صفحة 273 من 1391

We cannot give any more precise meaning to this remarkable

passage, but we may trace in it several rudiments or vestiges of

thought which are common to us and to Plato: such as (1) the

unity and correlation of the sciences, or rather of science, for

in Plato's time they were not yet parted off or distinguished;

(2) the existence of a Divine Power, or life or idea or cause or

reason, not yet conceived or no longer conceived as in the

Timaeus and elsewhere under the form of a person; (3) the

recognition of the hypothetical and conditional character of the

mathematical sciences, and in a measure of every science when

isolated from the rest; (4) the conviction of a truth which is

invisible, and of a law, though hardly a law of nature, which

permeates the intellectual rather than the visible world.