"They thought they found in numbers, more than in fire, earth, or water, many resemblances to things which are and become; thus such and such an attribute of numbers is justice, another is soul and mind, another is opportunity, and so on; and again they saw in numbers the attributes and ratios of the musical scales. Since, then, all other things seemed in their whole nature to be assimilated to numbers, while numbers seemed to be the first things in the whole of nature, they supposed the elements of numbers to be the elements of all things, and the whole heaven to be a musical scale and a number."
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Aristotle (c. 330 BC) as quoted by Sir Thomas Little Heath, A History of Greek Mathematics, Vol. 1, pp.67-68, citing Metaph. A. 5, 985 b 27-986 a 2.
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