12. It follows that we must allow contrariety to Quantity: whenever we speak of great and small, our notions acknowledge this contrariety by evolving opposite images, as also when we refer to many and few; indeed, “few” and “many” call for similar treatment to “small” and “great.”
“Many,” predicated of the inhabitants of a house, does duty for “more”: “few” people are said to be in the theatre instead of “less.”
“Many,” again, necessarily involves a large numerical plurality. This plurality can scarcely be a relative; it is simply an expansion of number, its contrary being a contraction.
The same applies to the continuous [magnitude], the notion of which entails prolongation to a distant point.
Quantity, then, appears whenever there is a progression from the unit or the point: if either progression comes to a rapid halt, we have respectively “few” and “small”; if it goes forward and does not quickly cease, “many” and “great.”
What, we may be asked, is the limit of this progression? What, we retort, is the limit of beauty, or of heat? Whatever limit you impose, there is always a “hotter”; yet “hotter” is accounted a relative, “hot” a pure quality.
Plotinus Resources OnLine and in Print
