RETROSPECT. 27 



the process of reducing numbers to absolute identity, to 

 zero. 



104. Life is moreover only a mathematical problem, 

 which, the higher it ascends, approaches so much the 

 nearer to absolute zero in its attainment of the infinity 

 of numbers, becomes so much the more endowed with 

 life. 



105. Arithmetic is the science of the second idea, or 

 that of time and motion, or of life ; it is, therefore, the 

 first science ; mathematics not only begins with it, but 

 creation also, with the becoming of time and of life. 

 Arithmetic is, accordingly, the truly absolute or divine 

 science, and therefore everything in it is also directly 

 certain, because everything in it resembles the Divine. 

 Theology is arithmetic personified. 



106. Hence it follows in the most perfect manner, 

 that every science, if it would possess certainty, must 

 resemble arithmetic. Now a science always implies a 

 science treating of certain objects ; all certain objects 

 must, therefore, resemble the objects of arithmetic ; or 

 all objects, of whatever denomination, whether natural or 

 spiritual, must correspond to arithmetical objects, conse- 

 quently in idea be numbers, an actual arithmetical prob- 

 lem, as it were the numbers of motion, of life. 



107. A natural thing is nothing but a self-moving 

 number ; an organic or living thing is a number moving 

 itself out of itself, or spontaneously ; an inorganic thing, 

 however, is a number moved by another thing ; now, as 

 this other thing is also a real number, so then is every 

 inorganic thing a number moved by another num- 

 ber, and thus ad infinitum. The movements in nature 

 are only movements of numbers by numbers ; even as 

 arithmetical computation is none other than a movement 

 of numbers by numbers, but with this difference, that in 

 the latter this operates in an ideal manner, in the former 

 after a real. 



c. FORM, SPACE. (Third firm of the Primary Act.) 



108. Viewed arithmetically every position is a number, 



