Bodily, material things are... continuously involved in continuous flow and change—in imitation of the nature and peculiar quality of that eternal ma… - Nicomachus

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Bodily, material things are... continuously involved in continuous flow and change—in imitation of the nature and peculiar quality of that eternal matter and substance which has been from the beginning... The bodiless things, however, of which we conceive in connection with or together with matter, such as qualities, quantities, configurations, largeness, smallness, equality, relations, actualities, dispositions, places, times, all those things... whereby the qualities in each body are comprehended—all these are of themselves immovable and unchangeable, but accidentally they share in and partake of the affections of the body to which they belong. Now it is with such things that 'wisdom' is particularly concerned, but accidentally also with... bodies.

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About Nicomachus

, or Nicomachus of Gerasa, (Greek: Νικόμαχος; c. 60 – c. 120 CE) was an important ancient Greek mathematician best known for and Manual of Harmonics. He was born in , in the Roman province of Syria (now , ). Although a Neopythagorean who wrote about the mystical properties of numbers, Nicomachus was strongly influenced by Aristotle.

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Native Name: Νικόμαχος Γερασηνός
Alternative Names: Nicomachus of Gerasa
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Additional quotes by Nicomachus

The ancients, who under the leadership of Pythagoras first made science systematic, defined philosophy as the love of wisdom... [Οἱ παλαιοὶ καὶ πρώτοι μεθοδεύσαντες ἐπιστήμην κατάρξαντος Πυθαγόρου ὡρίζοντο φιλοσοφίαν εἶναι φιλίαν σοφίας...] This 'wisdom' he defined as the knowledge, or science, of the truth in real things, conceiving 'science' to be a steadfast and firm apprehension of the underlying substance. and 'real things' to be those which continue uniformly and the same in the universe and never depart even briefly from their existence; these real things would be things immaterial...

More evidently still astronomy attains through arithmetic the investigations that pertain to it, not alone because it is later than geometry in origin—for motion naturally comes after rest—nor because the motions of the stars have a perfectly melodious harmony, but also because risings, settings, progressions, retrogressions, increases, and all sorts of phases are governed by numerical cycles and quantities. So then we have rightly undertaken first the systematic treatment of this, as the science naturally prior, more honorable, and more venerable, and, as it were, mother and nurse of the rest; and here we will take our start for the sake of clearness.

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