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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: intelligence.
There was another reason why numbers had so great an influence over the
minds of early thinkers--they were verified by experience. Every use of
them, even the most trivial, assured men of their truth; they were
everywhere to be found, in the least things and the greatest alike. One,
two, three, counted on the fingers was a 'trivial matter (Rep.), a little
instrument out of which to create a world; but from these and by the help
of these all our knowledge of nature has been developed. They were the
measure of all things, and seemed to give law to all things; nature was
rescued from chaos and confusion by their power; the notes of music, the
motions of the stars, the forms of atoms, the evolution and recurrence of
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