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He seeks to find the ultimate ground of mathematical ideas in the

idea of good, though he does not satisfactorily explain the

connexion between them; and in his conception of the relation of

ideas to numbers, he falls very far short of the definiteness

attributed to him by Aristotle (Met.). But if he fails to

recognize the true limits of mathematics, he also reaches a point

beyond them; in his view, ideas of number become secondary to a

higher conception of knowledge. The dialectician is as much above

the mathematician as the mathematician is above the ordinary man.

The one, the self-proving, the good which is the higher sphere of

dialectic, is the perfect truth to which all things ascend, and

in which they finally repose.