 1086a5–9 makes it sound as if some part of Xenocrates’ case for his position was based on the consideration that all that can be based on the two ultimate principles, the One and the Indefinite Dyad, is the series of formal numbers. Without some further comment, it is hard to see much of an argument here, but we may be able to piece together a little about the relationship of the numbers to the One. In Eudemian Ethics (I 8. 1218a24–33) Aristotle attacks an Academic ‘demonstration’  aimed at showing that The One is the good itself, i.e the Idea of the good. He calls it ‘tricky’ or ‘bizarre’ (translations of parabolos vary considerably), and it is indeed bizarre: from the premises that the numbers aim for unification and that “all the things that are aim for some one good” it concludes that the good itself must be the One. As it stands, this is gappy, but what is really bizzare is the first premise, that numbers strive to get their units to stick together; that is too much for Aristotle (and no doubt for the rest of us as well).