Laws
company--if a man have sufficient confidence in himself to drink the
potion amid his boon companions, leaving off in time and not taking too
much,--would be an equally good test of temperance? 'Very true.' Let
us return to the lawgiver and say to him, 'Well, lawgiver, no such
fear-producing potion has been given by God or invented by man, but
there is a potion which will make men fearless.' 'You mean wine.'
Yes; has not wine an effect the contrary of that which I was just now
describing,--first mellowing and humanizing a man, and then filling him
with confidence, making him ready to say or do anything? 'Certainly.'
Let us not forget that there are two qualities which should be
cultivated in the soul--first, the greatest fearlessness, and, secondly,
the greatest fear, which are both parts of reverence. Courage and
fearlessness are trained amid dangers; but we have still to consider how
fear is to be trained. We desire to attain fearlessness and confidence
without the insolence and boldness which commonly attend them. For
do not love, ignorance, avarice, wealth, beauty, strength, while they
stimulate courage, also madden and intoxicate the soul? What better and
more innocent test of character is there than festive intercourse? Would
you make a bargain with a man in order to try whether he is honest? Or
would you ascertain whether he is licentious by putting your wife or
daughter into his hands? No one would deny that the test proposed is
fairer, speedier, and safer than any other. And such a test will be
particularly useful in the political science, which desires to know
human natures and characters. 'Very true.'
BOOK II. And are there any other uses of well-ordered potations? There
are; but in order to explain them, I must repeat what I mean by right
education; which, if I am not mistaken, depends on the due regulation
of convivial intercourse. 'A high assumption.' I believe that virtue
and vice are originally present to the mind of children in the form of
pleasure and pain; reason and fixed principles come later, and happy is
he who acquires them even in declining years; for he who possesses
them is the perfect man. When pleasure and pain, and love and hate, are
rightly implanted in the yet unconscious soul, and after the attainment
of reason are discovered to be in harmony with her, this harmony of the
soul is virtue, and the preparatory stage, anticipating reason, I
call education. But the finer sense of pleasure and pain is apt to be
impaired in the course of life; and therefore the Gods, pitying the
toils and sorrows of mortals, have allowed them to have holidays,
and given them the Muses and Apollo and Dionysus for leaders and
playfellows. All young creatures love motion and frolic, and utter
sounds of delight; but man only is capable of taking pleasure in
rhythmical and harmonious movements. With these education begins; and
the uneducated is he who has never known the discipline of the chorus,
and the educated is he who has. The chorus is partly dance and partly
song, and therefore the well-educated must sing and dance well. But when
we say, 'He sings and dances well,' we mean that he sings and dances
what is good. And if he thinks that to be good which is really good, he
will have a much higher music and harmony in him, and be a far greater
master of imitation in sound and gesture than he who is not of this
opinion. 'True.' Then, if we know what is good and bad in song and
dance, we shall know what education is? 'Very true.' Let us now consider
the beauty of figure, melody, song, and dance. Will the same figures or
sounds be equally well adapted to the manly and the cowardly when they
are in trouble? 'How can they be, when the very colours of their faces
are different?' Figures and melodies have a rhythm and harmony which are
adapted to the expression of different feelings (I may remark, by the
way, that the term 'colour,' which is a favourite word of music-masters,
is not really applicable to music). And one class of harmonies is akin
to courage and all virtue, the other to cowardice and all vice. 'We
agree.' And do all men equally like all dances? 'Far otherwise.' Do some
figures, then, appear to be beautiful which are not? For no one will
admit that the forms of vice are more beautiful than the forms of
virtue, or that he prefers the first kind to the second. And yet most
persons say that the merit of music is to give pleasure. But this is
impiety. There is, however, a more plausible account of the matter given
by others, who make their likes or dislikes the criterion of excellence.
Sometimes nature crosses habit, or conversely, and then they say that
such and such fashions or gestures are pleasant, but they do not like to
exhibit them before men of sense, although they enjoy them in private.
'Very true.' And do vicious measures and strains do any harm, or
good measures any good to the lovers of them? 'Probably.' Say, rather
'Certainly': for the gentle indulgence which we often show to vicious
men inevitably makes us become like them. And what can be worse than
this? 'Nothing.' Then in a well-administered city, the poet will not be
allowed to make the songs of the people just as he pleases, or to train
his choruses without regard to virtue and vice. 'Certainly not.' And
yet he may do this anywhere except in Egypt; for there ages ago they
discovered the great truth which I am now asserting, that the young
should be educated in forms and strains of virtue. These they fixed and
consecrated in their temples; and no artist or musician is allowed
to deviate from them. They are literally the same which they were ten
thousand years ago. And this practice of theirs suggests the reflection
that legislation about music is not an impossible thing. But the
particular enactments must be the work of God or of some God-inspired
man, as in Egypt their ancient chants are said to be the composition
of the goddess Isis. The melodies which have a natural truth and
correctness should be embodied in a law, and then the desire of novelty
is not strong enough to change the old fashions. Is not the origin of
music as follows? We rejoice when we think that we prosper, and we think
that we prosper when we rejoice, and at such times we cannot rest, but
our young men dance dances and sing songs, and our old men, who have
lost the elasticity of youth, regale themselves with the memory of the
past, while they contemplate the life and activity of the young. 'Most
true.' People say that he who gives us most pleasure at such festivals
is to win the palm: are they right? 'Possibly.' Let us not be hasty
in deciding, but first imagine a festival at which the lord of the
festival, having assembled the citizens, makes a proclamation that
he shall be crowned victor who gives the most pleasure, from whatever
source derived. We will further suppose that there are exhibitions
of rhapsodists and musicians, tragic and comic poets, and even
marionette-players--which of the pleasure-makers will win? Shall I
answer for you?--the marionette-players will please the children; youths
will decide for comedy; young men, educated women, and people in general
will prefer tragedy; we old men are lovers of Homer and Hesiod. Now
which of them is right? If you and I are asked, we shall certainly say
that the old men's way of thinking ought to prevail. 'Very true.' So far
I agree with the many that the excellence of music is to be measured by
pleasure; but then the pleasure must be that of the good and educated,
or better still, of one supremely virtuous and educated man. The true
judge must have both wisdom and courage. For he must lead the multitude
and not be led by them, and must not weakly yield to the uproar of
the theatre, nor give false judgment out of that mouth which has just
appealed to the Gods. The ancient custom of Hellas, which still prevails
in Italy and Sicily, left the judgment to the spectators, but this
custom has been the ruin of the poets, who seek only to please their
patrons, and has degraded the audience by the representation of inferior
characters. What is the inference? The same which we have often drawn,
that education is the training of the young idea in what the law affirms
and the elders approve. And as the soul of a child is too young to be
trained in earnest, a kind of education has been invented which tempts
him with plays and songs, as the sick are tempted by pleasant meats and
drinks. And the wise legislator will compel the poet to express in his
poems noble thoughts in fitting words and rhythms. 'But is this the
practice elsewhere than in Crete and Lacedaemon? In other states, as far
as I know, dances and music are constantly changed at the pleasure of
the hearers.' I am afraid that I misled you; not liking to be always
finding fault with mankind as they are, I described them as they ought
to be. But let me understand: you say that such customs exist among
the Cretans and Lacedaemonians, and that the rest of the world would be
improved by adopting them? 'Much improved.' And you compel your poets to
declare that the righteous are happy, and that the wicked man, even if
he be as rich as Midas, is unhappy? Or, in the words of Tyrtaeus,
'I sing not, I care not about him' who is a great warrior not having
justice; if he be unjust, 'I would not have him look calmly upon death
or be swifter than the wind'; and may he be deprived of every good--that
is, of every true good. For even if he have the goods which men regard,
these are not really goods: first health; beauty next; thirdly wealth;
and there are others. A man may have every sense purged and improved; he
may be a tyrant, and do what he likes, and live for ever: but you and
I will maintain that all these things are goods to the just, but to the
unjust the greatest of evils, if life be immortal; not so great if he
live for a short time only. If a man had health and wealth, and power,
and was insolent and unjust, his life would still be miserable; he might
be fair and rich, and do what he liked, but he would live basely, and if
basely evilly, and if evilly painfully. 'There I cannot agree with you.'
Then may heaven give us the spirit of agreement, for I am as convinced
of the truth of what I say as that Crete is an island; and, if I were
a lawgiver, I would exercise a censorship over the poets, and I would
punish them if they said that the wicked are happy, or that injustice is
profitable. And these are not the only matters in which I should make
my citizens talk in a different way to the world in general. If I asked
Zeus and Apollo, the divine legislators of Crete and Sparta,--'Are
the just and pleasant life the same or not the same'?--and they
replied,--'Not the same'; and I asked again--'Which is the happier'? And
they said'--'The pleasant life,' this is an answer not fit for a God
to utter, and therefore I ought rather to put the same question to some
legislator. And if he replies 'The pleasant,' then I should say to
him, 'O my father, did you not tell me that I should live as justly as
possible'? and if to be just is to be happy, what is that principle of
happiness or good which is superior to pleasure? Is the approval of
gods and men to be deemed good and honourable, but unpleasant, and their
disapproval the reverse? Or is the neither doing nor suffering evil good
and honourable, although not pleasant? But you cannot make men like what
is not pleasant, and therefore you must make them believe that the
just is pleasant. The business of the legislator is to clear up this
confusion. He will show that the just and the unjust are identical with
the pleasurable and the painful, from the point of view of the just man,
of the unjust the reverse. And which is the truer judgment? Surely that
of the better soul. For if not the truth, it is the best and most moral