[
1091b]
[1]
This difficulty arises not from ascribing
goodness to the first principle as an attribute, but from treating
unity as a principle, and a principle in the sense of an element, and
then deriving number from unity. The early poets agree with this view
in so far as they assert that it was not the original
forces—such as Night, Heaven, Chaos or Ocean—but
Zeus who was king and ruler.It was, however, on the ground of the changing of the rulers of the
world that the poets were led to state these theories; because those
of them who compromise by not describing everything in mythological
language—e.g. Pherecydes
1 and
certain others—make the primary generator the Supreme Good;
and so do the Magi,
2 and some of the later
philosophers such as Empedocles and Anaxagoras: the one making Love an
element,
3 and the other making
Mind a first principle.
4 And of those who hold that
unchangeable substances exist, some
5 identify absolute unity with absolute
goodness; but they considered that the essence of goodness was
primarily unity.
This, then, is the
problem: which of these two views we should hold.Now it is remarkable if that which is
primary and eternal and supremely self-sufficient does not possess
this very quality, viz. self-sufficiency and immunity, in a primary
degree and as something good. Moreover, it is imperishable and
self-sufficient for no other reason than because it is good.
[20]
Hence it is probably true to say
that the first principle is of this nature. But to say that this principle is unity, or
if not that, that it is an element, and an element of numbers, is
impossible; for this involves a serious difficulty, to avoid which
some thinkers
6 have abandoned the theory (viz.
those who agree that unity is a first principle and element, but of
mathematical number). For on this view all units
become identical with some good, and we get a great abundance of
goods.
7 Further, if the Forms are
numbers, all Forms become identical with some good. Again, let us
assume that there are Ideas of anything that we choose. If there are
Ideas only of goods, the Ideas will not be substances
8; and if there are Ideas of
substances also, all animals and plants, and all things that
participate in the Ideas, will be goods.
9 Not only do these absurdities follow, but it also follows that the
contrary element, whether it is plurality or the unequal, i.e. the
Great and Small, is absolute badness. Hence one thinker
10 avoided
associating the Good with unity, on the ground that since generation
proceeds from contraries, the nature of plurality would then
necessarily be bad.Others
11 hold that inequality is the nature of the
bad. It follows, then, that all things partake of the Bad except
one—absolute unity; and that numbers partake of it in a more
unmitigated form than do spatial magnitudes
12;