Besides, statues and paintings are not properly imitations of manners,
but rather signs and marks which show the body is affected by some
passion. However, the difference is not great, yet young men ought not
to view the paintings of Pauso, but of Polygnotus, or any other
painter or statuary who expresses manners. But in poetry and music
there are imitations of manners; and this is evident, for different
harmonies differ from each other so much by nature, that those who
hear them are differently affected, and are not in the same
disposition of mind when one is performed as when another is; the one,
for instance, occasions grief 13406 and contracts the soul, as the
mixed Lydian: others soften the mind, and as it were dissolve the
heart: others fix it in a firm and settled state, such is the power of
the Doric music only; while the Phrygian fills the soul with
enthusiasm, as has been well described by those who have written
philosophically upon this part of education; for they bring examples
of what they advance from the things themselves. The same holds true
with respect to rhythm; some fix the disposition, others occasion a
change in it; some act more violently, others more liberally. From
what has been said it is evident what an influence music has over the
disposition of the mind, and how variously it can fascinate it: and if
it can do this, most certainly it is what youth ought to be instructed
in. And indeed the learning of music is particularly adapted to their
disposition; for at their time of life they do not willingly attend to
anything which is not agreeable; but music is naturally one of the
most agreeable things; and there seems to be a certain connection
between harmony and rhythm; for which reason some wise men held the
soul itself to be harmony; others, that it contains it.
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