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Nothing of this kind attaches to atheism, but its ignorance is distressing, and to see amiss or not to see at all in matters of such importance is a great misfortune for the soul; for it is as if the soul had suffered the extinction of the brightest and most dominant of its many eyes, the conception of God. But superstition is attended by emotion, as has already been said, Supra, 165 B. and by sore distress and disturbance and mental enslavement from the very beginning. Plato Adapted freely from the Timaeus, p. 47 D. says that music, the creator of harmony and order, was given to mankind by the gods not for the sake of pampering them or tickling their ears, but so that whatever in a man’s body is disturbing and errant, affecting the cycles and concords of his soul, and in many instances, for lack of culture and refinement, waxing wanton because of licentiousness and error, music should, in its own way, disengage and bring round and restore to its proper place again. Whatsoever things there be Which by Zeus are not held dear, says Pindar, Pythian Odes, i. 13 (25); quoted also in Moralia, 746 B and 1095 E. In affrighted panic flee When the Muses’ voice they hear. In fact they become provoked and angry; and tigers, they say, surrounded by the sound of beaten drums go utterly mad, and get so excited that they end by tearing themselves to pieces. Cf. Moralia, 144 D. There is less harm, therefore, for those who, as the result of deafness or impairment of hearing, have a feeling of indifference and insensibility toward music. Teiresias laboured under a misfortune in not being able to see his children or his intimate friends, but greater was the misfortune of Athamas All these were victims of a god-sent madness. and Agave,All these were victims of a god-sent madness. who saw them as lions and deer; and for HeraclesAll these were victims of a god-sent madness. in his madness it would undoubtedly have been better neither to see his sons, nor to realize that they were present, than to treat his nearest and dearest as enemies.
