"Now it was a Pythagorean teaching that similars are comprehended by similars: so that, in a word, the rational soul could by no means comprehend all things unless it were also composed of all of them…"
"But we ought not to suppose that men most familiar with all the natures of things thought that simple essence was in any way distended in quantitative parts. Rather, in order to demonstrate the soul’s marvelous power more clearly did they declare that it consists of all natures, ‘not as being physically composed of them, but as having an analogous type of composition.’ "
Without reading any further, what comes to mind as being analogous would be knowledge, or the ability to learn of something and then have it become part of one’s being, one’s memory and self.
You do not have to contain fire as an element of the body (although its components, atoms or whatever may [and I’m showing my ignorance here] indeed exist within), to learn by experience (whether of reading or watching it exist or sticking one’s finger in a flame) that it is hot, will burn, produces heat, is bright, produces light, and changes composition and form of that which it consumes.
But here I am, trying to best comprehend Hugh of Saint Victor while I am only a coreopsis seeking to be a phlox.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
My first thought when I began reading this post was that someone was trying to make Algebra sexy and intriguing.
In fact, perhaps the language whispers of Algebraic equations, but the knowing of composition is something more intuitive, and intuition has no place in Algebra.
Or does it?
Steve would have a better answer to this one, but I do find the idea of equations applied to reading intrigueing.