Number One

“ Number reveals itself to art by rhythm, which is the beating of the heart of the Infinite. In rhythm, law of order, God is felt. A verse is a gathering like a crowd; its feet take the cadenced step of a legion. Without number, no science; without number, no poetry. The strophe, the epic poem, the drama, the riotous palpitation of man, the bursting forth of love, the irradiation of the imagination, all this cloud with its flashes, the passion,—all is lorded over by the mysterious word number, even as geometry and arithmetic. ”

“ That's good? and why do you call five a holy
number?
SENI.
Five is the soul of man: for even as man
Is mingl'd up of good and evil, so
The five is the first number that's made up
Of even and odd. ”

“ Nothing exists except by Number. Without it, all would be one and the same substance; for Number alone differentiates and qualifies substance. Number is to your Spirit what it is to Matter, an incomprehensible agent. ”

“ The perception of being and of distinction, that is, of substantive being and of relative not-being, is the perception of number. The science of the relations of every collection, with its measure, which is unity, is the science of numbers. ”

“ But though the transition from number definitely conceived to number without bounds is like launching into a sea, yet the conception of multitude itself is in one sense susceptible of degree. We may have the idea of a limited, or of an unbounded, multitude. ”

“ Out of the infinite heap of things around us in the world, it chooses a certain number which it can thoroughly grasp, and presents this group to the spectator in the form best calculated to enable him to grasp it also, and to grasp it with delight. ”

“ This distinction, the distinction by which number is assigned to reason and not to sense, is, I think, an important aid towards understanding the Pythagorean philosophy.
9. Number is a necessary form of thought under which we place or subsume whatever is presented to the mind. Hence form, which is another name for number, and not matter, is the essence of all things, at least of all intelligible things. It is the truth and substance of the universe—its truth and substance, not only in so far as it exists for us, but in so far as it exists for intelligence generally. ”

“ Can a number that is not determinate, that is neither 1, nor 2, nor n, nor n±r, nor any other determinate number, be regarded as being really embodied in the actual world? Can there be in the external world a countless aggregate? ”

“ In that old-fashioned reading class of District Number Three.
III.
We took a hand at History—its altars, spires and flames—
And uniformly mispronounced the most important names;
We wandered through Biography, and gave our fancy play,
And with some subjects fell in love—“good only for one day;”
In Romance and Philosophy we settled many a point,
And made what poems we assailed to creak at every joint;
And many authors that we love, you with me will agree,
Were first time introduced to us in District Number Three. ”

“ The number-trade was a necessary offshoot of that periodical literature which sprang up into importance at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and which, in all its ramifications, has had a more powerful influence than that of all other literature upon the intelligence of the great body of the people. ”

“ That NUMBER is entirely THE CREATURE OF THE MIND, even though the other qualities be allowed to exist without, will be evident to whoever considers that the same thing bears a different denomination of number as the mind views it with different respects. ”

“ Thus, in seeking our definition of number we have arrived so far at the result that numbers are properties of general terms or general descriptions, not of physical things or of mental occurrences.
Instead of speaking of a general term, such as “man,” as the subject of which a number can be asserted, we may, without making any serious change, take the subject as the class or collection of objects—i.e. “mankind” in the above instance—to which the general term in question is applicable. ”

“ The reason why number signifies the quality of the thing treated of is that the Word is spiritual, and therefore each and all things therein contained are spiritual; and spiritual things are not numbered and measured, and yet they fall into numbers and measures as they descend out of the spiritual world, or out of heaven where angels are into the natural world or the earth where men are. And in like manner when they descend out of the spiritual sense of the Word, in which the angels are, into the natural sense of the Word in which men are. ”

“ Although a poem be not made by counting of syllables upon the fingers, yet "numbers" is the most poetical synonym we have for verse, and "measure" the most significant equivalent for beauty, for goodness, and perhaps even for truth. Those early and profound philosophers, the followers of Pythagoras, saw the essence of all things in number, and it was by weight, measure, and number, as we read in the Bible, that the Creator first brought Nature out of the void. ”

“ So I say a name, even if self-bestowed, is better than a number. In the register of the potter’s field I shall soon have both. What wealth! ”

“ By the slow, and often painful, process incident to the extension and development of any mental conception in a mind wholly unused to abstractions, the savage gropes his way onward in his counting from 1, or more probably from 2, to the various higher numbers required to form his scale. The perception of unity offers no difficulty to his mind, though he is conscious at first of the object itself rather than of any idea of number associated with it. The concept of duality, also, is grasped with perfect readiness. ”

“ The English language is so defective that the word 'majority' is used to mean 'the greater number,' and also 'the difference between the greater number and the less.' Cannot a new word be invented to replace 'majority' in one or other of these meanings, and so avoid the use of the same word for two distinct ideas? ”

“ Evidently, then, these thinkers also consider that number is the principle both as matter for things and as forming their modifications and their permanent states, and hold that the elements of number are the even and the odd, and of these the former is unlimited, and the latter limited; ”

“ And, my dear Pastor, believers will tell you that God is Number endowed with motion, to be felt but not proved. He, like the unit, is the origin of number though having nothing in common with numbers. The existence of Number depends on that of the unit, which is not a number, but the parent of them all. And God, dear Pastor Becker, is a stupendous Unit, having nothing in common with His creations, but their Parent nevertheless. ”

“ If we compare the number of those who achieved noteworthiness through their own exertions with the numbers of the greatly more numerous persons whose names are registered in legal, clerical, medical, official, military, and naval directories, or in those of the titled classes [A] and landed gentry, or lastly, of those of the immense commercial world, the proportion of one noteworthy person to one hundred of the generality who were equally well circumstanced as himself does not seem to be an over-estimate. ”

“ Pupils who are first interested in, say, number relations, because of what they can do with these relations in making something else (at first interested, that is, in a branch of arithmetic simply as a means or tool) , may become fascinated by what they can do with number on its own account. ”

“ Our records include several cases of pronounced emotional association combined with a sort of dramatization of numbers or of colors. Thus, one subject writes, “1,2, 4,7 and 8 are reliable, quiet, well-disposed, but not brilliant numbers; 3 is a sharp, shrewd, noisy and disagreeable number, always making as much trouble as possible. ”

“ Collecting together and comparing with one another the great mass of terms by which we find any number expressed in different languages, and, while admitting the great diversity of method practised by different tribes, we observe certain resemblances which were not at first supposed to exist. The various meanings of 1, where they can be traced at all, cluster into a little group of significations with which at last we come to associate the idea of unity. ”

“ Teach me my days to number, and apply
My trembling heart to wisdom; ”

“ If I win ten thousand, they will be a thousand, and gradually the number of those who remain will grow ever larger. And if one had departed for the second or third time, perhaps, then perhaps he will be embarrassed to go the fifth time, and then he too will remain. ”

“ The reason why numbers signify things, or rather that they are as a kind of adjectives to substantives, denoting some quality in things, is that number in itself is natural; for natural things are determined by nubers, but spiritual by things and their states. ”

“ Since, therefore, while there are numbers and a one both in affections and in qualities and in quantities and in movement, in all cases the number is a number of particular things and the one is one something, and its substance is not just to be one, the same must be true of substances also ”

“ Plug up the holes thoroughly, later, but we can't have somebody else stealing a march on us. Remember you have your name to make. The way to make it is by working with me—toward the greatest good for the greatest number. ”

“ As men have frequently occasion to make mention of multitudes as well as of single objects, it became necessary that they should have some method of expressing number. Number may be expressed either by a particular word, expressing number in general, such as the words many, more, &c. ”

“ since, again, they saw that the attributes and the ratios of the musical scales were expressible in numbers; since, then, all other things seemed in their whole nature to be modelled after numbers, and numbers seemed to be the first things in the whole of nature, they supposed the elements of numbers to be the elements of all things, and the whole heaven to be a musical scale and a number. ”

“ Every superior personality, and every superior performance, has, for the average of mankind, something mysterious. ”

“ Indeed, I myself, being curious by nature, frequently visit this place for the mere pleasure of observing the work of those who, on account of their superiority over other artisans, we call "first rank men." ”

“ Wealth and rank, with a naturally aristocratic indolence and indifference of mind, had made the ways of life and of the world--at least, the world in which she lived--easy, soft, and pleasant, and all her years had glided brilliantly but monotonously on. ”

“ Besides this, we are shown—how many an illustrious name in the bede-roll of our great men brings it to mind—that with an enthusiastic love for a particular study, and unflagging perseverance in pursuance of it, the most adverse circumstance of birth and fortune may be overcome, and he who has striven take rank among the great and good whose names adorn the annals of their country. ”

“ I think your numbers afford a very real and important ground for satisfaction.
6 Not that your great numbers, or indeed great numbers of men anywhere, are likely to be all good, or even to have the majority good. ‘The majority are bad,’ said one of the wise men of Greece ”

“ Whenever we speak of the One, the Many usually come into our mind at the same time. Whence, then, we are forced to ask, do the Many come? This question is unanswerable by the consciousness which pictures the Many as a primary datum, and-treats the One as only one among the Many. ”

“ Throughout the whole of that afternoon the Count gave way to the same spirit. Whether alone with Clémence, or surrounded by others, the high and powerful mind broke forth with fearless energy. A bright and poetical imagination; a clear and cultivated understanding ”

“ The old ideas. There's rank, for instance. I've been thinking about it lately. I like rank. But do you know how I like it? Just as Ernst loves an antique vase, even so I am sometimes attracted by an old title. I should like to be a count or a marquis, not from snobbery: don't imagine that I want to be a count or a marquis out of snobbery, for that's not the idea at all. But just as Ernst admires an antique vase, or an old book, or a piece of brocade, I admire a count's or marquis' title ”

“ We feel that the men in the higher classes of the scale would be, in the full sense of the word, Great—men whom one would give much to see the faces of but for an instant; and that those in the lower classes of the scale (though none were admitted but who had true merit of some kind) would be very small men, not greatly exciting either reverence or curiosity. ”

“ Hence, a work absolutely good holds the first rank, a work generically good [that is, judged by its class] , as it were, the middle rank, and a neutral work the lowest rank. Examples of these three are loving God, fasting, and weaving. ”

“ Was it not great skill—to compel the admiration of the love-worthiest scientist—to create a unit of a numberless mass of units and then to enable it to feel each one the importance of the whole, as if each part were big as the whole? ”

“ In every rank of life, in the lowest, as frequently as in the highest, characters are to be found, overflowing with the milk of human kindness, breathing love towards God and man; and though without those peculiar powers of mind called talents, evidently holding a higher rank in the scale of beings, than many who possess them. ”

“ Such scraps of wisdom as are vouchsafed him he passes dutifully on to his parents. He tells his mother that, on the spiritual plane, “Rank doesn’t count as a virtue. High rank comes by being virtuous.” ”

“ For the arrangements of line and balances of spaces which meet these underlying needs are indeed the points through which we recognize the answer to our natural love and sensitiveness for order, and through this answer we feel, clearly or obscurely, the difference between what we call great men and what we call the average, whatever the personal charm may be. ”