Of the degree of importance or of exactness to be attributed to the problem, the number of the tyrant in Book IX (729 = 365 x 2), and the slight correction of the error in the number 5040/12 (Laws), may furnish a criterion.

There is nothing surprising in the circumstance that those who were seeking for order in nature and had found order in number, should have imagined one to give law to the other.

Plato believes in a power of number far beyond what he could see realized in the world around him, and he knows the great influence which 'the little matter of 1, 2, 3' exercises upon education.

He may even be thought to have a prophetic anticipation of the discoveries of Quetelet and others, that numbers depend upon numbers; e.g .-- in population, the numbers of births and the respective numbers of children born of either sex, on the respective ages of parents, i.e.on other numbers.
BOOK IX.

Last of all comes the tyrannical man, about whom we have to enquire, Whence is he, and how does he live--in happiness or in misery?
There is, however, a previous question of the nature and number of the appetites, which I should like to consider first.