Kitap 14
5
But nothing can be emitted from that which is indivisible.i.e., unity, being indivisible, cannot contribute the formal principle of generation in the way that the male parent contributes it. Is it derived from a contrary which does not persist? But all things which derive their being in this way derive it also from something else which does persist. Since, therefore, one thinkerSpeusippus: Plato. Cf. Aristot. Met. 14.1.5. regards unity as contrary to plurality, and another (treating it as the Equal) as contrary to the Unequal, number must be derived as from contraries.
6
Hence there is something else which persists from which, together with one contrary, number is or has been derived.The objection is directed against the Platonist treatment of the principles as contraries (cf. Aristot. Met. 14.4.12), and may be illustrated by Aristot. Met. 12.1.5-2.2. Plurality, as the contrary of unity, is privation, not matter; the Platonists should have derived numbers from unity and some other principle which is truly material.
6
Further, why on earth is it that whereas all other things which are derived from contraries or have contraries perish, even if the contrary is exhausted in producing them,Because it may be regarded as still potentially present. number does not perish? Of this no explanation is given; yet whether it is inherent or not, a contrary is destructive; e.g., Strife destroys the mixture.According to Empedocles Fr. 17 (Diels). It should not, however, do this; because the mixture is not its contrary.
