Why the Oracles Cease to Give Answers (31-35)

Having said this, I paused. And Philippus immediately cried out: Whether this be certain or not, I will not be too positive; but if we carry God beyond one world, it would more gratify me to know why we should make him the Creator only of five worlds and no more, and what proportion this number bears to that of the worlds, than to know why the word E I was inscribed upon this temple. For this is neither a triangular, a quadrate, a perfect, nor a cubic number, neither does it yield any elegancy to such as are delighted in this kind of sciences. As to what concerns the argument dawn from the number of elements, which Plato seems to have touched upon, it is obscure and improbable, and will not afford this consequence,—that, as there are formed from matter five sorts of regular bodies, which have equal angles and equal sides, and are environed with equal superficies, so there were from the beginning five worlds, made and formed of these five bodies.

Yet Theodorus the Solian, said I, when he reads Plato’s mathematics to his scholars, both keeps to the text and clearly expounds it, when he saith, the pyramid, octahedron, dodecahedron. icosahedron (which Plato lays down as the first bodies) are all beautiful both in their proportions and equalities; Nature cannot contrive and make better than these, nor perhaps so good. Yet they have not all the same constitution and origin; for the least

But here Ammonius interrupted him, and said: Notwithstanding that those things are so peremptorily and so pompously asserted by Theodorus, yet I shall wonder if he be not forced to make use of such suppositions as are destructive of themselves and one of another. For he will have it, that the five worlds he speaks of were not composed all at one time, but that that which was subtilest, and which gave least trouble in the making, came out first into being. And as if it were a consequent, and not a repugnant thing, he supposes that the matter does not always drive out into existence that which is most subtile and simple, but that sometimes the thickest, grossest, and heaviest parts do anticipate the more subtile in generation. But besides this, supposing that there be five primitive bodies or elements, and consequently that there be as many worlds, there are but four of those orders which he discourses rationally concerning. For as to the cube, he takes it away and removes it, as it were in a game of counters; for it is naturally unfit either to turn into any thing besides itself, or to yield that any of those other bodies be converted into it, inasmuch as the triangles of which they consist be not of the same sort. For all the rest consist in common of demi-triangles (or halves of equilateral triangles); but the proper subject of which the cube is particularly composed is the right isosceles triangle, which admits no inclination to a demi-triangle, nor can possibly be united and incorporated with it. If there be then five bodies, and consequently five worlds, and in each of these worlds the principle of generation be that body which is first produced, it must happen that, where the cube is the first in generation, none of the rest can possibly be produced, it being

And I answered him, that, for my part, I knew not at present how to say any thing which carried more probability. But perhaps (said I) it is better for a man to give an account of his own opinion than of another’s. Therefore I say that, there being supposed from the beginning of things two several natures contrary to each other,— the one sensible, mutable, subject to generation, corruption, and change every way, the other spiritual and intelligible, and abiding always in the same state,—it would be very strange, my friends, to say that the spiritual nature admitteth of division and hath diversity and difference in it, and to be angry if a man will not allow the passible and corporeal nature to be wholly united in itself, without dividing it into many parts. For it is most suitable to the permanent and divine natures to be tied and linked to each other, and to avoid, as much as is possible, all division and separation; and yet, amongst incorporeal natures the power of diversity works greater differences in regard to essential forms and reason, than those of distance of place in the corporeal world. And therefore Plato, refuting those who hold this proposition, that all is one, asserts these five grounds and principles of all,—entity, identity, diversity, motion, and rest; which five immaterial principles being admitted, it is no marvel if Nature have made every one of

And this may serve for an answer to those that wonder at our dividing Nature, subject to generation and alteration, into so many kinds. But I entreat you all further, attentively to consider with yourselves that, of the two first and supreme principles of all things,—that is to say, the unity, and the indefinite binary or duality,—this latter, being the element and chief origin of all deformity and disorder,