PAPHNUTIUS. The body and the soul. The soul is not mortal like the body, nor the body spiritual as is the soul.
DISCIPLES. That is true. But what did you mean, father, when you spoke of “harmonious arrangement”?
PAPHNUTIUS. I meant that as low and high sounds harmoniously united produce a certain music, so discordant elements rightly adjusted make one world.
DISCIPLES. It seems strange that discords can become concords.
PAPHNUTIUS. Consider. No thing is composed of “likes”—neither can it be made up of elements which have no proportion among themselves, or which are entirely different in substance and nature.
DISCIPLES. What is music, master?
PAPHNUTIUS. One of the branches of the “quadrivium” of philosophy, my son. Arithmetic, geometry, music, and philosophy form the quadrivium.
DISCIPLES. I should like to know why they are given that name.
PAPHNUTIUS. Because just as paths branch out from the quadrivium, the place where four roads meet, so do these subjects lead like roads from one principle of philosophy.
DISCIPLES. We had best not question you about the other three, for our slow wits can scarcely follow what you have told us about the first.