of forms, and the ineligible of the demiurgic intellect, it will thus have intellectual number, as being arranged near the intellectual end. But if he should call intelligible animal number, in this case there will be separation and difference in the Gods, whom we have asserted to be established above the whole of things, according to supreme union; For all section and division originate from the intellectual Gods; since here difference proceeds, adorning things in conjunction with the one and being. How therefore, does the division of the unities into minute parts, or the multiform nature of beings pertain to intelligibles? And how can the multitude of all forms accord with the first animal itself? For the tetrad was there, divided by the monad and triad, a division of this kind: being adapted to the third order of intelligible forms. For as the one being is a monad, but eternity is a monad and duad, (for to be is conjoined with the ever) so animal itself is a monad and triad. Since, however, it comprehends in itself the cause of all number, Timæus denominates it the tetrad which is comprehensive of the four first effective causes. For the tetrad itself preexists as the fountain of all the production of forms. But in intelligibles the monad, duad and triads subsist unically; but in intellectuals in a divided manner.
Difference therefore necessarily generates all these for us with separation. For every where, the first of subordinate natures have the peculiar form of the natures that exist prior to them.[1] Hence, the first multitudes proceed indeed from the one, but they are unical, without separation, and without number, imitating the one principle of the whole of things. Very properly therefore, does Parmenides constitute multitude in intelligibles, according to the end [of the intelligible order]; but number in intellectuals according to the beginning [of the intelligible and at the same time intellectual order.] And these are conjoined with each other. Parmenides also pre-establishes unical and intelligible multitude, as the cause of intellectual numbers. And Timæus shows that animal itself is only-begotten, because it was monadically the cause of the whole of
- ↑ Instead of πανταχου γαϱ τα πϱωτιστα των υφισταμενων, την ιδιαν εχει μοϱφην, it is necessary to read πανταχου γαϱ τα πϱωτιστα των υφειμενων, των πϱοῦφισταμενων, την ιδιαν εχει μοϱφην.
