De ordine opens as mice prompt Licentius to claim that all things are ruled by Providence (ordo). Characters debate this claim, but the effort ends in aporia. Augustine suggests they have not held to the “order of study” and sets out a curriculum of seven liberal disciplines. Scholars disagree as to why the debate fails, yet all assume that the content of this curriculum holds the answer. Augustine, however, presents the liberal arts as useful but unnecessary preparation for philosophy. On my reading, it is the act, not the content, of liberal study that matters here. The self-reflective payoff of liberal study is that human reason seeks unity. Debaters fall into aporia because they explain mice moving men to inquiry in terms of mice rather than men. Augustine concludes that the world is good for humans because experience of disorder prompts us to seek deeper unity, moving us closer to the distinctively human good of grasping Unity itself, i.e. God. In short, this work presents an application of ARP (see ch 1). I present De Musica pursuing this philosophical use of liberal studies, and I trace De ord.’s account of providence through the scenic dialogues’ dedications.