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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: arts, music is given as an example; this, although affirmed to be necessary
to human life, is depreciated. Music is regarded from a point of view
entirely opposite to that of the Republic, not as a sublime science,
coordinate with astronomy, but as full of doubt and conjecture. According
to the standard of accuracy which is here adopted, it is rightly placed
lower in the scale than carpentering, because the latter is more capable of
being reduced to measure.
The theoretical element of the arts may also become a purely abstract
science, when separated from matter, and is then said to be pure and
unmixed. The distinction which Plato here makes seems to be the same as
that between pure and applied mathematics, and may be expressed in the
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