Sir John Lubbock (Lord Avebury)

1834–1913 · English banker, biologist, MP & popular essayist

Sir John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury, was a banker, Liberal MP, archaeologist and naturalist — a friend of Darwin who coined the terms ‘Palaeolithic’ and ‘Neolithic’ and championed the Bank Holidays Act. His hugely popular self-improvement volumes The Pleasures of Life (1887–1889) sprinkled uplifting epigraphs through their chapters. The music chapter of Part II (1889) opens with the “Music is a moral law” passage credited to Plato — the earliest known appearance of the line, with no source cited. Whether Lubbock invented, translated, or copied it from an unknown intermediary is not established, but no such text exists in Plato.

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“Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything”

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