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Taylor - Theoretic Arithmetic.pdf - Platonic Philosophy

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have a masculine property.* The male however by itself, or<br />

the female by itself, is unable to generate. But in the numbers<br />

9 and 7, the odd and the even are mingled together, viz. the<br />

male and the female. For 5+4=9, and 4+3=7.t The hexad<br />

likewise is a certain foundation or root of arithmetical proportion.<br />

For the least numbers in which arithmetical proportion<br />

consists are 1,2,3, and the sum of these is 6.<br />

The hexad also in the same manner as the pentad, always restores<br />

itself in the multiplication of itself by itself, but unlike<br />

the pentad it has not the same number always preceding. Thus<br />

for instance in all the multiplications of 5 into itself, 2 always<br />

precedes the last number. Thus 5 multiplied into itself as far<br />

as to the 5th power, produces the series 5, 25, 125, 625, 3125.<br />

And so in other instances ad infiniturn. But 6 in the multiplications<br />

of itself by itself, always has either 1, or 3, or 5, or 7,<br />

or 9, viz. it always has some one of the odd numbers within<br />

the decad preceding the last term, as is evident in the following<br />

series 6, 36, 216, 1296, 7776, 46656.<br />

According to the Pythagoreans likewise, after 216 years,<br />

which number is the cube of 6, there is a regeneration of<br />

things; and this is the periodic time of the metempsychosis.<br />

In the hexad too, as Theo of Smyrna observes, the harmonic<br />

medium first consists. For the sesquitertian of it, viz. 8, being<br />

assumed, and also the double of it 12, the numbers 6, 8, and<br />

12, will be in harmonic proportion; for as 6 is to 12 so is the<br />

difference between 8 and 6, to the difference between 8 and 12,<br />

viz. so is 2 to 4. If likewise, the sesquialter of it 9 is assumed,<br />

* Any two numbers likewise of which 8 consists, are either both of them odd,<br />

or both of them even. Thus 1 and 7, and 5 and 3 are both of them odd; but 2<br />

and 6, and 4 and 4, are both of them even.<br />

In like manner of any two numbers of which 9 and 7 consist, one is odd and<br />

the other even. Thus 1+8=9, 2+7=9, 3+6=9, and 4+5=9. And again<br />

1+6=7,2+5=7, and 3+4=7.

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