ople, whether Grecians or barbarians,
reckon from one to ten, and thence return to one again. Farther he avers
the virtue of ten consists in the quaternion; the reason whereof is
this,--if any person start from one, and add numbers so as to take in
the quaternary, he shall complete the number ten; if he passes the four,
he shall go beyond the ten; for one, two, three, and four being added
up together make ten. The nature of numbers, therefore, if we regard
the units, abideth in the ten; but if we regard its power, in the four.
Therefore the Pythagoreans say that their most sacred oath is by that
god who delivered to them the quaternary.

By th' founder of the sacred number four,
Eternal Nature's font and source, they swore.

Of this number the soul of man is composed; for mind, knowledge,
opinion, and sense are the four that complete the soul, from which all
sciences, all arts, all rational faculties derive themselves. For what
our mind perceives, it perceives after the manner of a thing that is
one, the soul itself being a unity; as for instance, a multitude of
persons are not the object of our sense nor are comprehended by us, for
they are infinite; our understanding gives the general concept of A MAN,
in which all individuals agree. The number of individuals is infinite;
the generic or specific nature of all being is a unit, or to be
apprehended as one only thing; from this one conception we give the
genuine measures of all existence, and therefore we affirm that a
certain class of beings are rational and discoursive. But when we come
to give the nature of a horse, it is that animal which neighs; and this
being common to all horses, it is manifest that the understanding, which
hath such like conceptions, is in its nature unity. It follows that
the number called the infinite binary must be science; in every
demonstration or belief belonging to science, and in every syllogism, we
draw that conclusion which is in dispute from those propositions which
are by all granted, by which means another proposition is obtained from
the premises. The comprehension of these we call knowledge; for which
reason science is the binary number. But opinion is the ternary; for
that rationally follows from comprehension. The objects of opinion are
many things, and the ternary number denotes a multitude, as "Thrice
happy Grecians"; for which reason Pythagoras admits the ternary. This
sect of philosophers is called the Italic, by r