9. It remains for us to discover whether it were "Being," in the
process of division, that begat number, or whether it be the number
that divided "Being." (This is the alternative:) either "being,"
movement, stability, difference and identity produced number, or it is
number that produced all these (categories, or) genera. Our discussion
must start thus. Is it possible that number should exist in itself, or
must we contemplate two in two objects, three in three objects, and
so forth? The same question arises about unity as considered within
numbers; for if number can exist in itself independently of numbered
things,[19] it can also exist previously to the essences. Can number
therefore exist before the essences? It might be well preliminarily to
assert that number is posterior to the Essence, and proceeds therefrom.
But then if essence be one essence, and if two essences be two
essences, one will precede essence, and the other numbers will precede
the essences. (Would number then precede the essences) only in thought
and conception, or also in the hypostatic existence? We should think
as follows. When you think of a man as being one, or the beautiful as
being one, the one that is thus conceived in both (beings) is something
that is thought only afterward. Likewise, when you simultaneously
consider a dog and a horse, here also two is evidently something
posterior. But if you beget the man, if you beget the horse or the dog,
or if you produce them outside when they already exist in you, without
begetting them, nor producing them by mere chance (of seeing them), you
will say, "We should go towards one (being), then pass to another, and
thus get two; then make one more being, by adding my person." Likewise,
(beings) were not numbered after they were created, but before they
were created, when (the creator) decided how many should be created.
NUMBER SPLIT THE UNITY INTO PLURALITY; PYTHAGOREAN IDENTIFICATION OF
IDEAS AND NUMBERS.
The universal Number therefore existed before the essences (were
created); consequently, Number was not the essences. Doubtless, Number
was in Essence; but it was not yet the number of Essence; for Essence
still was one. But the power of Number, hypostatically existing within
it, divided it, and made it beget the manifold. Number is either the
being or actualization (of Essence); the very Organism and Intelligence
are number. Essence is therefore the unified number, while the essences
are developed number; Intelligence is the number which moves itself,
and the Organism is the number that contains. Since therefore Essence
was born from Unity, Essence, as it existed within Unity, must be
Number. That is why (the Pythagoreans[20]) called the ideas unities and
numbers.