Note 6 — Chapter I · PRIMITIVE AND ANCIENT RELIGIOUS MUSIC
Reading edition
“Long ago they [the Egyptians] appear to have recognized the principle that their young citizens must be habituated to forms and strains of virtue. These they fixed, and exhibited the patterns of them in their temples; and no painter or artist is allowed to innovate upon them, or to leave the traditional forms and invent new ones. To this day no alteration is allowed either in these arts, or in music at all.”—Plato, Laws, Book II., Jowett’s translation.