Music is like images: it communicates more powerful-
ly than words. Almost no one today realizes the
power of music over human souls. The ancients did.
The Greeks, who had only very primitive music, were
so moved by it that they universally and unquestion-
ingly ascribed it to the gods, the Muses (from which
our word "music" comes from).
Plato spends only two pages of his _Republic_ on the
economics of the ideal state, but forty pages on its
music! He said that if the state ever comes into
existence, it will decay first through decay in
music. He made music the first step in education.
He had his priorities straight.
Peter Kreeft
_Making Choices: Practical Wisdom For Everyday
Moral Decisions_ [1990], Chapter 9
