The influence of music on our affections is a truth established both by
sacred and profane history, and confirmed by its constant use in all
religious rites where the passions are most deeply interested. If this
art has power to direct the emotions of the heart, does it not deserve
our most earnest attention to preserve its proper influence, and direct
it to the good purposes intended by the wise and kind Author of all
things? And this can only be done by preventing the art itself from
being corrupted by the caprice and absurdity of human frailty, and by
directing the powers of its purity to assist us in the habits of virtue
and religion. Plutarch tells us, that a man who has learned music from
his infancy, will ever after have a proper sense of right and wrong, and
an habitual persuasion to decorum; this is undoubtedly true if we
consider the ancient manner of inculcating the laws of their country,
the great actions of heroes, the praises of their deities, which were
the subjects of this art; not to mention its mathematical principles,
which made a part of the Greek education, and induced the youths to
serious enquiry, and led them to noble truths. The same author has also
told us, that the manners of a people are best denoted by the prevailing
music of their country: and this is certainly true; as the mind will
always seek its repose and delight in pursuits the most similar to its
general tendency and direction. This reflection leads us to consider the
present state of music in this country, and how far it may be made
subservient to the ornamental part of education; and at the same time a
means of inducing the mind to the sober pursuits of virtue and religion,
which ought to be the true intention of parents in forming the minds of
their children.
Music is to be understood as a powerful assistant to sentimental
expression, which by the power of its charms enforces our attention to
some particular subject, adapted to some natural passion of mankind.
Under such consideration we are strongly impressed with the ideas of
love, pity, fear, or some other natural affection. But to produce the
effects of nature, the means must be unnatural: and to raise the ideas
of certain passions, the means should be consonant to the passion
itself; and confined within the simple bounds of nature. If this be not
the case in music, its true end is defeated, it ceases to be an
assistant to sentimental expression, and we absurdly admire its mere
sounds, rather than powerfully feel its proper effects.