55–56
Protarchus
Pro. Yes, we ought to consider that.
15
Socrates
Soc. And should the ruling elements of each of them be separated and distinguished from the rest?
Protarchus
Pro. What are they, and how can they be separated?
Socrates
Soc. For example, if arithmetic and the sciences of measurement and weighing were taken away from all arts, what was left of any of them would be, so to speak, pretty worthless.
Protarchus
Pro. Yes, pretty worthless.
Socrates
Soc. All that would be left for us would be to conjecture and to drill the perceptions by practice and experience, with the additional use of the powers of guessing, which are commonly called arts and acquire their efficacy by practice and toil.
Protarchus
Pro. That is undeniable.
Socrates
Soc. Take music first; it is full of this; it attains harmony by guesswork based on practice, not by measurement; and flute music throughout tries to find the pitch of each note as it is produced by guess, so that the amount of uncertainty mixed up in it is great, and the amount of certainty small.
Protarchus
Pro. Very true.
Socrates
Soc. And we shall find that medicine and agriculture and piloting and generalship are all in the same case.
5
Protarchus
Pro. Certainly.
Socrates
Soc. But the art of building, I believe, employs the greatest number of measures and instruments which give it great accuracy and make it more scientific than most arts.
Protarchus
Pro. In what way?
Socrates
Soc. In shipbuilding and house-building, and many other branches of wood-working. For the artisan uses a rule, I imagine, a lathe, compasses, a chalk-line, and an ingenious instrument called a vice.
