1. All beings, both primary, as well as those who are so called on any
pretext soever, are beings only because of their unity. What, indeed
would they be without it? Deprived of their unity, they would cease to
be what they are said to be. No army can exist unless it be one. So
with a choric ballet or a flock. Neither a house nor a ship can exist
without unity; by losing it they would cease to be what they are.[187]
So also with continuous quantities which would not exist without unity.
On being divided by losing their unity, they simultaneously lose their
nature. Consider farther the bodies of plants and animals, of which
each is a unity. On losing their unity by being broken up into several
parts, they simultaneously lose their nature. They are no more what
they were, they have become new beings, which themselves exist only so
long as they are one. What effects health in us, is that the parts of
our bodies are co-ordinated in unity. Beauty is formed by the unity of
our members. Virtue is our soul's tendency to unity, and becoming one
through the harmony of her faculties.