The comprehension of these we call knowledge; for which reason science is the binary number.

But opinion is the ternary; for that rationally follows from comprehension.

The objects of opinion are many things, and the ternary number denotes a multitude, as "Thrice happy Grecians"; for which reason Pythagoras admits the ternary.

This sect of philosophers is called the Italic, by reason Pythagoras started his school in Italy; his hatred of the tyranny of Polycrates enforced him to abandon his native country Samos.
Heraclitus and Hippasus of Metapontum suppose that fire gives the origination to all beings, that they all flow from fire, and in fire they all conclude; for of fire when first quenched the world was constituted.

The first part of the world, being most condensed and contracted within itself, made the earth; but part of that earth being loosened and made thin by fire, water was produced; afterwards this water being exhaled and rarefied into vapors became air; after all this the world itself, and all other corporeal beings, shall be dissolved by fire in the universal conflagration.