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CHAPTER XXXII.
division therefore into three, having been demonstrated by us, we shall briefly observe, that the one appears to be many according to this order, the one itself proceeding into a multitude of unities, and being in a similar manner becoming generated in conjunction with the one. For those three monads are the intelligible comprehensions of all orders, and they at once preside over all the progressions from intelligibles, produce All of them in an exempt manner, and collect them to the intelligible causes. Since however, Plotinus admits that number is prior to animal itself, and says that the first being produces from itself number, and that this is established as a medium between the one being, and animal itself but is the basis and place of beings, it is worth while to speak likewise concisely about this. For if he says that animal itself has intelligible and occult number, as comprehended in the monad, he speaks rightly, and accords with Plato. But if he says that animal itself comprehends number, now separated, or which has a multiform subsistence, and is the progeny of difference, intelligible multitude is not a thing of this kind. For there indeed, the one is being, and being is the one. Hence animal itself is according to all things perfect. But in number, the one is separated from being, and being from the one, and each of the parts is no longer an intelligible whole, as an animal itself. For that is a whole of wholes, and every where the one was with being in the parts of it, and animal itself was only-begotten. But number proceeded after the twofold coordinations, I mean the monad and duad, the odd and the even number. How therefore, can we place in animal itself the first number? If however, some one should say that number exists there, it is according to cause and intelligibly. But it is intellectually separated by difference. And farther still, in addition to these things, if animal itself is surveyed by some one in the demiurgic order, and he denominates it the plenitude