Note 796 — Chapter VII · THE PYTHAGOREANS

Arist. Met. Α, 8. 990 a 22 (R. P. 81 e). I read and interpret thus: “For, seeing that, according to them, Opinion and Opportunity are in a given part of the world, and a little above or below them Injustice and Separation and Mixture,—in proof of which they allege that each of these is a number,—and seeing that it is also the case (reading συμβαίνῃ with Bonitz) that there is already in that part of the world a number of composite magnitudes (i.e. composed of the Limit and the Unlimited), because those affections (of number) are attached to their respective regions;—(seeing that they hold these two things), the question arises whether the number which we are to understand each of these things (Opinion, etc.) to be is the same as the number in the world (i.e. the cosmological number) or a different one.” I cannot doubt that these are the extended numbers which are composed (συνίσταται) of the elements of number, the limited and the unlimited, or, as Aristotle here says, the “affections of number,” the odd and the even. Zeller’s view that “celestial bodies” are meant comes near this, but the application is too narrow. Nor is it the number (πλῆθος) of those bodies that is in question, but their magnitude (μέγεθος). For other views of the passage, see Zeller, p. 391, n. 1.