Page 381 sur 1391

Of the degree of importance or of exactness to be attributed to

the problem, the number of the tyrant in Book IX (729 = 365 x 2),

and the slight correction of the error in the number 5040/12

(Laws), may furnish a criterion. There is nothing surprising in

the circumstance that those who were seeking for order in nature

and had found order in number, should have imagined one to give

law to the other. Plato believes in a power of number far beyond

what he could see realized in the world around him, and he knows

the great influence which 'the little matter of 1, 2, 3'

exercises upon education. He may even be thought to have a

prophetic anticipation of the discoveries of Quetelet and others,

that numbers depend upon numbers; e.g.-in population, the numbers

of births and the respective numbers of children born of either

sex, on the respective ages of parents, i.e. on other numbers.