For Confucius, ritual is closely linked to music. The capacity of music to inspire moral behavior had been realized long before by the ancients. As the Book of Rites states, “In music the sages found pleasure and saw that it could be used to make the hearts of the people good. Because of the deep influence that it exerts on a man, and the change that it produces in manners and customs, the ancient kings appointed it as one of the subjects of instruction.” Confucius thus assumes that his followers should study music—or, more precisely, certain types of music he finds morally uplifting—as an
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