hat makes a man a grammarian.

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And the knowledge which makes a man a musician is of the same
kind.

PROTARCHUS: How so?

SOCRATES: Sound is one in music as well as in grammar?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And there is a higher note and a lower note, and a note of
equal pitch:--may we affirm so much?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: But you would not be a real musician if this was all that you
knew; though if you did not know this you would know almost nothing of
music.

PROTARCHUS: Nothing.

SOCRATES: But when you have learned what sounds are high and what
low, and the number and nature of the intervals and their limits or
proportions, and the systems compounded out of them, which our fathers
discovered, and have handed down to us who are their descendants under
the name of harmonies; and the affections corresponding to them in the
movements of the human body, which when measured by numbers ought, as
they say, to be called rhythms and measures; and they tell us that the
same principle should be applied to every one and many;--when, I say,
you have learned all this, then, my dear friend, you are perfect; and
you may be said to understand any other subject, when you have a similar
grasp of it. But the infinity of kinds and the infinity of individuals
which there is in each of them, when not classified, creates in every
one of us a state of infinite ignorance; and he who never looks for
number in anything, will not himself be looked for in the number of
famous men.

PROTARCHUS: I think that what Socrates is now saying is excellent,
Philebus.

PHILEBUS: I think so too, but how do his words bear upon us and upon the
argument?

SOCRATES: Philebus is right in asking that question of us, Protarchus.

PROTARCHUS: Indeed he is, and you must answer him.

SOCRATES: I will; but you must let me make one little remark first about
these matters; I was saying, that he who begins with any individual
unity, should proceed from that, not to infinity, but to a definite
number, and now I say conversely, that he who has to begin with infinity
should not jump to unity, but he should look about for some number
representing a certain quantity, and thus out of all end in one. And
now let us return for an illustration of our principle to the case of
letters.

PROTARCHUS: What do you mean?

SOCRATES: Some god or divine man, who in the Egyptian legend is said
to have been Theuth, observing