Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/558

 544 book: Est multitudo ex unitatibus composita (is multitude composed of units). And, again, in the third part of his first book he says: Seriem numero et in infinitum posse procedere ut quocumque numero dato dari potest major unitatem addendo. (A series in number may go on to infinity, so that any given number may be made larger by adding unity.) And in this way number is an aggregation or collection of one or many units. And to proceed in infinitum by the addition of one. From which it appears that unity is not number; but, on the contrary, is the root and foundation of numbers. Even as Boëthius says in his arithmetic. Nevertheless, one is higher and more perfect than all the numbers that are. For in it are united potentially the property and perfection of all numbers. And without it nothing can have being. And Euclid, at the beginning of the seventh book, says: Unitas est qua una quacumque res una dicitur (Unity is that by which any one thing is called one). And the logicians say that one is one of the six transcendent principles. For it comprehends all things that have being. Then, again, it has all the property of number. For it is perfect, like six, it is lineal, square, cube, solid, square root, cube root, root of root. And because it is of so great dignity and excellence, the Creator has chosen it for his essence; for he is one only God, creator of all the world. A good law, to wit: the Christian law, divided into ten commandments. And a good faith: to wit, the Catholic faith, divided into twelve articles. And so many other dignities and perfections.

"Two is a number of so great pre-eminence and utility that God has kept it in mind in many of his works. For first, he created light and darkness. Then he created two great lights, to wit, the sun and the moon. The sun, to light the day; and the moon, to light the night. Then he created all beasts in two sexes, to wit, masculine and feminine; and made for them several double members, to wit, two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, two arms, two hands, two legs, two feet and many others of utility to the human body. And then, as many passions as the human body suffers, such as joy and sadness, hope and fear, hunger and thirst, heat and cold, drinking and eating, sleeping and waking, health and sickness, living and dying, and all relative qualities are also constituted in duplicity, as creator and creature, parent and son, creating and created, producing and produced, abstract and concrete, etc. And also all opposites, as kindness and malice, virtue and vice, knowledge and ignorance, wisdom and foolishness, truth and falsehood, etc. And we think that after unity more things are found constituted by two than by any superior number.

"Three is the most worthy and most perfect, after one, that is among the numbers. Thus, as says almost every one's maxim, Omne trinum perfectum (Every trine is perfect). And the perfection does not proceed by the composition of it, as it does of six. But by the great and high mysteries that are found in this number. And first, it