HISTOEICAL EVOLUTION OF MYTH AND SCIENCE. 215 



and all is at the same time governed by one supreme 

 power. Number is everything, and is the essence of 

 things, but the triad includes all number, since it 

 contains the beginning, middle, and end. Everything 

 is derived from the primitive one and from the 

 principal number ; and since this number in breath- 

 ing its vital evolution into the void is divided into 

 many units, everything is derived from the multiplicity 

 of these units or numbers. 



Since, by his idea of the source of universal order, 

 Pythagoras partly accepted the theocosrnic monad 

 as the final and necessary root of all life, and of all 

 that is knowable, he could not fail to see the converti- 

 bility of the unit into the Being. But if the unit must 

 always precede the manifold, there is a first unit from 

 which all the others proceed ; if this first and eternal 

 unit is at the same time the absolute being, it 

 follows that number and the world have a common 

 origin and a common essence, and that the intrinsic 

 causes and possible combinations of number are 

 virtually accomplished in the development of the 

 world, and these causes and combinations are ideal 

 forms of this development. The monad is developed 

 by these laws through all the generative processes of 

 nature, while at the same time it remains eternal in 

 the system of the universe ; so that things not only 

 have their origin and essence, their place and time 

 according to numerical causes, but each is in effect a 

 number as far as its individual properties and the 



