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PRELUDE TO CHAP. V.
45
corpuscle in motion, since their motion is the cause of motion in other things; thus, both systems maintain a blind force, and ignore the influences of sensibility and will. It will probably be said that the topic has been too long dwelt upon, but it should be recollected what an important part was assigned by the Pythagoreans[1] to number, which they derived from the monad or unit, and regarded as the origin, the matter, and the essential properties of beings, and as constitutive of the heavens. It has already been said how, as numbers were the first entities in nature, they perceived resemblances to beings and qualities in them rather than in the elements fire, &c.; and hence made one combination to be justice, another mind, and so on.
- ↑ Metaphys. I. 4, 5.
