But when you say that the Man considered in himself is a number, as,
for instance, a pair, because he is both animal and reasonable, we
have here no more than a simple modality. For, while reasoning and
enumerating we produce a quantity; but so far as there are here two
things (animal and reasonable), and as each of them is one, as each
completes the being of the man, and possesses unity; we are here using
and proclaiming another kind of number, the essential Number. Here the
pair is not posterior to things; it does not limit itself to expressing
a quantity which is exterior to essence; it expresses what is in the
very being of this essence, and contains its nature.