But when we come to the case of superior individuals, to whom religion is a living and acting force, then we have on the Greek side those splendid thinkers, whose lives were as pure a model as their speculations were a lesson, to the world. These men certainly did not require a higher faith to make them good citizens, and were a 'law unto themselves, showing forth the work of law written in their hearts,' with a good conscience. The analogy, then, between the old Greek States and ours as regards education may be closer than is usually assumed by those who have before them the contrast of religions. [Sidenote: Greek views on music] I will mention a very different point on which all the ancient educators were agreed, and which seems quite strange to modern notions,--I mean the capital importance of music, on account of its direct effect upon morals. They all knew that the Spartan pipes had much the same effect as the Highland pipes have now upon the soldiers who feel them to be their national expression. Hence all music might be regarded as either wholesome or unwholesome stimulant, wholesome or unwholesome soothing, to the moral nature; and not only does the sober Aristotle discuss with great seriousness and in great detail the question of this influence, but he agrees with Plato in regarding the State as bound to interfere and prevent those strains, 'softly sweet in Lydian measure,' which delighted, indeed, and beguiled the sense, but disturbed and endangered the morals of men. [Sidenote: discussed in my _Rambles and Studies in Greece_.] On this fascinating but difficult subject I have already said my say in the last chapter of my _Social Life in Greece_[126:1], and I will only repeat that if the Greeks put too much stress on this side of education as affecting character, the moderns have certainly erred in the opposite directions, and are quite wrong in regarding music as an accomplishment purely æsthetic, as having nothing to say to the practical side of our nature,--our sensual passions and our moral principles. [Sidenote: Xenophon's ideal.] § 53. It remains for us to note the chief variations between the positions of the various theorists on the ideal State. Xenophon tells us his views under the parable of the ideal education and government of a perfect king. But as he did not conceive such a personage possible in the Hellenic world, he chooses the great Cyrus of Persia,--a giant figure remote from the Greeks of his day, and looming through the mists of legend[127:1]. But he makes it quite plain that he considers the monarchy of the right man by far the most perfect form of government, and his tract on the Spartan State shows how he hated democracy, and favoured those States which reserved all power for the qualified few. [Sidenote: Aristotle's.] [Sidenote: Aristotle's Politics ignore Alexander.]