle. And this is the meanyng of that common sentence (whiche many vse, and fewe do rightly vnderstand) that is, that All the partes of any thing are nothing els, but the whole. And contrary waies: The whole is nothing els, but all his partes taken togither. whiche saiynges some haue vnderstand to meane thus: that all the partes are of the same kind that the whole thyng is:
but that that meanyng is false, it doth plainly appere by this figure A.B, whose partes A. and B, are triangles, and the whole figure is a square, and so are they not of one kind. But and if they applie it to the matter or substance of thinges (as some do) then it is most false, for euery compound thyng is made of partes of diuerse matter and substance. Take for example a man, a house, a boke, and all other compound thinges. Some vnderstand it thus, that the partes all together can make none other forme, but that that the whole doth shewe, whiche is also false, for I maie make fiue hundred diuerse figures of the partes of some one figure, as you shall better perceiue in the third boke.
