Section 6

A similar question might be raised about one and many. For if many is absolutely opposed to one, certain impossibilities result. (1) One will be few; for many is also opposed to few.

(2) Two will be many; since twofold is manifold, and twofold is derived from two. Therefore one will be few; for in what relation can two be many if not in relation to one, which must therefore be few? for there can be nothing less. (3) If much and little are in plurality what long and short are in length, and if whatever is much is also many,

and many is much (unless indeed there is a difference in the case of a plastic continuum 1 ), few will be a plurality. Therefore one will be a plurality, if it is few; and this necessarily follows if two is many. Presumably, however, although many in a sense means much, there is a distinction; e.g., water is called much but not many.

To all things, however, which are divisible the term many is applicable: in one sense, if there is a plurality which involves excess either absolutely or relatively (and similarly few is a plurality involving defect); and in another in the sense of number, in which case it is opposed to one only. For we say one or many just as if we were to say one and ones, or white thing and white things, or were to compare the things measured with the measure.

Multiples, too, are spoken of in this way; for every number is many, because it consists of ones, and because every number is measurable by one; and also as being the opposite of one, and not of few. In this sense even two is many; but as a plurality involving excess either relatively or absolutely it is not many, but the first plurality. Two is, however, absolutely few; because it is the first plurality involving defect

(hence Anaxagoras 2 was not right in leaving the subject by saying all things were together, infinite both in multitude and in smallness; instead of in smallness he should have said in fewness, 3 for things cannot be infinite in fewness), since fewness is constituted not by one, as some hold, but by two.

In the sphere of numbers one is opposed to many as the measure to the measurable, i.e., as relative terms are opposed which are not of their own nature relative. We have distinguished elsewhere 4 that things are called relative in two senses—either as being contraries, or as knowledge is related to the knowable, A being related to B because B is described in relation to A.

There is no reason why one should not be fewer than something, e.g. two; for if it is fewer it is not therefore few. Plurality is, as it were, a genus of number, since number is a plurality measurable by one. And in a sense one and number are opposed; not, however, as being contrary, but as we have said some relative terms to be; for it is qua measure and measurable that they are opposed.

(Hence not everything which is one is a number—e.g., a thing which is indivisible.) But although the relation between knowledge and the knowable is said to be similar to this, it turns out not to be similar. For it would seem that knowledge is a measure, and the knowable that which is measurable by it; but it happens that whereas all knowledge is knowable, the knowable is not always knowledge, because in a way knowledge is measured by the knowable. 5

Plurality is contrary neither to the few (whose real contrary is the many, as an excessive plurality to an exceeded plurality) nor in all senses to one; but they are contrary in one sense (as has been said) as being the one divisible and the other indivisible; and in another as being relative (just as knowledge is relative to the knowable) if plurality is a number and one is the measure.