10 
INTRODUCTORY 
maintain the very contrary view, namely, that God cannot 
possibly be without intelligence or be ignorant of human 
nature : rather he knows that, when he teaches them, men 
will follow him and learn what they are taught. And he is 
of course perfectly aware that he does teach us, and that we 
learn, the very subject we are now discussing, number and 
counting; if he failed to know this, he would show the 
greatest want of intelligence; the God we speak of would in 
fact not know himself, if he took it amiss that a man capable 
of learning should learn, and if he did not rejoice unreservedly 
■with one who became good by divine influence.’ 1 . 
Nothing could well show more clearly the Greek conviction 
that there could be no opposition between religion and scien 
tific truth, and therefore that there could be no impiety in the 
pursuit of truth. The passage is a good parallel to the state 
ment attributed to Plato that debs del уеооретреТ. 
Meaning and classification of mathematics. 
The words равррата and равг]¡jlcctlkos do not appear to 
have been definitely appropriated to the special meaning of 
mathematics and mathematicians or things mathematical until 
Aristotle’s time. With Plato pddrjpa is quite general, mean 
ing any subject of instruction or study; he speaks of каХа 
lia6rjpara, good subjects of instruction, as of каХа enLTrjSev- 
para, good pursuits, of women’s subjects as opposed to men’s, 
of the Sophists hawking sound равцрата; what, he asks in 
the Republic, are the greatest равтррата ? and he answers that 
the greatest pdOrjpa is the Idea of the Good. 2 But in the 
Laws he speaks of rpia равурата, three subjects, as fit for 
freeborn men, the subjects being arithmetic, the science of 
measurement (geometry), and astronomy 3 ; and no doubt the 
pre-eminent place given to mathematical subjects in his scheme 
of education would have its effect in encouraging the habit of 
speaking of these subjects exclusively as равррата. The 
Peripatetics, we are told, explained the special use of the 
word in this way ; they pointed out that, whereas such things 
as rhetoric and poetry and the whole of popular роь<пкг} can 
be understood even by one who has not learnt them, the sub 
jects called by the special name of равурата cannot be known 
1 Epinomis, 988 A. 2 Republic, vi. 505 a. 3 Laws, vii. 817 E. 
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p. 160. : 
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