The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics)

by Mckeon, Richard

  The question what is or is not suitable for different ages may be easily answered; nor is there any difficulty in meeting the objection of those who say that the study of music is vulgar.25 We reply (1) in the first place, (35) that they who are to be judges must also be performers, and that they should begin to practise early, although when they are older they may be spared the execution; they must have learned to appreciate what is good and to delight in it, thanks to the knowledge which they acquired in their youth. (40) As to (2) the vulgarizing effect which music is supposed to exercise, this is a question which we shall have no difficulty in determining, when we have considered to what extent freemen who are being trained to political virtue should pursue the art, what melodies and what rhythms they should be allowed to use, and what instruments should be employed in teaching them to play; for even the instrument makes a difference. [1341a] The answer to the objection turns upon these distinctions; for it is quite possible that certain methods, of teaching and learning music do really have a degrading effect. It is evident then that the learning of music ought not to impede the business of riper years, (5) or to degrade the body or render it unfit for civil or military training, whether for bodily exercises at the time or for later studies.

  The right measure will be attained if students of music stop short of the arts which are practised in professional contests, (10) and do not seek to acquire those fantastic marvels of execution which are now the fashion in such contests, and from these have passed into education. Let the young practise even such music as we have prescribed, only until they are able to feel delight in noble melodies and rhythms, and not merely in that common part of music in which every slave or child and even some animals find pleasure. (15)

  From these principles we may also infer what instruments should be used. The flute, or any other instrument which requires great skill, as for example the harp, ought not to be admitted into education, but only such as will make intelligent students of music or of the other parts of education. (20) Besides, the flute is not an instrument which is expressive of moral character; it is too exciting. The proper time for using it is when the performance aims not at instruction, but at the relief of the passions.26 And there is a further objection; the impediment which the flute presents to the use of the voice detracts from its educational value. (25) The ancients therefore were right in forbidding the flute to youths and freemen, although they had once allowed it. For when their wealth gave them a greater inclination to leisure, and they had loftier notions of excellence, being also elated with their success, (30) both before and after the Persian War, with more zeal than discernment they pursued every kind of knowledge, and so they introduced the flute into education. At Lacedaemon there was a choragus who led the chorus with a flute, and at Athens the instrument became so popular that most freemen could play upon it. The popularity is shown by the tablet which Thrasippus dedicated when he furnished the chorus to Ecphantides. (35) Later experience enabled men to judge what was or was not really conducive to virtue, and they rejected both the flute and several other old-fashioned instruments, (40) such as the Lydian harp, the many-stringed lyre, the ‘heptagon’, ‘triangle’, ‘sambuca’, and the like—which are intended only to give pleasure to the hearer, and require extraordinary skill of hand.27 [1341b] There is a meaning also in the myth of the ancients, which tells how Athene invented the flute and then threw it away. It was not a bad idea of theirs, (5) that the Goddess disliked the instrument because it made the face ugly; but with still more reason may we say that she rejected it because the acquirement of flute-playing contributes nothing to the mind, since to Athene we ascribe both knowledge and art.

  Thus then we reject the professional instruments and also the professional mode of education in music (and by professional we mean that which is adopted in contests), (10) for in this the performer practises the art, not for the sake of his own improvement, but in order to give pleasure, and that of a vulgar sort, to his hearers. For this reason the execution of such music is not the part of a freeman but of a paid performer, and the result is that the performers are vulgarized, (15) for the end at which they aim is bad.28 The vulgarity of the spectator tends to lower the character of the music and therefore of the performers; they look to him—he makes them what they are, and fashions even their bodies by the movements which he expects them to exhibit.

  7 We have also to consider rhythms and modes, and their use in education. (20) Shall we use them all or make a distinction? and shall the same distinction be made for those who practise music with a view to education, or shall it be some other? Now we see that music is produced by melody and rhythm, and we ought to know what influence these have respectively on education, (25) and whether we should prefer excellence in melody or excellence in rhythm. But as the subject has been very well treated by many musicians of the present day, and also by philosophers29 who have had considerable experience of musical education, to these we would refer the more exact student of the subject; we shall only speak of it now after the manner of the legislator, (30) stating the general principles.

  We accept the division of melodies proposed by certain philosophers into ethical melodies, melodies of action, and passionate or inspiring melodies, each having, as they say, a mode corresponding to it. But we maintain further that music should be studied, (35) not for the sake of one, but of many benefits, that is to say, with a view to (1) education, (2) purgation (the word ‘purgation’ we use at present without explanation, but when hereafter we speak of poetry,30 we will treat the subject with more precision); music may also serve (3) for intellectual enjoyment, for relaxation and for recreation after exertion. (40) It is clear, therefore, that all the modes must be employed by us, but not all of them in the same manner. [1342a] In education the most ethical modes are to be preferred, but in listening to the performances of others we may admit the modes of action and passion also. (5) For feelings such as pity and fear, or, again, enthusiasm, exist very strongly in some souls, and have more or less influence over all. Some persons fall into a religious frenzy, whom we see as a result of the sacred melodies—when they have used the melodies that excite the soul to mystic frenzy—restored as though they had found healing and purgation. (10) Those who are influenced by pity or fear, and every emotional nature, must have a like experience, and others in so far as each is susceptible to such emotions, and all are in a manner purged and their souls lightened and delighted. (15) The purgative melodies likewise give an innocent pleasure to mankind. Such are the modes and the melodies in which those who perform music at the theatre should be invited to compete. But since the spectators are of two kinds—the one free and educated, and the other a vulgar crowd composed of mechanics, labourers, and the like—there ought to be contests and exhibitions instituted for the relaxation of the second class also. (20) And the music will correspond to their minds; for as their minds are perverted from the natural state, so there are perverted modes and highly strung and unnaturally coloured melodies. (25) A man receives pleasure from what is natural to him, and therefore professional musicians may be allowed to practise this lower sort of music before an audience of a lower type. But, for the purposes of education, as I have already said,31 those modes and melodies should be employed which are ethical, such as the Dorian, (30) as we said before;32 though we may include any others which are approved by philosophers who have had a musical education. The Socrates of the Republic33 is wrong in retaining only the Phrygian mode along with the Dorian, and the more so because he rejects the flute; for the Phrygian is to the modes what the flute is to musical instruments—both of them are exciting and emotional. [1342b] Poetry proves this, (5) for Bacchic frenzy and all similar emotions are most suitably expressed by the flute, and are better set to the Phrygian than to any other mode. The dithyramb, for example, is acknowledged to be Phrygian, a fact of which the connoisseurs of music offer many proofs, saying, among other things, that Philoxenus, (10) having attempted to compose his Mysians as a dithyramb in the Dorian mode, found i
t impossible, and fell back by the very nature of things into the more appropriate Phrygian. All men agree that the Dorian music is the gravest and manliest. (15) And whereas we say that the extremes should be avoided and the mean followed, and whereas the Dorian is a mean between the other modes,34 it is evident that our youth should be taught the Dorian music.

  Two principles have to be kept in view, what is possible, what is becoming: at these every man ought to aim. (20) But even these are relative to age; the old, who have lost their powers, cannot very well sing the high-strung modes, and nature herself seems to suggest that their songs should be of the more relaxed kind. Wherefore the musicians likewise blame Socrates,35 and with justice, (25) for rejecting the relaxed modes in education under the idea that they are intoxicating, not in the ordinary sense of intoxication (for wine rather tends to excite men), but because they have no strength in them. And so, with a view also to the time of life when men begin to grow old, they ought to practise the gentler modes and melodies as well as the others, and, further, any mode, such as the Lydian, above all others appears to be, (30) which is suited to children of tender age, and possesses the elements both of order and of education. Thus it is clear that education should be based upon three principles—the mean, the possible, the becoming, these three.

  * * *

  1 Cp. v. 1310a 12–36.

  2 Cp. Nic. Eth. x. 1180a 24.

  3 Cp. iii. 1277b 3.

  4 a 39–b 3.

  5 ii. 1271a 41 sqq., vii. 1333a 16–1334b 3; N. Eth. x. 6.

  6 The line does not occur in our text of Homer, but in Aristotle’s text it probably came instead of, or after, Od. xvii. 383.

  7 Od. xvii. 385.

  8 Od. ix. 7.

  9 An unfulfilled promise.

  10 Cp. Plato, Rep. vii. 525 ff.

  11 ii. 1271a 41–b 10, vii. 1333b 5 sqq., 1334a 40 sqq.

  12 Cp. N. Eth. vii. 1148b 21.

  13 Cp. N. Eth. iii. 1115a 29.

  14 Cp. Plato, Rep. vii. 537 B.

  15 1337b 27–1338a 30.

  16 Cp. c. 6.

  17 Cp. N. Eth. vii. 1153b 33.

  18 Cp. Plato, Rep. iii. 401, 402; Laws, ii. 659 C-E.

  19 Cp. Plato, Rep. iii. 395.

  20 Cp. Poet. 1448a 5, 1450a 26.

  21 Cp. Rep. 398 E sqq.

  22 Rep. iii. 399 E, 400.

  23 1339a 33–b 10.

  24 Cp. 1339a 42.

  25 Cp. 1339b 8, 1341b 14.

  26 Cp. 1341b 38.

  27 Cp. Plato, Rep. iii. 399 C, D.

  28 Cp. Plato, Laws, iii. 700.

  29 Cp. Rep. iii. 398 D sqq.

  30 Cp. Poet. 1449b 27, though the promise is really unfulfilled. The reference is probably to a lost part of the Poetics.

  31 1342a 2.

  32 1340b 3 sq.

  33 Plato, Rep. iii. 399 A.

  34 Cp. 1340a 42.

  35 Rep. iii. 398 E sqq.

  Rhetorica

  Translated by W. Rhys Roberts

  CONTENTS

  BOOK I

  CHAPTER

  1. Rhetoric is the counterpart of Dialectic. It is a subject that can be treated systematically. The argumentative modes of persuasion are the essence of the art of rhetoric: appeals to the emotions warp the judgement. The writers of current text-books on rhetoric give too much attention to the forensic branch (in which chicanery is easier) and too little to the political (where the issues are larger). Argumentative persuasion is a sort of demonstration; and the rhetorical form of demonstration is the enthymeme. Four uses of rhetoric. Its possible abuse is no argument against its proper use on the side of truth and justice. The honest rhetorician has no separate name to distinguish him from the dishonest.

  2. Definition of rhetoric as ‘the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion’. Of the modes of persuasion some belong strictly to the art of rhetoric, and some do not. The rhetorician finds the latter kind (viz. witnesses, contracts, and the like) ready to his hand. The former kind he must provide himself; and it has three divisions—(1) the speaker’s power of evincing a personal character which will make his speech credible; (2) his power of stirring the emotions of his hearers; (3) his power of proving a truth, or an apparent truth, by means of persuasive arguments. Hence rhetoric may be regarded as an offshoot of dialectic, and also of ethical (or, political) studies. The persuasive arguments are (a) the example, corresponding to induction in dialectic; (b) the enthymeme, corresponding to the syllogism; (c) the apparent Enthymeme, corresponding to the apparent syllogism. The Enthymeme is a rhetorical syllogism, and the example a rhetorical induction. Rhetoric has regard to classes of men, not to individual men; its subjects, and the premisses from which it argues, are in the main such as present alternative possibilities in the sphere of human action; and it must adapt itself to an audience of untrained thinkers who cannot follow a long train of reasoning. The premisses from which enthy-memes are formed are ‘probabilities’ and ‘signs’; and signs are either fallible or infallible, in which latter case they are termed tekmeria. The lines of argument, or topics, which Enthymemes follow may be distinguished as common (or, general) and special (i. e. special to a single study, such as natural science or ethics). The special lines should be used discreetly, if the rhetorician is not to find himself deserting his own field for another.

  3. There are three kinds of rhetoric: A. political (deliberative), B. forensic (legal), and C. epideictic (the ceremonial oratory of display). Their (a) divisions, (b) times, and (c) ends are as follows: A. Political (a) exhortation and dehortation, (b) future, (c) expediency and inexpediency; B. Forensic (a) accusation and defence, (b) past, (c) justice and injustice; C. Epideictic (a) praise and censure, (b) present, (c) honour and dishonour.

  4. (A) The subjects of Political Oratory fall under five main heads: (1) ways and means, (2) war and peace, (3) national defence, (4) imports and exports, (5) legislation. The scope of each of these divisions.

  5. In urging his hearers to take or to avoid a course of action, the political orator must show that he has an eye to their happiness. Four definitions (of a popular kind: as usual in the Rhetoric), and some fourteen constituents, of happiness.

  6. The political speaker will also appeal to the interest of his hearers, and this involves a knowledge of what is good. Definition and analysis of things ‘good’.

  7. Comparison of ‘good’ things. Of two ‘good’ things, which is the better? This entails a consideration of degree—the lore of ‘less or more’.

  8. The political speaker will find his powers of persuasion most of all enhanced by a knowledge of the four sorts of government—democracy, oligarchy, aristocracy, monarchy, and their characteristic customs, institutions, and interests. Definition of the four sorts severally. Ends of each.

  9. (C) The Epideictic speaker is concerned with virtue and vice, praising the one and censuring the other. The forms of virtue. Which are the greatest virtues?—Some rhetorical devices used by the epideictic speaker: ‘amplification’, especially. Amplification is particularly appropriate to epideictic oratory; examples, to political; Enthymemes, to forensic.

  10. (B) The Forensic speaker should have studied wrongdoing—its motives, its perpetrators, and its victims. Definition of wrongdoing as injury voluntarily inflicted contrary to law. Law is either (a) special, viz. that written law which regulates the life of a particular community, or (b) general, viz. all those unwritten principles which are supposed to be acknowledged everywhere. Enumeration and elucidation of the seven causes of human action, viz. three involuntary, (1) chance, (2) nature, (3) compulsion; and four voluntary, viz. (4) habit, (5) reasoning, (6) anger, (7) appetite. All voluntary actions are good or apparently good, pleasant or apparently pleasant. The good (or expedient) has been discussed under political oratory, The pleasant has yet to be considered.

  11. Definition of pleasure, and analysis of things pleasant.—The motives for wrongdoing, viz. advantage and pleasure, have thus been discussed in chapters 6, 7, 11.

>   12. The characters and circumstances which lead men to commit wrong, or make them the victims of wrong.

  13. Actions just and unjust may be classified in relation to (1) the law, (2) the persons affected. The law may be (a) special, i. e. the law of a particular State, or (b) universal, i. e. the law of Nature. The persons affected may be (a) the entire community, (b) individual members of it. A wrongdoer must either understand and intend the action, or not understand and intend it. In the former case, he must be acting either from deliberate choice or from passion. It is deliberate purpose that constitutes wickedness and criminal guilt. Unwritten law (1) includes in its purview the conduct that springs from exceptional goodness or badness, e. g. our behaviour towards benefactors and friends; (2) makes up for the defects in a community’s written code of law. This second kind is equity. Its existence partly is, and partly is not, intended by legislators; not intended, where they have noticed no defect in the law; intended, where they find themselves unable to define things exactly, and are obliged to legislate as if that held good always which in fact only holds good usually.—Further remarks on the nature and scope of equity.

  14. The worse of two acts of wrong done to others is that which is prompted by the worse disposition. Other ways of computing the comparative badness of actions.

  15. The ‘non-technical’ (extrinsic) means of persuasion—those which do not strictly belong to the art of rhetoric. They are five in number, and pertain especially to forensic oratory: (1) laws, (2) witnesses, (3) contracts, (4) tortures, (5) oaths. How laws may be discredited or upheld, according as it suits the litigant. Witnesses may be either ancient (viz. poets and other notable persons; soothsayers; proverbs) ; or recent (viz. well-known contemporaries who have expressed their opinions about some disputed matter, and witnesses who give their evidence in court). Ancient witnesses are more trustworthy than contemporary. How contracts, and evidence given under torture, may be belittled or represented as important. In regard to oaths, a fourfold division exists: a man may either both offer and accept an oath, or neither, or one without the other—that is, he may offer an oath but not accept one, or accept an oath but not offer one.