Again, why in the world do the
other things that come from contraries, or that have contraries,
perish (even when all of the contrary is used to produce them),
while number does not? Nothing is said about this. Yet whether present
or not present in the compound the contrary destroys it, e.g. 'strife'
destroys the 'mixture' (yet it should not; for it is not to that
that is contrary).
Once more, it has not been determined at all in which way
numbers are the causes of substances and of being-whether (1) as
boundaries (as points are of spatial magnitudes). This is how
Eurytus decided what was the number of what (e.g. one of man and
another of horse), viz. by imitating the figures of living things with
pebbles, as some people bring numbers into the forms of triangle and
square. Or (2) is it because harmony is a ratio of numbers, and so
is man and everything else? But how are the attributes-white and sweet
and hot-numbers? Evidently it is not the numbers that are the
essence or the causes of the form; for the ratio is the essence, while
the number the causes of the form; for the ratio is the essence, while
the number is the matter. E.g. the essence of flesh or bone is
number only in this way, 'three parts of fire and two of earth'. And a
number, whatever number it is, is always a number of certain things,
either of parts of fire or earth or of units; but the essence is
that there is so much of one thing to so much of another in the
mixture; and this is no longer a number but a ratio of mixture of
numbers, whether these are corporeal or of any other kind.
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