Kitap 1
5
Now since the Forms are the causes of everything else, he supposed that their elements are the elements of all things. Accordingly the material principle is the Great and Small, and the essence 〈or formal principle〉 is the One, since the numbers are derived from the Great and Small by participation in the the One.
6
In treating the One as a substance instead of a predicate of some other entity, his teaching resembles that of the Pythagoreans, and also agrees with it in stating that the numbers are the causes of Being in everything else; but it is peculiar to him to posit a duality instead of the single Unlimited, and to make the Unlimited consist of the Great and Small. He is also peculiar in regarding the numbers as distinct from sensible things, whereas they hold that things themselves are numbers, nor do they posit an intermediate class of mathematical objects.
