known if we feel our dispositions any way
influenced thereby; and that they are so is evident from many other
instances, as well as the music at the Olympic games; and this
confessedly fills the soul with enthusiasm; but enthusiasm is an
affection of the soul which strongly agitates the disposition. Besides,
all those who hear any imitations sympathise therewith; and this when
they are conveyed even without rhythm or verse. Moreover, as music is
one of those things which are pleasant, and as virtue itself consists in
rightly enjoying, loving, and hating, it is evident that we ought not
to learn or accustom ourselves to anything so much as to judge right and
rejoice in honourable manners and noble actions. But anger and mildness,
courage and modesty, and their contraries, as well as all other
dispositions of the mind, are most naturally imitated by music and
poetry; which is plain by experience, for when we hear these our very
soul is altered; and he who is affected either with joy or grief by the
imitation of any objects, is in very nearly the same situation as if he
was affected by the objects themselves; thus, if any person is pleased
with seeing a statue of any one on no other account but its beauty, it
is evident that the sight of the original from whence it was taken
would also be pleasing; now it happens in the other senses there is no
imitation of manners; that is to say, in the touch and the taste; in the
objects of sight, a very little; for these are merely representations of
things, and the perceptions which they excite are in a manner common
to all. 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 enthusi