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, consequently in idea be numbers, an actual arithmetical problem, 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 number, 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 form, of the Primary Act._) 108. Viewed arithmetically every position is a number, geometrically, however, it is a point. What the 0 is in arithmetic, the point is in geometry; the one the arithmetical, the other the geometrical nothing. Both sciences commence with nothing and are only different views of nothing. The 0 is a temporal nothing (a number), the point a spatial nothing (a figure). 109. The first motion of numbers or of points is the motion of the primary number, the 0, or the primary act; and this motion depends upon the multiplicity of numbers or points, upon the disintegration of the identical primary number, upon the +-. The first motion of the primary act is an expansion of itself into multiplicity, whereby not merely sequence but an addition also is posited. The primary act is not simply positing, but also posited; as the former it is time, as the latter it is time posited universally. Time remaining stationary is _Space_. Space is not different in essence from time, but only according to position; it is only time resting, while this is moved, active space.