If we now look back upon the road on which we have travelled from the beginning of Greek philosophy, we shall be able to characterize the direction in which we have been moving. The earliest Greek philosophers, the Ionics, propounded the question, "what is the ultimate principle of things?" and answered it by declaring that the first principle of things is matter. The second Greek School, the Pythagoreans, answered the same question by declaring numbers to be the first principle. The third school, the Eleatics, answered the question by asserting that the first principle of things is Being. {62} Now the universe, as we know it, is both quantitative and qualitative. Quantity and quality are characteristics of every sense-object. These are not, indeed, the only characteristics of the world, but they are the only characteristics which have so far come to light. Now the position of the Ionics was that the ultimate reality is both quantitative and qualitative, that is to say, it is matter, for matter is just what has both quantity and quality. The Pythagoreans abstracted from the quality of things. They stripped off the qualitative aspect from things, and were accordingly left with only quantity as ultimate reality. Quantity is the same as number. Hence the Pythagorean position that the world is made of numbers. The Eleatic philosophy, proceeding one step further in the same direction, abstracted from quantity as well as quality. Whereas the Pythagoreans had denied the qualitative aspect of things, leaving themselves only with the quantitative, the Eleatics denied both quantity and quality, for in denying multiplicity they denied quantity. Therefore they are left with the total abstraction of mere Being which has in it neither dividedness (quantity), nor positive character (quality). The rise from the Ionic to the Eleatic philosophy is therefore essentially a rise from sensuous to pure thinking. The Eleatic Being is a pure abstract thought. The position of the Pythagoreans on the other hand is that of semi-sensuous thought. They form the stepping-stone from the Ionics to the Eleatics.