Pagina 316 di 1391

Hence arises the question, 'What is great, what is small?' and

thus begins the distinction of the visible and the intelligible.

The second difficulty relates to Plato's conception of harmonics.

Three classes of harmonists are distinguished by him:-first, the

Pythagoreans, whom he proposes to consult as in the previous

discussion on music he was to consult Damon-they are acknowledged

to be masters in the art, but are altogether deficient in the

knowledge of its higher import and relation to the good;

secondly, the mere empirics, whom Glaucon appears to confuse with

them, and whom both he and Socrates ludicrously describe as

experimenting by mere auscultation on the intervals of sounds.

Both of these fall short in different degrees of the Platonic

idea of harmony, which must be studied in a purely abstract way,

first by the method of problems, and secondly as a part of

universal knowledge in relation to the idea of good.