ÉPINOMIS.

with some reason that this science is necessary to the human race only for objects of little importance; yet that is already a great deal. But if one turns one's gaze to that which is divine and mortal in generation, where one will recognize the principle of piety toward the gods and number by essence, one will then see that it is not given to everyone to understand all the virtue and efficacy of the science of numbers. It is evident, for example, that music in its entirety cannot do without movements and sounds measured by number. And, what is most admirable, this science, while being the source of all goods, is the source of no evil; of which it is easy to be convinced. Number plays no part in any kind of movement where neither reason, nor order, nor figure, nor measure, nor harmony reigns—in a word, in everything that participates in some evil. This is what every man who wishes to be happy until the end of his days must be persuaded of; and furthermore, with regard to the just, the good, the beautiful, and other similar things, whoever does not know them and has not grasped them through a true opinion will never know how to give an account of them in a manner satisfactory to himself or to others.

Let us go further and observe how we have learned to count. Tell me from where comes the knowledge of unity and the number two, to us the only ones in the whole universe naturally endowed with the capacity to reflect? For nature has not given other animals the faculties necessary to learn to count from their father. But God has firstly put into us the intelligence required to conceive what is shown to us; then he has shown and still shows us various objects, among which there is none more beautiful than