"The observable efforts of Greek philosophy were generally directed toward the resolution of multiplicity into unity. Empedocles is reported to have said, "the universe is alternately in motion and at rest—in motion when love is making one out of many, or strife is making many out of one, and at rest in the intermediate periods of time." Even here, where two states are posited, the unifying impulse is obviously felt to be the more desirable. Hence it is very natural that the Pythagoreans should have considered the monad as the first principle from which the other numbers flow. Itself not a number, it is an essence rather than a being and is sometimes, like the duad, designated as a potential number, since the point, though not a plane figure, can originate plane figures. As first originator, the monad is good and God. It is both odd and even, male and female... It is the basis and creator of number... In short, it is always taken to represent all that is good and desirable and essential, indivisible and uncreated."