SOCRATES: The argument has all along been seeking a parallel to pleasure, and true to that original design, has gone on to ask whether one sort of knowledge is purer than another, as one pleasure is purer than another.
PROTARCHUS: Clearly; that was the intention.
SOCRATES: And has not the argument in what has preceded, already shown that the arts have different provinces, and vary in their degrees of certainty?
PROTARCHUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: And just now did not the argument first designate a particular art by a common term, thus making us believe in the unity of that art; and then again, as if speaking of two different things, proceed to enquire whether the art as pursed by philosophers, or as pursued by non-philosophers, has more of certainty and purity?
PROTARCHUS: That is the very question which the argument is asking.
SOCRATES: And how, Protarchus, shall we answer the enquiry?
PROTARCHUS: O Socrates, we have reached a point at which the difference of clearness in different kinds of knowledge is enormous.
SOCRATES: Then the answer will be the easier.
PROTARCHUS: Certainly; and let us say in reply, that those arts into which arithmetic and mensuration enter, far surpass all others; and that of these the arts or sciences which are animated by the pure philosophic impulse are infinitely superior in accuracy and truth.