Again, if unity has no real subsistence, and is nothing more than a name or conception of the mind, it may be destroyed without the destruction of its subject. The unity, therefore, of a house may be taken away, without the ruin of a house. But if a house is nothing more than certain materials, reduced into one form, this is impossible. And, on the contrary, the alteration of that subject, of which unity is predicated, can make no real alteration in unity (on this hypothesis) any more than the death of a man can affect his name. When, therefore, a body, of which _one_ was predicated, is divided into a multitude of parts, there is no real alteration made in the unity of the body, because unity is nothing more than a name. It was in consequence of this reasoning, and perceiving that unity was participated by every being, that the Pythagoreans placed a super-essential one at the top of the universe, intelligibly abstracted from all beings in simplicity and excellence of nature. For they considered, that unless there was a self-subsisting one in all things, there could neither be universals nor particulars. Not the first, because they are by nature _one_ and _many_. But it is requisite that the one itself, should preside over that which is not one alone. Nor again, the second, because they are many and one, (that is, they participate more of multitude than unity, and their nature is determined more by the _many_ than the _one_.) And because of things in participation, unless an unparticipated one is added, there can be no cause of union to beings; in the same manner as the cause of essence to beings, is taken away by those who deny that being itself, is the principle of all essence. For as the good itself, is the one principle of good to the universe, and is nothing besides good; and as a self-motive nature, which is nothing besides self-motion, is the cause of motion to all things; so all things proceed from being itself, and all united natures receive their union from _the one_, abstracted from all things. Hence (such is the absolute dominion of unity), continued quantities would have no existence without its participation; for when they are divided, so far as they lose unity, they change their being into some other form. Hence, the bodies of plants or animals, which are each of them one, when they fly from unity, and are dissipated into multitude, immediately lose the essence they formerly possessed, and become something else; which new state of being they likewise possess so far as they are one. Add too, that health then flourishes in the corporeal frame, when the body is conciliated into one; then beauty flourishes, when the power of one connects the members into proportion and consent; and then virtue reigns in the soul, when the soul is reduced into one similitude with that which is divine.