But if the matters are more than one, and there is one
for the line and a second for the plane and another for the solid,
they either are implied in one another or not, so that the same
results will follow even so; for either the plane will not contain a
line or it will he a line.
Again, how number can consist of the one and plurality, they
make no attempt to explain; but however they express themselves, the
same objections arise as confront those who construct number out of
the one and the indefinite dyad. For the one view generates number
from the universally predicated plurality, and not from a particular
plurality; and the other generates it from a particular plurality, but
the first; for 2 is said to be a 'first plurality'. Therefore there is
practically no difference, but the same difficulties will follow,-is
it intermixture or position or blending or generation? and so on.
Above all one might press the question 'if each unit is one, what does
it come from?' Certainly each is not the one-itself. It must, then,
come from the one itself and plurality, or a part of plurality. To say
that the unit is a plurality is impossible, for it is indivisible; and
to generate it from a part of plurality involves many other
objections; for (a) each of the parts must be indivisible (or it
will be a plurality and the unit will be divisible) and the elements
will not be the one and plurality; for the single units do not come
from plurality and the one. Again, (,the holder of this view does
nothing but presuppose another number; for his plurality of
indivisibles is a number.
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