Aristotle, Politics

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[1339b][1] instead of learning to enjoy it rightly and be able to judge it when they hear others performing, as the Spartans do? for the Spartans although they do not learn to perform can nevertheless judge good and bad music correctly, so it is said. And the same argument applies also if music is to be employed for refined enjoyment and entertainment; why need people learn to perform themselves instead of enjoying music played by others? And we may consider the conception that we have about the gods: Zeus does not sing and harp to the poets himself. But professional musicians we speak of as vulgar people, and indeed we think it not manly to perform music, except when drunk or for fun.

But perhaps these points will have to be considered afterwards; our first inquiry is whether music ought not or ought to be included in education, and what is its efficacy among the three uses of it that have been discussed--does it serve for education or amusement or entertainment? It is reasonable to reckon it under all of these heads, and it appears to participate in them all. Amusement is for the sake of relaxation, and relaxation must necessarily be pleasant, for it is a way of curing the pain due to laborious work; also entertainment ought admittedly to be not only honorable but also pleasant, for happiness is derived from both honor and pleasure; [20] but we all pronounce music to be one of the pleasantest things, whether instrumental or instrumental and vocal music together (at least Musaeus¹ says, ‘Song is man's sweetest joy,’ and that is why people with good reason introduce it at parties and entertainments, for its exhilarating effect), so that for this reason also one might suppose that the younger men ought to be educated in music. For all harmless pleasures are not only suitable for the ultimate object but also for relaxation; and as it but rarely happens for men to reach their ultimate object, whereas they often relax and pursue amusement not so much with some ulterior object but because of the pleasure of it, it would be serviceable to let them relax at intervals in the pleasures derived from music. But it has come about that men make amusements an end; for the end also perhaps contains a certain pleasure, but not any ordinary pleasure, and seeking this they take the other as being this because it has a certain resemblance to the achievement of the end of their undertakings. For the end is desirable not for the sake of anything that will result from it, and also pleasures of the sort under consideration are not desirable for the sake of some future result, but because of things that have happened already, for instance labor and pain. One might then perhaps assume this to be the reason which causes men to seek to procure happiness by means of those pleasures; but in the case of taking part in music, this is not because of this reason only, but also because performing music is useful, as it seems, for relaxation. But nevertheless we must examine whether it is not the case that, although this has come about,

¹ A semi-legendary bard, to whom a number of oracular verses that were current were attributed.

This text is based on the following book(s):
Aristotle. Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 21, translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1944.
OCLC: 29752140
ISBN: 0674992911

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