II. HISTORICAL SKETCH

A. _Greek and Graeco-Roman Ethics._--The ethical speculation of Greece,

and therefore of Europe, had no abrupt and absolute beginning. The naive

and fragmentary precepts of conduct, which are everywhere the earliest

manifestation of nascent moral reflection, are a noteworthy element in

the gnomic poetry of the 7th and 6th centuries B.C. Their importance is

shown by the traditional enumeration of the Seven Sages of the 6th

century, and their influence on ethical thought is attested by the

references of Plato and Aristotle. But from these unscientific

utterances to a philosophy of morals was a long process. In the

practical wisdom of Thales (q.v.), one of the seven, we cannot discern

any systematic theory of morality. In the case of Pythagoras,

conspicuous among pre-Socratic philosophers as the founder not merely of

a school, but of a sect or order bound by a common rule of life, there

is a closer connexion between moral and metaphysical speculation. The

doctrine of the Pythagoreans that the essence of justice (conceived as

equal retribution) was a square number, indicates a serious attempt to

extend to the region of conduct their mathematical view of the universe;

and the same may be said of their classification of good with unity,

straightness and the like, and of evil with the opposite qualities.

Still, the enunciation of the moral precepts of Pythagoras appears to

have been dogmatic, or even prophetic, rather than philosophic, and to

have been accepted by his disciples with an unphilosophic reverence as

the _ipse dixit_[1] of the master. Hence, whatever influence the

Pythagorean blending of ethical and mathematical notions may have had on

Plato, and, through him, on later thought, we cannot regard the school

as having really forestalled the Socratic inquiry after a completely

reasoned theory of conduct. The ethical element in the "dark"

philosophizing of Heraclitus (c. 530-470 B.C.), though it anticipates

Stoicism in its conceptions of a law of the universe, to which the wise

man will carefully conform, and a divine harmony, in the recognition of

which he will find his truest satisfaction, is more profound, but even

less systematic. It is only when we come to Democritus, a contemporary

of Socrates, the last of the original thinkers whom we distinguish as

pre-Socratic, that we find anything which we can call an ethical system.

The fragments that remain of the moral treatises of Democritus are

sufficient, perhaps, to convince us that the turn of Greek philosophy in

the direction of conduct, which was actually due to Socrates, would have

taken place without him, though in a less decided manner; but when we

compare the Democritean ethics with the post-Socratic system to which it

has most affinity, Epicureanism, we find that it exhibits a very

rudimentary apprehension of the formal conditions which moral teaching

must fulfil before it can lay claim to be treated as scientific.

The truth is that no system of ethics could be constructed until

attention had been directed to the vagueness and inconsistency of the

common moral opinions of mankind. For this purpose was needed the

concentration of a philosophic intellect of the first order on the

problems of practice. In Socrates first we find the required combination

of a paramount interest in conduct and an ardent desire for knowledge.

The pre-Socratic thinkers were all primarily devoted to ontological

research; but by the middle of the 5th century B.C. the conflict of

their dogmatic systems had led some of the keenest minds to doubt the

possibility of penetrating the secret of the physical universe. This

doubt found expression in the reasoned scepticism of Gorgias, and

produced the famous proposition of Protagoras, that human apprehension

is the only standard of existence. The same feeling led Socrates to

abandon the old physico-metaphysical inquiries. In his ease, moreover,

it was strengthened by a naive piety that forbade him to search into

things of which the gods seemed to have reserved the knowledge to

themselves. The regulation of human action, on the other hand (except on

occasions of special difficulty, for which omens and oracles might be

vouchsafed), they had left to human reason. On this accordingly Socrates

concentrated his efforts.

The Sophists.

Socrates.

Though, however, Socrates was the first to arrive at a proper conception

of the problems of conduct, the general idea did not originate with him.

The natural reaction against the metaphysical and ethical dogmatism of

the early thinkers had reached its climax in the Sophists (q.v.).

Gorgias and Protagoras are only representatives of what was really a

universal tendency to abandon dogmatic theory and take refuge in

practical matters, and especially, as was natural in the Greek

city-state, in the civic relations of the citizen. The education given

by the Sophists aimed at no general theory of life, but professed to

expound the art of getting on in the world and of managing public

affairs. In their eulogy of the virtues of the citizen, they pointed out

the prudential character of justice and the like as a means of obtaining

pleasure and avoiding pain. The Greek conception of society was such

that the life of the free-born citizen consisted mainly of his public

function, and, therefore, the pseudo-ethical disquisitions of the

Sophists satisfied the requirements of the age. None thought of [Greek:

arete] (virtue or excellence) as a unique quality possessed of an

intrinsic value, but as the virtue of the citizen, just as good

flute-playing was the virtue of the flute-player. We see here, as in

other activities of the age, a determination to acquire technical

knowledge, and to apply it directly to the practical issue; just as

music was being enriched by new technical knowledge, architecture by

modern theories of plans and T-squares (sc. Hippodamus), the handling of

soldiers by the new technique of "tactics" and "hoplitics," so

citizenship must be analysed afresh, systematized and adapted in

relation to modern requirements. The Sophists had studied these matters

superficially indeed but with thoroughness as far as they went, and it

is not remarkable that they should have taken the methods which were

successful in rhetoric, and applied them to the "science and art" of

civic virtues. Plato's _Protagoras_ claims, not unjustly, that in

teaching virtue they simply did systematically what every one else was

doing at haphazard. But in the true sense of the word, they had no

ethical system at all, nor did they contribute save by contrast to

ethical speculation. They merely analysed conventional formulae, much in

the manner of certain modern so-called "scientific" moralists. Into this

arena of hazy popular common sense Socrates brought a new critical

spirit, showing that these popular lecturers, in spite of their fertile

eloquence, could not defend their fundamental assumptions, nor even give

rational definitions of what they professed to explain. Not only were

they thus "ignorant," but they were also perpetually inconsistent with

themselves in dealing with particular instances. Thus, by the aid of his

famous "dialectic," Socrates arrived first at the negative result that

the professed teachers of the people were as ignorant as he himself

claimed to be, and in a measure justified the eulogy of Aristotle that

he rendered to philosophy the service of "introducing induction and

definitions." This description of his work is, however, both too

technical and too positive, if we may judge from those earlier dialogues

of Plato in which the real Socrates is found least modified. The

pre-eminent wisdom which the Delphic oracle attributed to him was held

by himself to consist in a unique consciousness of ignorance. Yet it is

equally clear from Plato that there was a most important positive

element in the teaching of Socrates in virtue of which it is just to say

with Alexander Bain, "the first important name in ancient ethical

philosophy is Socrates." The union of the negative and the positive

elements in his work has caused historians no little perplexity, and we

cannot quite save the philosopher's consistency unless we regard some of

the doctrines attributed to him by Xenophon as merely tentative and

provisional. Still the positions of Socrates that are most important in

the history of ethical thought not only are easy to harmonize with his

conviction of ignorance, but even render it easier to understand his

unwearied cross-examination of common opinion. While he showed clearly

the difficulty of acquiring knowledge, he was convinced that knowledge

alone could be the source of a coherent system of virtue, as error of

evil. Socrates, therefore, first in the history of thought, propounds a

positive scientific law of conduct. Virtue is knowledge. This principle

involved the paradox that no man, knowing good, would do evil. But it

was a paradox derived from his unanswerable truisms, "Every one wishes

for his own good, and would get it if he could," and "No one would deny

that justice and virtue generally are goods, and of all goods the best."

All virtues are, therefore, summed up in knowledge of the good. But this

good is not, for Socrates, duty as distinct from interest. The force of

the paradox depends upon a blending of duty and interest in the single

notion of good, a blending which was dominant in the common thought of

the age. This it is which forms the kernel of the positive thought of

Socrates according to Xenophon. He could give no satisfactory account of

Good in the abstract, and evaded all questions on this point by saying

that he knew "no good that was not good _for something in particular_,"

but that good is consistent with itself. For himself he prized above all

things the wisdom that is virtue, and in the task of producing it he

endured the hardest penury, maintaining that such life was richer in

enjoyment than a life of luxury. This many-sidedness of view is

illustrated by the curious blending of noble and merely utilitarian

sentiment in his account of friendship: a friend who can be of no

service is valueless; yet the highest service that a friend can render

is moral improvement.

The historically important characteristics of his moral philosophy, if

we take (as we must) his teaching and character together, may be

summarized as follows:--(1) an ardent inquiry for knowledge nowhere to

be found, but which, if found, would perfect human conduct; (2) a demand

meanwhile that men should act as far as possible on some consistent

theory; (3) a provisional adhesion to the commonly received view of

good, in all its incoherent complexity, and a perpetual readiness to

maintain the harmony of its different elements, and demonstrate the

superiority of virtue by an appeal to the standard of self-interest; (4)

personal firmness, as apparently easy as it was actually invincible, in

carrying out consistently such practical convictions as he had attained.

It is only when we keep all these points in view that we can understand

how from the spring of Socratic conversation flowed the divergent

streams of Greek ethical thought.

The Socratic Schools.

Four distinct philosophical schools trace their immediate origin to the

circle that gathered round Socrates--the Megarian, the Platonic, the

Cynic and the Cyrenaic. The impress of the master is manifest on all, in

spite of the wide differences that divide them; they all agree in

holding the most important possession of man to be wisdom or knowledge,

and the most important knowledge to be knowledge of Good. Here, however,

the agreement ends. The more philosophic part of the circle, forming a

group in which Euclid of Megara (see MEGARIAN SCHOOL) seems at first to

have taken the lead, regarded this Good as the object of a still

unfulfilled quest, and were led to identify it with the hidden secret

of the universe, and thus to pass from ethics to metaphysics. Others

again, whose demand for knowledge was more easily satisfied, and who

were more impressed with the positive and practical side of the master's

teaching, made the quest a much simpler affair. They took the Good as

already known, and held philosophy to consist in the steady application

of this knowledge to conduct. Among these were Antisthenes the Cynic and

Aristippus of Cyrene. It is by their recognition of the duty of living

consistently by theory instead of mere impulse or custom, their sense of

the new value given to life through this rationalization, and their

effort to maintain the easy, calm, unwavering firmness of the Socratic

temper, that we recognize both Antisthenes and Aristippus as "Socratic

men," in spite of the completeness with which they divided their

master's positive doctrine into systems diametrically opposed. Of their

contrasted principles we may perhaps say that, while Aristippus took the

most obvious logical step for reducing the teaching of Socrates to clear

dogmatic unity, Antisthenes certainly drew the most natural inference

from the Socratic life.

Aristippus.

Aristippus (see CYRENAICS) argued that, if all that is beautiful or

admirable in conduct has this quality as being useful, i.e. productive

of some further good; if virtuous action is essentially action done with

insight, or rational apprehension of the act as a means to this good,

this good must be pleasure. Bodily pleasures and pains Aristippus held

to be the keenest, though he does not seem to have maintained this on

any materialistic theory, as he admitted the existence of purely mental

pleasures, such as joy in the prosperity of one's native land. He fully

recognized that his good was capable of being realized only in

successive parts, and gave even exaggerated emphasis to the rule of

seeking the pleasure of the moment, and not troubling oneself about a

dubious future. It was in the calm, resolute, skilful culling of such

pleasures as circumstances afforded from moment to moment, undisturbed

by passion, prejudices or superstition, that he conceived the quality of

wisdom to be exhibited; and tradition represents him as realizing this

ideal to an impressive degree. Among the prejudices from which the wise

man was free he included all regard to customary morality beyond what

was due to the actual penalties attached to its violation; though he

held, with Socrates, that these penalties actually render conformity

reasonable. Thus early in the history of ethical theory appeared the

most thorough-going exposition of hedonism.

The Cynics.

Far otherwise was the Socratic spirit understood by Antisthenes and the

Cynics (q.v.). They equally held that no speculative research was needed

for the discovery of good and virtue, and maintained that the Socratic

wisdom was exhibited, not in the skilful pursuit, but in the rational

disregard of pleasure,--in the clear apprehension of the intrinsic

worthlessness of this and most other objects of men's ordinary desires

and aims. Pleasure, indeed, Antisthenes declared roundly to be an evil;

"Better madness than a surrender to pleasure." He did not overlook the

need of supplementing merely intellectual insight by "Socratic force of

soul"; but it seemed to him that, by insight and self-mastery combined,

an absolute spiritual independence might be attained which left nothing

wanting for perfect well-being (see also DIOGENES). For as for poverty,

painful toil, disrepute, and such evils as men dread most, these, he

argued, were positively useful as means of progress in spiritual freedom

and virtue. There is, however, in the Cynic notion of wisdom, no

positive criterion beyond the mere negation of irrational desires and

prejudices. We saw that Socrates, while not claiming to have found the

abstract theory of good or wise conduct, practically understood by it

the faithful performance of customary duties, maintaining always that

his own happiness was therewith bound up. The Cynics more boldly

discarded both pleasure and mere custom as alike irrational; but in so

doing they left the freed reason with no definite aim but its own

freedom. It is absurd, as Plato urged, to say that knowledge is the

good, and then when asked "knowledge of what?" to have no positive reply

but "of the good"; but the Cynics do not seem to have made any serious

effort to escape from this absurdity.

The ultimate views of these two Socratic schools we shall have to notice

presently when we come to the post-Aristotelian schools. We must now

proceed to trace the fuller development of the Socratic theory in the

hands of Plato and Aristotle.

Plato.

The ethics of Plato cannot properly be treated as a finished result, but

rather as a continual movement from the position of Socrates towards the

more complete, articulate system of Aristotle; except that there are

ascetic and mystical suggestions in some parts of Plato's teaching which

find no counterpart in Aristotle, and in fact disappear from Greek

philosophy soon after Plato's death until they are revived and

fantastically developed in Neopythagoreanism and Neoplatonism. The first

stage at which we can distinguish Plato's ethical view from that of

Socrates is presented in the _Protagoras_, where he makes a serious,

though clearly tentative effort to define the object of that knowledge

which he with his master regards as the essence of all virtue. Such

knowledge, he here maintains, is really mensuration of pleasures and

pains, whereby the wise man avoids those mistaken under-estimates of

future feelings in comparison with present which we commonly call

"yielding to fear or desire." This hedonism has perplexed Plato's

readers needlessly (as we have said in speaking of the Cyrenaics),

inasmuch as hedonism is the most obvious corollary of the Socratic

doctrine that the different common notions of good--the beautiful, the

pleasant and the useful--were to be somehow interpreted by each other.

By Plato, however, this conclusion could have been held only before he

had accomplished the movement of thought by which he carried the

Socratic method beyond the range of human conduct and developed it into

a metaphysical system.

This movement may be expressed thus. "If we know," said Socrates, "what

justice is, we can give an account or definition of it"; true knowledge

must be knowledge of the general fact, common to all the individual

cases to which we apply our general notion. But this must be no less

true of other objects of thought and discourse; the same relation of

general notions to particular examples extends through the whole

physical universe; we can think and talk of it only by means of such

notions. True or scientific knowledge then must be general knowledge,

relating, not to individuals primarily, but to the general facts or

qualities which individuals exemplify; in fact, our notion of an

individual, when examined, is found to be an aggregate of such general

qualities. But, again, the object of true knowledge must be what really

exists; hence the reality of the universe must lie in general facts or

relations, and not in the individuals that exemplify them.

So far the steps are plain enough; but we do not yet see how this

logical Realism (as it was afterwards called) comes to have the

essentially ethical character that especially interests us in Platonism.

Plato's philosophy is now concerned with the whole universe of being;

yet the ultimate object of his philosophic contemplation is still "the

good," now conceived as the ultimate ground of all being and knowledge.

That is, the essence of the universe is identified with its end,--the

"formal" with the "final" cause of things, to use the later Aristotelian

phraseology. How comes this about?

Perhaps we may best explain this by recurring to the original

application of the Socratic method to human affairs. Since all rational

activity is for some end, the different arts or functions of human

industry are naturally defined by a statement of their ends or uses; and

similarly, in giving an account of the different artists and

functionaries, we necessarily state their end, "what they are good for."

In a society well ordered on Socratic principles, every human being

would be put to some use; the essence of his life would consist in doing

what he was good for (his proper [Greek: ergon]). But again, it is easy

to extend this view throughout the whole region of organized life; an

eye that does not attain its end by seeing is without the essence of an

eye. In short, we may say of all organs and instruments that they are

what we think them in proportion as they fulfil their function and

attain their end. If, then, we conceive the whole universe organically,

as a complex arrangement of means to ends, we shall understand how

Plato might hold that all things really _were_, or (as we say) "realized

their idea," in proportion as they accomplished the special end or good

for which they were adapted. Even Socrates, in spite of his aversion to

physics, was led by pious reflection to expound a teleological view of

the physical world, as ordered in all its parts by divine wisdom for the

realization of some divine end; and, in the metaphysical turn which

Plato gave to this view, he was probably anticipated by Euclid of

Megara, who held that the one real being is "that which we call by many

names, Good, Wisdom, Reason or God," to which Plato, raising to a

loftier significance the Socratic identification of the beautiful with

the useful, added the further name of Absolute Beauty, explaining how

man's love of the beautiful finally reveals itself as the yearning for

the end and essence of being.

Plato, therefore, took this vast stride of thought, and identified the

ultimate notions of ethics and ontology. We have now to see what

attitude he will adopt towards the practical inquiries from which he

started. What will now be his view of wisdom, virtue, pleasure and their

relation to human well-being?

The answer to this question is inevitably somewhat complicated. In the

first place we have to observe that philosophy has now passed definitely

from the market-place into the lecture-room. The quest of Socrates was

for the true art of conduct for a man living a practical life among his

fellows. But if the objects of abstract thought constitute the real

world, of which this world of individual things is but a shadow, it is

plain that the highest, most real life must lie in the former region and

not in the latter. It is in contemplating the abstract reality which

concrete things obscurely exhibit, the type or ideal which they

imperfectly imitate, that the true life of the mind in man must consist;

and as man is most truly man in proportion as he is mind, the desire of

one's own good, which Plato, following Socrates, held to be permanent

and essential in every living thing, becomes in its highest form the

philosophic yearning for knowledge. This yearning, he held,

springs--like more sensual impulses--from a sense of want of something

formerly possessed, of which there remains a latent memory in the soul,

strong in proportion to its philosophic capacity; hence it is that in

learning any abstract truth by scientific demonstration we merely make

explicit what we already implicitly know; we bring into clear

consciousness hidden memories of a state in which the soul looked upon

Reality and Good face to face, before the lapse that imprisoned her in

an alien body and mingled her true nature with fleshly feelings and

impulses. We thus reach the paradox that the true art of living is

really an "art of dying" as far as possible to mere sense, in order more

fully to exist in intimate union with absolute goodness and beauty. On

the other hand, since the philosopher must still live and act in the

concrete sensible world, the Socratic identification of wisdom and

virtue is fully maintained by Plato. Only he who apprehends good in the

abstract can imitate it in such transient and imperfect good as may be

realized in human life, and it is impossible that, having this

knowledge, he should not act on it, whether in private or public

affairs. Thus, in the true philosopher, we shall necessarily find the

practically good man, who being "likest of men to the gods is best loved

by them"; and also the perfect statesman, if only the conditions of his

society allow him a sphere for exercising his statesmanship.

Virtue a harmony.

The characteristics of this practical goodness in Plato's matured

thought correspond to the fundamental conceptions in his view of the

universe. The soul of man, in its good or normal condition, must be

ordered and harmonized under the guidance of reason. The question then

arises, "Wherein does this order or harmony precisely consist?" In

explaining how Plato was led to answer this question, it will be well to

notice that, while faithfully maintaining the Socratic doctrine that the

highest virtue was inseparable from knowledge of the good, he had come

to recognize an inferior kind of virtue, possessed by men who were not

philosophers. It is plain that if the good that is to be known is the

ultimate ground of the whole of things, it is attainable only by a

select and carefully trained few. Yet we can hardly restrict all virtue

to these alone. What account, then, was to be given of ordinary "civic"

bravery, temperance and justice? It seemed clear that men who did their

duty, resisting the seductions of fear and desire, must have right

opinions, if not knowledge, as to the good and evil in human life; but

whence comes this right "opinion"? Partly, Plato said, it comes by

nature and "divine allotment," but for its adequate development "custom

and practice" are required. Hence the paramount importance of education

and discipline for civic virtue; and even for future philosophers such

moral culture, in which physical and aesthetic training must co-operate,

is indispensable; no merely intellectual preparation will suffice. His

point is that perfect knowledge cannot be implanted in a soul that has

not gone through a course of preparation including much more than

physical training. What, then, is this preparation? A distinct step in

psychological analysis was taken when Plato recognized that its effect

was to produce the "harmony" above mentioned among different parts of

the soul, by subordinating the impulsive elements to reason. These

non-rational elements he further distinguished as appetitive ([Greek: to

epithumetikon]) and spirited ([Greek: to thumoeides] or [Greek:

thumos])--the practical separateness of which from each other and from

reason he held to be established by our inner experience.

On this triple division of the soul he founded a systematic view of the

four kinds of goodness recognized by the common moral consciousness of

Greece, and in later times known as the Cardinal Virtues (q.v.). Of

these the two most fundamental were (as has been already indicated)

wisdom--in its highest form philosophy--and that harmonious and

regulated activity of all the elements of the soul which Plato regards

as the essence of uprightness in social relations ([Greek: dikaiosyne]).

The import of this term is essentially social; and we can explain

Plato's use of it only by reference to the analogy which he drew between

the individual man and the community. In a rightly ordered polity social

and individual well-being alike would depend on that harmonious action

of diverse elements, each performing its proper function, which in its

social application is more naturally termed [Greek: dikaiosyne]. We see,

moreover, how in Plato's view the fundamental virtues, Wisdom and

Justice in their highest forms, are mutually involved. Wisdom will

necessarily maintain orderly activity, and this latter consists in

regulation by wisdom, while the two more special virtues of Courage

([Greek: andreia]) and Temperance ([Greek: sophrosyne]) are only

different sides or aspects of this wisely regulated action of the

complex soul.

Such, then, are the forms in which essential good seemed to manifest

itself in human life. It remains to ask whether the statement of these

gives a complete account of human well-being, or whether pleasure also

is to be included. On this point Plato's view seems to have gone through

several oscillations. After apparently maintaining (_Protagoras_) that

pleasure is the good, he passes first to the opposite extreme, and

denies it (_Phaedo, Gorgias_) to be a good at all. For (1), as concrete

and transient, it is obviously not the real essential good that the

philosopher seeks; (2) the feelings most prominently recognized as

pleasures are bound up with pain, as good can never be with evil; in so

far, then, as common sense rightly recognizes some pleasures as good, it

can only be from their tendency to produce some further good. This view,

however, was too violent a divergence from Socratism for Plato to remain

in it. That pleasure is not the real absolute good, was no ground for

not including it in the good of concrete human life; and after all only

coarse and vulgar pleasures were indissolubly linked to the pains of

want. Accordingly, in the _Republic_ he has no objection to trying the

question of the intrinsic superiority of philosophic or virtuous[2] life

by the standard of pleasure, and argues that the philosophic (or good)

man alone enjoys real pleasure, while the sensualist spends his life in

oscillating between painful want and the merely neutral state of

painlessness, which he mistakes for positive pleasure. Still more

emphatically is it declared in the _Laws_ that when we are "discoursing

to men, not to gods," we must show that the life which we praise as best

and noblest is also that in which there is the greatest excess of

pleasure over pain. But though Plato holds this inseparable connexion of

best and pleasantest to be true and important, it is only for the sake

of the vulgar that he lays this stress on pleasure. For in the most

philosophical comparison in the _Philebus_ between the claims of

pleasure and wisdom the former is altogether worsted; and though a place

is allowed to the pure pleasures of colour, form and sound, and of

intellectual exercise, and even to the "necessary" satisfaction of

appetite, it is only a subordinate one. At the same time, in his later

view, Plato avoids the exaggeration of denying all positive quality of

pleasure even to the coarser sensual gratifications; they are

undoubtedly cases of that "replenishment" or "restoration" to its

"natural state" of a bodily organ, in which he defines pleasure to

consist (see _Timaeus_, pp. 64, 65); he merely maintains that the common

estimate of them is to a large extent illusory, or a false appearance of

pleasure is produced by contrast with the antecedent or concomitant

painful condition of the organ. It is not surprising that this somewhat

complicated and delicately balanced view of the relations of "good" and

"pleasure" was not long maintained within the Platonic school, and that

under Speusippus, Plato's successor, the main body of Platonists took up

a simply anti-hedonistic position, as we learn from the polemic of

Aristotle. In the _Philebus_, however, though a more careful

psychological analysis leads him to soften down the exaggerations of

this attack on sensual pleasure, the antithesis of knowledge and

pleasure is again sharpened, and a desire to depreciate even good

pleasures is more strongly shown; still even here pleasure is recognized

as a constituent of that philosophic life which is the highest human

good, while in the _Laws_, where the subject is more popularly treated,

it is admitted that we cannot convince man that the just life is the

best unless we can also prove it to be the pleasantest.

Plato and Aristotle.

When a student passes from Plato to Aristotle, he is so forcibly

impressed by the contrast between the habits of mind of the two authors,

and the literary manners of the two philosophers, that it is easy to

understand how their systems have come to be popularly conceived as

diametrically opposed to each other; and the uncompromising polemic

which Aristotle, both in his ethical and in his metaphysical treatises,

directs against Plato and the platonists, has tended strongly to confirm

this view. Yet a closer inspection shows us that when a later president

of the Academy (Antiochus of Ascalon) repudiated the scepticism which

for two hundred years had been accepted as the traditional Platonic

doctrine, he had good grounds for claiming Plato and Aristotle as

consentient authorities for the ethical position which he took up. For

though Aristotle's divergence from Plato is very conspicuous when we

consider either his general conception of the subject of ethics, or the

details of his system of virtues, still his agreement with his master is

almost complete as regards the main outline of his theory of human good;

the difference between the two practically vanishes when we view them in

relation to the later controversy between Stoics and Epicureans. Even on

the cardinal point on which Aristotle entered into direct controversy

with Plato, the definite disagreement between the two is less than at

first appears; the objections of the disciple hit that part of the

master's system that was rather imagined than thought; the main positive

result of Platonic speculation only gains in distinctness by the

application of Aristotelian analysis.

Plato, we saw, held that there is one supreme science or wisdom, of which

the ultimate object is absolute good; in the knowledge of this, the

knowledge of all particular goods--that is, of all that we rationally

desire to know--is implicitly contained; and also all practical virtue,

as no one who truly knows what is good can fail to realize it. But in

spite of the intense conviction with which he thus identified

metaphysical speculation and practical wisdom, we find in his writings no

serious attempt to deduce the particulars of human well-being from his

knowledge of absolute good, still less to unfold from it the particular

cognitions of the special arts and sciences. Indeed, we may say that the

distinction which Aristotle explicitly draws between speculative science

or wisdom and practical wisdom (on its political side statesmanship) is

really indicated in Plato's actual treatment of the subjects, although

the express recognition of it is contrary to his principles. The

discussion of good (e.g.) in his _Philebus_ relates entirely to human

good, and the respective claims of Thought and Pleasure to constitute

this; he only refers in passing to the Divine Thought that is the good of

the ordered world, as something clearly beyond the limits of the present

discussion. So again, in his last great ethico-political treatise (the

_Laws_) there is hardly a trace of his peculiar metaphysics. On the other

hand, the relation between human and divine good, as presented by

Aristotle, is so close that we can hardly conceive Plato as having

definitely thought it closer. The substantial good of the universe, in

Aristotle's view, is the pure activity of universal abstract thought, at

once subject and object, which, itself changeless and eternal, is the

final cause and first source of the whole process of change in the

concrete world. And both he and Plato hold that a similar activity of

pure speculative intellect is that in which the philosopher will seek to

exist, though he must, being a man, concern himself with the affairs of

ordinary human life, a region in which his highest good will be attained

by realizing perfect moral excellence. No doubt Aristotle's demonstration

of the inappropriateness of attributing moral excellence to the Deity

seems to contradict Plato's doctrine that the just man as such is "likest

the gods," but here again the discrepancy is reduced when we remember

that the essence of Plato's justice ([Greek: dikaiosune]) is harmonious

activity. No doubt, too, Aristotle's attribution of pleasure to the

Divine Existence shows a profound metaphysical divergence from Plato; but

it is a divergence which has no practical importance. Nor, again, is

Aristotle's divergence from the Socratic principle that all "virtue is

knowledge" substantially greater than Plato's, though it is more plainly

expressed. Both accept the paradox in the qualified sense that no one can

deliberately act contrary to what appears to him good, and that perfect

virtue is inseparably bound up with perfect wisdom or moral insight.

Both, however, recognize that this actuality of moral insight is not a

function of the intellect only, but depends rather on careful training in

good habits applied to minds of good natural dispositions, though the

doctrine has no doubt a more definite and prominent place in Aristotle's

system. The disciple certainly takes a step in advance by stating

definitely, as an essential characteristic of virtuous action, that it is

chosen for its own sake, for the beauty of virtue alone; but herein he

merely formulates the conviction that his master inspires. Nor, finally,

does Aristotle's account of the relation of pleasure to human well-being

(although he has to combat the extreme anti-hedonism to which the

Platonic school under Speusippus had been led) differ materially from the

outcome of Plato's thought on this point, as the later dialogues present

it to us. Pleasure, in Aristotle's view, is not the primary constituent

of well-being, but rather an inseparable accident of it; human well-being

is essentially well-doing, excellent activity of some kind, whether its

aim and end be abstract truth or noble conduct; knowledge and virtue are

objects of rational choice apart from the pleasure attending them; still

all activities are attended and in a manner perfected by pleasure, which

is better and more desirable in proportion to the excellence of the

activity. He no doubt criticizes Plato's account of the nature of

pleasure, arguing that we cannot properly conceive pleasure either as a

"process" or as "replenishment"--the last term, he truly says, denotes a

material rather than a psychical fact. But this does not interfere with

the general ethical agreement between the two thinkers; and the doctrine

that vicious pleasures are not true or real pleasures is so

characteristically Platonic that we are almost surprised to find it in

Aristotle.

Aristotle's ethics.

In so far as there is any important difference between the Platonic and

the Aristotelian views of human good, we may observe that the latter has

substantially a closer correspondence to the positive element in the

ethical teaching of Socrates, though it is presented in a far more

technical and scholastic form, and involves a more distinct rejection of

the fundamental Socratic paradox. The same result appears when we

compare the methods of the three philosophers. Although the Socratic

induction forms a striking feature of Plato's dialogues, his ideal

method of ethics is purely deductive; he admits common sense only as

supplying provisional steps and starting-points from which the mind is

to ascend to knowledge of absolute good, through which knowledge alone,

as he conceives, the lower notions of particular goods are to be truly

conceived. Aristotle, discarding the transcendentalism of Plato,

naturally retained from Plato's teaching the original Socratic method of

induction from and verification by common opinion. Indeed, the windings

of his exposition are best understood if we consider his literary manner

as a kind of Socratic dialogue formalized and reduced to a monologue. He

first leads us by an induction to the fundamental notion of ultimate end

or good for man. All men, in acting, aim at some result, either for its

own sake or as a means to some further end; but obviously not everything

can be sought merely as a means; there must be some ultimate end. In

fact men commonly recognize such an end, and agree to call it

well-being[3] ([Greek: eudaimonia]). But they take very different views

of its nature; how shall we find the true view? We observe that men are

classified according to their functions; all kinds of man, and indeed

all organs of man, have their special functions, and are judged as

functionaries and organs according as they perform their functions well

or ill. May we not then infer that man, as man, has his proper function,

and that the well-being or "doing well" that all seek really lies in

fulfilling well the proper function of man,--that is, in living well

that life of the rational soul which we recognize as man's distinctive

attribute?

Again, this Socratic deference to common opinion is not shown merely in

the way by which Aristotle reaches his fundamental conception; it

equally appears in his treatment of the conception itself. In the first

place, though in Aristotle's view the most perfect well-being consists

in the exercise of man's "divinest part," pure speculative reason, he

keeps far from the paradox of putting forward this and nothing else as

human good; so far, indeed, that the greater part of his treatise is

occupied with an exposition of the inferior good which is realized in

practical life when the appetitive or impulsive (semi-rational) element

of the soul operates under the due regulation of reason. Even when the

notion of "good performance of function" was thus widened, and when it

had further taken in the pleasure that is inseparably connected with

such functioning, it did not yet correspond to the whole of what a Greek

commonly understood as "human well-being." We may grant, indeed, that a

moderate provision of material wealth is indirectly included, as an

indispensable pre-requisite of a due performance of many functions as

Aristotle conceives it--his system admits of no beatitudes for the poor;

still there remain other goods, such as beauty, good birth, welfare of

progeny, the presence or absence of which influenced the common view of

a man's well-being, though they could hardly be shown to be even

indirectly important to his "well-acting." These Aristotle attempts

neither to exclude from the philosophic conception of well-being nor to

include in his formal definition of it. The deliberate looseness which

is thus given to his fundamental doctrine characterizes more or less his

whole discussion of ethics. He plainly says that the subject does not

admit of completely scientific treatment; his aim is to give not a

definite theory of human good, but a practically adequate account of its

most important constituents.

The most important element, then, of well-being or good life for

ordinary men Aristotle holds to consist in well-doing as determined by

the notions of the different moral excellences. In expounding these, he

gives throughout the pure result of analytical observation of the common

moral consciousness of his age. Ethical truth, in his view, is to be

attained by careful comparison of particular moral opinions, just as

physical truth is to be obtained by induction from particular physical

observations. On account of the conflict of opinion in ethics we cannot

hope to obtain certainty upon all questions; still reflection will lead

us to discard some of the conflicting views and find a reconciliation

for others, and will furnish, on the whole, a practically sufficient

residuum of moral truth. This adhesion to common sense, though it

involves a sacrifice of both depth and completeness in Aristotle's

system, gives at the same time an historical interest which renders it

deserving of special attention as an analysis of the current Greek ideal

of "fair and good life" ([Greek: kalokagathia]). His virtues are not

arranged on any clear philosophic plan; the list shows no serious

attempt to consider human life exhaustively, and exhibit the standard of

excellence appropriate to its different departments or aspects. He seems

to have taken as a starting-point Plato's four cardinal virtues. The two

comprehensive notions of Wisdom and Justice ([Greek: dikaiosune]) he

treats separately. As regards both his analysis leads him to diverge

considerably from Plato. As we saw, his distinction between practical

and speculative Wisdom belongs to the deepest of his disagreements with

his master; and in the case of [Greek: dikaiosune] again he

distinguishes the wider use of the term to express Law-observance, which

(he says) coincides with the social side of virtue generally, and its

narrower use for the virtue that "aims at a kind of equality," whether

(1) in the distribution of wealth, honour, &c., or (2) in commercial

exchange, or (3) in the reparation of wrong done. Then, in arranging the

other special virtues, he begins with courage and temperance, which

(after Plato) he considers as the excellences of the "irrational

element" of the soul. Next follow two pairs of excellences, concerned

respectively with wealth and honour: (1) liberality and magnificence, of

which the latter is exhibited in greater matters of expenditure, and (2)

laudable ambition and highmindedness similarly related to honour. Then

comes gentleness--the virtue regulative of anger; and the list is

concluded by the excellences of social intercourse, friendliness (as a

mean between obsequiousness and surliness), truthfulness and decorous

wit.

The abundant store of just and close analytical observation contained in

Aristotle's account of these notions give it a permanent interest, even

beyond its historical value as a delineation of the Greek ideal of "fair

and good" life.[4] But its looseness of arrangement and almost grotesque

co-ordination of qualities widely differing in importance are obvious.

Thus his famous general formula for virtue, that it is a mean or middle

state, always to be found somewhere between the vices which stand to it

in the relation of excess and defect, scarcely avails to render his

treatment more systematic. It was important, no doubt, to express the

need of observing due measure and proportion, in order to attain good

results in human life no less than in artistic products; but the

observation of this need was no new thing in Greek literature; indeed,

it had already led the Pythagoreans and Plato to find the ultimate

essence of the ordered universe in number. But Aristotle's purely

quantitative statement of the relation of virtue and vice is misleading,

even where it is not obviously inappropriate; and sometimes leads him to

such eccentricities as that of making simple veracity a mean between

boastfulness and mock-modesty.[5]

It ought to be said that Aristotle does not present the formula just

discussed as supplying a criterion of good conduct in any particular

case; he expressly leaves this to be determined by "correct reasoning,

and the judgment of the practically-wise man ([Greek: ho phronimos])."

We cannot, however, find that he has furnished any substantial

principles for its determination; indeed, he hardly seems to have formed

a distinct general idea of the practical syllogism by which he conceives

it to be effected.[6] The kind of reasoning which his view of virtuous

conduct requires is one in which the ultimate major premise states a

distinctive characteristic of some virtue, and one or more minor

premises show that such characteristic belongs to a certain mode of

conduct under given circumstances; since it is essential to good conduct

that it should contain its end in itself, and be chosen for its own

sake. But he has not failed to observe that practical reasonings are not

commonly of this kind, but are rather concerned with actions as means to

ulterior ends; indeed, he lays stress on this as a characteristic of the

"political" life, when he wishes to prove its inferiority to the life of

pure speculation. Though common sense will admit that virtues are the

best of goods, it still undoubtedly conceives practical wisdom as

chiefly exercised in providing those inferior goods which Aristotle,

after recognizing the need or use of them for the realization of human

well-being, has dropped out of sight; and the result is that, in trying

to make clear his conception of practical wisdom, we find ourselves

fluctuating continually between the common notion, which he does not

distinctly reject, and the notion required as the keystone of his

ethical system.

Transition to Stoicism.

On the whole, there is probably no treatise so masterly as Aristotle's

_Ethics_, and containing so much close and valid thought, that yet

leaves on the reader's mind so strong an impression of dispersive and

incomplete work. It is only by dwelling on these defects that we can

understand the small amount of influence that his system exercised

during the five centuries after his death, as compared with the effect

which it has had, directly or indirectly, in shaping the thought of

modern Europe. Partly, no doubt, the limited influence of his disciples,

the Peripatetics (q.v.), is to be attributed to that exaltation of the

purely speculative life which distinguished the Aristotelian ethics from

other later systems, and which was too alien from the common moral

consciousness to find much acceptance in an age in which the ethical

aims of philosophy had again become paramount. Partly, again, the

analytical distinctness of Aristotle's manner brings into special

prominence the difficulties that attend the Socratic effort to reconcile

the ideal aspirations of men with the principles on which their

practical reasonings are commonly conducted. The conflict between these

two elements of Common Sense was too profound to be compromised; and the

moral consciousness of mankind demanded a more trenchant partisanship

than Aristotle's. Its demands were met by the Stoic school which

separated the moral from the worldly view of life, with an absoluteness

and definiteness that caught the imagination; which regarded practical

goodness as the highest manifestation of its ideal of wisdom; and which

bound the common notions of duty into an apparently coherent system, by

a formula that comprehended the whole of human life, and exhibited its

relation to the ordered process of the universe. The intellectual

descent of its ethical doctrines is principally to be traced to Socrates

through the Cynics, though an important element in them seems

attributable to the school that inherited the "Academy" of Plato. Both

Stoic and Cynic maintained, in its sharpest form, the fundamental tenet

that the practical knowledge which is virtue, with the condition of soul

that is inseparable from it, is alone to be accounted good. He who

exercises this wisdom or knowledge has complete well-being; all else is

indifferent to him. It is true that the Cynics were more concerned to

emphasize the negative side of the sage's well-being, while the Stoics

brought into more prominence its positive side. This difference,

however, did not amount to disagreement. The Stoics, in fact, seem

generally to have regarded the eccentricities of Cynicism as an emphatic

manner of expressing the essential antithesis between philosophy and the

world; a manner which, though not necessary or even normal, might yet be

advantageously adopted by the sage under certain circumstances.[7]

Stoicism.

Wherein, then, consists this knowledge or wisdom that makes free and

perfect? Both Cynics and Stoics (q.v.) agreed that the most important

part of it was the knowledge that the sole good of man lay in this

knowledge or wisdom itself. It must be understood that by wisdom they

meant wisdom realized in act; indeed, they did not conceive the

existence of wisdom as separable from such realization. We may observe,

too, that the Stoics rejected the divergence which we have seen

gradually taking place in Platonic-Aristotelian thought from the

position of Socrates, "that no one aims at what he knows to be bad." The

stress that their psychology laid on the essential unity of the rational

self that is the source of voluntary action prevented them from

accepting Plato's analysis of the soul into a regulative element and

elements needing regulation. They held that what we call passion is a

morbid condition of the rational soul, involving erroneous judgment as

to what is to be sought or shunned. From such passionate errors the

truly wise man will of course be free. He will be conscious indeed of

physical appetite; but he will not be misled into supposing that its

object is really a good; he cannot, therefore, hope for the attainment

of this object or fear to miss it, as these states involve the

conception of it as a good. Similarly, though like other men he will be

subject to bodily pain, this will not cause him mental grief or

disquiet, as his worst agonies will not disturb his clear conviction

that it is really indifferent to his true reasonable self.

That this impassive sage was a being not to be found among living men

the later Stoics at least were fully aware. They faintly suggested that

one or two moral heroes of old time might have realized the ideal, but

they admitted that all other philosophers (even) were merely in a state

of progress towards it. This admission did not in the least diminish the

rigour of their demand for absolute loyalty to the exclusive claims of

wisdom. The assurance of its own unique value that such wisdom involved

they held to be an abiding possession for those who had attained it;[8]

and without this assurance no act could be truly wise or virtuous.

Whatever was not of knowledge was of sin; and the distinction between

right and wrong being absolute and not admitting of degrees all sins

were equally sinful; whoever broke the least commandment was guilty of

the whole law. Similarly, all wisdom was somehow involved in any one of

the manifestations of wisdom, commonly distinguished as particular

virtues; though whether these virtues were specifically distinct, or

only the same knowledge in different relations, was a subtle question on

which the Stoics do not seem to have been agreed.

Aristotle had already been led to attempt a refutation of the Socratic

identification of virtue with knowledge; but his attempt had only shown

the profound difficulty of attacking the paradox, so long as it was

admitted that no one could of deliberate purpose act contrary to what

seemed to him best. Now, Aristotle's divergence from Socrates had not

led him so far as to deny this; while for the Stoics who had receded to

the original Socratic position, the difficulty was still more patent.

This theory of virtue led them into two dilemmas. Firstly, if virtue is

knowledge, does it follow that vice is involuntary? If not, it must be

that ignorance is voluntary. This alternative is the less dangerous to

morality, and as such the Stoics chose it. But they were not yet at the

end of their perplexities; for while they were thus driven to an extreme

extension of the range of human volition, their view of the physical

universe involved an equally thorough-going determinism. How could the

vicious man be responsible if his vice were strictly pre-determined? The

Stoics answered that the error which was the essence of vice was so far

voluntary that it could be avoided if men chose to exercise their

reason. No doubt it depended on the innate force and firmness[9] of a

man's soul whether his reason was effectually exercised; but moral

responsibility was saved if the vicious act proceeded from the man

himself and not from any external cause.

With all this we have not ascertained the positive practical content of

this wisdom. How are we to emerge from the barren circle of affirming

(1) that wisdom is the sole good and unwisdom the sole evil, and (2)

that wisdom is the knowledge of good and evil; and attain some method

for determining the particulars of good conduct? The Cynics made no

attempt to solve this difficulty; they were content to mean by virtue

what any plain man meant by it, except in so far as their sense of

independence led them to reject certain received precepts and

prejudices. The Stoics, on the other hand, not only worked out a

detailed system of duties--or, as they termed them, "things meet and

fit" ([Greek: kathekonta]) for all occasions of life; they were further

especially concerned to comprehend them under a general formula. They

found this by bringing out the positive significance of the notion of

Nature, which the Cynic had used chiefly in a negative way, as an

antithesis to the "consentions" ([Greek: nomos]), from which his

knowledge had made him free. Even in this negative use of the notion it

is necessarily implied that whatever active tendencies in man are found

to be "natural"--that is, independent of and uncorrupted by social

customs and conventions--will properly take effect in outward acts, but

the adoption of "conformity to nature" as a general positive rule for

outward conduct seems to have been due to the influence on Zeno of

Academic teaching. Whence, however, can this authority belong to the

natural, unless nature be itself an expression or embodiment of divine

law and wisdom? The conception of the world, as organized and filled by

divine thought, was common, in some form, to all the philosophies that

looked back to Socrates as their founder,--some even maintaining that

this thought was the sole reality. This pantheistic doctrine harmonized

thoroughly with the Stoic view of human good; but being unable to

conceive substance idealistically, they (with considerable aid from the

system of Heraclitus) supplied a materialistic side to their

pantheism,--conceiving divine thought as an attribute of the purest and

most primary of material substances, a subtle fiery aether. This

theological view of the physical universe had a double effect on the

ethics of the Stoic. In the first place it gave to his cardinal

conviction of the all-sufficiency of wisdom for human well-being a root

of cosmical fact, and an atmosphere of religious and social emotion. The

exercise of wisdom was now viewed as the pure life of that particle of

divine substance which was in very truth the "god within him"; the

reason whose supremacy he maintained was the reason of Zeus, and of all

gods and reasonable men, no less than his own; its realization in any

one individual was thus the common good of all rational beings as such;

"the sage could not stretch out a finger rightly without thereby

benefiting all other sages,"--nay, it might even be said that he was "as

useful to Zeus as Zeus to him."[10] But again, the same conception

served to harmonize the higher and the lower elements of human life. For

even in the physical or non-rational man, as originally constituted, we

may see clear indications of the divine design, which it belongs to his

rational will to carry into conscious execution; indeed, in the first

stage of human life, before reason is fully developed, uncorrupted

natural impulse effects what is afterwards the work of reason. Thus the

formula of "living according to nature," in its application to man as

the "rational animal," may be understood both as directing that reason

is to govern, and as indicating how that government is to be practically

exercised. In man, as in every other animal, from the moment of birth

natural impulse prompts to the maintenance of his physical frame; then,

when reason has been developed and has recognized itself as its own sole

good, these "primary ends of nature" and whatever promotes these still

constitute the outward objects at which reason is to aim; there is a

certain value ([Greek: axia]) in them, in proportion to which they are

"preferred" ([Greek: proegmena]) and their opposites "rejected" ([Greek:

apoproegmena]); indeed it is only in the due and consistent exercise of

such choice that wisdom can find its practical manifestation. In this

way all or most of the things commonly judged to be "goods"--health,

strength, wealth, fame,[11] &c.,--are brought within the sphere of the

sage's choice, though his real good is solely in the wisdom of the

choice, and not in the thing chosen.

The doctrine of conformity to Nature as the rule of conduct was not

peculiar to Stoicism. It is found in the theories of Speusippus,

Xenocrates, and also to some extent in those of the Peripatetics. The

peculiarity of the Stoics lay in their refusing to use the terms "good

and evil" in connexion with "things indifferent," and in pointing out

that philosophers, though independent of these things, must yet deal

with them in practical life.

So far we have considered the "nature" of the individual man as apart

from his social relations; but the sphere of virtue, as commonly

conceived, lies chiefly in these, and this was fully recognized in the

Stoic account of duties ([Greek: kathekonta]); indeed, in their

exposition of the "natural" basis of justice, the evidence that man was

born not for himself but for mankind is the most important part of their

work in the region of practical morality. Here, however, we especially

notice the double significance of "natural," as applied to (1) what

actually exists everywhere or for the most part, and (2) what would

exist if the original plan of man's life were fully carried out; and we

find that the Stoics have not clearly harmonized the two elements of the

notion. That man was "naturally" a social animal Aristotle had already

taught; that all rational beings, in the unity of the reason that is

common to all, form naturally one community with a common law was (as we

saw) an immediate inference from the Stoic conception of the universe as

a whole. That the members of this "city of Zeus" should observe their

contracts, abstain from mutual harm, combine to protect each other from

injury, were obvious points of natural law; while again, it was clearly

necessary to the preservation of human society that its members should

form sexual unions, produce children, and bestow care on their rearing

and training. But beyond this nature did not seem to go in determining

the relations of the sexes; accordingly, we find that community of wives

was a feature of Zeno's ideal commonwealth, just as it was of Plato's;

while, again, the strict theory of the school recognized no government

or laws as true or binding except those of the sage; he alone is the

true ruler, the true king. So far, the Stoic "nature" seems in danger of

being as revolutionary as Rousseau's. Practically, however, this

revolutionary aspect of the notion was kept for the most part in the

background; the rational law of an ideal community was not distinguished

from the positive ordinances and customs of actual society; and the

"natural" ties that actually bound each man to family, kinsmen,

fatherland, and to unwise humanity generally, supplied the outline on

which the external manifestation of justice was delineated. It was a

fundamental maxim that the sage was to take part in public life; and it

does not appear that his political action was to be regulated by any

other principles than those commonly accepted in his community.

Similarly, in the view taken by the Stoics of the duties of social

decorum, and in their attitude to the popular religion, we find a

fluctuating compromise between the disposition to repudiate what is

conventional, and the disposition to revere what is established, each

tendency expressing in its own way the principle of "conforming to

nature."

Stoics and hedonists.

Among the primary ends of nature, in which wisdom recognized a certain

preferability, the Stoics included freedom from bodily pain; but they

refused, even in this outer court of wisdom, to find a place for

pleasure. They held that the latter was not an object of uncorrupted

natural impulse, but an "aftergrowth" ([Greek: epigennema]). They thus

endeavoured to resist Epicureanism even on the ground where the latter

seems prima facie strongest; in its appeal, namely, to the natural

pleasure-seeking of all living things. Nor did they merely mean by

pleasure ([Greek: hedone]) the gratification of bodily appetite; we find

(e.g.) Chrysippus urging, as a decisive argument against Aristotle, that

pure speculation was "a kind of amusement; that is, pleasure." Even the

"joy and gladness" ([Greek: chara, euphrosyne]) that accompany the

exercise of virtue seem to have been regarded by them as merely an

inseparable accident, not the essential constituent of well-being. It is

only by a later modification of Stoicism that cheerfulness or peace of

mind is taken as the real ultimate end, to which the exercise of virtue

is merely a means. At the same time it is probable that the serene joys

of virtue and the grieflessness which the sage was conceived to maintain

amid the worst tortures, formed the main attractions of Stoicism for

ordinary minds. In this sense it may be fairly said that Stoics and

Epicureans made rival offers to mankind of the same kind of happiness;

and the philosophical peculiarities of either system may be traced to

the desire of being undisturbed by the changes and chances of life. The

Stoic claims on this head were the loftiest; as the well-being of their

sage was independent, not only of external things and bodily conditions,

but of time itself; it was fully realized in a single exercise of wisdom

and could not be increased by duration. This paradox is violent, but it

is quite in harmony with the spirit of Stoicism; and we are more

startled to find that the Epicurean sage, no less than the Stoic, is to

be happy even on the rack; that his happiness, too, is unimpaired by

being restricted in duration, when his mind has apprehended the natural

limits of life; that, in short, Epicurus makes no less strenuous efforts

than Zeno to eliminate imperfection from the conditions of human

existence. This characteristic, however, is the key to the chief

differences between Epicureanism and the more naive hedonism of

Aristippus. The latter system gave the simplest and most obvious answer

to the inquiry after ultimate good for man; but besides being liable,

when developed consistently, to offend the common moral consciousness,

it conspicuously failed to provide the "completeness" and "security"

which, as Aristotle says, "one divines to belong to man's true Good."

Philosophy, in the Greek view, should be the art as well as the science

of good life; and hedonistic philosophy would seem a bungling and

uncertain art of pleasure, as pleasure is ordinarily conceived. Nay, it

would even be found that the habit of philosophical reflection often

operated adversely to the attainment of this end, by developing the

thinker's self-consciousness, so as to disturb that normal relation to

external objects on which the zest of ordinary enjoyment depends. Hence

we find that later thinkers of the Cyrenaic school felt themselves

compelled to change their fundamental notion; thus Theodorus defined the

good as "gladness" ([Greek: chara]) depending on wisdom, as distinct

from mere pleasure, while Hegesias proclaimed that happiness was

unattainable, and that the chief function of wisdom was to render life

painless by producing indifference to all things that give pleasure. But

by such changes their system lost the support that it had had in the

pleasure-seeking tendencies of ordinary men. It was clear that if

philosophic hedonism was to be established on a broad and firm basis, it

must in its notion of good combine what the plain man naturally sought

with what philosophy could plausibly offer. Such a combination was

effected, with some little violence, by Epicurus; whose system with all

its defects showed a remarkable power of standing the test of time, as

it attracted the unqualified adhesion of generation after generation of

disciples for a period of some six centuries.

Epicurus.

In the fundamental principle of his philosophy Epicurus is not original.

Aristippus (cf. also Plato in the _Protagoras_ and Eudoxus) had already

maintained that pleasure is the sole ultimate good, and pain the sole

evil; that no pleasure is to be rejected except for its painful

consequences, and no pain to be chosen except as a means to greater

pleasure; that the stringency of all laws and customs depends solely on

the legal and social penalties attached to their violation; that, in

short, all virtuous conduct and all speculative activity are empty and

useless, except as contributing to the pleasantness of the agent's life.

And Epicurus assures us that he means by pleasure what plain men mean by

it; and that if the gratifications of appetite and sense are discarded,

the notion is emptied of its significance. So far the system would seem

to suit the inclinations of the most thorough-going voluptuary. The

originality of Epicurus lay in his theory that the highest point of

pleasure, whether in body or mind, is to be attained by the mere removal

of pain or disturbance, after which pleasure admits of variation only

and not of augmentation; that therefore the utmost gratification of

which the body is capable may be provided by the simplest means, and

that "natural wealth" is no more than any man can earn. When further he

teaches that the attainment of happiness depends almost entirely upon

insight and right calculation, fortune having very little to do with it;

that the pleasures and pains of the mind are far more important than

those of the body, owing to the accumulation of feeling caused by memory

and anticipation; and that an indispensable condition of mental

happiness lies in relieving the mind of all superstitions, which can be

effected only by a thorough knowledge of the physical universe--he

introduces an ample area for the exercise of the philosophic intellect.

So again, in the stress that he lays on the misery which the most secret

wrong-doing must necessarily cause from the perpetual fear of discovery,

and in his exuberant exaltation of the value of disinterested

friendship, he shows a sincere, though not completely successful, effort

to avoid the offence that consistent egoistic hedonism is apt to give to

ordinary human feeling. As regards friendship, Epicurus was a man of

peculiarly unexclusive sympathies.[12] The genial fellowship of the

philosophic community that he collected in his garden remained a

striking feature in the traditions of his school; and certainly the

ideal which Stoics and Epicureans equally cherished of a brotherhood of

sages was most easily realized on the Epicurean plan of withdrawing from

political and dialectical conflict to simple living and serene leisure,

in imitation of the gods apart from the fortuitous concourse of atoms

that we call a world. No doubt it was rather the practical than the

theoretical side of Epicureanism which gave it so strong a hold on

succeeding generations.

Later Greek philosophy. Stoicism in Rome.

The two systems that have just been described were those that most

prominently attracted the attention of the ancient world, so far as it

was directed to ethics, from their almost simultaneous origin to the end

of the 2nd century A.D., when Stoicism almost vanishes from our view.

But side by side with them the schools of Plato and Aristotle still

maintained a continuity of tradition, and a more or less vigorous life;

and philosophy, as a recognized element of Graeco-Roman culture, was

understood to be divided among these four branches. The internal

history, however, of the four schools was very different. We find no

development worthy of notice in Aristotelian ethics (see PERIPATETICS).

The Epicureans, again, from their unquestioning acceptance of the

"dogmas"[13] of their founder, almost deserve to be called a sect rather

than a school. On the other hand, the changes in Stoicism are very

noteworthy; and it is the more easy to trace them, as the only original

writings of this school which we possess are those of the later Roman

Stoics. These changes may be attributed partly to the natural inner

development of the system, partly to the reaction of the Roman mind on

the essentially Greek doctrine which it received,--a reaction all the

more inevitable from the very affinity between the Stoic sage and the

ancient Roman ideal of manliness. It was natural that the earlier Stoics

should be chiefly occupied with delineating the inner and outer

characteristics of ideal wisdom and virtue, and that the gap between the

ideal sage and the actual philosopher, though never ignored, should yet

be somewhat overlooked. But when the question "What is man's good?" had

been answered by an exposition of perfect wisdom, the practical question

"How may a man emerge from the folly of the world, and get on the way

towards wisdom?" naturally attracted attention; and the preponderance of

moral over scientific interest, which was characteristic of the Roman

mind, gave this question especial prominence. The sense of the gap

between theory and fact gives to the religious element of Stoicism a new

force; the soul, conscious of its weakness, leans on the thought of God,

and in the philosopher's attitude towards external events, pious

resignation preponderates over self-poised indifference; the old

self-reliance of the reason, looking down on man's natural life as a

mere field for its exercise, makes room for a positive aversion to the

flesh as an alien element imprisoning the spirit; the body has come to

be a "corpse which the soul sustains,"[14] and life a "sojourn in a

strange land";[15] in short, the ethical idealism of Zeno has begun to

borrow from the metaphysical idealism of Plato.

History of Plato's school.

In no one of these schools was the outward coherence of tradition so

much strained by inner changes as it was in Plato's. The alterations,

however, in the metaphysical position of the Academics had little effect

on their ethical teaching, as, even during the period of Scepticism,

they appear to have presented as probable the same general view of human

good which Antiochus afterwards dogmatically announced as a revival of

the common doctrine of Plato and Aristotle. And during the period of a

century and a half between Antiochus and Plutarch, we may suppose the

school to have maintained the old controversy with Stoicism on much the

same ground, accepting the formula of "life according to nature," but

demanding that the "good" of man should refer to his nature as a whole,

the good of his rational part being the chief element, and always

preferable in case of conflict, but yet not absolutely his sole good. In

Plutarch, however, we see the same tendencies of change that we have

noticed in later Stoicism. The conception of a normal harmony between

the higher and lower elements of human life has begun to be disturbed,

and the side of Plato's teaching that deals with the inevitable

imperfections of the world of concrete experience becomes again

prominent. For example, we find Plutarch amplifying the suggestion in

Plato's latest treatise (the _Laws_) that this imperfection is due to a

bad world-soul that strives against the good,--a suggestion which is

alien to the general tenor of Plato's doctrine, and had consequently

been unnoticed during the intervening centuries. We observe, again, the

value that Plutarch attaches, not merely to the sustainment and

consolation of rational religion, but to the supernatural communications

vouchsafed by the divinity to certain human beings in dreams, through

oracles, or by special warnings, like those of the genius of Socrates.

For these flashes of intuition, he holds, the soul should be prepared by

tranquil repose and the subjugation of sensuality through abstinence.

The same ascetic effort to attain by aloofness from the body a pure

receptivity for supernatural influences, is exhibited in

Neo-Pythagoreanism. But the general tendency that we are noting did not

find its full expression in a reasoned system until we come to the

Egyptian Plotinus.

Neoplatonism.

The system of Plotinus (205-270 A.D.) is a striking development of that

element of Platonism which has had most fascination for the medieval and

even for the modern mind, but which had almost vanished out of sight in

the controversies of the post-Aristotelian schools. At the same time the

differences are the more noteworthy from the reverent adhesion which the

Neoplatonists always maintain to Plato. Plato identified good with the

real essence of things; with that in them which is definitely

conceivable and knowable. It belongs to this view to regard the

imperfection of things as devoid of real being, and so incapable of

being definitely thought or known; accordingly, we find that Plato has

no technical term for that in the concrete sensible world which hinders

it from perfectly expressing the abstract ideal world, and which in

Aristotle's system is distinguished as absolutely formless matter

([Greek: hule]). And so, when we pass from the ontology to the ethics of

Platonism, we find that, though the highest life is only to be realized

by turning away from concrete human affairs and their material

environment, still the sensible world is not yet an object of positive

moral aversion; it is rather something which the philosopher is

seriously concerned to make as harmonious, good and beautiful as

possible. But in Neoplatonism the inferiority of the condition in which

the embodied human soul finds itself is more intensely and painfully

felt; hence an express recognition of formless matter ([Greek: hule]) as

the "first evil," from which is derived the "second evil," body ([Greek:

soma]), to whose influence all the evil in the soul's existence is due.

Accordingly the ethics of Plotinus represent, we may say, the moral

idealism of the Stoics cut loose from nature. The only good of man is

the pure existence of the soul, which in itself, apart from the

contagion of the body, is perfectly free from error or defect; if only

it can be restored to the untrammelled activity of its original being,

nothing external, nothing bodily, can positively impair its perfect

welfare. It is only the lowest form of virtue--the "civic" virtue of

Plato's _Republic_--that is employed in regulating those animal impulses

whose presence in the soul is due to its mixture with the body; higher

or philosophic wisdom, temperance, courage and justice are essentially

purifications from this contagion; until finally the highest mode of

goodness is reached, in which the soul has no community with the body,

and is entirely turned towards reason. It should be observed that

Plotinus himself is still too Platonic to hold that the absolute

mortification of natural bodily appetites is required for purifying the

soul; but this ascetic inference was drawn to the fullest extent by his

disciple Porphyry.

There is, however, a yet higher point to be reached in the upward ascent

of the Neoplatonist from matter; and here the divergence of Plotinus

from Platonic idealism is none the less striking, because it is a _bona

fide_ result of reverent reflection on Plato's teaching. The cardinal

assumption of Plato's metaphysic is, that the real is definitely

thinkable and knowable in proportion as it is real; so that the further

the mind advances in abstraction from sensible particulars and

apprehension of real being, the more definite and clear its thought

becomes. Plotinus, however, urges that, as all thought involves

difference or duality of some kind, it cannot be the primary fact in the

universe, what we call God. He must be an essential unity prior to this

duality, a Being wholly without difference or determination; and,

accordingly, the highest mode of human existence, in which the soul

apprehends this absolute, must be one in which all definite thought is

transcended, and all consciousness of self lost in the absorbing

ecstasy. Porphyry tells us that his master Plotinus attained the highest

state four times during the six years which he spent with him.

Neoplatonism, originally Alexandrine, is often regarded as Hellenistic

rather than Hellenic, a product of the mingling of Greek with Oriental

civilization. But however Oriental may have been the cast of mind that

welcomed this theosophic asceticism, the forms of thought by which these

views were philosophically reached are essentially Greek; and it is by a

thoroughly intelligible process of natural development, in which the

intensification of the moral consciousness represented by Stoicism plays

an important part, that the Hellenic pursuit of knowledge culminates in

a preparation for ecstasy, and the Hellenic idealization of man's

natural life ends in a settled antipathy to the body and its works. At

the same time we ought not to overlook the affinities between the

doctrine of Plotinus and that remarkable combination of Greek and Hebrew

thought which Philo Judaeus had expounded two centuries before; nor the

fact that Neoplatonism was developed in conscious antagonism to the new

religion which had spread from Judea, and was already threatening the

conquest of the Graeco-Roman world, and also to the Gnostic systems (see

GNOSTICISM); nor, finally, that it furnished the chief theoretical

support in the last desperate struggle that was made under Julian to

retain the old polytheistic worship.

B. _Christianity and Medieval Ethics._--In the present article we are

not concerned with the origin of the Christian religion, nor with its

outward history. Nor have we to consider the special doctrines that have

formed the bond of union of the Christian communities except in their

ethical aspect, their bearing on the systematization of human aims and

activities. This aspect, however, must necessarily be prominent in

discussing Christianity, which cannot be adequately treated merely as a

system of theological beliefs divinely revealed, and special observances

divinely sanctioned; for it claims to regulate the whole man, in all

departments of his existence. It was not till the 4th century A.D. that

the first attempt was made to offer a systematic exposition of Christian

morality; and nine centuries more had passed away before a genuinely

philosophic intellect, trained by a full study of Aristotle, undertook

to give complete scientific form to the ethical doctrine of the Catholic

church. Before, however, we take a brief survey of the progress of

systematic ethics from Ambrose to Thomas Aquinas, it may be well to

examine the chief features of the new moral consciousness that had

spread through Graeco-Roman civilization, and was awaiting philosophic

synthesis. It will be convenient to consider first the new _form_ or

universal characteristics of Christian morality, and afterwards to note

the chief points in the _matter_ or particulars of duty and virtue which

received development or emphasis from the new religion.