Chapter 25: On weights

1. It is a delight to learn the manner of weights and measures. For all corporeal substances, as it is written, from the highest even to the lowest, are ordered and shaped within the limits of measure, number, and weight. To all corporeal things nature has assigned weight. Its own weight regulates everything.

2. Moses, who preceded all the philosophers of the nations in time, first told us of measures and numbers and weight in different passages in the Scripture. Phidon of Argos was the first to establish a system of weights in Greece.

19. _Uncia_ ... And it is reckoned a lawful weight for this reason, that the number of its scruples measures the hours of the day and night, or because reckoned twelve times it makes a pound.

20. _Libra_ (pound) is made up of twelve ounces, and thence is counted a kind of perfect weight, because it is made up of as many ounces as a year is months. And it is called _libra_ because it is _libera_ (free) and embraces all the aforementioned weights within itself.

23. _Centenarium_ is a weight of one hundred pounds. And this weight the Romans established because of the perfection of the number one hundred.