ONE:Whether neutral or foreigner, no one could help being deeply moved. Men and women, boys and girls, pressed once more through the German fence, just to shake hands with someone they had recognised. No wailing followed, but when hands were gripped, with a suppressed sob, they said:In the opening chapter of this work we endeavoured to explain how the Pythagorean philosophy arose out of the intoxicated delight inspired by a first acquaintance with the manifold properties of number and figure. If we would enter into the spirit of Platonism, we must similarly throw ourselves back into the time when the idea of a universal classification first dawned on mens minds. We must remember how it gratified the Greek love of order combined with individuality; what unbounded opportunities for asking and answering questions it supplied; and what promises of practical regeneration it held out. Not without a shade of sadness for so many baffled efforts and so many blighted hopes, yet also with a grateful recollection of all that reason has accomplished, and with something of his own high intellectual enthusiasm, shall we listen to Platos prophetic wordswords of deeper import than their own author knewIf I find any man who is able to see a One and Many in Nature, him I follow and walk in his steps as if he were a god.137
