re puberty the voice retains its childlike qualities.[116]

As a matter of fact, I believe that we may attach a considerable degree of
importance to the voice and to music generally as a method of sexual
appeal. On this point I agree with Moll, who remarks that "the sense of
hearing here plays a considerable part, and the stimulation received
through the ears is much larger than is usually believed."[117] I am not,
however, inclined to think that this influence is considerable in its
action on men, although Mantegazza remarks, doubtless with a certain
truth, that "some women's voices cannot be heard with impunity." It is
true that the ancients deprecated the sexual or at all events the
effeminating influence of some kinds of music, but they seem to have
regarded it as sedative rather than stimulating; the kind of music they
approved of as martial and stimulating was the kind most likely to have
sexual effects in predisposed persons.

The Chinese and the Greeks have more especially insisted on the
ethical qualities of music and on its moralizing and demoralizing
effects. Some three thousand years ago, it is stated, a Chinese
emperor, believing that only they who understood music are
capable of governing, distributed administrative functions in
accordance with this belief. He acted entirely in accordance with
Chinese morality, the texts of Confucianism (see translations in
the "Sacred Books of the East Series") show clearly that music
and ceremony (or social ritual in a wide sense) are regarded as
the two main guiding influences of life--music as the internal
guide, ceremony as the external guide, the former being looked
upon as the more important.

Among the Greeks Menander said that to many people music is a
powerful stimulant to love. Plato, in the third book of the
_Republic_, discusses what kinds of music should be encouraged in
his ideal state. He does not clearly state that music is ever a
sexual stimulant, but he appears to associate plaintive music
(mixed Lydian and Hypolydian) with drunkenness, effeminacy, and
idleness and considers that such music is "useless even to women
that are to be virtuously given, not to say to men." He only
admits two kinds of music: one violent and suited to war, the
other tranquil and suited to prayer or to persuasion. He sets out
the ethical qualities of music with a thoroughness which almo