Post by Admin on Oct 9, 2016 10:18:07 GMT
CHAP. XVI.
Yet of Arithmetick.
BUT to return to Arithmetick: Plato saith, That this was first Invented by some Cacodaemon, together with Cards and Dice: and Lycurgus, that great Law-giver among the Lacedaemonians, expell'd it as a most turbulent and factious Science out of his Commonwealth: For it requires a great deal of idle Labor, and diverts men from other more lawful and honest imployments, raising great and mischievous quarrels many times about the smallest matters. Hence arises that irreconcilable dispute among Arithmeti∣cians, Whether an even or odd Number be most to
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be prefer'd; which is the most perfect Number be∣tween Three, Six, and Ten; and whether any Number may be properly said to be evenly even: in which matter of so great consequence, they say that Euclid the Prince of Geometricians, has very much err'd. It is a hard matter to say, what strange Pythagorical Mysteries, what Magick Vertues they Dream there be in number, though naked and abstracted from things; and with a great deal of Presumption aver, That the World could not have been Created by God, had not Numbers been Instrumental; and that all Divine Knowledge is contain'd in Numbers, as in a certain Rule. From these beginnings, the Heresies of Marcus, Ma∣gus, and Valentinus, took their first growth and progressi∣on, who presum'd that they were able to discover an innumerable company of Divine Secrets of Truth and Religion, by the dull and weak assistance of Numbers. Some accompt the Pythagorean inventions among the Sacraments, with many other ridiculous fancies and idle stories not worth repeating; Arithmeticians ha∣ving nothing to boast of, but an insipid, inanimate, and sensless Number, though they think themselves Gods, because they can only cast a Figure, or can tell how to reckon: But such honours the Musicians will scarce allow them, who think them rather due to their Musick.
Yet of Arithmetick.
BUT to return to Arithmetick: Plato saith, That this was first Invented by some Cacodaemon, together with Cards and Dice: and Lycurgus, that great Law-giver among the Lacedaemonians, expell'd it as a most turbulent and factious Science out of his Commonwealth: For it requires a great deal of idle Labor, and diverts men from other more lawful and honest imployments, raising great and mischievous quarrels many times about the smallest matters. Hence arises that irreconcilable dispute among Arithmeti∣cians, Whether an even or odd Number be most to
Page 54
be prefer'd; which is the most perfect Number be∣tween Three, Six, and Ten; and whether any Number may be properly said to be evenly even: in which matter of so great consequence, they say that Euclid the Prince of Geometricians, has very much err'd. It is a hard matter to say, what strange Pythagorical Mysteries, what Magick Vertues they Dream there be in number, though naked and abstracted from things; and with a great deal of Presumption aver, That the World could not have been Created by God, had not Numbers been Instrumental; and that all Divine Knowledge is contain'd in Numbers, as in a certain Rule. From these beginnings, the Heresies of Marcus, Ma∣gus, and Valentinus, took their first growth and progressi∣on, who presum'd that they were able to discover an innumerable company of Divine Secrets of Truth and Religion, by the dull and weak assistance of Numbers. Some accompt the Pythagorean inventions among the Sacraments, with many other ridiculous fancies and idle stories not worth repeating; Arithmeticians ha∣ving nothing to boast of, but an insipid, inanimate, and sensless Number, though they think themselves Gods, because they can only cast a Figure, or can tell how to reckon: But such honours the Musicians will scarce allow them, who think them rather due to their Musick.