As in mathematics, the numbers are by nature the first thing, the Pythagoreans thought to recognize in numbers many likenesses of what exists and what will be, such as the elements of fire, air, earth, and water; they furthermore found the qualities and relations of musical notes in numbers and thus considered the elements of num- bers to be the elements of everything existing, as everything seemed to be formed according to numbers, which were regarded as the first thing in all of nature, and they believed the entire vault of heaven to be harmony and numbers. One of the manifestations of numbers was supposed to be justice, another one the soul or the intellect; other forms of manifestations were time and occasions, and thus everything that exists at all. And they collected the correspondences between numbers and harmonies on the one hand and the qualitiesand parts of the sky and the whole world on the other hand and compared them. And if there was something missing, an artificial glue had to help to produce relations everywhere in the system. For example, as the number 10 seems for them the most perfect thing and appears furthermore to embrace the whole realm of numbers, as a result there must also be 10 bodies circling in the sky as stars. But as there are only 9 visible ones,
Posted on: Tue, 08 Oct 2013 02:15:31 +0000
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