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Unity is simple and pure. For it is by the admixture of one thing with another that contamination arises, even as HomerHomer, Il. iv. 141. somewhere says that some ivory which is being dyed red is being contaminated, and dyers speak of colours that are mixed as being spoiled Cf. 436 b, infra, and Moralia 270 f.; and they call the mixing spoiling. Cf.Moralia, 725 c. Therefore it is characteristic of the imperishable and pure to be one and uncombined.