The Obsolesence of Oracles (35-37)

However, let this be a comfort for him that wonders because we divide Nature into so many classes in its generation and transmutation. But here is another matter[*] which I ask you all to consider,

and to give your undivided attention to it: of those numbers which come at the very first (I mean the number one and the indeterminate duality), the second, being the element underlying all formlessness and disarrangement, has been called infinity; but the nature of the number one limits and arrests what is void and irrational and indeterminate in infinity, gives it shape, and renders it in some way tolerant and receptive of definition, which is the next step after demonstration regarding things perceptible. Now these first principles make their appearance at the beginning in connexion with number; rather, however, larger amounts are not number at all unless the number one, created from the illimitability of infinity, like a form of matter, cuts off more on one side and less on the other. Then, in fact, any of the larger amounts becomes number through being delimited by the number one. But if the number one be done away with, once more the indeterminate duality throws all into confusion, and makes it to be without rhythm, bounds, or measure. Inasmuch as form is not the doing away with matter, but a shaping and ordering of the underlying matter, it needs must be that both these first principles be existent in number, and from this has arisen the first and greatest divergence and dissimilarity. For the indeterminate first principle is the creator of the even, and the better one of the odd. Two is the first of the even numbers and three the first of the odd; from the two combined comes five,[*] which in its composition is common to both numbers and in its potentiality is odd. For when the perceptible and corporeal was divided into several parts because of the innate necessity of differentiation, that number had to be neither the first even nor the first odd, but the third number, which is formed from these two, so that it might be produced from both the primary principles, that which created the even and that which created the odd, because it was not possible for the one to be divorced from the other; for each possesses the nature and the potentiality of a first principle. So when the twro were paired, the better one prevailed over the indeterminate as it was dividing the corporeal and checked it; and when matter was being distributed to the two, it set unity in the middle and did not allow the whole to be divided into two parts, but there has been created a number of worlds by differentiation of the indeterminate and by its being carried in varying directions; yet the power of Identity and Limitation has had the effect of making that number odd, but the kind of odd that did not permit Nature to progress beyond what is best. If the number one were unalloyed and pure, matter would not have any separation at all; but since it has been combined with the dividing power of duality, it has had to submit to being cut up and divided, but there it stopped, the even being overpowered by the odd.

It was for this reason that among the people of olden time it was the custom to call counting numbering by fives, [*] I think also that panta (all) is derived from pente (five) in accord with reason, inasmuch as the pentad is a composite of the first numbers.[*] As a matter of fact, when the others are multiplied by other numbers, the result is a number different from themselves; but the pentad,

if it be taken an even number of times, makes ten exactly; and if an odd number of times, it reproduces itself.[*] I leave out of account the fact that it is the first composite of the first two squares, unity and the tetrad[*]; and that it is the first whose square is equal to the two immediately preceding it, making with them the most beautiful of the right-angled triangles[*]; and it is the first to give the ratio 1 1/2: 1.[*] However, perhaps these matters have not much relation to the subject before us; but there is another matter more closely related, and that is the dividing power of this number, by reason of its nature, and the fact that Nature does distribute most things by fives. For example, she has allotted to ourselves five senses and five parts to the soul[*]: physical growth, perception, appetite, fortitude, and reason; also five fingers on each hand, and the most fertile seed when it is divided five times, for there is no record that a woman ever had more than five children together at one birth.[*] The Egyptians have a tradition[*] that Rhea gave birth to five gods, an intimation of the genesis of the five worlds from one single Matter; and in the universe the surface of the earth is divided among five zones, and the heavens by five circles, two arctic, two tropic, and the equator in the middle. Five, too, are the orbits of the planets, if the Sun and Venus and Mercury follow the same course. The organization of the world also is based on harmony, just as a tune with us is seen to depend on the five notes of the tetrachord[*]: lowest, middle, conjunct, disjunct, and highest; and the musical intervals are five: quarter-tone, semitone, tone, tone and a half, and double tone. Thus it appears that Nature takes a greater delight in making all things in fives than in making them round, as Aristotle[*] has said.

Why, then, someone will say, did Plato[*] refer the number of his five worlds to the five geometric figures, saying that God used up the fifth construction on the universe in completing its embellishment? Further on, where he suggests the question about there being more worlds than one,[*] whether it is proper to speak of one or of five as in truth naturally existent, it is clear that he thinks that the idea started from this source. If, therefore, we must apply reasonable probability to his conception, let us consider that variations in movement necessarily follow close upon the variations in the bodies and their shapes, as he himself teaches[*] when he makes it plain that whatever is disunited or united changes its place at the same time with the alteration of its substance. For example, if fire is generated from air by the breaking up of the octahedron and its resolution into pyramids, or again if air is generated from fire by its being forced together and compressed into an octahedron, it is not possible for it to stay where it was before, but it escapes and is carried to some other place, forcing its way out and contending against anything that blocks its course or keeps it back.

What takes place he describes more clearly by a simile,[*] saying that in a manner like to grain and chaff being tossed about and winnowed by the fans and other tools used in cleaning the grain the elements toss matter about and are tossed about by it; and like always draws near1 to like, some things occupying one place and others another, before the universe becomes completely organized out of the elements. Thus, when matter was in that state in which, in all probability, is the universe from which God is absent, the first five properties, having tendencies of their own, were at once carried in different directions, not being completely or absolutely separated, because, when all things were amalgamated, the inferior always followed the superior in spite of Nature.[*] For this reason they produced in the different kinds of bodies, as these were carried some in one direction and others in another, an equal number of separate divisions with intervals between them, one not of pure fire, but fiery, another not of unmingled ether, but ethereal, another not of earth by itself alone, but earthy; and above all, in keeping with the close association of air with water, they contrived, as has been said,[*] that these should come away filled with many foreign elements. It was not the Deity who parted substance and caused it to rest in different places, but, after it had been parted by its own action and was being carried in diverse ways in such great disarray, he took it over and set it in order and fitted it together by the use of proportions and means. Then, after establishing Reason in each as a governor and guardian, he creatjed as many worlds as the existing primal bodies. Let this, then, be an offering for the gratification of Plato on Ammonius’s account, but as for myself, I should not venture to assert regarding the number of wbrlds that they are just so many; but the opinion that sets their number at more than one, and yet not infinite, but limited in amount, I regard as no more irrational than either of the others, when I observe the dispersiveness and divisibility implicit by nature in Matter, and that it neither abides as a unit nor is permitted by Reason to progress to infinity. But if in any other place we have recalled the Academy[*] to our mind, let us do so here as well, and divest ourselves of excessive credulity and, as if we were in a slippery place in our discussion about infinity, let us merely keep a firm footing.