Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 1 (of 3) — Georg Hegel — John Shaqi
Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 1 (of 3)
Georg Hegel · en
What we find about the progression of the other numbers is more
indefinite and unsatisfying, and the Notion loses itself in them. Up to
five there may certainly be a kind of thought in numbers, but from six
onwards they are merely arbitrary determinations.
2. _Application of the System to the Universe_. This simple idea and
the simple reality contained therein, must now, however, be further
developed in order to come to reality as it is when put together and
expanded. The question now meets us as to how, in this relation, the
Pythagoreans passed from abstract logical determinations to forms which
indicate the concrete use of numbers. In what pertains to space or
music, determinations of objects formed by the Pythagoreans through
numbers, still bear a somewhat closer relation to the thing, but when
they enter the region of the concrete in nature and in mind, numbers
become purely formal and empty.
a. To show how the Pythagoreans constructed out of numbers the
system of the world, Sextus instances (adv. Math. X. 277-283), space
relations, and undoubtedly we have in them to do with such ideal
principles, for numbers are, in fact, perfect determinations of
abstract space. That is to say, if we begin with the point, the first
negation of vacuity, “the point corresponds to unity; it is indivisible
and the principle of lines, as the unity is that of numbers. While
the point exists as the monad or One, the line expresses the duad or
Two, for both become comprehensible through transition; the line is
the pure relationship of two points and is without breadth. Surface
results from the threefold; but the solid figure or body belongs to
the fourfold, and in it there are three dimensions present. Others say
that body consists of one point” (_i.e._ its essence is one point),
“for the flowing point makes the line, the flowing line, however, makes
surface, and this surface makes body. They distinguish themselves from
the first mentioned, in that the former make numbers primarily proceed
from the monad and the undetermined duad, and then points and lines,
plane surfaces and solid figures, from numbers, while they construct
all from one point.” To the first, distinction is opposition or form
set forth as duality; the others have form as activity. “Thus what is
corporeal is formed under the directing influence of numbers, but from
them also proceed the definite bodies, water, air, fire, and the whole
universe generally, which they declare to be harmonious. This harmony
is one which again consists of numeral relations only, which constitute
the various concords of the absolute harmony.”