Aristotle · a new plain-English translation from the original language
1| That the lawgiver ought above all to concern himself with the education of the young, no one would dispute; indeed, in cities where this does not happen, the constitutions are harmed by it. For education must be suited to each particular constitution, since the character proper to each constitution is what habitually both preserves that constitution and establishes it in the first place — the democratic character preserving democracy, for instance, and the oligarchic character oligarchy — and a better character is always the cause of a better constitution. Further, in every capacity and craft there are things that must be learned beforehand and habits that must be formed beforehand for the work belonging to each, so that plainly the same holds also for the actions of virtue. And since the end is one and the same for the city as a whole, it is clear that the education, too, must necessarily be one and the same for all, and that the care of it must be a common matter and not a private one, in the way that each person now privately cares for his own children, teaching them privately whatever learning he thinks fit. But of matters that are common, the training too must be made common. At the same time, we must not think that any citizen belongs to himself; rather, all belong to the city, for each is a part of the city, and the care given to each part is naturally directed toward the care of the whole.
2| On this point one might praise the Spartans, for they take the greatest pains over their children, and do so in common. That there must, then, be legislation concerning education, and that this education must be made common, is clear. But what this education is to be, and how one ought to be educated, must not be left unexamined. For at present there is dispute about the tasks involved. Not everyone assumes that the young should learn the same things, whether with a view to virtue or with a view to the best life; nor is it clear whether their education ought to be directed more toward the intellect or toward the character of the soul. From the education we actually see practiced, the inquiry becomes confused, and it is by no means clear whether training ought to be in what is useful for life, or in what tends toward virtue, or in what is out of the ordinary — for all these views have found some judges to support them.
3| [1337b] and about the things that pertain to virtue, nothing is agreed on (for people do not all straightaway honor the same virtue, so it is reasonable that they also differ about training in it). That the necessary things among the useful subjects must be taught is not unclear; but that not all should be taught is evident once the works of a free person and the works of an unfree person are distinguished, and it is evident that one should take part in only those useful things that will not make the one taking part in them vulgar. One must consider a task vulgar, and likewise a craft or a course of learning, if it renders the body, the soul, or the intellect of free people useless for the uses and actions of virtue. That is why we call vulgar those crafts that put the body into a worse condition, and also wage labor, for these leave the mind no leisure and drag it down. And even in the liberal branches of knowledge, taking part in some of them up to a point is not unfree, but to attend to them with excessive precision is liable to the harms just mentioned. It also makes a great difference for what purpose one does or learns a thing: what one does for one's own sake, or for friends, or for the sake of virtue is not unfree, but a person doing this very same thing for the sake of others would often be thought to be acting in a servile and slavish way.
4| Now the subjects of instruction currently established, as was said before, straddle both sides. There are, roughly, four things people are accustomed to teach: letters, gymnastic training, music, and, fourth, some add drawing; letters and drawing as useful for life and having many uses, gymnastic training as contributing to courage. About music, though, one might already be puzzled. Nowadays most people engage with it simply for pleasure's sake; the men who first included it in education, however, did so because nature herself, as has often been noted, seeks not merely to work correctly but also to be capable of leisure well spent. For this is the one principle underlying everything, and let us speak of it again. If both are needed, but being at leisure is more choiceworthy than being occupied, and is an end, we must inquire what one ought to do while at leisure. For surely not to play; for then play would necessarily be the end of life for us. But if that is impossible, and play should rather be used in the midst of occupations (for the one who is toiling needs rest, and play exists for the sake of rest, while being occupied comes with toil and strain), for this reason play must be introduced, watching the right occasion for its use, applying it as a kind of medicine.
5| For a motion of this sort is a relaxation of the soul, and because of the pleasure it brings, a rest. [1338a] But being at leisure seems to have in itself pleasure and happiness and blessed living. This, however, does not belong to those who are occupied but to those at leisure; for the one occupied is occupied for the sake of some end, on the ground that he does not yet possess it, whereas happiness is an end, which all people think exists not with pain but with pleasure. This pleasure, however, they no longer take to be the same one, but each person judges it by his own standard and his own state of character, while the best person takes it to be the best pleasure, the one arising from the finest things. So it is clear that one must also learn certain things and be educated with a view to the leisure spent in the passing of life, and that these branches of education and these subjects of learning exist for their own sake, while those directed at being occupied exist as necessary and for the sake of other things. That is why the men of old set music down as part of education, not as necessary (for it has nothing of that character) nor as useful (as letters are useful for making money, for household management, for learning, and for many political actions—and drawing too seems useful for judging the works of craftsmen better), nor again as gymnastic training is useful for health and strength (for we see neither of these coming about from music):
6| what remains, then, is that it is useful for the passing of time in leisure, which is indeed the very purpose toward which people evidently direct it. For they place it within that activity which they take to be the leisured pursuit of free people. That is why Homer composed it in this way: "but such a one as this it is fitting to call to a rich feast," and having spoken first in this way of certain others who invite a singer, he says, "one who will delight them all." And elsewhere too Odysseus says that this is the best way of passing time, when, with the people making merry, "the banqueters throughout the halls listen to a singer, seated in rows," Hom. Od. 9.5-6. So it is evident that there exists a kind of schooling in which one's sons ought to be trained—not as something merely useful, nor as something required, but as something noble and fitting for a free person. Whether it is one in number or several, and what these are and how, must be said later. For now this much has become clear to us on the way: that we have some testimony even from the ancients, drawn from the subjects of instruction already established, for music makes this plain. Further, that children must be educated in some of the useful subjects not only because of their usefulness—for instance, learning letters—but also because many other branches of learning come to be possible through them; and likewise drawing, not so that they may not go wrong in their private purchases, but so that they may be undeceived about the buying and selling of goods,
7| [1338b] but rather because it makes one able to observe beauty in bodies. But to look everywhere for what is useful is least fitting for people of great soul and free people. Since it is clear that children must be educated by habits before by reason, and in the body before the mind, it is plain from this that they must be handed over to gymnastic training and to physical trainers; for of these, the one produces a certain condition of the body, the other its performances. Now among the cities that seem most to take care of children, some produce an athletic condition, damaging the shapes and the growth of the bodies, while the Spartans, though they did not make this particular error, do render their children beast-like through hard labors, on the view that this is most conducive to courage. And yet, as has often been said, one must not shape one's care looking to one thing, or looking chiefly to this. Even granting that this is the goal, they do not find the way to it, either; for we do not observe courage following the most savage animals, either among the other animals or among the nations of men, but rather in the gentler and lion-like characters. There are many nations ready for killing and for eating human flesh, such as the Achaeans and Heniochi around the Black Sea, and others among the mainland peoples, some to the same degree as these, others more so; these are given to brigandage, but have no share in courage.
8| Further, we know that the Spartans themselves, as long as they alone applied themselves diligently to hard exercises, surpassed others, but now they fall short of others both in gymnastic contests and in war; for they did not excel by training their young in this manner as such, but only by training them against those who did not train. So it is the fine, not the beast-like, that must take the leading role; for neither a wolf nor any other wild beast would face any fine danger, but rather a good man would. Those who let their children go too far in these exercises, and who leave them untrained in the necessary things, in truth make them vulgar, rendering them useful for one function alone of political life, and even for this worse, as the argument shows, than others are. And one must judge not from their earlier achievements but from the present ones; for now they have rivals in education, whereas before they did not. That gymnastic training must be used, then, and how it must be used, is generally agreed (for up to puberty lighter exercises must be applied, keeping children away from forced feeding and compulsory hard labors, so that nothing may impede their growth;
9| [1339a] For it is no small sign that they can bring this about: among Olympic victors one might find two or three of the same men who have won as boys and as men, because in the course of the necessary training their strength is stripped from them by the exertion of the exercises while they are still young. But when three years have passed from puberty, spent along with the other subjects of learning, then it is fitting for the age that comes next to take up hard exercise and forced feeding together. For one ought not to work hard at the same time with thought and with the body, since each of the two kinds of exertion is naturally suited to produce the opposite effect, the exertion of the body impeding the thought and the exertion of the thought impeding the body. Concerning music, we have raised some difficulties about it in argument earlier as well, but it is well now too to take these up again and carry them further, so that it may serve as a kind of prelude to whatever arguments one might state in giving an account of it. For it is not easy to distinguish what power it has, nor for the sake of what one ought to share in it — whether for the sake of play and rest, as with sleep and drunkenness (for these in their own right are not among the serious things, but are pleasant, and give rest from anxious care, as Euripides says; and that is why people class music with these and use it in the same way as all of them, sleep and drunkenness and music
10| and they also put dancing among these) — or whether one ought rather to hold that music tends toward virtue in some way, on the ground that it is able, just as gymnastic training produces a body of a certain quality, to make the character of a certain quality too, by habituating one to be able to feel delight rightly; or whether it contributes something toward the passing of leisure time and toward practical wisdom (for this too must be set down as a third possibility alongside the ones mentioned). That the young ought not to be educated for the sake of play is not unclear (for people at play do not learn, since learning is accompanied by pain); nor again is it fitting to assign the passing of leisure time to children and to ages of that sort, for to nothing incomplete does an end properly belong. But perhaps it might seem that the earnest effort of children is for the sake of play once they have become men and been brought to completion. But if this is the case, for the sake of what would they need to learn it themselves, rather than, like the kings of the Persians and the Medes, sharing in the pleasure and the learning through others doing it? For it is necessary that those who have made this very thing their work and craft produce it better than those who attend to it only for as long as is needed for learning. But if they must labor at such things themselves, then they would also need to prepare the business of relishes for themselves
11| but that is absurd. And the same difficulty holds even as to whether it can make characters better: for why would they need to learn these things themselves, [1339b] rather than, by listening to others, being able to feel delight rightly and to judge, as the Laconians do? For those men, though they do not learn it, are nevertheless able, so it is said, to judge rightly which melodies are good and which are not good. The same argument holds too if music is to be used for well-being and for a free man's passing of leisure: why would they need to learn it themselves, rather than enjoying it while others make use of it? One may look to the conception we hold about the gods: for Zeus himself does not sing and play the lyre for the poets; indeed we call such people vulgar, and we say that doing this is not the part of a man unless he is drunk or playing. But perhaps these points must be examined later; the first inquiry is whether music should be placed in education or not, and which of the three things raised as difficulties it can do — whether education, or play, or the passing of leisure time. Reasonably it is assigned to all of them, and it appears to have a share in each. For play is for the sake of rest, and rest must be pleasant (for it is a kind of remedy for the pain that comes through toil), and the passing of leisure time must admittedly possess not only the fine but also pleasure (for living happily consists of both of these)
12| but music we all say is among the most pleasant things, whether by itself or accompanied by melody (at any rate Musaeus too says that to sing is 'sweetest for mortals'; and that is why they reasonably bring it into gatherings and ways of passing leisure, as able to give delight); so that from this too one might suppose that the younger ought to be educated in it. For as many of the pleasant things as are harmless are fitting not only for the end but also for rest. And since it turns out that men rarely attain the end, but often rest and make use of play, not so much for its own further sake as for the pleasure it brings, it would be useful to give rest by means of the pleasures that come from it. But it has come about for men that they make their plays into an end: for perhaps the end too has a certain pleasure, though not just any pleasure, and in seeking this pleasure people take that other one as though it were this, because of a certain resemblance it bears to the end of actions. For the end is not chosen for the sake of anything future, and pleasures of this sort too are not for the sake of anything future, but for the sake of things that have already happened, such as toils and pain. For this reason, then, one might reasonably suppose this to be the cause for which people seek that happiness should come about through these pleasures
13| but as to sharing in music, it seems that this is not on account of this alone, but also because it is useful with a view to rest. But nonetheless one must inquire whether this is perhaps merely an incidental fact
14| [1340a] and its nature is more honorable than the use just mentioned, and one ought to share in it not only for the common pleasure derived from it, of which all have a perception (for music has a certain natural pleasure, and that is why the use of it is welcome to every age and every character), but one ought to see whether it also somehow tends toward character and toward the soul. This would be clear if we come to be of a certain quality in our characters through it. And that we do come to be of a certain quality is evident through many other things, and not least through the melodies of Olympus: for these admittedly make souls possessed by divine frenzy, and such possession is an affection of the character that concerns the soul. Moreover, in listening to representations everyone comes to feel the corresponding feeling, even apart from the rhythms and melodies themselves. And since it turns out that music is among the pleasant things, and virtue has to do with feeling delight rightly and with loving and hating rightly, clearly one must learn and habituate oneself to nothing so much as judging rightly and feeling delight in decent characters and fine actions. Now there exist, most of all in rhythms and melodies, likenesses very close to the true natures of anger and gentleness, and further of courage and temperance and of all the states opposite to these and the other traits of character (and this is clear from what happens
15| for we change in our soul when we listen to such things); and habituation to feeling pain and delight in things that are alike is close to having the same disposition toward the truth itself (for example, if someone takes delight in viewing the image of something for no other reason than its form itself, it is necessary that the sight of that very thing whose image he views should also be pleasant to him). Now it happens that among the objects of the other senses there is no likeness at all to characters — for instance in things touched or tasted — but in the things seen there is, faintly (for there are shapes of this sort, but only to a small degree, and not everyone shares in perceiving it of this kind; and further these are not likenesses of characters, but rather the shapes and colors that come about are signs of characters, and these are marks that appear in the midst of the affections; nonetheless, insofar as there is a difference even in the viewing of these, the young must not look at the works of Pauson, but at those of Polygnotus, or of any other painter or sculptor who is expressive of character) — but in melodies themselves there are imitations of characters (and this is evident: for straightaway the nature of the harmonic modes is different, so that those who hear them are affected differently and do not have the same disposition toward each of them, but toward some are affected in a more mournful and constrained way,
16| [1340b] compared with the harmony called the Mixolydian; toward gentler states of mind, compared with the relaxed harmonies; and toward a measured, settled state most of all, as the Dorian alone among the harmonies seems to produce, while the Phrygian produces enthusiasm. On this those who have thought philosophically about this branch of education speak well, for they take their evidence for their accounts from the facts themselves. The same holds for rhythms too (some have a more settled character, others a more mobile one, and of these, some have movements that are more vulgar, others more befitting a free person). From these considerations, then, it is clear that music has the power to produce a certain quality of character in the soul, and if it can do this, then plainly the young must be brought to it and educated in it. The teaching of music suits this age well: for the young, on account of their age, do not willingly put up with anything unsweetened, and music is by nature one of the sweetened things. And there seems to be some kinship between us and harmonies and rhythms; that is why many of the wise say, some that the soul is a harmony, others that it has a harmony.
17| Whether they ought to learn by singing and performing themselves, or not — a question raised as a difficulty earlier — must now be addressed. It is not unclear that it makes a great difference to the forming of a certain character whether one takes part in the performances oneself; for it is one of the impossible or difficult things for those who have not taken part in the performances to become serious judges of them. At the same time children need some occupation, and one may well think Archytas's rattle a good invention — the one people give to small children so that, using it, they break nothing about the house; for the young cannot keep still. This rattle, then, suits infants among children, while education is the rattle for the older young. It is clear from considerations of this sort, then, that music must be taught in such a way that the pupils also take part in the performances themselves; and it is not hard to determine what is fitting and what is not fitting for the various ages, and to answer those who say that concern with it is vulgar. For, first, since one must take part in the performances for the sake of judging, for this reason the young, while young, should make use of the performances, but once they have grown older they should be released from the performances themselves, and be capable of judging what is fine and of taking correct pleasure in it, through the learning that took place in their youth.
18| As for the reproach some level, that music makes people vulgar, it is not hard to answer once we have examined up to what point those being educated for political virtue must take part in the performances themselves, [1341a] and which melodies and which rhythms they must take part in, and further on what instruments the learning ought to be carried out — for this too is likely to make a difference. For it is in these questions that the answer to the reproach lies; nothing prevents certain modes of practicing music from producing the effect described. It is clear, then, that the learning of it must neither impede the pursuits that come later, nor make the body vulgar and useless for military and political training — useless for immediate uses, and useless later on as well. This would result in the case of learning if pupils did not labor hard at the elements directed toward professional competitions, nor at the astonishing and extravagant feats of performance which have now made their way into the competitions and from the competitions into education, but instead pursued even the non-competitive kinds only up to the point where they are capable of taking pleasure in fine melodies and rhythms, and not only in what is common to music, as some of the other animals share in as well, and even a mass of slaves and children share in. It is clear from this, too, what instruments must be used. For neither flutes should be brought into education, nor any other instrument requiring professional skill, such as the kithara or anything else of that kind, but only such as will make good listeners of them, either for musical education or for the rest of education.
19| Further, the flute is not an instrument expressing character but rather one that excites frenzy, so that it should be used for those occasions on which the spectacle is capable of producing catharsis rather than learning. And let us add that it happens to work against education in another way too, in that flute-playing prevents the use of speech. That is why our predecessors rightly disapproved its use among the young and the free, though they had made use of it themselves at first. For once they had grown more leisured through their prosperity and more high-minded in regard to virtue, and moreover, both before and after the Persian Wars, had grown proud on the strength of their achievements, they laid hold of every kind of learning without discrimination, but eagerly seeking it out. That is why they brought flute-playing too among their subjects of learning. Indeed at Sparta a certain chorus-sponsor himself played the flute for his chorus, and around Athens the practice became so widespread that pretty much the majority of free men took part in it — a fact evident from the votive plaque Thrasippus set up after funding Ecphantides' chorus. Later it was disapproved of on the basis of experience itself, once people were better able to judge what tends toward virtue and what does not; and likewise many of the ancient instruments were disapproved of too, such as the pektis and the barbitos and instruments contributing to the pleasure of listeners among those who use them — the seven-cornered and triangular instruments, and the sambuca,
20| [1341b] and everything that requires manual skill to play. There is good reason, too, for what the ancients tell in myth about the flutes. They say that Athena, having invented them, threw them away. Now it is not a bad account to say that the goddess did this out of displeasure at the unbecoming distortion of her face; but it is more likely, rather, that the reason is that the training given by flute-playing contributes nothing to the intellect, and it is to Athena that we attribute knowledge and craft. Since, then, we disapprove both of the instruments and of the professional training with regard to performance (and by professional we mean the kind directed toward competitions — for in that kind the performer does not practice for the sake of his own virtue but for the pleasure of the listeners, and a vulgar pleasure at that; that is why we judge the work to belong not to free men but to something more fit for hired laborers, and indeed the performers come to be vulgar, for the goal at which they aim is a base one: the spectator, being vulgar, tends to debase the music, so that the very craftsmen who practice with him in mind are shaped in a certain way by him, and so are their bodies, because of the movements involved) — since this is so, we must give some consideration to harmonies and rhythms, and to the question, with a view to education, whether all harmonies and all rhythms should be used, or whether they must be distinguished, and then, for those laboring toward education, whether we should lay down the same distinction, or whether some third one, different again, is needed.
21| Since, then, we see that music consists in melodic composition and rhythms, and it must not go unnoticed what power each of these two has with a view to education, and whether we should prefer music that is melodically fine or music that is rhythmically fine — considering, then, that both some of the musicians of today and those among the philosophers who happen to be experienced in musical education say many things well about these matters, we shall leave it to those who wish to seek out the detailed precision on each point from them, and for now let us divide the subject in the manner of one laying down general laws, stating only the outlines concerning them. Since we accept the division of melodies that some among the philosophers make, positing some as ethical, some as practical, some as inspiriting, and assign to the harmonies a nature proper to each of these, one to one part, another to another, we say that music should be used not for the sake of one benefit but for the sake of several: both for education and for catharsis (what we mean by catharsis we state now simply, but we shall speak of it again more clearly in our work on poetics), and third for passing the time pleasantly, for relaxation, and for the relief of tension from exertion,
22| [1342a] It is clear, then, that we must use all the harmonic modes, but not all in the same way: for education, the most ethical ones; for listening to others performing, both the practical modes and the ones that induce religious enthusiasm. For the emotion that occurs strongly in some souls is present in all souls, differing only in degree — for instance pity and fear, and also enthusiasm. For some people are liable to be possessed by this kind of motion, and we see them, when they use melodies that violently arouse the soul, settling down again as if they had found healing and catharsis. The same thing, then, must necessarily happen to those prone to pity and to fear and to the emotional in general, and to everyone else in whatever measure each is affected by such feelings — and for all of them some catharsis must come about and a pleasurable relief. In the same way, too, the practical melodies afford people harmless joy. Hence it is these harmonic modes and these melodies that must be assigned to the competitors who practice theatrical music. But since the spectator is of two kinds — the free and educated man, and the vulgar sort made up of manual laborers, hired workers, and others of that kind — competitions and spectacles must be provided for these latter as well, as a means of relaxation.
23| But just as the souls of such men are twisted away from their natural condition, so too there are deviant forms of the harmonic modes, and melodies that are overstrained and discordant in coloring; and what produces pleasure in each case is what is naturally proper to him, and for this reason license must be given to the competitors performing before a spectator of this sort to use this kind of music. For education, as has been said, the ethical melodies and harmonic modes of that kind must be used. Such is the Dorian, as we said before. But we must also accept any other mode that our partners in the pursuit of philosophy and in musical education approve for us. The Socrates of the Republic is not right to leave only the Phrygian alongside the Dorian, and this although he had rejected the flute among the instruments.
24| [1342b] For the Phrygian has the same power among the modes that the flute has among the instruments: both are orgiastic and emotional. Poetry makes this clear. For every Bacchic revel and every motion of that kind belongs above all, among the instruments, to the flute, and among the modes such things find their fitting expression in Phrygian melodies. Poetry makes this clear too: the dithyramb, for example, is by common agreement held to be Phrygian. Those versed in this understanding cite many examples of this, among others that Philoxenus, when he attempted to compose the dithyramb the Mysians in the Dorian mode, was not able to do it, but was carried by nature itself back down again into the Phrygian, the mode proper to it. Concerning the Dorian, everyone agrees that it is the most stable of the modes and has above all a manly character. Further, since we praise the mean between extremes and say it must be pursued, and the Dorian stands in this relation to the other modes, it is clear that the Dorian melodies are the ones the young should be taught rather than the rest. There are two aims: the possible and the fitting; for one must practice what is possible, and what is fitting for each group.
25| These things too are fixed by age: for instance, for those worn out by time it is not easy to sing the high-strung modes, but nature suggests the relaxed ones to people of that age. Hence some of those concerned with music are right to criticize Socrates on this point too: that he rejected the relaxed modes for education, taking them to be intoxicating — not in the sense that belongs to the power of intoxication (for drunkenness rather makes one Bacchic), but as being enfeebling. So that, with a view to the age that is to come, that of older men, one must also take up such modes and such melodies, and further, if there is some mode fitting to the age of children, because it is capable of having both orderliness and educational value at once — the Lydian, for example, appears to have this character most among the modes. It is clear, then, that we must set up these three standards for education: the mean, the possible, and the fitting.