  Cardano’s notion of order has strong Platonic overtones. Unity is a mark of perfection, for all things rejoice in unity and they are in a better condition when they reach that level of unity that actualizes their potential nature. Unity gives structure and purpose to all the elements that make up the system of nature: “order and fate, since they are one, and exist with respect to the One, are good; disorder and luck are bad, for they do not strive towards unity” (De uno, OO, I, 277b; ed. García Valverde, 4). As an expression of unity and goodness, order is so pervasive that in fact accounts for even the most haphazard and disorderly aspects of reality.  Cardano maintains that multiplicity and diversity can always be brought back to potentially ordered series of individual elements (multitudo ordinata) (De uno, OO, I, 281ab; ed. García Valverde, 24; De natura, OO, II, 283a). What we perceive as beauty (decus) and elegance (ornamentum) in nature is not due to scattered variety (multitudo), but to a principle of ordered unity, “the one in the many,” which produces feelings of harmony and symmetry in us (De uno, OO, 280a; ed. García Valverde, 20). The same principle of order and unity applies to knowledge: we can say that we really know something when we manage to relate all the aspects and properties of this thing to one cause. According to Cardano, Plotinus followed the same approach in moral philosophy, for he described his notion of happiness as a return to the One (De uno, OO, I, 281b; ed. García Valverde, 24).