For when the philosophers describe the ideal sage who is to be
consummate in all knowledge and a very god incarnate, as they say, they
would have him receive instruction not merely in the knowledge of things
human and divine, but would also lead him through a course of subjects,
which in themselves are comparatively trivial, as for instance the
elaborate subtleties of formal logic: not that acquaintance horn
crocodile
You will
not restore him.
Was it the
crocodile's duty to give him up?
So too the teacher of geometry, music or other subjects which I would class with these, will not be able to create the perfect orator (who like the philosopher ought to be a wise man), but none the less these arts will assist in his perfection. I may draw a parallel from the use of antidotes and other remedies applied to the eyes or to wounds. We know that these are composed of ingredients which produce many and sometimes contrary effects, but mixed together they make a single compound resembling no one of its component parts, but deriving its peculiar properties from all:
so too dumb insects produce honey, whose taste is beyond the skill of man to imitate, from different kinds of flowers and juices. Shall we marvel then, if oratory, the highest gift of providence to man, needs the assistance of many arts, which, although they do not reveal or intrude themselves in actual speaking, supply hidden forces and make their silent presence felt?
But
it will be urged men have proved fluent without
their aid.
Granted, but I am in quest of an orator.
Their contribution is but small.
Yes, but we shall
never attain completeness, if minor details be lacking. And it will be
agreed that though our ideal of perfection may dwell on a height that is
hard to gain, it is our duty to teach all we know, that achievement may
at least come somewhat nearer the goal. But why should our courage fail?
The perfect orator is not contrary to the laws of nature, and it is
cowardly to despair of anything that is within the bounds of
possibility.
Who is ignorant of the fact that music, of which I will speak first, was in ancient times the object not merely of intense study but of veneration: in fact Orpheus and Linus, to mention no others, were regarded as uniting the roles of musician, poet and philosopher. Both were of divine origin, while the former, because by the marvel of his music he soothed the savage breast, is recorded to have drawn after him not merely beasts of the wild, but rocks and trees.
So too Timagenes asserts that music is the oldest of the arts related to
literature, a statement which is confirmed by the testimony of the
greatest of poets in whose songs we read that the praise of heroes and
of gods were sung to the music of the lyre at the feasts of kings. Does
not lopas, the Vergilian bard, sing
and the like? whereby the supreme poet manifests most
clearly that music is united with the knowledge even of things divine.
If this be admitted, music will be a necessity even for an orator, since those fields of knowledge, which were annexed by philosophy on their abandonment by oratory, once were ours and without the knowledge of all such things there can be no perfect eloquence.
There can in any case be no doubt that some of those men whose wisdom is
a household word have been earnest students of music: Pythagoras for
instance and his followers popularised the belief, which they no doubt
had received from earlier teachers, that the universe is constructed on
the same principles which were afterwards imitated in cp. the vision of Er in Plato ( Rcp. 10) and the Somnium Scipionis
of Cicero. The sounds produced by the heavenly bodies correspond to
the notes of the heptachord.
As for Plato, there are certain passages in his works, more especially
in the Timaeus,
Tim. p. 47.