[C] they will be afraid that he may be praising, not new songs, but a new kind of song; and this ought not to be praised, or conceived to be the meaning of the poet; for any musical innovation is full of danger to the whole State, and ought to be prohibited. Damon.So Damon tells me, and I can quite believe 113 him;—he says that when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them.
[2]Od. i. 352.
Yes, said Adeimantus; and you may add my suffrage to Damon’s and your own.
[D] Then, I said, our guardians must lay the foundations of their fortress in music?
Yes, he said; the lawlessness of which you speak too easily steals in.
Yes, I replied, in the form of amusement; and at first sight it appears harmless.
The spirit of lawlessness, beginning in music, gradually pervades the whole of life. Why, yes, he said, and there is no harm; were it not that little by little this spirit of licence, finding a home, imperceptibly penetrates into manners and customs; whence, issuing with greater force, it invades contracts between man and [E]man, and from contracts goes on to laws and constitutions, in utter recklessness, ending at last, Socrates, by an overthrow of all rights, private as well as public.
Is that true? I said.
That is my belief, he replied.
Then, as I was saying, our youth should be trained from the first in a stricter system, for if amusements become [425]lawless, and the youths themselves become lawless, they can never grow up into well-conducted and virtuous citizens.