Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 2 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"Plutarch
Philosophy
Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 2 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"
Plutarch
Classical literature; Essays; Ethics; Philosophy
Now Plato laid down this for a position, that the intervals of
sesquialters, sesquiterces, and sesquioctaves having once arisen from
these connections in the first spaces, the Deity filled up all the
sesquiterce intervals with sesquioctaves, leaving a part of each, so
that the interval left of the part should bear the numerical proportion
of 256 to 243.[193] From these words of Plato they were constrained
to enlarge their numbers and make them bigger. Now there must be two
numbers following in order in sesquioctave proportion. But the six
does not contain a sesquioctave; and if it should be cut up into parts
and the units bruised into fractions, this would strangely perplex
the study of these things. Therefore the occasion itself advised
multiplication; so that, as in changes in the musical scale, the whole
scheme was extended in agreement with the first (or base) number.
Eudorus therefore, imitating Crantor, made choice of 384 for his
first number, being the product of 64 multiplied by 6; which way of
proceeding the number 64 led them to, having for its sesquioctave 72.
But it is more agreeable to the words of Plato to introduce the half of
384. For the remainder of that will bear a sesquioctave proportion in
those numbers which Plato mentions, 256 and 243, if we make use of 192
for the first number. But if the same number be made choice of doubled,
the remainder (or leimma) will have the same proportion, but the
numbers will be doubled, i.e. 512 and 486. For 256 is in sesquiterce
proportion to 192, as 512 to 384. Neither was Crantor’s reduction of
the proportions to this number without reason, which made his followers
willing to pursue it; in regard that 64 is both the square of the
first cube, and the cube of the first square; and being multiplied by
3, the first odd and trigonal, and the first perfect and sesquialter
number, it produces 192, which also has its sesquioctave, as we shall
demonstrate.
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