region which connects the bodily and spiritual life, and it occupies a large portion of the consciousness in the favored organizations of the people of the South of Europe. Its due proportion denotes physical perfection, and is one of the most obvious indications of the capacity of an individual or of a people for a high culture.
Since this is so, in the character of the music must be the deepest secret of the education of a people; and that the Dorians thought this, is evident from the rigidity and solemnity of all their regulations about music, and that the penalty of death was threatened against any one who violated the sanctity of the ancient music by new measures, or even new strings to the lyre.
The true Dorian music was that which entirely expressed the idea of the Dorian character. It was the sound of Apollo in the soul. The movement was just that which waked up the intellect to the perception of all law, and checked the passions from falling into deliquescence; making the whole human being a calm, clear-sighted, creative power. That they believed this music was in the universe, objective to the soul, is expressed by the Pythagorean symbol of the music of the spheres, apprehensible through the silence which was but another name for the perfect act of intellection. There was therefore ideal propriety in the Dorians making music their central activity. Not only did all bodily exercise thus become more or less of a dance, and an intellectual impress was made upon passion, but, what is more important, thus they formed, in the consciousness of each individual, a standard by which all their activity was measured.
The dances of the Dorians were intellectual in their character,—sometimes representative of historical events,—sometimes of foreign customs,—sometimes they were allegorical; in all instances, even when comic, they expressed thought, and stimulated intellectual activity; while the dances of other nations expressed the softer passions merely, and tended to immorality.
The dancing in chorus of young men, of virgins, and of old men, were parts of the public worship. The motions of the young men, says Müller, were vigorous, and often of a
