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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.