Again, we must inquire, in view of this
theory also, whether the number is infinite or finite. For there was
at first, as it seems, a plurality that was itself finite, from
which and from the one comes the finite number of units. And there
is another plurality that is plurality-itself and infinite
plurality; which sort of plurality, then, is the element which
co-operates with the one? One might inquire similarly about the point,
i.e. the element out of which they make spatial magnitudes. For surely
this is not the one and only point; at any rate, then, let them say
out of what each of the points is formed. Certainly not of some
distance + the point-itself. Nor again can there be indivisible
parts of a distance, as the elements out of which the units are said
to be made are indivisible parts of plurality; for number consists
of indivisibles, but spatial magnitudes do not.
All these objections, then, and others of the sort make it evident
that number and spatial magnitudes cannot exist apart from things.
Again, the discord about numbers between the various versions is a
sign that it is the incorrectness of the alleged facts themselves that
brings confusion into the theories. For those who make the objects
of mathematics alone exist apart from sensible things, seeing the
difficulty about the Forms and their fictitiousness, abandoned ideal
number and posited mathematical. But those who wished to make the
Forms at the same time also numbers, but did not see, if one assumed
these principles, how mathematical number was to exist apart from
ideal, made ideal and mathematical number the same-in words, since
in fact mathematical number has been destroyed; for they state
hypotheses peculiar to themselves and not those of mathematics.
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