Kitap 13
1
Since there is no contact in numbers, but units which have nothing between them—e.g. those in 2 or 3—are successive, the question might be raised whether or not they are successive to Unity itself, and whether of the numbers which succeed it 2 or one of the units in 2 is prior.
2
We find similar difficulties in the case of the genera posterior to numberCf. Aristot. Met. 13.6.10.—the line, plane and solid. Some derive these from the species of the Great and Small; viz. lines from the Long and Short, planes from the Broad and Narrow, and solids from the Deep and Shallow. These are species of the Great and Small.
3
As for the geometrical first principle which corresponds to the arithmetical One, different Platonists propound different views.Cf. Aristot. Met. 3.4.34, Aristot. Met. 14.3.9. In these too we can see innumerable impossibilities, fictions and contradictions of all reasonable probability. For (a) we get that the geometrical forms are unconnected with each other, unless their principles also are so associated that the Broad and Narrow is also Long and Short; and if this is so, the plane will be a line and the solid a plane.
4
Moreover, how can angles and figures, etc., be explained? And (b) the same result follows as in the case of number; for these concepts are modifications of magnitude, but magnitude is not generated from them, any more than a line is generated from the Straight and Crooked, or solids from the Smooth and Rough.
