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The general meaning of the passage, 'Noble, then, is the bond

which links together sight...And of this kind I spoke as the

intelligible...' so far as the thought contained in it admits of

being translated into the terms of modern philosophy, may be

described or explained as follows:-There is a truth, one and

self-existent, to which by the help of a ladder let down from

above, the human intelligence may ascend. This unity is like the

sun in the heavens, the light by which all things are seen, the

being by which they are created and sustained. It is the IDEA of

good. And the steps of the ladder leading up to this highest or

universal existence are the mathematical sciences, which also

contain in themselves an element of the universal. These, too, we

see in a new manner when we connect them with the idea of good.

They then cease to be hypotheses or pictures, and become

essential parts of a higher truth which is at once their first

principle and their final cause.