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So we might say, that although the life of a good man is not to

be compared to that of a bad man, yet you may measure the

difference between them by valuing one minute of the one at an

hour of the other ('One day in thy courts is better than a

thousand'), or you might say that 'there is an infinite

difference.' But this is not so much as saying, in homely phrase,

'They are a thousand miles asunder.' And accordingly Plato finds

the natural vehicle of his thoughts in a progression of numbers;

this arithmetical formula he draws out with the utmost

seriousness, and both here and in the number of generation seems

to find an additional proof of the truth of his speculation in

forming the number into a geometrical figure; just as persons in

our own day are apt to fancy that a statement is verified when it

has been only thrown into an abstract form.