Chapter 8

THE ETHICAL SYSTEMS.

The first important name in Ancient Ethical Philosophy is SOKRATES. [469-399 B.C.]

For the views of Sokrates, as well as his method,[4] we have first the MEMORABILIA of XENOPHON, and next such of the Platonic Compositions, as are judged, by comparison with the Memorabilia, to keep closest to the real Sokrates. Of these, the chief are the APOLOGY OF SOKRATES, the KRITON and the PHAEDON.

The 'Memorabilia' was composed by Xenophon, expressly to vindicate Sokrates against the accusations and unfavourable opinions that led to his execution. The 'Apology' is Plato's account of his method, and also sets forth his moral attitude. The 'Kriton' describes a conversation between him and his friend Kriton, in prison, two days before his death, wherein, in reply to the entreaties of his friends generally that he should make his escape from prison, he declares his determination to abide by the laws of the Athenian State. Inasmuch as, in the Apology, he had seemed to set his private convictions above the public authority, he here presents another side of his character. The 'Phaedon' contains the conversation on 'the Immortality of the Soul' just before his execution.

The Ethical bearings of the Philosophical method, the Doctrines, and the Life of Sokrates. are these:--

The direction he gave to philosophical enquiry, was expressed in the saying that he brought 'Philosophy down from Heaven to Earth.' His subjects were Man and Society. He entered a protest against the enquiries of the early philosophers as to the constitution of the Kosmos, the nature of the Heavenly Bodies, the theory of Winds and Storms. He called these Divine things; and in a great degree useless, if understood. The Human relations of life, the varieties of conduct of men towards each other in all capacities, were alone within the compass of knowledge, and capable of yielding fruit. In short, his turn of mind was thoroughly _practical_, we might say _utilitarian_.

I.--He gave a foundation and a shape to Ethical Science, by insisting on its practical character, and by showing that, like the other arts of life, it had an End, and a Theory from which flows the precepts or means. The End, which would be the STANDARD, was not stated by him, and hardly even by Plato, otherwise than in general language; the Summum Bonum had not as yet become a matter of close debate. 'The art of dealing with human beings,' 'the art of behaving in society,' 'the science of human happiness,' were various modes of expressing the final end of conduct.[5] Sokrates clearly indicated the difference between an unscientific and a scientific art; the one is an incommunicable knack or dexterity, the other is founded on theoretical principles.

II.--Notwithstanding his professing ignorance of what virtue is, Sokrates had a definite doctrine with reference to Ethics, which we may call his PSYCHOLOGY of the subject. This was the doctrine that resolves Virtue into Knowledge, Vice into Ignorance or Folly. 'To do right was the only way to impart happiness, or the least degree of unhappiness compatible with any given situation: now, this was precisely what every one wished for and aimed at--only that many persons, from ignorance, took the wrong road; and no man was wise enough always to take the right. But as no man was willingly his own enemy, so no man ever did wrong willingly; it was because he was not fully or correctly informed of the consequences of his own actions; so that the proper remedy to apply, was enlarged teaching of consequences and improved judgment. To make him willing to be taught, the only condition required was to make him conscious of his own ignorance; the want of which consciousness was the real cause both of indocility and of vice' (Grote). This doctrine grew out of his favourite analogy between social duty and a profession or trade. When the artizan goes wrong, it is usually from pure ignorance or incapacity; he is willing to do good work if he is able.

III.--The SUMMUM BONUM with Sokrates was Well-doing. He had no ideal of pursuit for man apart from virtue, or what he esteemed virtue--the noble and the praiseworthy. This was the elevated point of view maintained alike by him and by Plato, and common to them with the ideal of modern ages.

Well-doing consisted in doing well whatever a man undertook. 'The best man,' he said, 'and the most beloved by the gods, is he that, as a husbandman, performs well the duties of husbandry; as a surgeon, the duties of the medical art; in political life, his duty towards the commonwealth. The man that does nothing well is neither useful nor agreeable to the gods.' And as knowledge is essential to all undertakings, knowledge is the one thing needful. This exclusive regard to knowledge was his one-sidedness as a moral theorist; but he did not consistently exclude all reference to the voluntary control of appetite and passion.

IV.--He inculcated Practical Precepts of a self-denying kind, intended to curb the excesses of human desire and ambition. He urged the pleasures of self-improvement and of duty against indulgences, honours, and worldly advancement. In the 'Apology,' he states it as the second aim of his life (after imparting the shock of conscious ignorance) to reproach men for pursuing wealth and glory more than wisdom and virtue. In 'Kriton,' he lays it down that we are never to act wrongly or unjustly, although others are unjust to us. And, in his own life, he furnished an illustrious example of his teaching. The same lofty strain was taken up by Plato, and repeated in most of the subsequent Ethical schools.

V.--His Ethical Theory extended itself to Government, where he applied his analogy of the special arts. The legitimate King was he that knew how to govern well.

VI.--The connexion in the mind of Sokrates between Ethics and Theology was very slender.

In the first place, his distinction of Divine and Human things, was an exclusion of the arbitrary will of the gods from human affairs, or from those things that constituted the ethical end.

But in the next place, he always preserved a pious and reverential tone of mind; and considered that, after patient study, men should still consult the oracles, by which the gods, in cases of difficulty, graciously signified their intentions, and their beneficent care of the race. Then, the practice of well-doing was prompted by reference to the satisfaction of the gods. In so far as the gods administered the world in a right spirit, they would show favour to the virtuous.

PLATO. [427-347 B.C.]

The Ethical Doctrines of Plato are scattered through his various Dialogues; and incorporated with his philosophical method, with his theory of Ideas, and with his theories of man and of society.

From Sokrates, Plato derived Dialectics, or the method of Debate; he embodied all his views in imaginary conversations, or Dialogues, suggested by, and resembling the real conversations of Sokrates. And farther, in imitation of his master, he carried on his search after truth under the guise of ascertaining the exact meaning or definition of leading terms; as Virtue, Courage, Holiness, Temperance, Justice, Law, Beauty, Knowledge, Rhetoric, &c.

We shall first pass in review the chief Dialogues containing Ethical doctrines.

The APOLOGY, KRITON, and EUTHYPHRON (we follow Mr. Grote's order) may be passed by as belonging more to his master than to himself; moreover, everything contained in them will be found recurring in other dialogues.

The ALKIBIADES I. is a good specimen of the Sokratic manner. It brings out the loose discordant notions of _Just_ and _Unjust_ prevailing in the community; sets forth that the Just is also honourable, good, and expedient--the cause of happiness to the just man; urges the importance of Self-knowledge; and maintains that the conditions of happiness are not wealth and power, but Justice and Temperance.

ALKIBIADES II. brings out a Platonic position as to the _Good_. There are a number of things that are good, as health, money, family, but there is farther required the skill to apply these in proper measure to the supreme end of life. All knowledge is not valuable; there may be cases where ignorance is better. What we are principally interested in knowing is the Good, the Best, the Profitable. The man of much learning, without this, is like a vessel tossed on the sea without a pilot.[6]

In HIPPIAS MINOR, appears an extreme statement of the doctrine, common to Sokrates and Plato, identifying virtue with knowledge, or giving exclusive attention to the intellectual element of conduct. It is urged that a mendacious person, able to tell the truth if he chooses, is better than one unable to tell it, although wishing to do so; the knowledge is of greater worth than the good disposition.

In MINOS (or the Definition of _Law_) he refuses to accept the decree of the state as a law, but postulates the decision of some Ideal wise man. This is a following out of the Sokratic analogy of the professions, to a purely ideal demand; the wise man is never producible. In many dialogues (Kriton, Laches, &c.) the decision of some Expert is sought, as a physician is consulted in disease; but the Moral expert is unknown to any actual community.

In LACHES, the question 'what is Virtue?' is put; it is argued under the special virtue of _Courage_. In a truly Sokratic dialogue, Sokrates is in search of a definition of Courage; as happens in the search dialogues, there is no definite result, but the drift of the discussion is to make courage a mode of intelligence, and to resolve it into the grand desideratum of the knowledge of good and evil--belonging to the One Wise Man.

CHARMIDES discusses _Temperance_. As usual with Plato in discussing the virtues, with a view to their Logical definition, he presupposes that this is something beneficial and good. Various definitions are given of Temperance; and all are rejected; but the dialogue falls into the same track as the Laches, in putting forward the supreme science of good and evil. It is a happy example of the Sokratic manner and purpose, of exposing the conceit of knowledge, the fancy that people understand the meaning of the general terms habitually employed.

LYSIS on _Friendship_, or Love, might be expected to furnish some ethical openings, but it is rather a piece of dialectic, without result, farther than to impart the consciousness of ignorance. If it suggests anything positive, it is the Idea of Good, as the ultimate end of affection. The subject is one of special interest in ancient Ethics, as being one of the aspects of Benevolent sentiment in the Pagan world. In Aristotle we first find a definite handling of it.

MENON may be considered as pre-eminently ethical in its design. It is expressly devoted to the question--Is Virtue _teachable_? Sokrates as usual confesses that he does not know what virtue is. He will not accept a catalogue of the admitted virtues as a definition of virtue, and presses for some common, or defining attribute. He advances on his own side his usual doctrine that virtue is Knowledge, or a mode of Knowledge, and that it is good and profitable; which is merely an iteration of the Science of good and evil. He distinguishes virtue from Right Opinion, a sort of quasi-knowledge, the knowledge of esteemed and useful citizens, which cannot be the highest knowledge, since these citizens fail to impart it even to their own sons.

In this dialogue, we have Plato's view of Immortality, which comprises both pre-existence and post-existence. The pre-existence is used to explain the derivation of general notions, or Ideas, which are antecedent to the perceptions of sense.

In PROTAGORAS, we find one of the most important of the ethical discussions of Plato. It proceeds from the same question--Is virtue teachable?--Sokrates as usual expressing his doubts on the point. Protagoras then delivers a splendid harangue, showing how virtue is taught--namely, by the practice of society in approving, condemning, rewarding, punishing the actions of individuals. From childhood upward, every human being in society is a witness to the moral procedure of society, and by degrees both knows, and conforms to, the maxims of virtue of the society. Protagoras himself as a professed teacher, or sophist, can improve but little upon, this habitual inculcation. Sokrates, at the end of the harangue, puts in his usual questions tending to bring out the essence or definition of virtue, and soon drives Protagoras into a corner, bringing him to admit a view nowhere else developed in Plato, that Pleasure is the only good, Pain the only evil, and that the science of Good and Evil consists in Measuring, and in choosing between conflicting pleasures and pains--preferring the greater pleasure to the less, the less pain to the greater. For example, courage is a wise estimate of things terrible and things not terrible. In consistency with the doctrine that Knowledge is virtue, it is maintained here as elsewhere, that a man knowing good and evil must act upon that knowledge. Plato often repeats his theory of Measurement, but never again specifically intimates that the things to be measured are pleasures and pains. And neither here nor elsewhere, does he suppose the virtuous man taking directly into his calculation the pleasures and pains of other persons.

GORGIAS, one of the most renowned of the dialogues in point of composition, is also ethical, but at variance with the Protagoras, and more in accordance with Plato's predominating views. The professed subject is Rhetoric, which, as an art, Sokrates professes to hold in contempt. The dialogue begins with the position that men are prompted by the desire of good, but proceeds to the great Platonic paradox, that it is a greater evil to do wrong than to suffer wrong. The criminal labours under a mental distemper, and the best thing that can happen to him, is to be punished that so he may be cured. The unpunished wrong-doer is more miserable than if he were punished. Sokrates in this dialogue maintains, in opposition to the thesis of Protagoras, that pleasure is not the same as good, that there are bad pleasures and good pains; and a skilful adviser, one versed in the science of good and evil, must discriminate between them. He does not mean that those pleasures only are bad that bring an overplus of future pains, which would be in accordance with the previous dialogue. The sentiment of the dialogue is ascetic and self-denying.[7] Order or Discipline is inculcated, not as a means to an end, but as an end in itself.

The POLITIKUS is on the Art of Government, and gives the Platonic _beau idéal_ of the One competent person, governing absolutely, by virtue of his scientific knowledge, and aiming at the good and improvement of the governed. This is merely another illustration of the Sokratic ideal--a despotism, anointed by supreme good intentions, and by an ideal skill. The Republic is an enlargement of the lessons of the Politikus without the dialectic discussion.

The postulate of the One Wise man is repeated in KRATYLUS, on the unpromising subject of Language or the invention of Names.

The PHILEBUS has a decidedly ethical character. It propounds for enquiry the _Good_, the Summum Bonum. This is denied to be mere pleasure, and the denial is enforced by Sokrates challenging his opponent to choose the lot of an ecstatic oyster. As usual, good must be related to Intelligence; and the Dialogue gives a long disquisition upon the One and the Many, the Theory of Ideas, the Determinate and the Indeterminate. Good is a compound of Pleasure and Intelligence, the last predominating. Pleasure is the Indeterminate, requiring the Determinate (Knowledge) to regulate it. This is merely another expression for the doctrine of Measure, and for the common saying, that the Passions must be controlled by Reason. There is, also, in the dialogue, a good deal on the Psychology of Pleasure and Pain. Pleasure is the fundamental harmony of the system; Pain its disturbance. Bodily Pleasure pre-supposes pain [true only of some pleasures]. Mental pleasures may be without previous pain, and are therefore pure pleasures. A life of Intelligence is conceivable without either pain or pleasure; this is the choice of the Wise man, and is the nature of the gods. Desire is a mixed state, and comprehends body and mind. Much stress is laid on the moderate and tranquil pleasures; the intense pleasures, coveted by mankind, belong to a distempered rather than a healthy state; they are false and delusive. Pleasure is, by its nature, a change or transition, and cannot be a supreme end. The mixture of Pleasure and Intelligence is to be adjusted by the all-important principle of Measure or Proportion, which connects the Good with the Beautiful.

A decided asceticism is the ethical tendency of this dialogue. It is markedly opposed to the view of the Protagoras. Still greater is the opposition between it and the two Erotic dialogues, Phaedrus and Symposium, where _Bonum_ and _Pulchrum_ are attained in the pursuit of an ecstatic and overwhelming personal affection.

The REPUBLIC starts with the question--what is JUSTICE? and, in answering it, provides the scheme of a model Republic. Book I. is a Sokratic colloquy, where one speaker, on being interrogated, defines Justice as 'rendering to every man his due,' and afterwards amends it to 'doing good to friends, evil to enemies.' Another gives 'the right of the strongest.' A third maintains that Injustice by itself is profitable to the doer; but, as it is an evil to society in general, men make laws against it and punish it; in consequence of which, Justice is the more profitable. Sokrates, in opposition, undertakes to prove that Justice is good in itself, ensuring the happiness of the doer by its intrinsic effect on his mind; and irrespective of exemption from the penalties of injustice. He reaches this result by assimilating an individual to a state. Justice is shown to be good in the entire city, and by analogy it is also good in the individual. He accordingly proceeds to construct his ideal commonwealth. In the course of this construction many ethical views crop out.

The state must prescribe the religious belief, and allow no compositions at variance with it. The gods must always be set forth as the causes of good; they must never be represented as the authors of evil, nor as practising deceit. Neither is it to be allowed to represent men as unjust, yet happy; or just, and yet miserable. The poetic representation of bad characters is also forbidden. The musical training is to be adapted for disposing the mind to the perception of Beauty, whence it becomes qualified to recognize the other virtues. Useful fictions are to be diffused, without regard to truth. This pious fraud is openly recommended by Plato.

The division of the human mind into (1) REASON or Intelligence; (2) ENERGY, Courage, Spirit, or the Military Virtue; and (3) Many-headed APPETITE, all in mutual counter-play--is transferred to the State, each of the three parts being represented by one of the political orders or divisions of the community. The happiness of the man and the happiness of the commonwealth are attained in the same way, namely, by realizing the four virtues--Wisdom, Courage, Temperance, Justice; with this condition, that Wisdom, or Reason, is sought only in the Ruling caste, the Elders; Courage, or Energy, only in the second caste, the Soldiers or Guardians; while Temperance and Justice (meaning almost the same thing) must inhere alike in all the three classes, and be the only thing expected in the third, the Working Multitude.

If it be now asked, what and where is Justice? the answer is--'every man to attend to his own business.' Injustice occurs when any one abandons his post, or meddles with what does not belong to him; and more especially when any one of a lower division aspires to the function of a higher. Such is Justice for the city, and such is it in the individual; the higher faculty--Reason, must control the two lower--Courage and Appetite. Justice is thus a sort of harmony or balance of the mental powers; it is to the mind what health is to the body. Health is the greatest good, sickness the greatest evil, of the body; so is Justice of the mind.

It is an essential of the Platonic Republic that, among the guardians at least, the sexual arrangements should be under public regulation, and the monopoly of one woman by one man forbidden: a regard to the breed of the higher caste of citizens requires the magistrate to see that the best couples are brought together, and to refuse to rear the inferior offspring of ill-assorted connexions. The number of births is also to be regulated.

In carrying on war, special maxims of clemency are to be observed towards Hellenic enemies.

The education of the Guardians must be philosophical; it is for them to rise to the Idea of the good, to master the science of Good and Evil; they must be emancipated from the notion that Pleasure is the good. To indicate the route to this attainment Plato gives his theory of cognition generally--the theory of Ideas;--and indicates (darkly) how these sublime generalities are to be reached.

The Ideal Commonwealth supposed established, is doomed to degradation and decay; passing through Timocracy, Oligarchy, Democracy, to Despotism, with a corresponding declension of happiness. The same varieties may be traced in the Individual; the 'despotized' mind is the acme of Injustice and consequent misery.

The comparative value of Pleasures is discussed. The pleasures of philosophy, or wisdom (those of Reason), are alone true and pure; the pleasures corresponding to the two other parts of the mind are inferior; Love of Honour (from Courage or Energy), and Love of Money (Appetite). The well-ordered mind--Justice--is above all things the source of happiness. Apart from all consequences of Justice, this is true; the addition of the natural results only enhances the strength of the position.

In TIMAEUS, Plato repeats the doctrine that wickedness is to the mind what disease is to the body. The soul suffers from two distempers, madness and ignorance; the man under passionate heat is not wicked voluntarily. No man is bad willingly; but only from some evil habit of body, the effect of bad bringing-up [very much the view of Robert Owen].

The long treatise called the LAWS, being a modified scheme of a Republic, goes over the same ground with more detail. We give the chief ethical points. It is the purpose of the lawgiver to bring about happiness, and to provide all good things divine and human. The divine things are the cardinal virtues--Wisdom, Justice, Temperance, Courage; the human are the leading personal advantages--Health, Beauty, Strength, Activity, Wealth. He requires the inculcation of self-command, and a training in endurance. The moral and religious feelings are to be guided in early youth, by the influence of Poetry and the other Fine Arts, in which, as before, a stringent censorship is to be exercised; the songs and dances are all to be publicly authorized. The ethical doctrine that the just man is happy and the unjust miserable, is to be preached; and every one prohibited from contradicting it. Of all the titles to command in society, Wisdom is the highest, although policy may require it to be conjoined with some of the others (Birth, Age, Strength, Accident, &c.). It is to be a part of the constitution to provide public exhortations, or sermons, for inculcating virtue; Plato having now passed into an opposite phase as to the value of Rhetoric, or continuous address. The family is to be allowed in its usual form, but with restraints on the age of marriage, on the choice of the parties, and on the increase of the number of the population. Sexual intercourse is to be as far as possible confined to persons legally married; those departing from this rule are, at all events, to observe secresy. The slaves are not to be of the same race as the masters. As regards punishment, there is a great complication, owing to the author's theory that wickedness is not properly voluntary. Much of the harm done by persons to others is unintentional or involuntary, and is to be made good by reparation. For the loss of balance or self-control, making the essence of injustice, there must be a penal and educational discipline, suited to cure the moral distemper; not for the sake of the past, which cannot be recalled, but of the future. Under cover of this theory, the punishments are abundantly severe; and the crimes include Heresy, for which there is a gradation of penalties terminating in death.

We may now summarize the Ethics of Plato, under the general scheme as follows:--

I.--The Ethical Standard, or criterion of moral Right and Wrong. This we have seen is, ultimately, the Science of Good and Evil, as determined by a Scientific or Wise man; the Idea of the Good, which only a philosopher can ascend to. Plato gave no credit to the maxims of the existing society; these were wholly unscientific.

It is obvious that this vague and indeterminate standard would settle nothing practically; no one can tell what it is. It is only of value as belonging to a very exalted and poetic conception of virtue, something that raises the imagination above common life into a sphere of transcendental existence.

II.--The Psychology of Ethics.

1. As to the Faculty of discerning Right. This is implied in the foregoing statement of the criterion. It is the Cognitive or Intellectual power. In the definite position taken up in Protagoras, it is the faculty of Measuring pleasures against one another and against pains. In other dialogues, measure is still the important aspect of the process, although the things to be measured are not given.

2. As regards the Will. The theory that vice, if not the result of ignorance, is a form of madness, an uncontrollable fury, a mental distemper, gives a peculiar rendering of the nature of man's Will. It is a kind of Necessity, not exactly corresponding, however, with the modern doctrine of that name.

3. Disinterested Sentiment is not directly and plainly recognized by Plato. His highest virtue is self-regarding; a concern for the Health of the Soul.

III.--On the Bonum, or Summum Bonum, Plato is ascetic and self-denying. 1. We have seen that in Philebus, Pleasure is not good, unless united with Knowledge or Intelligence; and the greater the Intelligence, the higher the pleasure. That the highest happiness of man is the pursuit of truth or Philosophy, was common to Plato and to Aristotle.

2. Happiness is attainable only through Justice or Virtue. Justice is declared to be happiness, first, in itself, and secondly, in its consequences. Such is the importance attached to this maxim as a safeguard of Society, that, whether true or not, it is to be maintained by state authority.

3. The Psychology of Pleasure and Pain is given at length in the Philebus.

IV.--With regard to the scheme of Duty. In Plato, we find the first statement of the four Cardinal Virtues.

As to the Substance of the Moral Code, the references above made to the Republic and the Laws will show in what points his views differed from modern Ethics.

Benevolence was not one of the Cardinal Virtues.

His notions even of Reciprocity were rendered hazy and indistinct by his theory of Justice as an end in itself.

The inducements, means, and stimulants to virtue, in addition to penal discipline, are training, persuasion, or hortatory discourse, dialectic cognition of the Ideas, and, above all, that ideal aspiration towards the Just, the Good, around which he gathered all that was fascinating in poetry, and all the associations of religion and divinity. Plato employed his powerful genius in working up a lofty spiritual reward, an ideal intoxication, for inciting men to the self-denying virtues. He was the first and one of the greatest of preachers. His theory of Justice is suited to preaching, and not to a scientific analysis of society.

V.--The relation of Ethics to Politics is intimate, and even inseparable. The Civil Magistrate, as in Hobbes, supplies the Ethical sanction. All virtue is an affair of the state, a political institution. This, however, is qualified by the demand for an ideal state, and an ideal governor, by whom alone anything like perfect virtue can be ascertained.

VI.--The relationship with Theology is also close. That is to say, Plato was not satisfied to construct a science of good and evil, without conjoining the sentiments towards the Gods. His Theology, however, was of his own invention, and adapted to his ethical theory. It was necessary to suppose that the gods were the authors of good, in order to give countenance to virtue.

Plato was the ally of the Stoics, as against the Epicureans, and of such modern theorists as Butler, who make virtue, and not happiness, the highest end of man. With him, discipline was an end in itself, and not a means; and he endeavoured to soften its rigour by his poetical and elevated Idealism.

Although he did not preach the good of mankind, or direct beneficence, he undoubtedly prepared the way for it, by urging self-denial, which has no issue or relevance, except either by realizing greater happiness to Self (mere exalted Prudence, approved of by all sects), or by promoting the welfare of others.

THE CYNICS AND THE CYRENAICS.

These opposing sects sprang from Sokrates, and passed, with little modification, the one into the Stoics, the other into the Epicureans. Both ANTISTHENES, the founder of the Cynics, and ARISTIPPUS, the founder of the Cyrenaics, were disciples of Sokrates.

Their doctrines chiefly referred to the Summum Bonum--the Art of Living, or of Happiness.

The CYNICS were most closely allied to Sokrates; they, in fact, carried out to the full his chosen mode of life. His favourite maxim--that the gods had no wants, and that the most godlike man was he that approached to the same state--was the Cynic Ideal. To subsist upon the narrowest means; to acquire indifference to pain, by a discipline of endurance; to despise all the ordinary pursuits of wealth and pleasure,--were Sokratic peculiarities, and were the _beau idéal_ of Cynicism.

The Cynic succession of philosophers were, (1) ANTISTHENES, one of the most constant friends and companions of Sokrates; (2) DIOGENES of Sinope, the pupil of Antisthenes, and the best known type of the sect. (His disciple Krates, a Theban, was the master of Zeno, the first Stoic.) (3) STILPON of Megara, (4) MENEDEMUS of Eretria, (5) MONIMUS of Syracuse, (6) KRATES.

The two first heads of the Ethical scheme, so meagrely filled up by the ancient systems generally, are almost a total blank as regards both Cynics and Cyrenaics.

I.--As regards a Standard of right and wrong, moral good or evil, they recognized nothing but obedience to the laws and customs of society.

II.--They had no Psychology of a moral faculty, of the will, or of benevolent sentiment. The Cyrenaic Aristippus had a Psychology of Pleasure and Pain.

The Cynics, instead of discussing Will, exercised it, in one of its most prominent forms,--self-control and endurance.

Disinterested conduct was no part of their scheme, although the ascetic discipline necessarily promotes abstinence from sins against property, and from all the vices of public ambition.

III.--The proper description of both systems comes under the Summum Bonum, or the Art of Living.

The Cynic Ideal was the minimum of wants, the habituation to pain, together with indifference to the common enjoyments. The compensating reward was exemption from fear, anxiety, and disappointment; also, the pride of superiority to fellow-beings and of approximation to the gods. Looking at the great predominance of misery in human life, they believed the problem of living to consist in a mastery over all the forms of pain; until this was first secured, there was to be a total sacrifice of pleasure.

The Cynics were mostly, like Sokrates, men of robust health, and if they put their physical constitution to a severe test by poor living and exposure to wind and weather, they also saved it from the wear and tear of steady industry and toil. Exercise of body and of mind, with a view to strength and endurance, was enjoined; but it was the drill of the soldier rather than the drudgery of the artisan.

In the eyes of the public, the prominent feature of the Cynic was his contemptuous jeering, and sarcastic abuse of everybody around. The name (Cynic, dog-like) denotes this peculiarity. The anecdotes relating to Diogenes illustrate his coarse denunciation of men in general and their luxurious ways. He set at defiance all the conventions of courtesy and of decency; spoke his mind on everything without fear or remorse; and delighted in his antagonism to public opinion. He followed the public and obtrusive life of Sokrates, but instead of dialectic skill, his force lay in vituperation, sarcasm, and repartee. 'To Sokrates,' says Epiktetus, 'Zeus assigned the cross-examining function; to Diogenes, the magisterial and chastising function; to Zeno (the Stoic), the didactic and dogmatical.'

The Cynics had thus in full measure one of the rewards of asceticism, the pride of superiority and power. They did not profess an end apart from their own happiness; they believed and maintained that theirs was the only safe road to happiness. They agreed with the Cyrenaics as to the end; they differed as to the means.

The founders of the sect, being men of culture, set great store by education, from which, however, they excluded (as it would appear) both the Artistic and the Intellectual elements of the superior instruction of the time, namely, Music, and the Sciences of Geometry, Astronomy, &c. Plato's writings and teachings were held in low esteem. Physical training, self-denial and endurance, and literary or Rhetorical cultivation, comprise the items taught by Diogenes when he became a slave, and was made tutor to the sons of his master.

IV.--As to the Moral Code, the Cynics were dissenters from the received usages of society. They disapproved of marriage laws, and maintained the liberty of individual tastes in the intercourse of the sexes. Being free-thinkers in religion they had no respect for any of the customs founded on religion.

V. The collateral relations of Cynical Ethics to Politics and to Theology afford no scope for additional observations. The Cynic and Cyrenaic both stood aloof from the affairs of the state, and were alike disbelievers in the gods.

The Cynics appear to have been inclined to communism among themselves, which was doubtless easy with their views as to the wants of life. It is thought not unlikely that Sokrates himself held views of communism both as to property and to wives; being in this respect also the prompter of Plato (Grant's Ethics of Aristotle, Essay ii.).

The CYRENAIC system originated with ARISTIPPUS of Cyrene, another hearer and companion of Sokrates. The temperament of Aristippus was naturally inactive, easy, and luxurious; nevertheless he set great value on mental cultivation and accomplishments. His conversations with Sokrates form one of the most interesting chapters of Xenophon's Memorabilia, and are the key to the plan of life ultimately elaborated by him. Sokrates finding out his disposition, repeats all the arguments in favour of the severe and ascetic system. He urges the necessity of strength, courage, energy, self-denial, in order to attain the post of ruler over others; which, however, Aristippus fences by saying that he has no ambition to rule; he prefers the middle course of a free man, neither ruling nor ruled over. Next, Sokrates recalls the dangers and evil contingencies of subjection, of being oppressed, unjustly treated, sold into slavery, and the consequent wretchedness to one unhardened by an adequate discipline. It is in this argument that he recites the well-known apologue called the choice of Herakles; in which, Virtue on the one hand, and Pleasure with attendant vice on the other, with their respective consequences, are set before a youth in his opening career. The whole argument with Aristippus was purely prudential; but Aristippus was not convinced nor brought over to the Sokratic ideal. He nevertheless adopted a no less prudential and self-denying plan of his own.

Aristippus did not write an account of his system; and the particulars of his life, which would show how he acted it, are but imperfectly preserved. He was the first theorist to avow and maintain that Pleasure, and the absence of Pain, are the proper, the direct, the immediate, the sole end of living; not of course mere present pleasures and present relief from pain, but present and future taken in one great total. He would surrender present pleasure, and incur present pain, with a view to greater future good; but he did not believe in the necessity of that extreme surrender and renunciation enjoined by the Cynics. He gratified all his appetites and cravings within the limits of safety. He could sail close upon the island of Calypso without surrendering himself to the sorceress. Instead of deadening the sexual appetite he gave it scope, and yet resisted the dangerous consequences of associating with Hetaerae. In his enjoyments he was free from jealousies; thinking it no derogation to his pleasure that others had the same pleasure. Having thus a fair share of natural indulgences, he dispenses with the Cynic pride of superiority and the luxury of contemning other men. Strength of will was required for this course no less than for the Cynic life.

Aristippus put forward strongly the impossibility of realizing all the Happiness that might seem within one's reach; such were the attendant and deterring evils, that many pleasures had to be foregone by the wise man. Sometimes even the foolish person attained more pleasure than the wise; such is the lottery of life; but, as a general rule, the fact would be otherwise. The wisest could not escape the natural evils, pain and death; but envy, passionate love, and superstition, being the consequences of vain and mistaken opinion, might be conquered by a knowledge of the real nature of Good and Evil.

As a proper appendage to such a system, Aristippus sketched a Psychology of Pleasure and Pain, which was important as a beginning, and is believed to have brought the subject into prominence. The soul comes under three conditions,--a gentle, smooth, equable motion, corresponding to Pleasure; a rough, violent motion, which is Pain; and a calm, quiescent state, indifference or Unconsciousness. More remarkable is the farther assertion that Pleasure is only _present_ or _realized_ consciousness; the memory of pleasures past, and the idea of pleasures to come, are not to be counted; the painful accompaniments of desire, hope, and fear, are sufficient to neutralize any enjoyment that may arise from ideal bliss, Consequently, the happiness of a life means the sum total of these moments of realized or present pleasure. He recognized pleasures of the mind, as well as of the body; sympathy with the good fortunes of friends or country gives a thrill of genuine and lively joy. Still, the pleasures and the pains of the body, and of one's own self, are more intense; witness the bodily inflictions used in punishing offenders.

The Cyrenaics denied that there is anything just, or honourable, or base, by nature; all depended on the laws and customs. These laws and customs the wise man obeys, to avoid punishment and discredit from the society where he lives; doubtless, also, from higher motives, if the political constitution, and his fellow citizens generally, can inspire him with respect.

Neither the Cynics nor the Cyrenaics made any profession of generous or disinterested impulses.

ARISTOTLE. [384-322 B.C.]

Three treatises on Ethics have come down associated with the name of Aristotle; one large work, the Nicomachean Ethics, referred to by general consent as the chief and important source of Aristotle's views; and two smaller works, the Eudemian Ethics, and the Magna Moralia, attributed by later critics to his disciples. Even of the large work, which consists of ten books, three books (V. VI. VII.), recurring in the Eudemian Ethics, are considered by Sir A. Grant, though not by other critics, to have been composed by Eudemus, the supposed author of this second treatise, and a leading disciple of Aristotle.

Like many other Aristotelian treatises, the Nicomachean Ethics is deficient in method and consistency on any view of its composition. But the profound and sagacious remarks scattered throughout give it a permanent interest, as the work of a great mind. There may be extracted from it certain leading doctrines, whose point of departure was Platonic, although greatly modified and improved by the genius and personality of Aristotle.

Our purpose will be best served by a copious abstract of the Nicomachean Ethics.

Book First discusses the Chief Good, or the Highest End of all human endeavours. Every exercise of the human powers aims at some good; all the arts of life have their several ends--medicine, ship-building, generalship. But the ends of these special arts are all subordinate to some higher end; which end is the chief good, and the subject of the highest art of all, the Political; for as Politics aims at the welfare of the state, or aggregate of individuals, it is identical with and comprehends the welfare of the individual (Chaps. I., II.).

As regards the _method_ of the science, the highest exactness is not attainable; the political art studies what is just, honourable, and good; and these are matters about which the utmost discrepancy of opinion prevails. From such premises, the conclusions which we draw can only be probabilities. The man of experience and cultivation will expect nothing more. Youths, who are inexperienced in the concerns of life, and given to follow their impulses, can hardly appreciate our reasoning, and will derive no benefit from it: but reasonable men will find the knowledge highly profitable (III.).

Resuming the main question--What is the highest practical good--the aim of the all-comprehending political science?--we find an agreement among men as to the name _happiness_ [Greek: eudaimonia]; but great differences as to the nature of the thing. The many regard it as made up of the tangible elements--pleasures, wealth, or honour; while individuals vary in their estimate according to each man's state for the time being; the sick placing it in health, the poor in wealth, the consciously ignorant in knowledge. On the other hand, certain philosophers [in allusion to Plato] set up an absolute good,--an Idea of the Good, apart from all the particulars, yet imparting to each its property of being good (IV.).

Referring to men's lives (as a clue to their notions of the good), we find three prominent varieties; the life of pleasure or sensuality,--the political life, aspiring to honour,--and the contemplative life. The first is the life of the brutes, although countenanced by men high in power. The second is too precarious, as depending on others, and is besides only a means to an end--namely, our consciousness of our own merits; for the ambitious man seeks to be honoured for his virtue and by good judges--thus showing that he too regards virtue as the superior good. Yet neither will virtue satisfy all the conditions. The virtuous man may slumber or pass his life in inactivity, or may experience the maximum of calamity; and such a man cannot be regarded as happy. The money-lender is still less entitled, for he is an unnatural character; and money is obviously good as a means. So that there remains only the life of contemplation; respecting which more presently (V.).

To a review of the Platonic doctrine, Aristotle devotes a whole chapter. He urges against it various objections, very much of a piece with those brought against the theory of Ideas generally. If there be but one good, there should be but one science; the alleged Idea is merely a repetition of the phenomena; the recognized goods (_i.e._, varieties of good) cannot be brought under one Idea; moreover, even granting the reality of such an Idea, it is useless for all practical purposes. What our science seeks is Good, human and attainable (VI.).

The Supreme End is what is not only chosen as an End, but is never chosen except as an End: not chosen both for itself and with a view to something ulterior. It must thus be--(1) An _end-in-itself_ pursued for its own sake; (2) it must farther be _self-sufficing_ leaving no outstanding wants--man's sociability being taken into account and gratified. Happiness is such an end; but we must state more clearly wherein happiness consists.

This will appear, if we examine what is the work appropriate and peculiar to man. Every artist, the sculptor, carpenter, currier (so too the eye and the hand), has his own peculiar work: and good, to him, consists in his performing that work well. Man also has his appropriate and peculiar work: not merely living--for that he has in common with vegetables; nor the life of sensible perception--for that he has in common with other animals, horses, oxen, &c. There remains the life of man as a rational being: that is, as a being possessing reason along with other mental elements, which last are controllable or modifiable by reason. This last life is the peculiar work or province of man. For our purpose, we must consider man, not merely as possessing, but as actually exercising and putting in action, these mental capacities. Moreover, when we talk generally of the work or province of an artist, we always tacitly imply a complete and excellent artist in his own craft: and so likewise when we speak of the work of a man, we mean that work as performed by a complete and competent man. Since the work of man, therefore, consists in the active exercise of the mental capacities, conformably to reason, the supreme good of man will consist in performing this work with excellence or virtue. Herein he will obtain happiness, if we assume continuance throughout a full period of life: one day or a short time is not sufficient for happiness (VII.).

Aristotle thus lays down the outline of man's supreme Good or Happiness: which he declares to be the beginning or principle [Greek: archae] of his deductions, and to be obtained in the best way that the subject admits. He next proceeds to compare this outline with the various received opinions on the subject of happiness, showing that it embraces much of what has been considered essential by former philosophers: such as being 'a good of the mind,' and not a mere external good: being equivalent to 'living well and doing well,' another definition; consisting in virtue (the Cynics); in practical wisdom--[Greek: phronaesis] (Sokrates); in philosophy; or in all these coupled with pleasure (Plato, in the Philebus). Agreeing with those who insisted on virtue, Aristotle considers his own theory an improvement, by requiring virtue in act, and not simply in possession. Moreover, he contends that to the virtuous man, virtuous performance is in itself pleasurable; so that no extraneous source of pleasure is needed. Such (he says) is the judgment of the truly excellent man; which must be taken as conclusive respecting the happiness, as well as the honourable pre-eminence of the best mental exercises. Nevertheless, he admits (so far complying with the Cyrenaics) that some extraneous conditions cannot be dispensed with; the virtuous man can hardly exhibit his virtue in act, without some aid from friends and property; nor can he be happy if his person is disgusting to behold or his parentage vile (VIII.).

This last admission opens the door to those that place good fortune in the same line with happiness, and raises the question, how happiness is attained. By teaching? By habitual exercise? By divine grace? By Fortune? If there be any gift vouchsafed by divine grace to man, it ought to be this; but whether such be the case or not, it is at any rate the most divine and best of all acquisitions. To ascribe such an acquisition as this to Fortune would be absurd. Nature, which always aims at the best, provides that it shall be attained, through a certain course of teaching and training, by all who are not physically or mentally disqualified. It thus falls within the scope of political science, whose object is to impart the best character and active habits to the citizens. It is with good reason that we never call a horse happy, for he can never reach such an attainment; nor indeed can a child be so called while yet a child, for the same reason; though in his case we may hope for the future, presuming on a full term of life, as was before postulated (IX.). But-this long term allows room for extreme calamities and change in a man's lot. Are we then to say, with Solon, that no one can be called happy so long as he lives? or that the same man may often pass backwards and forwards from happiness to misery? No; this only shows the mistake of resting happiness upon so unsound a basis as external fortune. The only true basis of it is the active manifestation of mental excellence, which no ill fortune can efface from a man's mind (X.). Such a man will bear calamity, if it comes, with dignity, and can never be made thoroughly miserable. If he be moderately supplied as to external circumstances, he is to be styled happy; that is, happy as a man--as far as man can reasonably expect. Even after his decease he-will be affected, yet only feebly affected, by the good or ill fortune of his surviving children. Aristotle evidently assigns little or no value to presumed posthumous happiness (XI.).

In his love of subtle distinctions, he asks, Is happiness a thing admirable in itself, or a thing praiseworthy? It is admirable in itself; for what is praiseworthy has a relative character, and is praised as conducive to some ulterior end; while the chief good must be an End in itself, for the sake of which everything else is done (XII.). [This is a defective recognition of Relativity.]

Having assumed as one of the items of his definition, that man's happiness must be in his special or characteristic work, performed with perfect excellence,--Aristotle now proceeds to settle wherein that excellence consists. This leads to a classification of the parts of the soul. The first distribution is, into Rational and Irrational; whether these two are separable in fact, or only logically separable (like concave and convex), is immaterial to the present enquiry. Of the irrational, the lowest portion is the Vegetative [Greek: phytikon], which seems most active in sleep; a state where bad men and good are on a par, and which is incapable of any human excellence. The next portion is the Appetitive [Greek: epithymaetikon], which is not thus incapable. It partakes of reason, yet it includes something conflicting with reason. These conflicting tendencies are usually modifiable by reason, and may become in the temperate man completely obedient to reason. There remains Reason--the highest and sovereign portion of the soul. Human excellence [Greek: aretae] or virtue, is either of the Appetitive part,--moral [Greek: aethikae] virtue; or of the Reason--intellectual [Greek: dianoaetikae] virtue. Liberality and temperance are Moral virtues; philosophy, intelligence, and wisdom, Intellectual (XIII.).

Such is an outline of the First Book, having for its subject the Chief Good, the Supreme End of man.

Book Second embraces the consideration of points relative to the Moral Virtues; it also commences Aristotle's celebrated definition and classification of the virtues or excellencies.

Whereas intellectual excellence is chiefly generated and improved by teaching, moral excellence is a result of habit [Greek: ethos]; whence its name (Ethical). Hence we may see that moral excellence is no inherent part of our nature: if it were, it could not be reversed by habit--any more than a stone can acquire from any number of repetitions the habit of moving upward, or fire the habit of moving downward. These moral excellencies are neither a part of our nature, nor yet contrary to our nature: we are by nature fitted to take them on, but they are brought to consummation through habit. It is not with them, as with our senses, where nature first gives us the power to see and hear, and where we afterwards exercise that power. Moral virtues are acquired only by practice. We learn to build or to play the harp, by building or playing the harp: so too we become just or courageous, by a course of just or courageous acts. This is attested by all lawgivers in their respective cities; all of them shape the characters of their respective citizens, by enforcing habitual practice. Some do it well; others ill; according to the practice, so will be the resulting character; as he that is practised in building badly, will be a bad builder in the end; and he that begins on a bad habit of playing the harp, becomes confirmed into a bad player. Hence the importance of making the young perform good actions habitually and from the beginning. The permanent ethical acquirements are generated by uniform and persistent practice (I.). [This is the earliest statement of the philosophy of _habit_.]

Everything thus turns upon practice: and Aristotle reminds us that his purpose here is, not simply to teach what virtue is, but to produce virtuous agents. How are we to know what the practice should be? It must be conformable to right reason: every one admits this, and we shall explain it further in a future book. But let us proclaim at once, that in regard to moral action, as in regard to health, no exact rules can be laid down. Amidst perpetual variability, each agent must in the last resort be guided by the circumstances of the case. Still, however, something may be done to help him. Here Aristotle proceeds to introduce the famous doctrine of the MEAN. We may err, as regards health, both by too much and by too little of exercise, food, or drink. The same holds good in regard to temperance, courage, and the other excellences (II.).

His next remark is another of his characteristic doctrines, that the _test of a formed habit of virtue, is to feel no pain_; he that feels pain in brave acts is a coward. Whence he proceeds to illustrate the position, that moral virtue [Greek: aethikae aretae] has to do with pleasures and pains. A virtuous education consists in making us feel pleasure and pain at proper objects, and on proper occasions. Punishment is a discipline of pain. Some philosophers (the Cynics) have been led by this consideration to make virtue consist in apathy, or insensibility; but Aristotle would regulate, and not extirpate our sensibilities (III.).

But does it not seem a paradox to say (according to the doctrine of habit in I.), that a man becomes just, by performing just actions; since, if he performs just actions, he is already just? The answer is given by a distinction drawn in a comparison with the training in the common arts of life. That a man is a good writer or musician, we see by his writing or his music; we take no account of the state of his mind in other respects: if he knows how to do this, it is enough. But in respect to moral excellence, such knowledge is not enough: a man may do just or temperate acts, but he is not necessarily a just or temperate man, unless he does them with right intention and on their own account. This state of the internal mind, which is requisite to constitute the just and temperate man, follows upon the habitual practice of just and temperate acts, and follows upon nothing else. But most men are content to talk without any such practice. They fancy erroneously that _knowing_, without doing, will make a good man. [We have here the reaction against the Sokratic doctrine of virtue, and also the statement of the necessity of a _prosper motive_, in order to virtue.]

Aristotle now sets himself to find a definition of virtue, _per genus et differentiam_. There are three qualities in the Soul--_Passions_ [Greek: pathae], as Desire, Anger, Fear, &c., followed by pleasure or pain; _Capacities_ or _Faculties_ [Greek: dynameis], as our capability of being angry, afraid, affected by pity, &c.; _Fixed tendencies, acquirements_, or _states_ [Greek: hexeis]. To which of the three does virtue or excellence belong? It cannot be a Passion; for passions are not in themselves good or evil, and are not accompanied with deliberate choice [Greek: prouiresis], will, or intention. Nor is it a Faculty: for we are not praised or blamed because we _can_ have such or such emotions; and moreover our faculties are innate, which virtue is not. Accordingly, virtue, or excellence, must be an acquirement [Greek: hexis]--a State (V.). This is the _genus_.

Now, as to the _differentia_, which brings us to a more specific statement of the doctrine of the _Mean_. The specific excellence of virtue is to be got at from quantity in the abstract, from which we derive the conceptions of more, less, and equal; or excess, defect, and mean; the equal being the mean between excess and defect. But in the case of moral actions, the arithmetical mean may not hold (for example, six between two and ten); it must be a mean relative to the individual; Milo must have more food than a novice in the training school. In the arts, we call a work perfect, when anything either added or taken away would spoil it. Now, virtue, which, like Nature, is better and more exact than any art, has for its subject-matter, passions and actions; all which are wrong either in defect or in excess. Virtue aims at the mean between them, or the maximum of Good: which implies a correct estimation of all the circumstances of the act,--when we ought to do it--under what conditions--towards whom--for what purpose--in what manner, &c. This is the praise-worthy mean, which virtue aspires to. We may err in many ways (for evil, as the Pythagoreans said, is of the nature of the Infinite, good of the Finite), but we can do right only in one way; so much easier is the path of error.

Combining then this _differentia_ with the _genus_, as above established, the complete definition is given thus--'Virtue is an acquirement or fixed state, tending by deliberate purpose (genus), towards a mean relative to us (difference).' To which is added the following all-important qualification, 'determined by reason [Greek: logos], and as the _judicious man_ [Greek: ho Phronimos] would determine.' Such is the doctrine of the Mean, which combines the practical matter-of-fact quality of moderation, recognized by all sages, with a high and abstract conception, starting from the Pythagorean remark quoted by Aristotle, 'the Infinite, or Indefinite, is evil, the Finite or the Definite is good,' and re-appearing in Plato as 'conformity to measure' [Greek: metriotaes], by which he (Plato) proposes to discriminate between good and evil. The concluding qualification of virtue--'a rational determination, according to the ideal judicious man'--is an attempt to assign a standard or authority for what is the proper 'Mean;' an authority purely ideal or imaginary; the actual authority being always, rightly or wrongly, the society of the time.

Aristotle admits that his doctrine of Virtue being a mean, cannot have an application quite universal; because there are some acts that in their very name connote badness, which are wrong therefore, not from excess or defect, but in themselves (VI.). He next proceeds to resolve his general doctrine into particulars; enumerating the different virtues stated, each as a mean, between two extremes--Courage, Temperance, Liberality, Magnanimity, Magnificence, Meekness, Amiability or Friendliness, Truthfulness, Justice (VII.). They are described in detail in the two following books. In chap. VIII., he qualifies his doctrine of Mean and Extremes, by the remark that one Extreme may be much farther removed from the Mean than the other. Cowardice and Rashness are the extremes of Courage, but Cowardice is farthest removed from the Mean.

The concluding chapter (IX.) of the Book reflects on the great difficulty of hitting the mean in all things, and of correctly estimating all the requisite circumstances, in each particular case. He gives as practical rules:--To avoid at all events the worst extreme; to keep farthest from our natural bent; to guard against the snare of pleasure. Slight mistakes on either side are little blamed, but grave and conspicuous cases incur severe censure. Yet how far the censure ought to go, is difficult to lay down beforehand in general terms. There is the same difficulty in regard to all particular cases, and all the facts of sense: which must be left, after all, to the judgment of Sensible Perception [Greek: aisthaesis].

Book Third takes up the consideration of the Virtues in detail, but prefaces them with a dissertation, occupying five chapters, on the Voluntary and Involuntary. Since praise and blame are bestowed only on voluntary actions,--the involuntary being pardoned, and even pitied,--it is requisite to define Voluntary and Involuntary. What is done under physical compulsion, or through ignorance, is clearly involuntary. What is done under the fear of greater evils is partly voluntary, and partly involuntary. Such actions are voluntary in the sense of being a man's own actions; involuntary in that they are not chosen on their own account; being praised or blamed according to the circumstances. There are cases where it is difficult to say which of two conflicting pressures ought to preponderate, and compulsion is an excuse often misapplied: but compulsion, in its strict sense, is not strength of motive at all; it is taking the action entirely out of our own hands. As regards Ignorance, a difference is made. Ignorance of a general rule is matter for censure; ignorance of particular circumstances may be excused. [This became the famous maxim of law,--'Ignorantia facti excusat, ignorantia juris non excusat.'] If the agent, when better informed, repents of his act committed in ignorance, he affords good proof that the act done was really involuntary. Acts done from anger or desire (which are in the agent's self) are not to be held as involuntary. (1) If they were, the actions of brutes and children would be involuntary. (2) Some of these acts are morally good and approved. (3) Obligation often attaches to these feelings. (4) What is done from desire is pleasant; the involuntary is painful. (5) Errors of passion are to be eschewed, no less than those of reason (I.).

The next point is the nature of Purpose, Determination, or Deliberate Preference [Greek: proairesis], which is in the closest kindred with moral excellence, and is even more essential, in the ethical estimate, than acts themselves. This is a part of the Voluntary; but not co-extensive therewith. For it excludes sudden and unpremeditated acts; and is not shared by irrational beings. It is distinct from desire, from anger, from wish, and from opinion; with all which it is sometimes confounded. Desire is often opposed to it; the incontinent man acts upon his desires, but without any purpose, or even against his purpose; the continent man acts upon his purpose, but against his desires. Purpose is still more distinct from anger, and is even distinct (though in a less degree) from wish [Greek: boulaesis], which is choice of the End, while Purpose is of the Means; moreover, we sometimes wish for impossibilities, known as such, but we never purpose them. Nor is purpose identical with opinion [Greek: doxa], which relates to truth and falsehood, not to virtue and vice. It is among our voluntary proceedings, and includes intelligence; but is it identical with predeliberated action and its results? (II.)

To answer this query, Aristotle analyzes the process of Deliberation, as to its scope, and its mode of operation. We exclude from deliberation things Eternal, like the Kosmos, or the incommensurability of the side and the diagonal of a square; also things mutable, that are regulated by necessity, by nature, or by chance; things out of our power; also final ends of action, for we deliberate only about the _means_ to ends. The deliberative process is compared to the investigation of a geometrical problem. We assume the end, and enquire by what means it can be produced; then again, what will produce the means, until we at last reach something that we ourselves can command. If, after such deliberation, we see our way to execution, we form a Purpose, or Deliberate Preference [Greek: proairesis]. Purpose is then definable as a deliberative appetency of things in our power (III.).

Next is started the important question as to the choice of the final _End_. Deliberation and Purpose respect means; our Wish respects the End--but what is the End that we wish? Two opinions are noticed; according to one (Plato) we are moved to the good; according to the other, to the apparent good. Both opinions are unsatisfactory; the one would make out an incorrect choice to be no choice at all; the other would take away all constancy from ends.

Aristotle settles the point by distinguishing, in this case as in others, between what bears a given character simply and absolutely, and what bears the same character relatively to this or that individual. The object of Wish, simply, truly, and absolutely, is the Good; while the object of Wish, to any given individual, is what appears Good to him. But by the Absolute here, Aristotle explains that he means what appears good to the _virtuous_ and _intelligent_ man; who is is declared, here as elsewhere, to be the infallible standard; while most men, misled by pleasure, choose what is not truly good. In like manner, Aristotle affirms, that those substances are truly and absolutely wholesome, which are wholesome to the healthy and well-constituted man; other substances may be wholesome to the sick or degenerate. Aristotle's Absolute is thus a Relative with its correlate chosen or imagined by himself.

He then proceeds to maintain that virtue and vice are voluntary, and in our own power. The arguments are these. (1) If it be in our power to act right, the contrary is equally in our own power; hence vice is as much voluntary as virtue. (2) Man must be admitted to be the origin of his own actions. (3) Legislators and others punish men for wickedness, and confer honour on good actions; even culpable ignorance and negligence are punished. (4) Our character itself, or our fixed acquirements, are in our power, being produced by our successive acts; men become intemperate, by acts of drunkenness. (5) Not only the defects of the mind, but the infirmities of the body also, are blamed, when arising through our own neglect and want of training. (6) Even if it should be said that all men aim at the apparent good, but cannot control their mode of conceiving [Greek: phantasia] the end; still each person, being by his acts the cause of his own fixed acquirements, must be to a certain extent the cause of his own conceptions. On this head, too, Aristotle repeats the clenching argument, that the supposed imbecility of conceiving would apply alike to virtue and to vice; so that if virtuous action be regarded as voluntary, vicious action must be so regarded likewise. It must be remembered that a man's fixed acquirements or habits are not in his own power, in the same sense and degree in which his separate acts are in his own power. Each act, from first to last, is alike in his power; but in regard to the habit, it is only the initiation thereof that is thoroughly in his power; the habit, like a distemper, is taken on by imperceptible steps in advance (V.).

In the foregoing account of the Ethical questions connected with the Will, Aristotle is happily unembroiled with the modern controversy. The _mal-apropos_ of 'Freedom' had not been applied to voluntary action. Accordingly, he treats the whole question from the inductive side, distinguishing the cases where people are praised or blamed for their conduct, from those where praise and blame are inapplicable as being powerless. It would have been well if the method had never been departed from; a sound Psychology would have improved the induction, but would never have introduced any question except as to the relative strength of the different feelings operating as motives to voluntary conduct.

In one part of his argument, however, where he maintains that vice must be voluntary, because its opposite, virtue, is voluntary, he is already touching on the magical island of the bad enchantress; allowing a question of fact to be swayed by the notion of factitious dignity. Virtue is assumed to be voluntary, not on the evidence of fact, but because there would be an _indignity_ cast on it, to suppose otherwise. Now, this consideration, which Aristotle gives way to on various occasions, is the motive underlying the objectionable metaphor.

After the preceding digression on the Voluntary and Involuntary, Aristotle takes up the consideration of the Virtues in order, beginning with COURAGE, which was one of the received cardinal virtues, and a subject of frequent discussion. (Plato, _Laches, Protagoras, Republic_, &c.)

Courage [Greek: andreia], the mean between timidity and foolhardiness, has to do with evils. All evils are objects of fear; but there are some evils that even the brave man does right to fear--as disgrace. Poverty or disease he ought not to fear. Yet, he will not acquire the reputation of courage from not fearing these, nor will he acquire it if he be exempt from fear when about to be scourged. Again, if a man be afraid of envy from others, or of insults to his children or wife, he will not for that reason be regarded as a coward. It is by being superior to the fear of great evils, that a man is extolled as courageous; and the greatest of evils is death, since it is a final close, as well of good as of evil. Hence the dangers of war are the greatest occasion of courage. But the cause must be honourable (VI.).

Thus the key to true courage is the quality or merit of the action. That man is brave, who both fears, and affronts without fear, what he ought and when he ought: who suffers and acts according to the value of the cause, and according to a right judgment of it. The opposites or extremes of courage include (1) Deficiency of fear; (2) Excess of fear, cowardice; (3) Deficiency of daring, another formula for cowardice; (4) Excess of daring, Rashness. Between these, Courage is the mean (VII.).

Aristotle enumerates five analogous forms of quasi-courage, approaching more or less to genuine courage. (1) The first, most like to the true, is political courage, which is moved to encounter danger by the Punishments and the Honours of society. The desire of honour rises to virtue, and is a noble spring of action. (2) A second kind is the effect of Experience, which dispels seeming terrors, and gives skill to meet real danger. (3) Anger, Spirit, Energy [Greek: thymos] is a species of courage, founded on physical power and excitement, but not under the guidance of high emotions. (4) The Sanguine temperament, by overrating the chances of success, gives courage. (5) Lastly, Ignorance of the danger may have the same effect as courage (VIII.).

Courage is mainly connected with pain and loss. Men are called brave for the endurance of pain, even although it bring pleasure in the end, as to the boxer who endures bruises from the hope of honour. Death is painful, and most so to the man that by his virtue has made life valuable. Such a man is to be considered more courageous, as a soldier, than a mercenary with little to lose (IX.).

The account of Courage thus given is remarkably exhaustive; although the constituent parts might have been more carefully disentangled. A clear line should be drawn between two aspects of courage. The one is the resistance to Fear properly so called; that is, to the perturbation that exaggerates coming evil: a courageous man, in this sense, is one that possesses the true measure of impending danger, and acts according to that, and not according to an excessive measure. The other aspect of Courage, is what gives it all its nobleness as a virtue, namely, _Self-sacrifice_, or the deliberate encountering of evil, for some honourable or virtuous cause. When a man knowingly risks his life in battle for his country, he may be called courageous, but he is still better described as a heroic and devoted man.

Inasmuch as the leading form of heroic devotion, in the ancient world, was exposure of life in war, Self-sacrifice was presented under the guise of Courage, and had no independent standing as a cardinal virtue. From this circumstance, paganism is made to appear in a somewhat disadvantageous light, as regards self-denying duties.

Next in order among the excellences or virtues of the irrational department of mind is TEMPERANCE, or Moderation, [Greek: sophrosynae], a mean or middle state in the enjoyment of pleasure. Pleasures are mental and bodily. With the mental, as love of learning or of honour, temperance is not concerned. Nor with the bodily pleasures of muscular exercise, of hearing and of smell, but only with the animal pleasures of touch and taste: in fact, sensuality resides in touch; the pleasure of eating being a mode of contact (X.).

In the desires natural and common to men, as eating and the nuptial couch, men are given to err, and error is usually on the side of excess. But it is in the case of special tastes or preferences, that people are most frequently intemperate. Temperance does not apply to enduring pains, except those of abstinence from pleasures. The extreme of insensibility to pleasure is rarely found, and has no name. The temperate man has the feelings of pleasure and pain, but moderates his desires according to right reason (XL.). He desires what he ought, when he ought, and as he ought: correctly estimating each separate case (XII.). The question is raised, which is most voluntary, Cowardice or Intemperance? (1) Intemperance is more voluntary than Cowardice, for the one consists in choosing pleasure, while in the other there is a sort of compulsory avoidance of pain. (2) Temperance is easier to acquire as a habit than Courage. (3) In Intemperance, the particular acts are voluntary, although not the habit; in Cowardice, the first acts are involuntary, while by habit, it tends to become voluntary (XII.).

[Temperance is the virtue most suited to the formula of the Mean, although the settling of what is the mean depends after all upon a man's own judgment. Aristotle does not recognize asceticism as a thing existing. His Temperance is moderation in the sensual pleasures of eating and love.]

Book Fourth proceeds with the examination of the Virtues or Ethical Excellences.

LIBERALITY [Greek: eleutheristaes], in the matter of property, is the mean of Prodigality and Illiberality. The right uses of money are spending and giving. Liberality consists in giving willingly, from an honourable motive, to proper persons, in proper quantities, and at proper times; each individual case being measured by correct reason. If such measure be not taken, or if the gift be not made willingly, it is not liberality. The liberal man is often so free as to leave little to himself. This virtue is one more frequent in the inheritors than in the makers of fortunes. Liberality beyond one's means is prodigality. The liberal man will receive only from proper sources and in proper quantities. Of the extremes, prodigality is more curable than illiberality. The faults of prodigality are, that it must derive supplies from improper sources; that it gives to the wrong objects, and is usually accompanied with intemperance. Illiberality is incurable: it is confirmed by age, and is more congenial to men generally than prodigality. Some of the illiberal fall short in giving--those called stingy, close-fisted, and so on; but do not desire what belongs to other people. Others are excessive in receiving from all sources; such are they that ply disreputable trades (I.).

MAGNIFICENCE [Greek: megaloprepeia] is a grander kind of Liberality; its characteristic is greatness of expenditure, with suitableness to the person, the circumstances, and the purpose. The magnificent man takes correct measure of each; he is in his way a man of Science [Greek: ho de megaloprepaes epistaemoni eoike]--II. The motive must be honourable, the outlay unstinted, and the effect artistically splendid. The service of the gods, hospitality to foreigners, public works, and gifts, are proper occasions. Magnificence especially becomes the well-born and the illustrious. The house of the magnificent man will be of suitable splendour; everything that he does will show taste and propriety. The extremes, or corresponding defects of character, are, on the one side, vulgar, tasteless profusion, and on the other, meanness or pettiness, which for some paltry saving will spoil the effect of a great outlay (II.).

MAGNANIMITY, or HIGH-MINDEDNESS [Greek: megalopsychia], loftiness of spirit, is the culmination of the virtues. It is concerned with greatness. The high-minded man is one that, being worthy, rates himself at his real worth, and neither more (which is vanity) nor less (which is littleness of mind). Now, worth has reference to external goods, of which the greatest is honour. The high-minded man must be in the highest degree honourable, for which he must be a good man; honour being the prize of virtue. He will accept honour only from the good, and will despise dishonour, knowing it to be undeserved. In all good or bad fortune, he will behave with moderation; in not highly valuing even the highest thing of all, honour itself, he may seem to others supercilious. Wealth and fortune contribute to high-mindedness; but most of all, superior goodness; for the character cannot exist without perfect virtue. The high-minded man neither shuns nor courts danger; nor is he indisposed to risk even his life. He gives favours, but does not accept them; he is proud to the great, but affable to the lowly. He attempts only great and important matters; is open in friendship and in hatred; truthful in conduct, with an ironical reserve. He talks little, either of himself or of others; neither desiring his own praise, nor caring to utter blame. He wonders at nothing, bears no malice, is no gossip. His movements are slow, his voice deep, his diction stately (III.).

There is a nameless virtue, a mean between the two extremes of too much and too little ambition, or desire of honour; the reference being to smaller matters and to ordinary men. The fact that both extremes are made terms of reproach, shows that there is a just mean; while each extreme alternately claims to be the virtue, as against the other, since there is no term to express the mean (IV.).

MILDNESS [Greek: praotaes] is a mean state with reference to Anger, although inclining to the defective side. The exact mean, which has no current name, is that state wherein the agent is free from perturbation [Greek: atarachos], is not impelled by passion, but guided by reason; is angry when he ought, as he ought, with whom, and as long as, he ought: taking right measure of all the circumstances. Not to be angry on the proper provocation, is folly, insensibility, slavish submission. Of those given to excess in anger, some are quick, impetuous, and soon appeased; others are sulky, repressing and perpetuating their resentment. It is not easy to define the exact mean; each case must be left to individual perception (V.).

The next virtue is Good-breeding in society, a balance between surliness on the one hand, and weak assent or interested flattery on the other. It is a nameless virtue, resembling friendship without the special affection. Aristotle shows what he considers the bearing of the finished gentleman, studying to give pleasure, and yet expressing disapprobation when it would be wrong to do otherwise (VI.).

Closely allied to the foregoing is the observance of a due mean, in the matter of Boastfulness. The boastful lay claim to what they do not possess; false modesty [Greek: eironeia] is denying or underrating one's own merits. The balance of the two is the straightforward and truthful character; asserting just what belongs to him, neither more nor less. This is a kind of truthfulness,--distinguished from 'truth' in its more serious aspect, as discriminating between justice and injustice--and has a worth of its own; for he that is truthful in little things will be so in more important affairs (VII.).

In the playful intercourse of society, there is room for the virtue of Wit, a balance or mean between buffoonish excess, and the clownish dulness that can neither make nor enjoy a joke. Here the man of refinement must be a law to himself (VIII.).

MODESTY [Greek: aidos] is briefly described, without being put through the comparison with its extremes. It is more a feeling than a state, or settled habit. It is the fear of ill-report; and has the physical expression of fear under danger--the blushing and the pallor. It befits youth as the age of passion and of errors. In the old it is no virtue, as they should do nothing to be ashamed of (IX.).

Book Fifth (the first of the so-called Eudemian books), treats of Justice, the Social virtue by pre-eminence. Justice as a virtue is defined, the state of mind, or moral disposition, to do what is just. The question then is--what is the just and the unjust in action? The words seem to have more senses than one. The just may be (1) the Lawful, what is established by law; which includes, therefore, all obedience, and all moral virtue (for every kind of conduct came under public regulation, in the legislation of Plato and Aristotle). Or (2) the just may be restricted to the fair and equitable as regards property. In both senses, however, justice concerns our behaviour to some one else: and it thus stands apart from the other virtues, as (essentially and in its first character) seeking another's good--not the good of the agent himself (I.).

The first kind of justice, which includes all virtue, called Universal Justice, being set aside, the enquiry is reduced to the Particular Justice, or Justice proper and distinctive. Of this there are two kinds, Distributive and Corrective (II.). Distributive Justice is a kind of equality or proportion in the distribution of property, honours, &c., in the State, according to the merits of each citizen; the standard of worth or merit being settled by the constitution, whether democratic, oligarchic, or aristocratic (III.). Corrective, or Reparative Justice takes no account of persons; but, looking at cases where unjust loss or gain has occurred, aims to restore the balance, by striking an arithmetical mean (IV.). The Pythagorean idea, that Justice is Retaliation, is inadequate; proportion and other circumstances must be included. Proportionate Retaliation, or Reciprocity of services,--as in the case of Commercial Exchange, measured through the instrument of money, with its definite value,--is set forth as the great bond of society. Just dealing is the mean between doing injustice and suffering injustice (V.). Justice is definitely connected with Law, and exists only between citizens of the State, and not between father and children, master and slave, between whom there is no law proper, but only a sort of relation analogous to law (VI.). Civil Justice is partly Natural, partly conventional. The natural is what has the same force everywhere, whether accepted or not; the conventional varies with institutions, acquiring all its force from adoption by law, and being in itself a matter of indifference prior to such adoption. Some persons regard all Justice as thus conventional. They say--'What exists by nature is unchangeable, and has everywhere the same power; for example, fire burns alike in Persia and here; but we see regulations of justice often varied--differing here and there.' This, however, is not exactly the fact, though to a certain extent it is the fact. Among the gods indeed, it perhaps is not the fact at all: but among men, it is true that there exists something by nature changeable, though everything is not so. Nevertheless, there are some things existing by nature, other things not by nature. And we can plainly see, among those matters that admit of opposite arrangement, which of them belong to nature and which to law and convention; and the same distinction will fit in other cases also. Thus the right hand is by nature more powerful than the left; yet it is possible that all men may become ambidextrous. Those regulations of justice that are not by nature, but by human appointment, are not the same everywhere; nor is the political constitution everywhere the same; yet there is one political constitution only that is by nature the best everywhere (VII.).

To constitute Justice and Injustice in acts, the acts must be voluntary; there being degrees of culpability in injustice according to the intention, the premeditation, the greater or less knowledge of circumstances. The act that a person does may perhaps be unjust; but he is not, on that account, always to be regarded as an unjust man (VIII.).

Here a question arises, Can one be injured voluntarily? It seems not, for what a man consents to is not injury. Nor can a person injure himself. Injury is a relationship between two parties (IX.). Equity does not contradict, or set aside, Justice, but is a higher and finer kind of justice, coming in where the law is too rough and general.

Book Sixth treats of Intellectual Excellences, or Virtues of the Intellect. It thus follows out the large definition of virtue given at the outset, and repeated in detail as concerns each of the ethical or moral virtues successively.

According to the views most received at present, Morality is an affair of conscience and sentiment; little or nothing is said about estimating the full circumstances and consequences of each act, except that there is no time to calculate correctly, and that the attempt to do so is generally a pretence for evading the peremptory order of virtuous sentiment, which, if faithfully obeyed, ensures virtuous action in each particular case. If these views be adopted, an investigation of our intellectual excellences would find no place in a treatise on Ethics. But the theory of Aristotle is altogether different. Though he recognizes Emotion and Intellect as inseparably implicated in the mind of Ethical agents, yet the sovereign authority that he proclaims is not Conscience or Sentiment, but Reason. The subordination of Sentiment to Reason is with him essential. It is true that Reason must be supplied with First Principles, whence to take its start; and these First Principles are here declared to be, fixed emotional states or dispositions, engendered in the mind of the agent by a succession of similar acts. But even these dispositions themselves, though not belonging to the department of Reason, are not exempt from the challenge and scrutiny of Reason; while the proper application of them in act to the complicated realities of life, is the work of Reason altogether. Such an ethical theory calls upon Aristotle to indicate, more or less fully, those intellectual excellences, whereby alone we are enabled to overcome the inherent difficulties of right ethical conduct; and he indicates them in the present Book, comparing them with those other intellectual excellences which guide our theoretical investigations, where conduct is not directly concerned.

In specifying the ethical excellences, or excellences of disposition, we explained that each of them aimed to realize a mean--and that this mean was to be determined by Right Reason. To find the mean, is thus an operation of the Intellect; and we have now to explain what the right performance of it is,--or to enter upon the Excellences of the Intellect. The soul having been divided into Irrational and Rational, the Rational must farther be divided into two parts,--the Scientific (dealing with necessary matter), the Calculative, or Deliberative (dealing with contingent matter). We must touch, upon the excellence or best condition of both of them (I). There are three principal functions of the soul--Sensation, Reason, and Appetite or Desire. Now, Sensation (which beasts have as well as men) is not a principle of moral action. The Reason regards truth and falsehood only; it does not move to action, it is not an end in itself. Appetite or Desire, which aims at an end, introduces us to moral action. Truth and Falsehood, as regards Reason, correspond to Good and Evil as regards Appetite: Affirmation and Negation, with the first, are the analogues of Pursuit and Avoidance, with the second. In purpose, which is the principle of moral action, there is included deliberation or calculation. Reason and Appetite are thus combined: Good Purpose comprises both true affirmation and right pursuit: you may call it either an Intelligent Appetite, or an Appetitive Intelligence. Such is man, as a principle of action [hae toiautae archae anthropos].

Science has to do with the necessary and the eternal; it is teachable, but teachable always from _praecognita_, or principles, obtained by induction; from which principles, conclusions are demonstrated by syllogism (III.). Art, or Production, is to be carefully distinguished from the action or agency that belongs to man as an ethical agent, and that does not terminate in any separate assignable product. But both the one and the other deal with contingent matters only. Art deals for the most part with the same matters as are subject to the intervention of Fortune or Chance (IV.).

Prudence or Judiciousness [Greek: phronaesis], the quality of [Greek: ho phronimos], the Practical Reason, comes next. We are told what are the matters wherewith it is, and wherewith it is not, conversant. It does not deal with matters wherein there exist art, or with rules of art. It does not deal with necessary matters, nor with matters not modifiable by human agency. The prudent or judicious man is one who (like Pericles) can accurately estimate and foresee matters (apart from Science and Art) such as are good or evil for himself and other human beings. On these matters, feelings of pleasure or pain are apt to bias the mind, by insinuating wrong aims; which they do not do in regard to the properties of a triangle and other scientific conclusions. To guard against such bias, the judicious man must be armed with the ethical excellence described above as Temperance or Moderation. Judiciousness is not an Art, admitting of better and worse; there are not good judicious men, and bad judicious men, as there are good and bad artists. Judiciousness is itself an excellence (_i.e._, the term connotes excellence)--an excellence of the rational soul, and of that branch of the rational soul which is calculating, deliberative, not scientific (V.). Reason or Intellect [Greek: nous] is the faculty for apprehending the first principles of demonstrative science. It is among the infallible faculties of the mind, together with Judiciousness, Science, and Philosophy. Each of these terms connotes truth and accuracy (VI.). Wisdom in the arts is the privilege of the superlative artists, such as Phidias in sculpture. But there are some men wise, not in any special art, but absolutely; and this wisdom [Greek: sophia] is Philosophy. It embraces both principles of science (which Aristotle considers to come under the review of the First Philosophy) and deductions therefrom; it is [Greek: nous] and [Greek: epistaemae] in one. It is more venerable and dignified than Prudence or Judiciousness; because its objects, the Kosmos and the celestial bodies, are far more glorious than man, with whose interests alone Prudence is concerned; and also because the celestial objects are eternal and unvarying; while man and his affairs are transitory and ever fluctuating. Hence the great honour paid to Thales, Anaxagoras, and others, who speculated on theories thus magnificent and superhuman, though useless in respect to human good.

We have already said that Prudence or Judiciousness is good counsel on human interests, with a view to action. But we must also add that it comprises a knowledge not of universals merely, but also of particulars; and experienced men, much conversant with particulars, are often better qualified for action than inexperienced men of science (VII.). Prudence is the same in its intellectual basis as the political science or art--yet looked at in a different aspect. Both of them are practical and consultative, respecting matters of human good and evil; but prudence, in the stricter sense of the word, concerns more especially the individual self; still, the welfare of the individual is perhaps inseparable from household and state concerns. Prudence farther implies a large experience; whence boys, who can become good mathematicians, cannot have practical judgment or prudence. In consultation, we are liable to error both in regard to universals, and in regard to particulars; it is the business of prudence, as well as of the political science, to guard against both. That prudence is not identical with Science, is plain enough; for Science is the intermediate process between the first principles and the last conclusions; whereas prudence consists chiefly in seizing these last, which are the applications of reasoning, and represent the particular acts to be done. Prudence is the counterpart of Reason [Greek: Nous] or Intellect, but at the opposite extremity of the mental process. For Intellect [Greek: Nous] apprehends the extreme Universals,--the first principles,--themselves not deducible, but from which deduction starts; while Prudence fastens on the extreme particulars, which are not known by Science, but by sensible Perception. We mean here by sensible Perception, not what is peculiar to any of the five senses, but what is common to them all--whereby we perceive that the triangle before us is a geometrical ultimatum, and that it is the final subject of application for all the properties previously demonstrated to belong to triangles generally. The mind will stop here in the downward march towards practical application, as it stopped at first principles in the upward march. Prudence becomes, however, confounded with sensible perception, when we reach this stage. [The statement here given involves Aristotle's distinction of the proper and the common Sensibles; a shadowing out of the muscular element in sensation] (VIII.).

Good counsel [Greek: euboulia] is distinguished from various other qualities. It is, in substance, choosing right means to a good end; the end being determined by the great faculty--Prudence or Judiciousness (IX.). Sagacity [Greek: synesis] is a just intellectual measure in regard to the business of life, individual and social; critical ability in appreciating and interpreting the phenomena of experience. It is distinguished from Prudence in this respect--that Prudence carries inferences into Practice (X.). Considerateness [Greek: gnomae] is another intellectual virtue, with a practical bearing. It is that virtue whereby we discern the proper occasions for indulgent construction, softening the rigour of logical consistency. It is the source of equitable decisions.

The different intellectual excellences just named--Considerateness, Sagacity, Prudence [Greek: phronaesis], and Intellect [Greek: Nous], seem all to bear on the same result, and are for the most part predicable of the same individuals. All of them are concerned with the ultimate applications of principle to practice, and with the actual moments for decision and action. Indeed, Intellect [Greek: Nous] deals with the extremes at both ends of the scale: with the highest and lowest terms. In theoretical science, it apprehends and sanctions the major propositions, the first and highest _principia_ of demonstrations: in practical dealings, it estimates the minor propositions of the syllogism, the possibilities of the situation, and the ultimate action required. All these are the _principia_ from whence arises the determining motive: for the universal is always derived from particulars; these we must know through sensible perception, which is in this case the same thing as intellect [Greek: Nous]. Intellect is in fact both the beginning and the end: it cognizes both the first grounds of demonstration and the last applications of the results of demonstration. A man cannot acquire science by nature, or without teaching: but he may acquire Intellect and Sagacity by nature, simply through, long life and abundant experience. The affirmations and opinions of old men deserve attention, hardly less than demonstrations: they have acquired an eye from experience, and can thus see the practical principles (though they may not be able to lay out their reasons logically) (XI.).

But an objector may ask--Of what use are Philosophy and Prudence? He may take such grounds as these. (1) Philosophy has no practical aim at all; nor does it consider the means of happiness? (2) Prudence, though bearing on practice, is merely knowledge, and does not ensure right action. (3) Even granting the knowledge to be of value as direction, it might be obtained, like medical knowledge, from a professional adviser. (4) If philosophy is better than prudence, why does prudence control philosophy? We have to answer these doubts. The first is answered by asserting the independent value of philosophy and prudence, as perfections of our nature, and as sources of happiness in themselves. The second and third doubts are set at rest, by affirming prudence to have no existence apart from virtue. Without a virtuous aim, there is no such thing as Prudence: there is nothing but cleverness degenerating into cunning; while virtue without virtuous prudence is nothing better than a mere instinct, liable to be misguided in every way (XII.).

There is one more difficulty to be cleared up respecting virtue. All our dispositions; and therefore all our ethical excellences, come to us in a certain sense by nature; that is, we have from the moment of birth a certain aptitude for becoming temperate, courageous, just, &c. But these natural aptitudes or possessions [Greek: physikai hexeis] are something altogether distinct from the ethical excellences proper, though capable of being matured into them, if intellect and prudence be superadded. Sokrates was mistaken in resolving all the virtues into prudence; but he was right in saying that none of them can exist without prudence. The virtues ought to be defined as, not merely ethical dispositions _according_ to right reason, but ethical dispositions _along with_ right reason or prudence (_i.e._, prudence is an ever present co-efficient). It is thus abundantly evident that none but a prudent man can be good, and none but a good man can be prudent. The virtues are separable from each other, so far as the natural aptitudes are concerned: a man may have greater facility for acquiring one than another. But so far as regards the finished acquirements of excellence, in virtue of which a man is called _good_--no such separation is possible. All of them alike need the companionship of Prudence (XIII.).

Book Seventh has, two Parts. Part first discusses the grades of moral strength and moral weakness. Part second is a short dissertation on Pleasure, superseded by the superior handling of the subject in the Tenth Book.

With reference to moral power, in self-restraint, six grades are specified. (1) God-like virtue, or reason impelling as well as directing. (2) The highest human virtue, expressed by Temperance [Greek: sophrosynae]--appetite and passion perfectly harmonized with reason. (3) Continence [Greek: egkrateia] or the mastery of reason, after a struggle. (4) Incontinence, the mastery of appetite or passion, but not without a struggle. (5) Vice, reason perverted so as to harmonize entirely with appetite or passion. (6) Bestiality, naked appetite or passion, without reason. Certain prevalent opinions are enumerated, which are to form the subject of the discussions following--(1) Continence and endurance are morally good. (2) The Continent man sticks to his opinion. (3) The Incontinent err knowingly. (4) Temperance and Continence are the same. (5) Wise and clever men may be Incontinent. (6) Incontinence applies to other things than Pleasure, as anger, honour, and gain (I.).

The third point (the Incontinent sin knowingly) is first mooted. Sokrates held the contrary; he made vice and ignorance convertible. Others think that the knowledge possessed by the incontinent is mere opinion, or a vague and weak conviction. It is objected to No. 4, that continence implies evil desires to be controlled; while temperance means the character fully harmonized. As to No. 2, Continence must often be bad, if it consists in sticking to an opinion (II.).

The third point, the only question of real interest or difficulty, is resumed at greater length. The distinction between _knowledge_ and _opinion_ (the higher and the lower kinds of knowledge) does not settle the question, for opinion may be as _strong_ as knowledge. The real point is, what is meant by _having knowledge_? A man's knowledge may be in abeyance, as it is when he is asleep or intoxicated. Thus, we may have in the mind two knowledges (like two separate syllogisms), one leading to continence, the other to incontinence; the first is not drawn out, like the syllogism wanting a minor; hence it may be said to be not present to the mind; so that, in a certain sense, Sokrates was right in denying that actual and present knowledge could be overborne. Vice is a form of oblivion (III.).

The next question is, what is the object-matter of incontinence; whether there is any man incontinent simply and absolutely (without any specification of wherein), or whether all incontinent men are so in regard to this or that particular matter? (No. 6). The answer is, that it applies directly to the bodily appetites and pleasures, which are necessary up to a certain point (the sphere of Temperance), and then he that commits unreasonable excess above this point is called Incontinent simply. But if he commits excess in regard to pleasures, which, though not necessary, are natural and, up to a certain point, reasonable--such as victory, wealth, honour--we designate him as incontinent, yet with a specification of the particular matter (IV.).

The modes of Bestiality, as cannibalism and unnatural passion, are ascribed to morbid depravity of nature or of habits, analogous to disease or madness (V.).

Incontinence in anger is not so bad as Incontinence in lust, because anger (1) has more semblance of reason, (2) is more a matter of constitution, (3) has less of deliberate purpose--while lust is crafty, (4) arises under pain; and not from wantonness (VI.).

Persons below the average in resisting _pleasures_ are incontinent; those below the average in resisting _pains_ are soft or effeminate. The mass of men incline to both weaknesses. He that deliberately pursues excessive pleasures, or other pleasures in an excessive way, is said to be abandoned. The intemperate are worse than the incontinent. Sport, in its excess, is effeminacy, as being relaxation from toil. There are two kinds of incontinence: the one proceeding from precipitancy, where a man acts without deliberating at all; the other from feebleness,--where he deliberates, but where the result of deliberation is too weak to countervail his appetite (VII.). Intemperance or profligacy is more vicious, and less curable than Incontinence. The profligate man is one who has in him no principle (archae) of good or of right reason, and who does wrong without afterwards repenting of it; the incontinent man has the good principle in him, but it is overcome when he does wrong, and he afterwards repents (VIII.). Here, again, Aristotle denies that sticking to one's opinions is, _per se_, continence. The opinion may be wrong; in that case, if a man sticks to it, prompted by mere self-assertion and love of victory, it is a species of incontinence. One of the virtues of the continent man is to be open to persuasion, and to desert one's resolutions for a noble end (IX.). Incontinence is like sleep or drunkenness as opposed to wakeful knowledge. The incontinent man is like a state having good laws, but not acting on them. The incontinence of passion is more curable than that of weakness; what proceeds from habit more than what is natural (X.).

The Eighth and Ninth Books contain the treatise on Friendship.

The subject deserves a place in an Ethical treatise, because of its connexion with virtue and with happiness. Several questions have been debated concerning Friendship,--Is it based on likeness or unlikeness? Can bad men be friends? Is there but one species of Friendship, or more than one? (I.) Some progress towards a solution of these questions may be made by considering what are the objects of liking; these are the good, the pleasant, the useful. By the good is not meant the absolute good of Plato, but the apparent good. Inanimate things must be excluded, as wanting reciprocation (II.). The varieties of friendship follow these three modes of the likeable. The friendships for the useful and the pleasant, are not disinterested, but self-seeking; they are therefore accidental and transitory; they do not involve intimate and frequent association. Friendship for the good, and between the virtuous, is alone perfect; it is formed slowly, and has the requisites of permanence. It occurs rarely (III.). As regards the useful and the pleasant, the bad may be friends. It may happen that two persons are mutually pleasant to each other, as lover and beloved; while this lasts, there is friendship. It is only as respects the good, that there exists a permanent liking for the person. Such friendship is of an absolute nature; the others are accidental (IV.). Friendship is in full exercise only during actual intercourse; it may exist potentially at a distance; but in long absence, there is danger of its being dissolved. Friendship is a settled state or habit, while fondness is a mere passion, which does not imply our wishing to do good to the object of it, as friendship does (V.). The perfect kind of friendship, from its intensity, cannot be exercised towards more than a small number. In regard to the useful and the pleasant, on the other hand, there may be friendship with many; as the friendship towards tradesmen and between the young. The happy desire pleasant friends. Men in power have two classes of friends; one for the useful, the other for the pleasant. Both qualities are found in the good man; but he will not be the friend of a superior, unless he be surpassed (by that superior) in virtue also. In all the kinds of friendship now specified there is equality (VI.). There are friendships where one party is superior, as father and son, older and younger, husband and wife, governor and governed. In such cases there should be a proportionably greater love on the part of the inferior. When the love on each side is proportioned to the merit of the party beloved, then we have a certain species of equality, which is an ingredient in friendship. But equality in matters of friendship, is not quite the same as equality in matters of justice. In matters of justice, equality proportioned to merit stands first--equality between man and man (no account being taken of comparative merit) stands only second. In friendship, the case is the reverse; the perfection of friendship is equal love between the friends towards each other; to have greater love on one side, by reason of and proportioned to superior merit, is friendship only of the second grade. This will be evident if we reflect that extreme inequality renders friendship impossible--as between private men and kings or gods. Hence the friend can scarcely wish for his friend the maximum of good, to become a god; such extreme elevation would terminate the friendship. Nor will he wish his friend to possess all the good; for every one wishes most for good to self (VII.). The essence of friendship is to love rather than to be loved, as seen in mothers; but the generality of persons desire rather to be loved, which is akin to being honoured (although honour is partly sought as a sign of future favours). By means of love, as already said, unequal friendships may be equalized. Friendship with the good, is based on equality and similarity, neither party ever desiring base services. Friendships for the useful are based on the contrariety of fulness and defect, as poor and rich, ignorant and knowing (VIII.). Friendship is an incident of political society; men associating together for common ends, become friends. Political justice becomes more binding when men are related by friendship. The state itself is a community for the sake of advantage; the expedient to all is the just. In the large society of the state, there are many inferior societies for business, and for pleasure: friendship starts up in all (IX.). There are three forms of Civil Government, with a characteristic declension or perversion of each:--Monarchy passing into Despotism; Aristocracy into Oligarchy; Timocracy (based on wealth) into Democracy; parent and child typifies the first; husband and wife the second; brothers the third (X.). The monarchial or paternal type has superiority on one side, and demands honour as well as love on the other. In aristocracy, the relation is one of merit, and the greater love is given to the better. In timocracy, and among brothers, there is equality; and hence the most frequent friendships. There is no friendship towards a slave, as a slave, for, as such he is a mere animate tool (XL.). In the relations of the family, friendship varies with the different situations. Parents love their children as a part of themselves, and from the first; children grow to love their parents. Brothers are affected by their community of origin, as well as by common education and habits of intimacy. Husband and wife come together by a natural bond, and as mutual helps; their friendship contains the useful and the pleasant, and, with virtue, the good. Their offspring strengthens the bond (XII.). The friendships that give rise to complaints are confined to the Useful. Such friendships involve a legal element of strict and measured reciprocity [mere trade], and a moral or unwritten understanding, which is properly friendship. Each party is apt to give less and expect more than he gets; and the rule must be for each to reciprocate liberally and fully, in such manner and kind as they are able (XIII.). In unequal friendships, between a superior and inferior, the inferior has the greater share of material assistance, the superior should receive the greater honour (XIV.).

Book Ninth proceeds without any real break. It may not be always easy to fix the return to be made for services received. Protagoras, the sophist, left it to his pupils to settle the amount of fee that he should receive. When there is no agreement, we must render what is in our power, for example, to the gods and to our parents (I.). Cases may arise of conflicting obligation; as, shall we prefer a friend to a deserving man? shall a person robbed reciprocate to robbers? and others. [We have here the germs of Casuistry.] (II.) As to the termination of Friendship; in the case of the useful and the pleasant, the connexion ceases with the motives. In the case of the good, it may happen that one party counterfeits the good, but is really acting the useful or the pleasant; or one party may turn out wicked, and the only question is, how far hopes of his improvement shall be entertained. Again, one may continue the same, while the other makes large advances in mental training; how far shall present disparity operate against old associations? (III.). There is a sort of illustrative parallelism between the feelings and acts of friendship, and the feelings and acts of self-love, or of a good man to himself. The virtuous man wishes what is good for himself, especially for his highest part--the intellect or thinking part; he desires to pass his life in the company of his own thoughts; he sympathizes with his own sorrows. On the other hand, the bad choose the pleasant, although it be hurtful; they fly from themselves; their own thoughts are unpleasant companions; they are full of repentance (IV.). Good-will is different from friendship; it is a sudden impulse of feeling towards some distinguished or likeable quality, as in an antagonist. It has not the test of longing in absence. It may be the prelude to friendship (V.). Unanimity, or agreement of opinion, is a part of friendship. Not as regards mere speculation, as about the heavenly bodies; but in practical matters, where interests are at stake, such as the politics of the day. This unanimity cannot occur in the bad, from their selfish and grasping disposition (VI.).

The position is next examined--that the love felt by benefactors is stronger than the love felt by those benefitted. It is not a sufficient explanation to say, the benefactor is a creditor, who wishes the prosperity of his debtor. Benefactors are like workmen, who love their own work, and the exercise of their own powers. They also have the feeling of nobleness on their side; while the recipient has the less lovable idea of profit. Finally, activity is more akin to love than recipiency (VII.). Another question raised for discussion is--'Ought a man to love himself most, or another?' On the one hand, selfishness is usually condemned as the feature of bad men; on the other hand, the feelings towards self are made the standard of the feelings towards friends. The solution is given thus. There is a lower self (predominant with most men) that gratifies the appetites, seeking wealth, power, &c. With the select few, there is a higher self that seeks the honourable, the noble, intellectual excellence, at any cost of pleasure, wealth, honour, &c. These noble-minded men procure for themselves the greater good by sacrificing the less: and their self-sacrifice is thus a mode of self. It is the duty of the good man to love himself: for his noble life is profitable, both to himself, and to others; but the bad man ought not to love himself. [Self-sacrifice, formerly brought under Courage, is here depicted from another point of view] (VIII.).

By way of bringing out the advantages of friendship, it is next asked, Does the happy man need friends? To this, it is answered, (1) That happiness, being the sum of all human good, must suppose the possession of the greatest of external goods, which is friendship. (2) The happy man will require friends as recipients, of his overflow of kindness. (3) He cannot be expected either to be solitary, or to live with strangers. (4) The highest play of existence is to see the acts of another in harmony with self. (5) Sympathy supports and prolongs the glow of one's own emotions. (6) A friend confirms us in the practice of virtue. (7) The sense of existence in ourselves is enlarged by the consciousness of another's existence (IX.). The number of friends is again considered, and the same barriers stated--the impossibility of sharing among many the highest kind of affection, or of keeping up close and harmonious intimacy. The most renowned friendships are between pairs (X.). As to whether friends are most needed in adversity or in prosperity--in the one, friendship is more necessary, in the other more glorious (XI.). The essential support and manifestation of friendship is Intercourse. Whatever people's tastes are, they desire the society of others in exercising them (XII.).

Book Tenth discusses Pleasure, and lays down as the highest and perfect pleasure, the exercise of the Intellect in Philosophy.

Pleasure is deserving of consideration, from its close intimacy with the constitution of our race; on which account, in our training of youth, we steer them by pleasure and pain; and it is of the first importance that they should feel pleasure in what they ought, and displeasure in what they ought, as the groundwork (or _principium_) of good ethical dispositions. Such a topic can never be left unnoticed, especially when we look at the great difference of opinion thereupon. Some affirm pleasure to be the chief good [Eudoxus]. Others call it altogether vile and worthless [party of Speusippus]. Of these last, some perhaps really think so; but the rest are actuated by the necessity of checking men's too great proneness to it, and disparage it on that account. This policy Aristotle strongly censures, and contends for the superior efficacy of truth (I.).

The arguments urged by Eudoxus as proving pleasure to be the chief good, are, (1) That all beings seek pleasure; (2) and avoid its opposite, pain; (3) that they seek pleasure as an end-in-itself, and not as a means to any farther end; (4) that pleasure, added to any other good, such as justice or temperance, increases the amount of good; which could not be the case, unless pleasure were itself good. Yet this last argument (Aristotle urges) proves pleasure to be _a_ good, but not to be _the_ Good; indeed, Plato urged the same argument, to show that pleasure could _not_ be The Good: since The Good (the Chief Good) must be something that does not admit of being enhanced or made more good. The objection of Speusippus,--that irrational creatures are not to be admitted as witnesses,--Aristotle disallows, seeing that rational and irrational agree on the point; and the thing that seems to all, must be true. Another objection, That the opposite of pain is not pleasure, but a neutral state--is set aside as contradicted by the fact of human desire and aversion, the two opposite states of feeling (II.).

The arguments of the Platonists, to prove that pleasure is not good, are next examined. (1) Pleasure, they say, is not a quality; but neither (replies Aristotle) are the exercises or actual manifestations of virtue or happiness. (2) Pleasure is not definite, but unlimited, or admitting of degrees, while The Good is a something definite, and does not admit of degrees. But if these reasoners speak about the pure pleasures, they might take objection on similar grounds against virtue and justice also; for these too admit of degrees, and one man is more virtuous than another. And if they speak of the mixed pleasures (alloyed with pain), their reasoning will not apply to the unmixed. Good health is acknowledged to be a good, and to be a definite something; yet there are nevertheless some men more healthy, some less. (3) The Good is perfect or complete; but objectors urge that no motion or generation is complete, and pleasure is in one of these two categories. This last assertion Aristotle denies. Pleasure is _not_ a motion; for the attribute of velocity, greater or less, which is essential to all motion, does not attach to pleasure. A man may be quick in becoming pleased, or in becoming angry; but in the act of being pleased or angry, he can neither be quick nor slow. Nor is it true that pleasure is a generation. In all generation, there is something assignable out of which generation takes place (not any one thing out of any other), and into which it reverts by destruction. If pleasure be a generation, pain must be the destruction of what is generated; but this is not correct, for pain does not re-establish the state antecedent to the pleasure. Accordingly, it is not true that pleasure is a generation. Some talk of pain as a want of something required by nature, and of pleasure as a filling up of that want. But these are corporeal, not mental facts, and are applicable only to eating and drinking; not applicable to many other pleasures, such as those of sight, hearing, or learning. (4) There are some disgraceful pleasures. Aristotle replies that these are not absolutely and properly pleasures, but only to the depraved man; just as things are not yellow, which appear so to men in a jaundice. Pleasures differ from each other in species: there are good pleasures, _i.e._, those arising from good sources; and bad pleasures, _i.e._, from bad sources. The pleasure _per se_ is always desirable; but not when it comes from objectionable acts. The pleasures of each man will vary according to his character; none but a musical man can enjoy the pleasures of music. No one would consent to remain a child for life, even though he were to have his fill of childish pleasure.

Aristotle sums up the result thus. Pleasure is not The Good. Not every mode of pleasure is to be chosen. Some pleasures, distinguished from the rest specifically or according to their sources, are to be chosen _per se_ (III.).

He then attempts to define pleasure. It is something perfect and complete in itself, at each successive moment of time; hence it is not motion, which is at every moment incomplete. Pleasure is like the act of vision, or a point, or a monad, always complete in itself. It accompanies every variety of sensible perception, intelligence, and theorizing contemplation. In each of these faculties, the act is more perfect, according as the subjective element is most perfect, and the object most grand and dignified. When the act is most perfect, the pleasure accompanying it is also the most perfect; and this pleasure puts the finishing consummation to the act. The pleasure is not a pre-existing acquirement now brought into exercise, but an accessory end implicated with the act, like the fresh look which belongs to the organism just matured. It is a sure adjunct, so long as subject and object are in good condition. But continuity of pleasure, as well as of the other exercises, is impossible. Life is itself an exercise much diversified, and each man follows the diversity that is suitable to his own inclination--music, study, &c. Each has its accessory and consummating mode of pleasure; and to say that all men desire pleasure, is the same as saying that all men desire life. It is no real question to ask--Do we choose life for the sake of pleasure, or pleasure for the sake of life? The truth is, that the two are implicated and inseparable (IV.).

As our acts or exercises differ from each other specifically, so also the pleasures that are accessory to them differ specifically. Exercises intellectual differ from exercises perceptive, and under each head there are varieties differing from each other. The pleasures accessory and consummating to each, are diversified accordingly. Each pleasure contributes to invigorate and intensify the particular exercise that it is attached to; the geometer who studies his science with pleasure becomes more acute and successful in prosecuting it. On the other hand, the pleasures attached to one exercise impede the mind in regard to other exercises; thus men fond of the flute cannot listen to a speaker with attention, if any one is playing the flute near them. What we delight in doing, we are more likely to do well; what we feel pain in doing, we are not likely to do well. And thus each variety of exercise is alike impeded by the pains attached to itself, and by the pleasures attached to other varieties.

Among these exercises or acts, some are morally good, others morally bad; the desires of the good are also praise-worthy, the desires of the bad are blameable; but if so, much more are the pleasures attached to the good exercises, good pleasures--and the pleasures attached to the bad exercises, bad pleasures. For the pleasures attached to an exercise are more intimately identified with that exercise than the desire of it can be. The pleasure of the exercise, and the exercise itself, are indeed so closely identified one with the other, that to many they appear the same. Sight, hearing, and smell, differ in purity from touch and taste; and the pleasures attached to each differ in like manner. The pleasures of intellect differ from those of sense, as these two exercises differ from one another. Every animal has its own peculiar pleasures, as it has also its own peculiar manifestation and exercises. Among the human race, the same things give pleasure to one individual and pain to another. The things that appear sweet to the strong and healthy man, do not appear sweet to one suffering from fever, or weakly. Now, amidst this discrepancy, what _appears_ to the virtuous and intelligent man, really _is_. His pleasures are the true and real pleasures. Excellence, and the good man _quâtenus_ good, are to be taken as the standard. If what he abhors appears pleasurable to some persons, we must not be surprised, since there are many depravations of individuals, in one way or another; but these things are not pleasures really, they are only pleasures to these depraved mortals (V.).

So far the theory of Pleasure. Aristotle now goes back to his starting point--the nature of the Good, and Happiness. He re-states his positions: That Happiness is an exercise or actuality [Greek: energeia], and not an acquirement or state (hexis), That it belongs to such exercises as are worthy of choice for their own sake, and not to such as are worthy of choice for the sake of something else; That it is perfect and self-sufficing, seeking nothing beyond itself, and leaving no wants unsupplied. Hence he had concluded that it consisted in acting according to virtue; for the honourable and good are chosen for their own sake. But amusements are also sought for their own sake; Are these also to be called happiness? No. It is true that they are much pursued by those whom the vulgar envy--men of wealth and despots--who patronize and reward the practitioners of amusement. But this proves nothing, for we cannot adopt the choice of these despots, who have little virtue or intellect, and have never known the taste of refined and liberal pleasure. Children and mature men, bad men and virtuous, have each their different pleasures; the virtuous and intelligent man finds a life of excellence and the pleasures attached thereunto most worthy of his choice, and such a man (Aristotle has declared more than once) is our standard. It would indeed be childish to treat amusements as the main end of life; they are the relaxation of the virtuous man, who derives from them fresh vigour for the prosecution of the serious business of life, which he cannot prosecute continuously. The serious exercises of life are better than the comic, because they proceed from the better part of man. The slave may enjoy bodily pleasures to the full, but a slave is not called happy (VI.).

We have thus shown that Happiness consists in exercise or actual living according to excellence; naturally, therefore, according to the highest excellence, or the excellence of the best part of man. This best part is the Intellect (_Nous_), our most divine and commanding element; in its exercise, which is theoretical or speculative, having respect to matters honourable, divine, and most worthy of study. Such philosophical exercise, besides being the highest function of our nature, is at the same time more susceptible than any mode of active effort, of being prosecuted for a long continuance. It affords the purest and most lasting pleasure; it approaches most nearly to being self-sufficing, since it postulates little more than the necessaries of life, and is even independent of society, though better _with_ society. Perfect happiness would thus be the exercise of the theorizing intellect, continued through a full period of life. But this is more than we can expect. Still, we ought to make every effort to live according to this best element of our nature; for, though small in bulk, it stands exalted above the rest in power and dignity, and, being the sovereign element in man, is really The Man himself (VII.).

Next, yet only second, come the other branches of excellence: the active social life of a good citizen. Exercises according to this branch of virtue are the natural business of man, for it is bound up with our whole nature, including body as well as mind, our appetites, and our passions, whereas the happiness of intellect is separate. Active social virtue postulates conditions of society and external aids in considerable measure; but the life of intellect requires only the minimum of these, and is even impeded by much of them.

That perfect happiness is to be found in the philosophical life only, will appear farther when we recollect that the gods are blest and happy in the highest degree, and that this is the only mode of life suitable to them. With the gods there can be no scope for active social virtues; for in what way can they be just, courageous, or temperate? Neither virtuous practice nor constructive art can be predicated of the gods; what then remains, since we all assume them to live, and therefore to be in act or exercise of some kind; for no one believes them to live in a state of sleep, like Endymion. There remains nothing except philosophical contemplation. This, then, must be the life of the gods, the most blest of all; and that mode of human life which approaches nearest to it will be the happiest. No other animal can take part in this, and therefore none can be happy. In so far as the gods pay attention to human affairs, they are likely to take pleasure in the philosopher, who is most allied to themselves. A moderate supply of good health, food, and social position, must undoubtedly be ensured to the philosopher; for, without these, human nature will not suffice for the business of contemplation. But he will demand nothing more than a moderate supply, and when thus equipped, he will approach nearer to happiness than any one else. Aristotle declares this confidently, citing Solon, Anaxagoras, and other sages, as having said much the same before him (VIII.).

In the concluding chapter, Aristotle gives the transition from Ethics to Politics. Treatises on virtue may inspire a few liberal minds; but, for the mass of men, laws, institutions, and education are necessary. The young ought to be trained, not merely by paternal guidance directing in the earliest years their love and hatred, but also by a scheme of public education, prescribed and enforced by authority throughout the city. Right conduct will thus be rendered easier by habit; but still, throughout life, the mature citizen must continue under the discipline of law, which has force adequate to correction, and, being impersonal, does not excite aversion and hatred. Hence the need for a system of good public training. Nowhere is this now established and enforced; hardly anywhere, except in Sparta, is it even attempted. Amid such public neglect, it becomes the duty of an individual to contribute what he can to the improvement of those that he is concerned in, and for that purpose to acquire the capacities qualifying him for becoming a lawgiver. Private admonition will compensate to a certain extent for the neglect of public interference, and in particular cases may be even more discriminating. Bat how are such capacities to be acquired? Not from the Sophists, whose method is too empirical; nor from practical politicians, for they seem to have no power of imparting their skill. Perhaps it would be useful to make a collection of existing laws and constitutions. Aristotle concludes with sketching the plan of his own work on Politics.

* * * * *

The Aristotelian doctrines are generally summed up in such points as these:--The theory of Good; Pleasure; the theory of Virtue; the doctrine of the Will, distinguishing voluntary from involuntary; Virtue a Habit; the doctrine of the MEAN; the distinction between the Moral Virtues and the Intellectual Virtues; Justice, distributive, and commutative; Friendship; the Contemplative Life.

The following are the indications of his views, according to the six leading subjects of Ethics.

I. and II.--It is characteristic of Aristotle (as is fully stated in Appendix B.) to make the judgment of the wisest and most cultivated minds, the standard of appeal in moral questions. He lays down certain general principles, such as the doctrine of the Mean, but in the application of these (which is everything), he trusts to the most experienced and skilled advisers that the community can furnish.

III.--On the theory of Happiness, or the Summum Bonum, it is needless to repeat the abstract of the tenth book.

IV.--In laying down the Moral Code, he was encumbered with the too wide view of Virtue; but made an advance in distinguishing virtue proper from excellence in general.

V.--He made Society tutelary to the individual in an excessive degree. He had no clear conception of the province of authority or law; and did not separate the morality of obligation from the morality of reward and nobleness.

VI.--His exclusion of Theology from morality was total.

THE STOICS.

The Stoics were one of the four sects of philosophy, recognized and conspicuous at Athens during the three centuries preceding the Christian era, and during the century or more following. Among these four sects, the most marked antithesis of ethical dogma was between the Stoics and the Epicureans. The Stoical system dates from about 300 B.C.; it was derived from the system of the Cynics.

The founder of the system was ZENO, from Citium in Cyprus (he lived from 340--260 B.C.), who derived his first impulse from Krates the Cynic. He opened his school in a building or porch, called the _Stoa Poecile_ ('Painted Portico') at Athens, whence the origin of the name of the sect. Zeno had for his disciple CLEANTHES, from Assos in the Troad (300--220 B.C.), whose _Hymn to Jupiter_ is the only fragment of any length that has come down to us from the early Stoics, and is a remarkable production, setting forth the unity of God, his omnipotence, and his moral government. CHRYSIPPUS, from Soli in Cilicia (290--207 B.C.), followed Cleanthes, and, in his voluminous writings, both defended and modified the Stoical creed. These three represent the _first_ period of the system. The _second_ period (200--50 B.C.) embraces its general promulgation, and its introduction to the Romans. Chrysippus was succeeded by ZENO of Sidon, and DIOGENES of Babylon; then followed ANTIPATER, of Tarsus, who taught PANAETIUS of Rhodes (d. 112 B.C.), who, again, taught POSIDONIUS of Apamea, in Syria. (Two philosophers are mentioned from the native province of St. Paul, besides Chrysippus--ATHEKODOEUS, from Cana in Cilicia; and ARCHEDEMUS, from Tarsus, the apostle's birthplace. It is remarked by Sir A. Grant, that almost all the first Stoics were of Asiatic birth; and the system itself is undeniably more akin to the oriental mind than to the Greek.) Posidonius was acquainted with Marius and Pompey, and gave lessons to Cicero, but the moral treatise of Cicero, _De Officiis_, is derived from a work of Panaetius. The _third_ period of Stoicism is Roman. In this period, we have Cato the Younger, who invited to his house the philosopher Athenodorus; and, under the Empire, the three Stoic philosophers, whose writings have come down to us--SENECA (6 B.C.-65 A.D.), EPICTETUS (60-140 A.D.), who began life as a slave, and the Emperor MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS (121-180 A.D.). Stoicism prevailed widely in the Roman world, although not to the exclusion of Epicurean views.

The leading Stoical doctrines are given in certain phrases or expressions, as 'Life according to Nature' (although this phrase belongs also to the Epicureans), the ideal 'Wise Man,' 'Apathy,' or equanimity of mind (also an Epicurean ideal), the power of the 'Will,' the worship of 'Duty,' the constant 'Advance' in virtue, &c. But perspicuity will be best gained by considering the _Moral_ system under four heads--the Theology; the Psychology or theory of mind; the theory of the Good or human happiness; and the scheme of Virtue or Duty.

I.--The THEOLOGICAL doctrines of the Stoics comprehended their system of the Universe, and of man's position in it. They held that the Universe is governed by one good and wise God, together with inferior or subordinate deities. God exercises a moral government; under it the good are happy, while misfortunes happen to the wicked. According to Epictetus, God is the father of men; Antoninus exults in the beautiful arrangement of all things. The earlier Stoics, Zeno and Chrysippus, entertained high reverence for the divination, prophecy, and omens that were generally current in the ancient world. They considered that these were the methods whereby the gods were graciously pleased to make known beforehand revelations of their foreordained purposes. (Herein lay one among the marked points of contrast between Stoics and Epicureans.) They held this foreordination even to the length of fatalism, and made the same replies, as have been given in modern times, to the difficulty of reconciling it with the existence of evil, and with the apparent condition of the better and the worse individuals among mankind. They offered explanations such as the following: (1) God is the author of all things except wickedness; (2) the very nature of good supposes its contrast evil, and the two are inseparable, like light and dark, (which may be called the argument from Relativity); (3) in the enormous extent of the Universe, some things must be neglected; (4) when evil happens to the good, it is not as a punishment, but as connected with a different dispensation; (5) parts of the world may be presided over by evil demons; (6) what we call evil may not be evil.

Like most other ancient schools, the Stoics held God to be corporeal like man:--Body is the only substance; nothing incorporeal could act on what is corporeal; the First Cause of all, God or Zeus, is the primeval fire, emanating from which is the soul of man in the form of a warm ether.

It is for human beings to recognize the Universe as governed by universal Law, and not only to raise their minds to the comprehension of it, but to enter into the views of the administering Zeus or Fate, who must regard all interests equally; we are to be, as it were, in harmony with him, to merge self in universal Order, to think only of that and its welfare. As two is greater than one, the interests of the whole world are infinitely greater than the interests of any single being, and no one should be satisfied with a regard to anything less than the whole. By this elevation of view, we are necessarily raised far above the consideration of the petty events befalling ourselves. The grand effort of human reason is thus to rise to the abstraction or totality of entire Nature; 'no ethical subject,' says Chrysippus, 'could be rightly approached except from the pre-consideration of entire Nature, and the ordering of the whole.'

As to Immortality, the Stoics precluded themselves, by holding the theory of the _absorption_ of the individual soul at death into the divine essence; but, on the other hand, their doctrine of advance and aspiration is what has in all times been the main natural argument for the immortality of the soul. For the most part, they kept themselves undecided as to this doctrine, giving it as an alternative, reasoning as to our conduct on either supposition, and submitting to the pleasure of God in this as in all other things.

In arguing for the existence of Divine power and government, they employed what has been called the argument from Design, which is as old as Sokrates. Man is conscious that he is in himself an intellectual or spiritual power, from which, by analogy, he is led to believe that a greater power pervades the universe, as intellect pervades the human system.

II.--In the PSYCHOLOGY of the Stoics, two questions, are of interest, their theory of Pleasure and Pain, and their views upon the Freedom of the Will.

1. _The theory of Pleasure and Pain_. The Stoics agreed with the Peripatetics (anterior to Epicurus, not specially against _him_) that the first principle of nature is (not pleasure or relief from pain, but) _self-preservation_ or _self-love_; in other words, the natural appetite or tendency of all creatures is, to preserve their existing condition with its inherent capacities, and to keep clear of destruction or disablement. This appetite (they said) manifests itself in little children before any pleasure or pain is felt, and is moreover a fundamental postulate, pre-supposed in all desires of particular pleasures, as well as in all aversions to particular pains. We begin by loving our own vitality; and we come, by association, to love what promotes or strengthens our vitality; we hate destruction or disablement, and come (by secondary association) to hate whatever produces that effect.[8] The doctrine here laid down associated, and brought under one view, what was common to man, not merely with the animal, but also with the vegetable world; a plant was declared to have an impulse or tendency to maintain itself, even without feeling pain or pleasure. Aristotle (in the tenth Book of the Ethics) says, that he will not determine whether we love life for the sake of pleasure, or pleasure for the sake of life; for he affirms the two to be essentially yoked together and inseparable; pleasure is the consummation of our vital manifestations. The Peripatetics, after him, put pleasure down to a lower level, as derivative and accidental; the Stoics went farther in the same direction--possibly from antithesis against the growing school of Epicurus.

The primary _officium_ (in a larger sense than our word Duty) of man is (they said) to keep himself in the state of nature; the second or derivative _officium_ is to keep to such things as are _according to nature_, and to avert those that are _contrary to nature_; our gradually increasing experience enabled us to discriminate the two. The youth learns, as he grows up, to value bodily accomplishments, mental cognitions and judgments, good conduct towards those around him,--as powerful aids towards keeping up the state of nature. When his experience is so far enlarged as to make him aware of the order and harmony of nature and human society, and to impress upon him the comprehension of this great _ideal_, his emotions as well as his reason become absorbed by it. He recognizes this as the only true Bonum or Honestum, to which all other desirable things are referable,--as the only thing desirable for itself and in its own nature. He drops or dismisses all those _prima naturae_ that he had begun by desiring. He no longer considers any of them as worthy of being desired in itself, or for its own sake.

While therefore (according to Peripatetics as well as Stoics) the love of self and of preserving one's own vitality and activity, is the primary element, intuitive and connate, to which all rational preference (_officium_) was at first referred,--they thought it not the less true, that in process of time, by experience, association, and reflection, there grows up in the mind a grand acquired sentiment or notion, a new and later light, which extinguishes and puts out of sight the early beginning. It was important to distinguish the feeble and obscure elements from the powerful and brilliant aftergrowth; which indeed was fully realized only in chosen minds, and in them, hardly before old age. This idea, when once formed in the mind, was _The Good_--the only thing worthy of desire for its own sake. The Stoics called it the only Good, being sufficient in itself for happiness; other things being not good, nor necessary to happiness, but simply preferable or advantageous when they could be had: the Peripatetics recognized it as the first and greatest good, but said also that it was not sufficient in itself; there were two other inferior varieties of good, of which something must be had as complementary (what the Stoics called _praeposita_ or _sumenda_). Thus the Stoics said, about the origin of the Idea of Bonum or Honestum, much the same as what Aristotle says about ethical virtue. It is not implanted in us by nature; but we have at birth certain initial tendencies and capacities, which, if aided by association and training, enable us (and that not in all cases) to acquire it.

2. _The Freedom of the Will_. A distinction was taken by Epictetus and other Stoics between things in our power and things not in our power. The things in our power are our opinions and notions about objects, and all our affections, desires, and aversions; the things not in our power are our bodies, wealth, honour, rank, authority, &c., and their opposites. The practical application is this: wealth and high rank may not be in our power, but we have the power to form an _idea_ of these--namely, that they are unimportant, whence the want of them will not grieve us. A still more pointed application is to death, whose force is entirely in the idea.

With this distinction between things in our power and things not in our power, we may connect the arguments between the Stoics and their opponents as to what is now called the Freedom of the Will. But we must first begin by distinguishing the two questions. By things _in our power_, the Stoics meant, things that we could do or acquire, _if we willed_: by things _not in_ our power, they meant, things that we could not do or acquire if we willed. In both cases, the volition was assumed as a fact: the question, what determined it--or whether it was non-determined, _i.e._ self-determining--was not raised in the abovementioned antithesis. But it was raised in other discussions between the Stoic theorist Chrysippus, and various opponents. These opponents denied that volition was determined by motives, and cited the cases of equal conflicting motives (what is known as the ass of Buridan) as proving that the soul includes in itself, and exerts, a special supervenient power of deciding action in one way or the other: a power not determined by any causal antecedent, but self-originating, and belonging to the class of agency that Aristotle recognizes under the denomination of automatic, spontaneous (or essentially irregular and unpredictable). Chrysippus replied by denying not only the reality of this supervenient force said to be inherent in the soul, but also the reality of all that Aristotle called automatic or spontaneous agency generally. Chrysippus said that every movement was determined by antecedent motives; that, in cases of equal conflict, the exact equality did not long continue, because some new but slight motive slipped in unperceived and turned the scale on one side or the other. (See Plutarch De Stoicorum Repugnantiis, c. 23, p. 1045.) Here, we see, the question now known as the Freedom of the Will is discussed: and Chrysippus declares against it, affirming that volition is always determined by motives.

But we also see that, while declaring this opinion, Chrysippus does not employ the terms Necessity or Freedom of the Will: neither did his opponents, so far as we can see: they had a different and less misleading phrase. By Freedom, Chrysippus and the Stoics meant the freedom of doing what a man willed, if he willed it. A man is free, as to the thing that is in his power, when he wills it: he is not free, as to what is not in his power, under the same supposition. The Stoics laid great stress on this distinction. They pointed out how much it is really in a man's power to transform or discipline his own mind: in the way of controlling or suppressing some emotions, generating or encouraging others, forming new intellectual associations, &c., how much a man could do in these ways, _if he willed it_, and if he went through the lessons, habits of conduct, meditations, suitable to produce such an effect. The Stoics strove to create in a man's mind the volitions appropriate for such mental discipline, by depicting the beneficial consequences resulting from it, and the misfortune and shame inevitable, if the mind were not so disciplined. Their purpose was to strengthen the governing reason of his mind, and to enthrone it as a fixed habit and character, which would control by counter suggestions the impulse arising at each special moment--particularly all disturbing terrors or allurements. This, in their view, is a _free mind_; not one wherein volition is independent of all motive, but one wherein the susceptibility to different motives is tempered by an ascendant reason, so as to give predominance to the better motive against the worse. One of the strongest motives that they endeavoured to enforce, was the prudence and dignity of bringing our volitions into harmony with the schemes of Providence: which (they said) were always arranged with a view to the happiness of the kosmos on the whole. The bad man, whose volitions conflict with these schemes, is always baulked of his expectations, and brought at last against his will to see things carried by an overruling force, with aggravated pain and humiliation to himself: while the good man, who resigns himself to them from the first, always escapes with less pain, and often without any at all. _Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt_.

We have thus seen that in regard to the doctrine called in modern times the Freedom of the Will (_i.e._, that volitions are self-originating and unpredictable), the Stoic theorists not only denied it, but framed all their Ethics upon the assumption of the contrary. This same assumption of the contrary, indeed, was made also by Sokrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus: in short, by all the ethical teachers of antiquity. All of them believed that volitions depended on causes: that under the ordinary conditions of men's minds, the causes that volitions generally depended upon are often misleading and sometimes ruinous: but that by proper stimulation from without and meditation within, the rational causes of volition might be made to overrule the impulsive. Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, not less than the Stoics, wished to create new fixed habits and a new type of character. They differed, indeed, on the question what the proper type of character was: but each of them aimed at the same general end--a new type of character, regulating the grades of susceptibility to different motives. And the purpose of all and each of these moralists precludes the theory of free-will--_i.e._, the theory that our volitions are self-originating and unpredictable.

III.--We must consider next the Stoical theory of Happiness, or rather of the _Good_, which with them was proclaimed to be the sole, indispensable, and self-sufficing condition of Happiness. They declared that Pleasure was no part of Good, and Pain no part of Evil; therefore, that even relief from pain was not necessary to Good or Happiness. This, however, if followed out consistently, would dispense with all morality and all human endeavour. Accordingly, the Stoics were obliged to let in some pleasures as an object of pursuit, and some pains as an object of avoidance, though not under the title of Good and Evil, but with the inferior name of _Sumenda_ and _Rejicienda_.[9] Substantially, therefore, they held that pains are an evil, but, by a proper discipline, may be triumphed over. They disallowed the direct and ostensible pursuit of pleasure as an end (the point of view of Epicurus), but allured their followers partly by promising them the victory over pain, and partly by certain enjoyments of an elevated cast that grew out of their plan of life.

Pain of every kind, whether from the casualties of existence, or from, the severity of the Stoical virtues, was to be met by a discipline of endurance, a hardening process, which, if persisted in, would succeed in reducing the mind to a state of _Apathy_ or indifference. A great many reflections were suggested in aid of this education. The influence of exercise and repetition in adapting the system to any new function, was illustrated by the Olympian combatants, and by the Lacedaemonian youth, who endured scourging without complaint. Great stress was laid on the instability of pleasure, and the constant liability to accidents; whence we should always be anticipating and adapting ourselves to the worst that could happen, so as never to be in a state where anything could ruffle the mind. It was pointed out how much might still be made of the worst circumstances--poverty, banishment, public odium, sickness, old age--and every consideration was advanced that could 'arm the obdurate breast with stubborn patience, as with triple steel.' It has often been remarked that such a discipline of endurance was peculiarly suited to the unsettled condition of the world at the time, when any man, in addition to the ordinary evils of life, might in a moment be sent into exile, or sold into slavery.

Next to the discipline of endurance, we must rank the complacent sentiment of _Pride_, which the Stoic might justly feel in his conquest of himself, and in his lofty independence and superiority to the casualties of life.[10] The pride of the Cynic, the Stoic's predecessor, was prominent and offensive, showing itself in scurrility and contempt towards everybody else; the Stoical pride was a refinement upon this, but was still a grateful sentiment of superiority, which helped to make up for the surrender of indulgences. It was usual to bestow the most extravagant laudation on the 'Wise Man,' and every Stoic could take this home to the extent that he considered himself as approaching that great ideal.

The last and most elevated form of Stoical happiness was the satisfaction of contemplating the Universe and God. Epictetus says, that we can accommodate ourselves cheerfully to the providence that rules the world, if we possess two things--the power of seeing all that happens in the proper relation to its own purpose--and a grateful disposition. The work of Antoninus is full of studies of Nature in the devout spirit of 'passing from Nature up to Nature's God;' he is never weary of expressing his thorough contentment with the course of natural events, and his sense of the beauties and fitness of everything. Old age has its grace, and death is the becoming termination. This high strain of exulting contemplation reconciled him to that complete submission to whatever might befall, which was the essential feature of the 'Life according to Nature,' as he conceived it.

IV.--The Stoical theory of Virtue is implicated in the ideas of the Good, now described.

The fountain of all virtue is manifestly the life according to nature; as being the life of subordination of self to more general interests--to family, country, mankind, the whole universe. If a man is prepared to consider himself absolutely nothing in comparison with the universal interest, and to regard it as the sole end of life, he has embraced an ideal of virtue of the loftiest order. Accordingly, the Stoics were the first to preach what is called 'Cosmopolitanism;' for although, in their reference to the good of the whole, they confounded together sentient life and inanimate objects--rocks, plants, &c., solicitude for which was misspent labour--yet they were thus enabled to reach the conception of the universal kindship of mankind, and could not but include in their regards the brute creation. They said: 'There is no difference between the Greeks and Barbarians; the world is our city.' Seneca urges kindness to slaves, for 'are they not men like ourselves, breathing the same air, living and dying like ourselves?'

The Epicureans declined, as much as possible, interference in public affairs, but the Stoic philosophers urged men to the duties of active citizenship. Chrysippus even said that the life of philosophical contemplation (such as Aristotle preferred, and accounted godlike) was to be placed on the same level with the life of pleasure; though Plutarch observes that neither Chrysippus nor Zeno ever meddled personally with any public duty; both of them passed their lives in lecturing and writing. The truth is that both of them were foreigners residing at Athens; and at a time when Athens was dependent on foreign princes. Accordingly, neither Zeno nor Chrysippus had any sphere of political action open to them; they were, in this respect, like Epictetus afterwards--but in a position quite different from Seneca, the preceptor of Nero, who might hope to influence the great imperial power of Rome, and from Marcus Antoninus, who held that imperial power in his own hands.

Marcus Antoninus--not only a powerful Emperor, but also the most gentle and amiable man of his day--talks of active beneficence both as a duty and a satisfaction. But in the creed of the Stoics generally, active Beneficence did not occupy a prominent place. They adopted the four Cardinal Virtues--Wisdom, or the Knowledge of Good and Evil; Justice; Fortitude; Temperance--as part of their plan of the virtuous life, the life according to Nature. Justice, as the social virtue, was placed above all the rest. But the Stoics were not strenuous in requiring more than Justice, for the benefit of others beside the agent. They even reckoned compassion for the sufferings of others as a weakness, analogous to envy for the good fortune of others.

The Stoic recognized the gods (or Universal Nature, equivalent expressions in his creed) as managing the affairs of the world, with a view to producing as much happiness as was attainable on the whole. Towards this end the gods did not want any positive assistance from him; but it was his duty and his strongest interest, to resign himself to their plans, and to abstain from all conduct tending to frustrate them. Such refractory tendencies were perpetually suggested to him by the unreasonable appetites, emotions, fears, antipathies, &c., of daily life; all claiming satisfaction at the expense of future mischief to himself and others. To countervail these misleading forces, by means of a fixed rational character built up through meditation and philosophical teaching, was the grand purpose of the Stoic ethical creed. The emotional or appetitive self was to be starved or curbed, and retained only as an appendage to the rational self; an idea proclaimed before in general terms by Plato, but carried out into a system by the Stoics, and to a great extent even by the Epicureans.

The Stoic was taught to reflect how much that _appears_ to be desirable, terror-striking, provocative, &c., is not really so, but is made to appear so by false and curable associations. And while he thus discouraged those self-regarding emotions that placed him in hostility with others, he learnt to respect the self of another man as well as his own. Epictetus advises to deal mildly with a man that hurts us either by word or deed; and advises it upon the following very remarkable ground. 'Recollect that in what he says or does, he follows his own sense of propriety, not yours. He must do what appears to him right, not what appears to you; if he judges wrongly, it is he that is hurt, for he is the person deceived. Always repeat to yourself, in such a case: The man has acted on his own opinion.'

The reason here given by Epictetus is an instance, memorable in ethical theory, of respect for individual dissenting conviction, even in an extreme case; and it must be taken in conjunction with his other doctrine, that damage thus done to us unjustly is really little or no damage, except so far as we ourselves give pungency to it by our irrational susceptibilities and associations. We see that the Stoic submerges, as much as he can, the pre-eminence of his own individual self, and contemplates himself from the point of view of another, only as one among many. But he does not erect the happiness of others into a direct object of his own positive pursuit, beyond the reciprocities of family, citizenship, and common humanity. The Stoic theorists agreed with Epicurus in inculcating the reciprocities of justice between all fellow-citizens; and they even went farther than he did, by extending the sphere of such duties beyond the limits of city, so as to comprehend all mankind. But as to the reciprocities of individual friendship, Epicurus went beyond the Stoics, by the amount of self-sacrifice and devotion that he enjoined for the benefit of a friend.

There is also in the Stoical system a recognition of duties to God, and of morality as based on piety. Not only are we all brethren, but also the 'children of one Father.'

The extraordinary strain put upon human nature by the full Stoic _ideal_ of submerging self in the larger interests of being, led to various compromises. The rigid following out of the ideal issued in one of the _paradoxes_, namely.--That all the actions of the wise man are equally perfect, and that, short of the standard of perfection, all faults and vices are equal; that, for example, the man that killed a cock, without good reason, was as guilty as he that killed his father. This has a meaning only when we draw a line between spirituality and morality, and treat the last as worthless in comparison of the first. The later Stoics, however, in their exhortations to special branches of duty, gave a positive value to practical virtue, irrespective of the _ideal_.

The idea of Duty was of Stoical origin, fostered and developed by the Roman spirit and legislation. The early Stoics had two different words,--one for the 'suitable' [Greek: kathaekon], or incomplete propriety, admitting of degrees, and below the point of rectitude, and another for the 'right' [Greek: katorthoma], or complete rectitude of action, which none could achieve except the wise man. It is a significant circumstance that the 'suitable' is the lineal ancestor of our word 'duty' (through the Latin _officium_).

It was a great point with the Stoic to be conscious of 'advance' or improvement.[11] By self-examination, he kept himself constantly acquainted with his moral state, and it was both his duty and his satisfaction to be approaching to the ideal of the perfect man.

It is very illustrative of the unguarded points and contradictions of Stoicism, that contentment and apathy were not to permit grief even for the loss of friends. Seneca, on one occasion, admits that he was betrayed by human weakness on this point. On strict Stoical principles, we ought to treat the afflictions and the death of others with the same frigid indifference as our own; for why should a man feel for a second person _more_ than he ought to feel for himself, as a mere unit in the infinitude of the Universe? This is the contradiction inseparable from any system that begins by abjuring pleasure, and relief or protection from pain, as the ends of life. Even granting that we regard pleasure and relief from pain as of no importance in our own case, yet if we apply the same measure to others we are bereft of all motives to benevolence; and virtue, instead of being set on a loftier pinnacle, is left without any foundation.

EPICURUS. [311--270 B.C.]

Epicurus was born 341 B.C. in the island of Samos. At the age of eighteen, he repaired to Athens, where he is supposed to have enjoyed the teaching of Xenocrates or Theophrastus. In 306 B.C., he opened a school in a garden in Athens, whence his followers have sometimes been called the 'philosophers of the garden.' His life was simple, chaste, and temperate. Of the 300 works he is said to have written, nothing has come down to us except three letters, giving a summary of his views for the use of his friends, and a number of detached sayings, preserved by Diogenes Laertius and others. Moreover, some fragments of his work on Nature have been found at Herculaneum. The additional sources of our knowledge of Epicurus are the works of his opponents, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and of his follower Lucretius. Our information from Epicurean writers respecting the doctrines of their sect is much less copious than what we possess from Stoic writers in regard to Stoic opinions. We have no Epicurean writer on Philosophy except Inicretius; whereas respecting the Stoical creed under the Roman Empire, the important writings of Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Antoninus, afford most valuable evidence.

To Epicurus succeeded, in the leadership of his school, Hermachus, Polystratus, Dionysius, Basilides, and others, ten in number, down to the age of Augustus. Among Roman Epicureans, Lucretius (95--51 B.C.) is the most important, his poem (De Rerum Natura), being the completest account of the system that exists. Other distinguished followers were Horace, Atticus, and Lacian. In modern times, Pierre Gassendi (1592--1655) revived the doctrines of Epicurus, and in 1647 published his 'Syntagma Philosophiae Epicuri,' and a Life of Epicurus. The reputation of Gassendi, in his life time, rested chiefly upon his physical theories; but his influence was much felt as a Christian upholder of Epicureanism. Gassendi was at one time in orders as a Roman Catholic, and professor of theology and philosophy. He established an Epicurean school in France, among the disciples of which were, Moliere, Saint Evremond, Count de Grammont, the Duke of Rochefoncalt, Fontenelle, and Voltaire.

The standard of Virtue and Vice is referred by Epicurus to pleasure and pain. Pain is the only evil, Pleasure is the only good. Virtue is no end in itself, to be sought: Vice is no end in itself, to be avoided. The motive for cultivating Virtue and banishing Vice arises from the consequences of each, as the means of multiplying pleasures and averting or lessening pains. But to the attainment of this purpose, the complete supremacy of Reason is indispensable; in order that we may take a right comparative measure of the varieties of pleasure and pain, and pursue the course that promises the least amount of suffering.[12]

In all ethical theories that make happiness the supreme object of pursuit, the position of virtue depends entirely upon the theory of what constitutes happiness. Now, Epicurus (herein differing from the Stoics, as well as Aristotle), did not recognize Happiness as anything but freedom from pain and enjoyment of pleasure. It is essential, however, to understand, how Epicurus conceived pleasure and pain, and what is the Epicurean scale of pleasures and pains, graduated as objects of reasonable desire or aversion? It is a great error to suppose that, in making pleasure the standard of virtue, Epicurus had in view that elaborate and studied gratification of the sensual appetites that we associate with the word _Epicurean_. Epicurus declares--'When we say that pleasure is the end of life, we do not mean the pleasures of the debauchee or the sensualist, as some from ignorance or from malignity represent, but freedom of the body from pain, and of the soul from anxiety. For it is not continuous drinkings and revellings, nor the society of women, nor rare viands, and other luxuries of the table, that constitute a pleasant life, but sober contemplation, such as searches out the grounds of choice and avoidance, and banishes those chimeras that harass the mind.

Freedom from pain is thus made the primary element of happiness; a one-sided view, respected in the doctrine of Locke, that it is not the idea of future good, but the present greatest uneasiness that most strongly affects the will. A neutral state of feeling is necessarily imperilled by a greedy pursuit of pleasures; hence the _dictum_, to be content with little is a great good; because little is most easily obtained. The regulation of the desires is therefore of high moment. According to Epicurus, desires fall into three grades. Some are _natural_ and _necessary_, such as desire of drink, food, or life, and are easily gratified. But when the uneasiness of a want is removed, the bodily pleasures admit of no farther increase; anything additional only _varies_ the pleasure. Hence the luxuries which go beyond the relief of our wants are thoroughly superfluous; and the desires arising from them (forming the _second_ grade) though _natural, are not necessary_. A _third_ class of desires is neither natural nor necessary, but begotten of vain opinion; such as the thirst for civic honours, or for power over others; those desires are the most difficult to gratify, and even if gratified, entail upon us trouble, anxiety, and peril. [This account of the desires, following up the advice--If you wish to be rich, study not to increase your goods, but to diminish your desires--is to a certain extent wise and even indispensable; yet not adapted to all temperaments. To those that enjoy pleasure very highly, and are not sensitive in an equal degree to pain, such a negative conception of happiness would be imperfect.] Epicurus did not, however, deprecate positive pleasure. If it could be reached without pain, and did not result in pain, it was a pure good; and, even if it could not be had without pain, the question was still open, whether it might not be well worth the price. But in estimating the worth of pleasure, the absence of any accompanying pain should weigh heavily in the balance. At this point, the Epicurean theory connects itself most intimately with the conditions of virtue; for virtue is more concerned with averting mischief and suffering, than with multiplying positive enjoyments.

Bodily feeling, in the Epicurean psychology, is prior in order of time to the mental element; the former was primordial, while the latter was derivative from it by repeated processes of memory and association. But though such was the order of sequence and generation, yet when we compare the two as constituents of happiness to the formed man, the mental element much outweighed the bodily, both as pain and as pleasure. Bodily pain or pleasure exists only in the present; when not felt, it is nothing. But mental feelings involve memory and hope--embrace the past as well as the future--endure for a long time, and may be recalled or put out of sight, to a great degree, at our discretion.

This last point is one of the most remarkable features of the Epicurean mental discipline. Epicurus deprecated the general habit of mankind in always hankering after some new satisfaction to come; always discontented with the present, and oblivious of past comforts as if they had never been. These past comforts ought to be treasured up by memory and reflection, so that they might become as it were matter for rumination, and might serve, in trying moments, even to counterbalance extreme physical suffering. The health of Epicurus himself was very bad during the closing years of his life. There remains a fragment of his last letter, to an intimate friend and companion, Idomeneus--'I write this to you on the last day of my life, which, in spite of the severest internal bodily pains, is still a happy day, because I set against them in the balance all the mental pleasure felt in the recollection of my past conversations with you. Take care of the children left by Metrodorus, in a manner worthy of your demeanour from boyhood towards me and towards philosophy.' Bodily pain might thus be alleviated, when it occurred; it might be greatly lessened in occurrence, by prudent and moderate habits; lastly, even at the worst, if violent, it never lasted long; if not violent, it might be patiently borne, and was at any rate terminated, or terminable at pleasure, by death.

In the view of Epicurus, the chief miseries of life arose, not from bodily pains, but partly from delusions of hope, and exaggerated aspirations for wealth, honours, power, &c., in all which the objects appeared most seductive from a distance, inciting man to lawless violence and treachery, while in the reality they were always disappointments, and generally something worse; partly, and still more, from the delusions of fear. Of this last sort, were the two greatest torments of human existence--fear of Death, and of eternal suffering after death, as announced by prophets and poets, and Fear of the Gods. Epicurus, who did not believe in the continued existence of the soul separate from the body, declared that there could never be any rational ground for fearing death, since it was simply a permanent extinction of consciousness.[13] Death was nothing to us (he said); when death comes, we are no more, either to suffer or to enjoy. Yet it was the groundless fear of this nothing that poisoned all the tranquillity of life, and held men imprisoned even when existence was a torment. Whoever had surmounted that fear was armed at once against cruel tyranny and against all the gravest misfortunes. Next, the fear of the gods was not less delusive, and hardly less tormenting, than the fear of death. It was a capital error (Epicurus declared) to suppose that the gods employed themselves as agents in working or superintending the march of the Cosmos; or in conferring favour on some men, and administering chastisement to others. The vulgar religious tales, which represented them in this character, were untrue and insulting as regards the gods themselves, and pregnant with perversion and misery as regards the hopes and fears of mankind. Epicurus believed sincerely in the gods; reverenced them as beings at once perfectly happy, immortal, and unchangeable; and took delight in the public religious festivals and ceremonies. But it was inconsistent with these attributes, and repulsive to his feelings of reverence, to conceive them as agents. The idea of agency is derived from human experience; we, as agents, act with a view to supply some want, to fulfil some obligation, to acquire some pleasure, to accomplish some object desired but not yet attained--in short, to fill up one or other of the many gaps in our imperfect happiness; the gods already _have_ all that agents strive to get, and more than agents ever do get; their condition is one not of agency, but of tranquil, self-sustaining, fruition. Accordingly, Epicurus thought (as Aristotle[14] had thought before him) that the perfect, eternal, and imperturbable well-being and felicity of the gods excluded the supposition of their being agents. He looked upon them as types of that unmolested safety and unalloyed satisfaction which was what he understood by pleasure or happiness--as objects of reverential envy, whose sympathy he was likely to obtain by assimilating his own temper and condition to theirs, as far as human circumstances allowed.

These theological views were placed by Epicurus in the foreground of his ethical philosophy, as the only means of dispelling those fears of the gods that the current fables instilled into every one, and that did so much to destroy human comfort and security. He proclaimed that beings in immortal felicity neither suffered vexation in themselves nor caused vexation to others--neither showed anger nor favour to particular persons. The doctrine that they were the working managers in the affairs of the Cosmos, celestial and terrestrial, human and extra-human, he not only repudiated as incompatible with their attributes, but declared to be impious, considering the disorder, sufferings, and violence, everywhere visible. He disallowed all prophecy, divination, and oracular inspiration, by which the public around him believed that the gods were perpetually communicating special revelations to individuals, and for which Sokrates had felt so peculiarly thankful.[15]

It is remarkable that Stoics and Epicureans, in spite of their marked opposition in dogma or theory, agreed so far in practical results, that both declared these two modes of uneasiness (fear of the gods and fear of death) to be the great torments of human existence, and both strove to remove or counterbalance them.

So far, the teaching of Epicurus appears confined to the separate happiness of each individual, as dependent upon his own prudence, sobriety, and correct views of Nature. But this is not the whole of the Epicurean Ethics. The system also considered each man as in companionship with others; The precepts were shaped accordingly, first as to Justice, next as to Friendship. In both these, the foundation whereon Epicurus built was Reciprocity: not pure sacrifice to others, but partnership with others, beneficial to all. He kept the ideas of self and of others inseparably knit together in one complex association: he did not expel or degrade either, in order to give exclusive ascendancy to the other. The dictate of Natural Justice was that no man should hurt another: each was bound to abstain from doing harm to others; each, on this condition, was entitled to count on security and relief from the fear that others would do harm to him. Such double aspect, or reciprocity, was essential to social companionship: those that could not, or would not, accept this covenant, were unfit for society. If a man does not behave justly towards others, he cannot expect that they will behave justly towards him; to live a life of injustice, and expect that others will not find it out, is idle. The unjust man cannot enjoy a moment of security. Epicurus laid it down explicitly, that just and righteous dealing was the indispensable condition to every one's comfort, and was the best means of attaining it.

The reciprocity of Justice was valid towards all the world; the reciprocity of friendship went much farther; it involved indefinite and active beneficence, but could reach only to a select few. Epicurus insisted emphatically on the value of friendship, as a means of happiness to both the persons so united. He declared that a good friend was another self, and that friends ought to be prepared, in case of need, to die for each other. Yet he declined to recommend an established community of goods among the members of his fraternity, as prevailed in the Pythagorean brotherhood: for such an institution (he said) implied mistrust. He recommended efforts to please and to serve, and a forwardness to give, for the purpose of gaining and benefiting a friend, and he even declared that there was more pleasure in conferring favours than in receiving them; but he was no less strenuous in inculcating an intelligent gratitude on the receiver. No one except a wise man (he said) knew how to return a favour properly.[16]

Virtue and happiness, in the theory of Epicurus, were thus inseparable. A man could not be happy until he had surmounted the fear of death and the fear of gods instilled by the current fables, which disturbed all tranquillity of mind; until he had banished those factitious desires that pushed him into contention for wealth, power, or celebrity; nor unless he behaved with justice to all, and with active devoted friendship towards a few. Such a mental condition, which he thought it was in every man's power to acquire by appropriate teaching and companionship, constituted virtue; and was the sure as well as the only precursor of genuine happiness. A mind thus undisturbed and purified was sufficient to itself. The mere satisfaction of the wants of life, and the conversation of friends, became then felt pleasures; if more could be had without preponderant mischief, so much the better; but Nature, disburthened of her corruptions and prejudices, required no more to be happy. This at least was as much as the conditions of humanity admitted: a tranquil, undisturbed, innocuous, non-competitive fruition, which approached most nearly to the perfect happiness of the Gods.[17]

The Epicurean theory of virtue is the type of all those that make an enlightened self-interest the basis of right and wrong. The four cardinal virtues were explained from the Epicurean point of view. _Prudence_ was the supreme rule of conduct. It was a calculation and balancing of pleasures and pains. Its object was a judicious selection of pleasures to be sought. It teaches men to forego idle wishes, and to despise idle fears. _Temperance_ is the management of sensual pleasures. It seeks to avoid excess, so as on the whole to extract as much pleasure as our bodily organs are capable of affording. _Fortitude_ is a virtue, because it overcomes fear and pain. It consists in facing danger or enduring pain, to avoid greater possible evils. _Justice_ is of artificial origin. It consists in a tacit agreement among mankind to abstain from injuring one another. The security that every man has in his person and property, is the great consideration urging to abstinence from injuring others. But is it not possible to commit injustice with safety? The answer was, 'Injustice is not an evil in itself, but becomes so from the fear that haunts the injurer of not being able to escape the appointed avengers of such acts.'

The Physics of Epicurus were borrowed in the main from the atomic theory of Democritus, but were modified by him in a manner subservient and contributory to his ethical scheme. To that scheme it was essential that those celestial, atmospheric, or terrestrial phenomena that the public around him ascribed to the agency and purposes of the gods, should be understood as being produced by physical causes. An eclipse, an earthquake, a storm, a shipwreck, unusual rain or drought, a good or a bad harvest--and not merely these, but many other occurrences far smaller and more unimportant, as we may see by the eighteenth chapter of the Characters of Theophrastus--were then regarded as visitations of the gods, requiring to be interpreted by recognized prophets, and to be appeased by ceremonial expiations. When once a man became convinced that all these phenomena proceeded from physical agencies, a host of terrors and anxieties would disappear from the mind; and this Epicurus asserted to be the beneficent effect and real recommendation of physical philosophy. He took little or no thought for scientific curiosity as a motive _per se_, which both Democritus and Aristotle put so much in the foreground.

Epicurus adopted the atomistic scheme of Democritus, but with some important variations. He conceived that the atoms all moved with equal velocity in the downward direction of gravity. But it occurred to him that upon this hypothesis there could never occur any collisions or combinations of the atoms--nothing but continued and unchangeable parallel lines. Accordingly, he modified it by saying that the line of descent was not exactly rectilinear, but that each atom deflected a little from the straight line, and each in its own direction and degree; so that it became possible to assume collisions, resiliences, adhesions, combinations, among them, as it had been possible under the variety of original movements ascribed to them by Democritus. The opponents of Epicurus derided this auxiliary hypothesis; they affirmed that he invented the individual deflection of each atom, without assigning any cause, and only because he was perplexed by the mystery of man's _free-will_. But Epicurus was not more open to attack on this ground than other physical philosophers. Most of them (except perhaps the most consistent of the Stoic fatalists) believed that some among the phenomena of the universe occurred in regular and predictable sequence, while others were essentially irregular and unpredictable; each philosopher devised his hypothesis, and recognized some fundamental principle, to explain the first class of phenomena as well as the second. Plato admitted an invincible Erratic necessity; Aristotle introduced Chance and Spontaneity; Democritus multiplied indefinitely the varieties of atomic movements. The hypothetical deflexion alleged by Epicurus was his way, not more unwarranted than the others, of providing a fundamental principle for the unpredictable phenomena of the universe. Among these are the mental (including the volitional) manifestations of men and animals; but there are many others besides; and there is no ground for believing that the mystery of free-will was peculiarly present to his mind. The movements of a man or animal are not exclusively subject to gravitation and other general laws; they are partly governed by mental impulses and by forces of the organism, intrinsic and peculiar to himself, unseen and unfelt by others. For these, in common with many other untraceable phenomena in the material world, Epicurus provides a principle in the supplementary hypothesis of deflexion. He rejected the fatalism contained in the theories of some of the Stoics, and admitted a limited range of empire to chance, or irregularity. But he maintained that the will, far from being among the phenomena essentially irregular, is under the influence of motives; for no man can insist more strenuously than he does (see the Letter to Menoecens) on the complete power of philosophy,--if the student could be made to feel its necessity and desire the attainment of it, so as to meditate and engrain within himself sound views about the gods, death, and human life generally,--to mould our volitions and character in a manner conformable to the exigencies of virtue and happiness.

When we read the explanations given by Epicurus and Lucretius of what the Epicurean theory really was, and compare them with the numerous attacks made upon it by opponents, we cannot but remark that the title or formula of the theory was ill chosen, and was really a misnomer. What Epicurus meant by Pleasure was, not what most people meant by it, but something very different--a tranquil and comfortable state of mind and body; much the same as what Democritus had expressed before him by the phrase [Greek: euthymia]. This last phrase would have expressed what Epicurus aimed at, neither more nor less. It would at least have preserved his theory from much misplaced sarcasm and aggressive rhetoric.

THE NEO-PLATONISTS.

PLOTINUS (A.D. 205--70), PORPHYRY, &c.

Constructed with reference to the broken-down state of ancient society, and seeking its highest aim in a regeneration of humanity, the philosophical system of Neo-Platonism was throughout ethical or ethico-religious in spirit; yet its ethics admits of no great development according to the usual topics. A pervading ethical character is not incompatible with the absence of a regular ethical scheme; and there was this peculiarity in the system, that its end, though professedly moral, was to be attained by means of an intellectual regimen. In setting up its ideal of human effort, it was least of all careful about prescribing a definite course of external conduct.

The more strictly ethical views of PLOTINUS, the chief representative of the school, are found mainly in the first of the six Enneads into which Porphyry collected his master's essays. But as they presuppose the cosmological and psychological doctrines, their place in the works, as now arranged, is to be regarded as arbitrary. The soul having fallen from its original condition, and, in consequence and as a penalty, having become united with a material body, the one true aim recognized for human action is, to rise above the debasing connection with matter, and again to lead the old spiritual life. For those that have sunk so far as to be content with the world of sense, wisdom consists in pursuing pleasure as good, and shunning pain as evil: but the others can partake of a better life, in different degrees. The first step in reformation is to practise virtue in the affairs of life, which means to subject Sense and the lower desires to Reason. This is done in the fourfold form of the common cardinal virtues, called _political_ by Plotinus, to mark the sphere of action where they can be exerted, and is the virtue of a class of men capable of a certain elevation, though ignorant of all the rest that lies above them. A second step is made through the means of the [Greek: katharseis] or _purifying_ virtues; where it is sought to root out, instead of merely moderating, the sensual affections. If the soul is thus altogether freed from the dominion of sense, it becomes at once able to follow its natural bent towards good, and enters into a permanent state of calm. This is virtue in its true meaning--becoming like to the Deity, all that went before being merely a preparation. The pure and perfect life of the soul may still be described as a field whereon the four virtues are exercised, but they now assume a far higher meaning than as political virtues, having relation solely to the contemplative life of the Nous.

Happiness is unknown to Plotinus as distinct from perfection, and perfection in the sense of having subdued all material cravings (except as regards the bare necessities of life), and entered upon the undisturbed life of contemplation. If this recalls, at least in name, the Aristotelian ideal, there are points added that appear to be echoes of Stoicism. Rapt in the contemplation of eternal verities, the purified soul is indifferent to external circumstances: pain and suffering are unheeded, and the just man can feel happy even in the bull of Phalaris. But in one important respect the Neo-Platonic teaching is at variance with Stoical doctrine. Though its first and last precept is to rid the soul from the bondage of matter, it warns against the attempt to sever body and soul by suicide. By no forcible separation, which would be followed by a new junction, but only by prolonged internal effort is the soul so set free from the world of sense, as to be able to have a vision of its ancient home while still in the body, and to return to it at death. Small, therefore, as is the consideration bestowed by Neo-Platonism on the affairs of practical life, it has no disposition to shirk the burden of them.

One other peculiar aim, the highest of all, is proposed to the soul in the Alexandrian philosophy. It is peculiar, because to be understood only in connexion with the metaphysics and cosmology of the system. In the theory of Emanation, the primordial One or Good emits the Nous wherein the Ideas are immanent; the Nous, in turn, sends forth the Soul, and the Soul, Matter or nature; the gradation applying to man as well as to the Universe. Now, to each of these principles, there is a corresponding subjective state in the inner life of man. The life of sense answers to nature or the material body; the virtue that is founded upon free-will and reason, to the soul; the contemplative life, as the result of complete purification from sense, to the Nous or Sphere of Ideas; finally, to the One or Good, supreme in the scale of existence, corresponds the state of Love, or, in its highest form, _Ecstasy_. This peculiar elevation is something far above the highest intellectual contemplation, and is not reached by thought. It is not even a mere intuition of, but a real union or contact with, the Good. To attain it, there must be a complete withdrawal into self from the external world, and then the subject must wait quietly till perchance the state comes on. It is one of ineffable bliss, but, from the nature of man, transitory and rare.

SCHOLASTIC ETHICS.

ABAELARD (1079-1142) has a special treatise on the subject of Ethics, entitled _Scito te ipsum_. As the name implies, it lays chief stress upon the Subjective element in morality, and, in this aspect, is considered to supply the idea that underlies a very large portion of modern ethical speculation. By nature a notoriously independent thinker, Abaelard claimed for philosophy the right of discussing ethical questions and fixing a natural moral law, though he allowed a corrective in the Christian scheme. Having this position with reference to the church, he was also much less under the yoke of philosophical authority than his successors, from living at a time when Aristotle was not yet supreme. Yet, with Aristotle, he assigns the attainment of the highest good as the aim of all human effort, Ethics showing the way; and, with the schoolmen generally, pronounces the highest good to be God. If the highest good in itself is God, the highest human good is love to God. This is attained by way of virtue, which is a good Will consolidated into a habit. On the influence of habit on action his view is Aristotelian. His own specialty lies in his judging actions solely with reference to the intention _(intentio)_ of the agent, and this intention with reference to conscience _(conscientia)_. All actions, he says, are in themselves indifferent, and not to be called good or evil except from the intention of the doer. _Peccatum_, is properly only the action that is done with evil intent; and where this is present, where the mental consent _(consensus)_ is clearly established, there is _peccatum_, though the action remains unexecuted. When the _consensus_ is absent, as in original sin, there is only _vitium_; hence, a life without _peccata_ is not impossible to men in the exercise of their freedom, however difficult it may be.

The supremacy assigned by him to the subjective element of conscience appears in such phrases as, there is no sin except against conscience; also in the opinion he pronounces, that, though in the case of a mistaken moral conviction, an action is not to be called good, yet it is not so bad as an action objectively right but done against conscience. Thus, without allowing that conscientious persecutors of Christians act rightly, he is not afraid, in the application of his principle, to say that they would act still more wrongly if through not listening to their conscience, they spared their victims. But this means only that by following conscience we avoid sinning; for virtue in the full sense, it is necessary that the conscience should have judged rightly. By what standard, however, this is to be ascertained, he nowhere clearly says. _Contemptus Dei_, given by him as the real and only thing that constitutes an action bad, is merely another subjective description.

ST. BERNARD of Clairvaux (1091-1153), the strenuous opponent of Abaelard, and the great upholder of mysticism against rationalism in the early scholastic period when the two were not yet reconciled, gave utterance, in the course of his mystical effusions, to some special views of love and disinterestedness.

There are two degrees of Christian virtue, Humility and Charity or Love. When men look into themselves, and behold the meanness that is found there, the fitting state of mind is, first, humility; but soon the sense of their very weakness begets in them charity and compassion towards others, while the sense also of a certain human dignity raises within them feelings of love towards the author of their being. The treatise _De Amore Dei_ sets forth the nature of this love, which is the highest exercise of human powers. Its fundamental characteristic is its disinterestedness. It has its reward, but from meriting, not from seeking. It is purely voluntary, and, as a free sentiment, necessarily unbought; it has God for its single object, and would not be love to God, if he were loved for the sake of something else.

He distinguishes various degrees of love. There is, first, a natural love of self for the sake of self. Next, a motion of love towards God amid earthly misfortunes, which also is not disinterested. The third degree is different, being love to God for his own sake, and to our neighbour for God's sake. But the highest grade of all is not reached, until men come to love even themselves only by relation to God; at this point, with the disappearance of all special and interested affection, the mystic goal is attained.

JOHN of SALISBURY (d. 1180) is the last name to be cited in the early scholastic period. He professed to be a practical philosopher, to be more concerned about the uses of knowledge than about knowledge itself, and to subordinate everything to some purpose; by way of protest against the theoretic hair-splitting and verbal subtleties of his predecessors. Even more than in Ethics, he found in Politics his proper sphere. He was the staunchest upholder of the Papal Supremacy, which, after long struggles, was about to be established at its greatest height, before presiding at the opening of the most brilliant period of scholasticism.

In the _Policraticus_ especially, but also in his other works, the foundations and provisions of his moral system are found. He has no distinction to draw in Ethics between theology and philosophy, but uses Scripture and observation alike, though Scripture always in the final appeal. Of philosophizing, the one final aim, as also of existence, is Happiness; the question, of questions, how it is to be attained. Happiness is not pleasure, nor possession, nor honour, but consists in following the path of virtue. Virtue is to be understood from the constitution of human nature. In man, there is a lower and a higher faculty of Desire; or, otherwise expressed, there are the various affections that have their roots in sense and centre in self-love or the desire of self-preservation, and there is also a natural love of justice implanted from the beginning. In proportion as the _appetitus justi_, which consists in will, gains upon the _appetitus commodi_, men become more worthy of a larger happiness. Self-love rules in man, so long as he is in the natural state of sin; if, amid great conflict and by divine help, the higher affection gains the upper hand, the state of true virtue, which is identical with the theoretic state of belief, and also of pure love to God and man, is reached.

By the middle of the thirteenth century, the schoolmen had before them the whole works of Aristotle, obtained from Arabian and other sources. Whereas, previous to this time, they had comprehended nearly all the subjects of Philosophy under the one name of Dialectics or Logic, always reserving, however, Ethics to Theology, they were now made aware of the ancient division of the sciences, and of what had been accomplished in each. The effect, both in respect of form and of subject-matter, was soon apparent in such compilations or more independent works as they were able to produce after their commentaries on the Aristotelian text. But in Ethics, the nature of the subject demanded of men in their position a less entire submission to the doctrines of the pagan philosopher; and here accordingly they clung to the traditional theological treatment. If they were commenting on the Ethics of Aristotle, the Bible was at hand to supply his omissions; if they were setting up a complete moral system, they took little more than the ground-work from him, the rest being Christian ideas and precepts, or fragments borrowed from Platonism and other Greek systems, nearly allied in spirit to their own faith.

This is especially true, as will be seen, of Thomas Aquinas. His predecessors can be disposed of in a few words. ALEXANDER of HALES (d. 1245) was almost purely theological. BONAVENTURA (1221-74) in his double character of rigid Franciscan and mystic, was led far beyond the Aristotelian Ethics. The mean between excess and defect is a very good rule for the affairs of life, but the true Christian is bound besides to works of supererogation: first of all, to take on the condition of poverty; while the state of mystic contemplation remains as a still higher goal for the few. ALBERT THE GREAT (1193-1280), the most learned and complete commentator of Aristotle that had yet appeared, divide the whole subject of Ethics into _Monastica, Oeconomica_, and _Politica_. In this division, which is plainly suggested by the Aristotelian division of Politics in the large sense, the term _Monastica_ not inaptly expresses the reference that Ethics has to the conduct of men as individuals. Albert, however, in commenting on the Nicomachean Ethics, adds exceedingly little to the results of his author beyond the incorporation of a few Scriptural ideas. To the cardinal virtues he appends the _virtutes adjunctae_, Faith, Hope, and Charity, and again in his compendious work, _Summa Theologiae_, distinguishes them as _infusae_, the cardinal being considered as _acquisitae_.

Besides his commentaries on the Aristotelian works (the Ethics included) and many other writings, THOMAS AQUINAS (1226-74) left two large works, the _Summa philosophica_ and the famous _Summa Theologiae_. Notwithstanding the prominence assigned to theological questions, the first is a regular philosophical work; the second, though containing the exposition of philosophical opinions, is a theological textbook. Now, as it is in the Summary for theological purposes that the whole practical philosophy of Aquinas is contained, it is to be inferred that he regarded the subject of Ethics as not on the same level with other departments of philosophy. Moreover, even when he is not appealing to Scripture, he is seen to display what is for him a most unusual tendency to desert Aristotle, at the really critical moments, for Plato or Plotinus, or any other authority of a more theological cast.

In the (unfinished) _Summa Theologiae_, the Ethical views and cognate questions occupy the two sections of the second part--the so-called _prima_ and _secunda secundae_. He begins, in the Aristotelian fashion, by seeking an ultimate end of human action, and finds it in the attainment of the highest good or happiness. But as no created thing can answer to the idea of the highest good, it must be placed in God. God, however, as the highest good, can only be the object, in the search after human happiness, for happiness in itself is a state of the mind or act of the soul. The question then arises, "what sort of act?" Does it fall under the Will or under the Intelligence? The answer is, Not under the will, because happiness is neither desire nor pleasure, but _consecutio_, that is, a possessing. Desire precedes _consecutio_, and pleasure follows upon it; but the act of getting possession, in which lies happiness, is distinct from both. This is illustrated by the case of the miser having his happiness in the mere possession of money; and the position is essentially the same as Butler's, in regard to our appetites and desires, that they blindly seek their objects with no regard to pleasure. Thomas concludes that the _consecutio_, or happiness, is an act of the intelligence; what pleasure there is being a mere accidental accompaniment.

Distinguishing between two phases of the intellect--the theoretic and the practical--in the one of which it is an end to itself, but in the other subordinated to an external aim, he places true happiness in acts of the self-sufficing theoretic intelligence. In this life, however, such a constant exercise of the intellect is not possible, and accordingly what happiness there is, must be found, in great measure, in the exercise of the practical intellect, directing and governing the lower desires and passions. This twofold conception of happiness is Aristotelian, even as expressed by Thomas under the distinction of perfect and imperfect happiness; but when he goes on to associate perfect happiness with the future life only, to found an argument for a future life from the desire of a happiness more perfect than can be found here, and to make the pure contemplation, in which consists highest bliss, a vision of the divine essence face to face, a direct cognition of Deity far surpassing demonstrative knowledge or mortal faith--he is more theologian than philosopher, or if a philosopher, more Platonist than Aristotelian.

The condition of perfect happiness being a theoretic or intellectual state, the _visio_, and not the _delectatio_, is consistently given as its central fact; and when he proceeds to consider the other questions of Ethics, the same superiority is steadily ascribed to the intellectual function. It is because we _know_ a thing to be good that we wish it, and knowing it, we cannot help wishing. Conscience, as the name implies, is allied to knowledge. Reason gives the law to will.

After a long disquisition about the passions and the whole appetitive side of human nature, over which Reason is called to rule, he is brought to the subject of virtue. He is Aristotelian enough to describe virtue as _habitus_--a disposition or quality (like health) whereby a subject is more or less well disposed with reference to itself or something else; and he takes account of the acquisition of good moral habits (_virtutes acquisitae_) by practice. But with this he couples, or tends to substitute for it, the definition of Augustin that virtue is a good quality of mind, _quam Deus in nobis sine nobis operatur_, as a ground for _virtutes infusae_, conferred as gifts upon man, or rather on certain men, by free grace from on high. He wavers greatly at this stage, and in this respect his attitude is characteristic for all the schoolmen.

So again in passing from the general question of Virtue to the virtues, he puts several of the systems under contribution, as if not prepared to leave the guidance of Aristotle, but feeling at the same time the necessity of bridging over the distance between his position and Christian requirements. Understanding Aristotle to make a co-ordinate division of virtues into Moral and Intellectual, he gives reasons for such a step. Though virtue, he says, is not so much the perfecting of the operation of our faculties, as their employment by the will for good ends, it may be used in the first sense, and thus the intellectual virtues will be the habits of intelligence that procure the truest knowledge. The well-known division of the cardinal virtues is his next theme; and it is established as complete and satisfactory by a twofold deduction. But a still higher and more congenial view is immediately afterwards adopted from Plotinus. This is the Neo-Platonic description of the four virtues as _politicae, purgatoriae_, and _purgati animi_, according to the scale of elevation reached by the soul in its efforts to mount above sense. They are called by Thomas also _exemplares_, when regarded at once as the essence of the Deity, and as the models of human perfections.

This mystical division, not unsupported by philosophical authority, smooths the way for his account of the highest or _theological_ virtues. These bear upon the vision of Deity, which was recognized above as the highest good of humanity, and form an order apart. They have God for their object, are altogether inspired by God (hence called _infusae_), and are taught by revelation. Given in connection with the natural faculties of intellect and will, they are exhibited in the attainment of the supernatural order of things. With intellect goes _Faith_, as it were the intellect applied to things not intelligible; with Will go Hope and Charity or Love: Hope being the Will exercised upon things not naturally desired, and Love the union of Will with what is not naturally brought near to us.

Aquinas then passes to politics, or at least the discussion of the political ideas of law, right, &c.

Coming now to _modern_ thinkers, we begin with

THOMAS HOBBES. [1588-1679.]

The circumstances of Hobbes's life, so powerful in determining the nature of his opinions, had an equally marked effect on the order and number of expositions that he gave to the psychological and political parts of his system. His ethical doctrines, in as far as they can be dissociated from, his politics, may be studied in no less than three distinct forms; either in the first part of the Leviathian (1651); or in the De Cive (1647), taken along-with the _De Homine_ (1658); or in the Treatise of Human Nature (1650, but written ten years earlier), coupled with the De Corpore Politico (also 1650). But the same result, or with only unimportant variations, being obtained from all, we need not here go beyond the first-mentioned.

In the first part of the Leviathan, then, bearing the title _Of Man_, and designed to consider Man as at once the _matter_ and _artificer_ of the Commonwealth or State, Hobbes is led, after discussing Sense, Imagination, Train of Imaginations, Speech, Reason and Science, to take up, in chapter sixth, the Passions, or, as he calls them, the Interior beginnings of voluntary motions. Motions, he says, are either vital and animal, or voluntary. Vital motions, _e.g._, circulation, nutrition, &c., need no help of imagination; on the other hand, voluntary motions, as going and speaking--since they depend on a precedent thought of whither, which way, and what--have in the imagination their first beginning. But imagination is only the relics of sense, and sense, as Hobbes always declares, is motion in the human organs communicated by objects without; consequently, visible voluntary motions begin in invisible internal motions, whose nature is expressed by the word _Endeavour_. When the endeavour is towards something causing it, there is Appetite or Desire; endeavour 'fromward something' is Aversion. These very words, and the corresponding terms in Greek, imply an actual, not--as the schoolmen absurdly think--a metaphorical motion. Passing from the main question, he describes Love and Hate as Desire and Aversion when the object is present. Of appetites, some are born with us, others proceed from experience, being of particular things. Where we neither desire nor hate, we contemn [he means, disregard]. Appetites and aversions vary in the same person, and much more in different persons.

Then follows his definition of _good_,--the object of any man's appetite or desire, as evil is the object of his hate and aversion. Good and evil are always merely relative, either to the person of a man, or in a commonwealth to the representative person, or to an arbitrator if chosen to settle a dispute. Good in the promise is _pulchrum_, for which there is no exact English term; good in the effect, as the end desired, is _delightful_; good as the means, is _useful_ or _profitable_. There is the same variety of evil.

His next topic is Pleasure. As sense is, in _reality_, motion, but, in '_apparence_,' light or sound or odour; so appetite, in reality a motion or endeavour effected in the heart by the action of objects through the organs of sense, is, in 'apparence,' delight or trouble of mind. The emotion, whose _apparence_ (_i.e._, subjective side) is pleasure or delight, seems to be a corroboration of vital motion; the contrary, in the case of molestation. Pleasure is, therefore, the sense of good; displeasure, the sense of evil. The one accompanies, in greater or less degree, all desire and love; the other, all aversion and hatred. Pleasures are either of _sense_; or of the _mind_, when arising-from the expectation that proceeds from the foresight of the ends or consequence of things, irrespective of their pleasing the senses or not. For these mental pleasures, there is the general name _joy_. There is a corresponding division of displeasure into _pain_ and _grief_.

All the other passions, he now proceeds to show, are these _simple_ passions--appetite, desire, love, aversion, hate, joy, and grief, diversified in name for divers considerations. Incidental remarks of ethical importance are these. _Covetousness_, the desire of riches, is a name signifying blame, because men contending for them are displeased with others attaining them; the desire itself, however, is to be blamed or allowed, according to the means whereby the riches are sought. _Curiosity_ is a lust of the mind, that by a perseverance of delight in the continual generation of knowledge, exceedeth the short vehemence of any carnal pleasure. _Pity_ is grief for the calamity of another, arising from the imagination of the like calamity befalling one's self; the best men have, therefore, least pity for calamity arising from great wickedness. _Contempt_, or little sense of the calamity of others, proceeds from security of one's own fortune; 'for that any man should take pleasure in other men's great harms, without other end of his own, I do not conceive it possible.'

Having explained the various passions, he then gives his theory of the Will. He supposes a _liberty_ in man of doing or omitting, according to appetite or aversion. But to this liberty an end is put in the state of _deliberation_ wherein there is kept up a constant succession of alternating desires and aversions, hopes and fears, regarding one and the same thing. One of two results follows. Either the thing is judged impossible, or it is done; and this, according as aversion or appetite triumphs at the last. Now, the last aversion, followed by omission, or the last appetite, followed by action, is the act of _Willing_. Will is, therefore, the last appetite (taken to include aversion) in deliberating. So-called Will, that has been forborne, was _inclination_ merely; but the last inclination with consequent action (or omission) is Will, or voluntary action.

After mentioning the forms of speech where the several passions and appetites are naturally expressed, and remarking that the truest signs of passion are in the countenance, motions of the body, actions, and ends or aims otherwise known to belong to a man,--he returns to the question of good and evil. It is _apparent_ good and evil, come at by the best possible foresight of all the consequences of action, that excite the appetites and aversions in deliberation. _Felicity_ he defines continual success in obtaining the things from time to time desired; perpetual tranquillity of mind being impossible in this life, which is but motion, and cannot be without desire and fear any more than without sense. The happiness of the future life is at present unknown.

Men, he says at the close, _praise_ the goodness, and _magnify_ the greatness, of a thing; the Greeks had also the word [Greek: makarismos], to express an opinion of a man's felicity.

In Chapter VII., Of the Ends of Discourse, he is led to remark on the meaning of _Conscience_, in connection-with the word _Conscious_. Two or more men, he says, are conscious of a thing when they know it together (_con-scire_.) Hence arises the proper meaning of conscience; and the evil of speaking against one's conscience, in this sense, is to be allowed. Two other meanings are metaphorical: when it is put for a man's knowledge of his own secret facts and thoughts; and when men give their own new opinions, however absurd, the reverenced name of conscience, as if they would have it seem unlawful to change or speak against them. [Hobbes is not concerned to foster the moral independence of individuals.]

He begins Chapter VIII. by defining Virtue as something that is valued for eminence, and that consists in comparison, but proceeds to consider only the intellectual virtues--all that is summed up in the term of a _good wit_--and their opposites. Farther on, he refers difference of wits--discretion, prudence, craft, &c.--to difference in the passions, and this to difference in constitution of body and of education. The passions chiefly concerned are the desires of power, riches, knowledge, honour, but all may be reduced to the single desire of power.

In Chapter IX. is given his Scheme of Sciences. The relation in his mind between Ethics and Politics is here seen. Science or Philosophy is divided into Natural or Civil, according as it is knowledge of consequences from the accidents of natural bodies or of politic bodies. Ethics is one of the ultimate divisions of Natural Philosophy, dealing with consequences from the _passions_ of men; and because the passions are _qualities_ of bodies, it falls more immediately under the head of Physics. Politics is the whole of the second main division, and deals with consequences from the institution of commonwealths (1) to the rights and duties of the Sovereign, and (2) to the duty and right of the Subject.

Ethics, accordingly, in Hobbes's eyes, is part of the science of man (as a natural body), and it is always treated as such. But subjecting, as he does, so much of the action of the individual to the action of the state, he necessarily includes in his Politics many questions that usually fall to Ethics. Hence arises the necessity of studying for his Ethics also part of the civil Philosophy; though it happens that, in the Leviathan, this requisite part is incorporated with the Section containing the Science of Man.