The following is a transcription of the first sentence of the 19th aphorism of Nietzsche's book cited above. The aphorism is named "the number".

"The invention of the laws of number has as its basis the primordial and prior-prevailing delusion that many like things exist (although in point of fact there is no such thing is a duplicate), or that, at least, there are things (but there is no 'thing')."

Well, at the preceding aphorisms Nietzsche advocates against the existence or at least against the importance of the "thing itself" but, when dealing with this concept, he always specifies it by using the word "itself". What does he mean when he says that there is no thing? Did he just not use the word "itself" this time or did he mean some other thing that i didnt get?