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[522a] that we seek.” “No.” “Is it, then, music, so far as we have already described it?1” “Nay, that,” he said, “was the counterpart of gymnastics, if you remember. It educated the guardians through habits, imparting by the melody a certain harmony of spirit that is not science,2 and by the rhythm measure and grace, and also qualities akin to these in the words of tales that are fables and those that are more nearly true. But it included no study that tended to any such good as

1 The ordinary study of music may cultivate and refine feeling. Only the mathematics of music would develop the power of abstract thought.

2 Knowledge in the true sense, as contrasted with opinion or habit.

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