146. Geometry is a science of equal value with arithmetic; it is even as certain, because it has no other propositions; it is equally eternal, is the same realization of the primary act, the _Deus geometrizans_ of the Pythagoreans. Everything to be certain must therefore resemble geometry, must be itself a position of geometry, only under other relations.
147. Geometry is more real, more finite, therefore also more apparent, and, as it were, more material than arithmetic. The ideas in it have become something determinate, have assumed form, while before they still fluctuated formless in arithmetic; here were they mere ghosts without veils, but in geometry they have received these veils. _Time_ has received for its form, its body, the line; _space_, the surface; _life_, the globe, consequently the rotation for its form or body. It is to be here remarked, that ideas always become more real and more finite, always approximate nearer to actual manifestation, the lower they descend or the more they are considered individually. Geometry has not originated later than arithmetic, but is only a more individual view of ideas, arithmetic being more universal. Geometry is arithmetic with stationary numbers, = points. The Divine thus approximates to manifestation, to materiality, the more individual it becomes; and this is very natural, for it verily limits itself more and obtains always more predicates. The more a thing obtains predicates, by so much the more perfect is its finiteness. By geometry we are actually transferred into the universe, but only into the formal, in which it has, like a skeleton, been sketched for us solely upon a general plan; namely, as infinite extension, in which line and periphery, central and peripheric action, magnetism, electricity, and rotation, &c., have been prefigured.
a. GRAVITY. (_First form of the World. Rest._)
148. In arithmetic the divine acts are only undetermined = numbers. In geometry the numbers obtain determinate or finite directions, become figures. All figures have, however, an especial direction to the centre. Figures are nought but centres manifoldly posited.
149. The direction to a centre is, however, an act, which never ceases to operate. The primary act strives therefore to posit ad infinitum nought else than a centre, i. e. points.