Quantum is, as it were, the determinate Being of quantity: whereas mere
quantity corresponds to abstract Being, and the Degree, which is next
to be considered, corresponds to Being-for-self. As for the details
of the advance from mere quantity to quantum, it is founded on this:
that whilst in mere quantity the distinction, as a distinction of
continuity and discreteness, is at first only implicit, in a quantum
the distinction is actually made, so that quantity in general now
appears as distinguished or limited. But in this way the quantum breaks
up at the same time into an indefinite multitude of Quanta or definite
magnitudes. Each of these definite magnitudes, as distinguished from
the others, forms a unity, while on the other hand, viewed _per se,_ it
is a many. And, when that is done, the quantum is described as Number.
102.] In Number the quantum reaches its development and perfect
mode. Like the One, the medium in which it exists, Number involves two
qualitative factors or functions; Annumeration or Sum, which depends on
the factor discreteness, and Unity, which depends on continuity.
In arithmetic the several kinds of operation are usually presented as
accidental modes of dealing with numbers. If necessity and meaning
is to be found in these operations, it must be by a principle: and
that must come from the characteristic elements in the notion of
number itself. (This principle must here be briefly exhibited.) These
characteristic elements are Annumeration on the one hand, and Unity on
the other, which together constitute number. But Unity, when applied
to empirical numbers, is only the equality of these numbers: hence the
principle of arithmetical operations must be to put numbers in the
ratio of Unity and Sum (or amount), and to elicit the equality of these
two modes.
The Ones or the numbers themselves are indifferent towards each other,
and hence the unity into which they are translated by the arithmetical
operation takes the aspect of an external colligation. All reckoning is
therefore making up the tale: and the difference between the species of
it lies only in the qualitative constitution of the numbers of which we
make up the tale. The principle for this constitution is given by the
way we fix Unity and Annumeration.
Numeration comes first: what we may call, making number; a colligation
of as many units as we please. But to get a _species_ of calculation,
it is necessary that what we count up should be numbers already, and no
longer a mere unit.
First, and as they naturally come to hand, Numbers are quite vaguely
numbers in general, and so, on the whole, unequal. The colligation, or
telling the tale of these, is Addition.