" The same can be said of the true science of num-
bers, for the principial numbers, though they must be referred to as
numbers by analogy, are situated relatively to our world at the pole
opposite to that at which are situated the numbers of common
arithmetic; the latter are the only numbers the moderns know, and
on them they turn all their attention, thus taking the shadow for the
reality, like the prisoners in Plato’s cave. "

― René Guénon , The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times