Compare the Republic, iii. pp. 412-413, where the same general doctrine is enforced.
The gifts of Dionysus may, by precautions, be rendered useful — Desultory manner of Plato.
This is one mode in which the unmeasured potations (common throughout the Grecian cities, with the exception of Sparta and Krete) might under proper regulation be rendered useful for civic training. But there is another mode also, connected with the general musical and gymnastical training of the city. Plato will not allow Dionysus — and wine, the special gift of that God to mankind — to be censured as absolutely mischievous.[52]
[52] Plato, Legg. ii. p. 672 A.
In developing this second topic, he is led into a general theory of ethical and æsthetical education for his city. This happens frequently enough in the desultory manner of the Platonic dialogues. We are sometimes conducted from an incidental and outlying corollary, without warning and through a side door, into the central theory from which it ramifies. The practice is noway favourable to facility of comprehension, but it flows naturally from the unsystematic and spontaneous sequence of the dialogue.
Theory of ethical and æsthetical education — Training of the emotions of youth through the influence of the Muses, Apollo, and Dionysus. Choric practice and ceremonies.
Education of youth consists mainly in giving proper direction to their pleasures and pains — their love and their hatred. Young persons are capable only of emotions, well or ill directed: in this consists their virtue or vice. At that age they cannot bear serious teaching: they are incapable of acquiring reason, or true, firm opinions, which constitute the perfection of the mature man; indeed, if a man acquires these even when old, he may be looked on as fortunate.[53] The young can only have their emotions cultivated so as to conform to reason: they may thus be made to love what reason, personified in and enforced by the lawgiver, enjoins — and to hate what reason forbids — but without knowing wherefore. Unfortunately the hard realities of life are perpetually giving a wrong turn to the emotions. To counteract and correct this, the influence of the Muses, of Apollo, and of Dionysus, are indispensable: together with the periodical festivals of which these Deities are respectively presidents and auxiliaries. Their influence is exercised through the choric ceremony — music, singing, dancing, blended together. Every young man is spontaneously disposed to constant indeterminate movement and exercise of various kinds — running, jumping, speaking, &c. This belongs to man in common with the young of other animals: but what is peculiar to man exclusively is, the sense of rhythm and harmony, as well as of the contrary, in these movements and sounds. Such rhythm and harmony, in song and dance united, is expressed by the chorus at the festivals, in which the Muses and Apollo take part along with the assembled youth. Here we find the only way of properly schooling the emotions.[54] The unschooled man is he who has not gone through a good choric practice; which will require that the matter which he sings shall be good and honourable, while the movements of his frame and the tones of his voice must be rhythmical and graceful. Such choric practice must be universal among the citizens, distributed into three classes: youths, mature men, elders.[55]
[53] Plato, Legg. ii. pp. 653-659 D-E. παιδεία μέν ἐσθ’ ἡ παιδῶν ὁλκή τε καὶ ἀγωγὴ πρὸς τὸν ὑπὸ τοῦ νόμου λόγον ὀρθὸν εἰρημένον καὶ τοῖς ἐπιεικεστάτοις καὶ πρεσβυτάτοις δι’ ἐμπειρίαν ξυνδιδογμένον, ὡς ὄντως ὀρθός ἐστιν· ἵν’ οὖν ἡ ψυχὴ τοῦ παιδὸς μὴ ἐναντία χαίρειν καὶ λυπεῖσθαι ἐθίζηται τῷ νόμῳ καὶ τοῖς ὑπὸ τοῦ νόμου πεπεισμένοις, ἀλλὰ ξυνέπηται χαίρουσά τε καὶ λυπουμένη τοῖς αὐτοις τούτοις οἷσπερ ὁ γέρων, τούτων ἕνεκα, ἃς ᾠδὰς καλοῦμεν, ὄντως μὲν ἐπῳδαὶ ταὶς ψυχαῖς αὗται νῦν γεγονέναι, πρὸς τὴν τοιαύτην ἢν λέγομεν ξυμφωνίαν ἐσπουδασμέναι, διὰ δὲ τὸ σπουδὴν μὴ δύνασθαι φέρειν τὰς τῶν νέων ψυχὰς παιδιαί τε καὶ ᾠδαὶ καλεῖσθαι καὶ πράττεσθαι, &c.
[54] Plato, Legg. ii. pp. 654-660 A.
[55] This triple distribution of classes for choric instruction and practice is borrowed from Spartan customs, Plutarch, Lykurgus, 21; Schol. ad Legg. p. 633 A.