[254] Schmidt, _Questiones de musicis scriptoribus Romanis, imprimis de Cassiodoro et Isidoro_ (Darmstadt, 1899). This dissertation is in part an examination of the question whether the Roman writers associated music with grammar or the mathematical sciences in their enumerations of educational subjects. It contains a useful list of passages bearing on the seven liberal arts. In Isidore little is to be found to justify the mathematical environment of music. It is true that at times he defines it as a mathematical science[255] and he insists on the musical view of the universe as a necessary complement to other views. “Without music,” he says, “there can be no perfect knowledge, for there is nothing without it. For even the universe itself is said to have been formed under the guidance of harmony.”[256] But, with the exception of a paragraph on the musical mean, his treatment is entirely taken up with the non-mathematical aspect of the subject, and the definition “music is the practical knowledge of melody”[257] is the one that more closely fits the occasion. [255] Five definitions of music are given by Isidore, two making no allusion to its mathematical character. They are as follows: “Musica est peritia modulationis sono cantuque consistens.” _Etym._, 3, 15, 1. “Musica est disciplina quae de numeris loquitur qui inveniuntur in sonis.” _Etym._, 3, Preface. “Musica est disciplina quae de numeris loquitur qui ad aliquid sunt his qui inveniuntur in sonis.” _Etym._, 2, 24, 15. “Musica quae in carminibus cantibusque consistit.” _Etym._, 1, 2, 2. “Musica est ars spectabilis voce vel gestu, habens in se numerorum ac soni certam dimensionem cum scientia perfectae modulationis. Haec constat ex tribus modis, id est, sono, verbis, numeris.” _Diff._, ii, cap. 39. [256] _Etym._, 3, 17, 1. [257] _Etym._, 3, 15, 1. The treatment[258] of music is of about the same length as that of arithmetic, and is devoted mainly to definitions of musical terms and brief descriptions of wind and stringed instruments. It appears that Isidore knew nothing of music in a technical sense.[259] [258] C. Schmidt, _op. cit._, after a detailed comparison of passages, concludes that Isidore did not obtain his material for _De Musica_ from Cassiodorus or Augustine, but that all three go back independently to an original work produced by an unknown Christian writer. However, the numerous identical passages in Cassiodorus and Isidore would indicate that the latter had used the former at least as a guide in plagiarism. See Schmidt, pp. 26–52, and compare Dressel, _De Isidori Originum Fontibus_ (Turin, 1874), pp. 5 and 6.