Imitation then, imitation through the eye and ear, is irresistible in its influence over human nature. And secondly, we, the founders, the people, of the Republic, of the city that shall be [271] perfect, have for our peculiar purpose the simplification of human nature: a purpose somewhat costly, for it follows, thirdly, that the only kind of music, of art and poetry, we shall permit ourselves, our citizens, will be of a very austere character, under a sort of "self-denying ordinance." We shall be a fervently aesthetic community, if you will; but therewith also very fervent "renunciants," or ascetics. In the first place, men's souls are, according to Plato's view, the creatures of what men see and hear. What would probably be found in a limited number only of sensitive people, a constant susceptibility to the aspects and other sensible qualities of things and persons, to the element of expression or form in them and their movements, to phenomena as such--this susceptibility Plato supposes in men generally. It is not so much the matter of a work of art, what is conveyed in and by colour and form and sound, that tells upon us educationally--the subject, for instance, developed by the words and scenery of a play--as the form, and its qualities, concision, simplicity, rhythm, or, contrariwise, abundance, variety, discord. Such "aesthetic" qualities, by what we might call in logical phrase, metabasis eis allo genos,+ a derivation into another kind of matter, transform themselves, in the temper of the patient the hearer or spectator, into terms of ethics, into the sphere of the desires and the will, of the moral taste, engendering, nursing [272] there, strictly moral effects, such conditions of sentiment and the will as Plato requires in his City of the Perfect, or quite the opposite, but hardly in any case indifferent, conditions. Imitation:--it enters into the very fastnesses of character; and we, our souls, ourselves, are for ever imitating what we see and hear, the forms, the sounds which haunt our memories, our imagination. We imitate not only if we play a part on the stage but when we sit as spectators, while our thoughts follow the acting of another, when we read Homer and put ourselves, lightly, fluently, into the place of those he describes: we imitate unconsciously the line and colour of the walls around us, the trees by the wayside, the animals we pet or make use of, the very dress we wear. Only, Hina mê ek tês mimêseôs tou einai apolausôsin.+--Let us beware how men attain the very truth of what they imitate. That then is the first principle of Plato's aesthetics, his first consideration regarding the art of the City of the Perfect. Men, children, are susceptible beings, in great measure conditioned by the mere look of their "medium." Like those insects, we might fancy, of which naturalists tell us, taking colour from the plants they lodge on, they will come to match with much servility the aspects of the world about them.