THE MORAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GREEKS
Sec. 1. THE FUNDAMENTAL NOTES
=Convention versus Nature.=--The Hebrew moral life was developed under
the relation, first of the people, then of the individuals, to God,--a
relation at once of union and of conflict. It was out of the relation of
the individual to social traditions and political order that the Greek
came to full consciousness of moral law on the one hand, and a moral
personality on the other. And just as in Jewish life the law and the
prophets (or, later, the "law and the gospel") stood for the conflicting
forces, so in Greek life the opposition between the authority of the
group, embodied in custom and institutions, on the one hand, and the
urging claims of developing personality, manifest in both intelligence
and desire, on the other, found expression in contrasted terms. The
authority of the group embodied in customs and institutions, came to be
regarded by the radicals as relatively external, artificial, and rigid.
It was dubbed "convention," or "institution" (_thesis_, what is set up).
The rapidly developing intelligence challenged the merely customary and
traditional; the increasing individuality challenged the superior
authority of the group, especially when this manifested itself
apparently in a government of force. Personal intelligence and personal
feeling asserted a more elemental claim, felt themselves rooted in a
more original source, and called this source "nature" (_physis_). Social
tradition and authority, individual reason and feeling, thus confronted
each other as "convention" and "nature." It was a struggle which has its
analogy in the development of many a young man or young woman who is
emerging from parental control to self-direction. But in Greek life more
distinctly than elsewhere we see the steps of the process as a civic and
not merely an individual development. Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides
presented this conflict of the individual with law or destiny as the
great, oft-repeated tragedy of human life. Aristophanes mocked with
bitter satire the "new" views. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cynics,
Cyrenaics, Epicureans, and Stoics took part in the theoretical
discussions.
=Measure.=--The fundamental note of all Greek life, before, during, and
after this development, was _Measure_, _Order_, _Proportion_. This note
found expression in religion, science, art, and conduct. Among their
gods, the Greeks set Moira, "Destiny," and Themis, "Custom," "Law,"
"Right." They found order in the universe, which on this account they
called the "cosmos." They expressed it in their arts, especially in
architecture, sculpture, the choral dance, and the more highly developed
tragedy or lyric:
"And all life is full of them [of form and measure]," says Plato,
"as well as every constructive and creative art. And surely the
art of the painter and every other creative and constructive art
are full of them,--weaving, embroidery, architecture, and every
kind of manufacture; also nature, animal and vegetable,--in all of
them there is grace or the absence of grace; and if our youth are
to do their work in life, must they not make these graces and
harmonies their perpetual aim?"
The best people, the "gentlemen," were styled kaloika-gathoi--"fair and
good." The motto at the Delphic shrine was, "Nothing in excess."
Insolent disregard of propriety, "hybris," was the quality most
denounced by the early moralizing poets. Tityus, Tantalus, and Sisyphus,
the three special subjects of divine punishment, suffered the penalty
of insatiate desire, or limits overstepped. And after criticism and
individualism had done their work, Plato's conception of justice,
Aristotle's doctrine of the "mean," the Stoic maxim of "life according
to nature," have but discovered a deeper significance for the
fundamental law of Greek life.
=The Good and the Just.=--The conceptions of the Good and the Just are
developed from the two notes just presented. The motive for challenge to
established institutions was the awakening desire of the individual to
seek his own good and to live his own life. Commerce was bringing a
great variety of rewards to the shrewd merchant and a great variety of
goods to evoke and gratify wants. Slavery set free the citizen from the
need of manual labor and gave him leisure to cultivate his tastes. The
forces of individualism, described in Chapter V., were all at work to
bring the process and object of desire to consciousness. Moreover, the
term "good" was also in use to mark the popular ideal. It was applied to
what we should call the "successful" men of the day. In present life our
term "good" has become so definitely moral that probably most young
persons would hesitate to say that they have it as their ideal to become
good, although few would hesitate to say that they wish to be capable
and successful. For social and political recognition seems to be based
rather on achievement of striking results than upon what is technically
called "goodness." But in Greece moral goodness was not used to
designate "character" as contrasted with "results." The "good man" was
like the "good lawyer" or "good athlete" or "good soldier," the man who
was efficient and conspicuous. It was in the process which we are to
trace that the ambiguities and deeper meanings of the term came to
definition.
The terms Just and Justice were not of course merely synonyms for order
and measure. They had likewise the social significance coming from the
courts and the assembly. They stood for the control side of life, as
Good stood for its aspect of valuation and desire. But as compared with
the Hebrew conception of righteousness, they meant much less a
conformity to a law divine or human which had been already set up as
standard, and much more, an ordering, a regulating, a harmonizing. The
rational element of measure or order was more prominent than the
personal note of authority. Hence we shall find Plato passing easily
back and forth between justice or order in the individual and justice or
order in the State. On the other hand, the radicals of the day could
seize upon the legal usage and declare that Justice or the Law was
purely a matter of self-interest or class interest.
Sec. 2. INTELLECTUAL FORCES OF INDIVIDUALISM
=The Scientific Spirit.=--The older standards were embodied in religious
and political ideas and institutions; the agency which was to
disentangle and bring into clear consciousness the standards _as such_,
was the scientific spirit, the knowledge and reflection of an
intellectual people at a period of extraordinarily rapid development.
The commercial life, the free intercourse with other peoples and
civilizations, especially in the colonies, the absence of any generally
dominating political authority, the architectural problems suggested by
a beauty-loving people,--all promoted alertness and flexibility of mind.
In a concrete form, this rational character had already found expression
in the quality of Greek art. Reference has already been made to the
formal side of Greek art, with its embodiment of rhythm and measure; the
subject-matter shows the same element. The Greek world, as contrasted
with the barbarian world, was conceived by the Greek as the realm of
light contrasted with darkness; the national God, Apollo, embodied this
ideal of light and reason, and his fitting symbol was the sun. The
great Pan-Athenaic procession, as reproduced in the Parthenon frieze,
celebrated the triumph of Greek light and intelligence over barbarian
darkness. Athena, goddess of wisdom, was a fitting guardian of the most
Greek of all Greek cities. Greek tragedy, beginning in hymns of worship,
soon passed over into a portrayal of the all-controlling laws of life,
as these are brought into stronger relief by a tragic collision with
human agents.
It was, however, in the realm of science that this intellectual genius
found field for expression in a clearly conscious manner. Almost all our
sciences were originated by the Greeks, and they were particularly
successful in those which called for abstract thinking in the highest
degree. Euclid's geometry and Aristotle's logic are conspicuous
illustrations of this ability. The most general conceptions of natural
science: e.g., the conception of the atom and the whole materialistic
theory of the universe; the conception of evolution, meaning by this the
process of change according to an all-controlling law; the conception of
natural selection, according to which those organisms survive which are
fitted for their environment,--all these were the product of the keen
intelligence of the Greeks. Nor was their scientific ability expended
upon external nature alone. The conception of history as more than a
series of events, the comparative method in the study of political
systems, the analysis of literary and artistic effects, attest the same
clarity of mind and the same eager search for the most general laws of
every aspect of experience.
=Science and Religion.=--When, now, this scientific mind began to
consider the practical guidance of life, the older political and
religious controls presented serious difficulty. The gods were supposed
to reward the good and punish the evil,[64] but how could this be
reconciled with their practices? Aeschylus attempted a purifying and
elevating of the divine ideal, similar to that which Israel's conception
underwent in the work of the prophets. He magnified the dignity and
providential government of Zeus, which, though dark, is yet just and
certain. But the great obstacle was that the earlier and cruder
conceptions of the gods had been fixed in literary form; the tales of
Cronos's impiety to Uranos, of Zeus' deceitful messenger and marital
unfaithfulness, of Aphrodite's amours, and Hermes' gift of theft, were
all written in Hesiod and Homer. The cruder conceptions of the gods had
thus become too firmly fixed in the popular imagination to be capable of
becoming the bearers of advancing ethical ideals, and so not merely the
irreverent scoffer, but the serious tragedian, Euripides, and the
religious idealist, Plato, do not hesitate to challenge boldly the older
conceptions, or to demand a revision of all this literature before it
comes into the hands of the young.
=Social Standards.=--The social standards of propriety and honorable
conduct were likewise brought in question by advancing intelligence. The
word which summed up the early Greek idea of the best type was
_Kalokagathos_. This word was very nearly the equivalent of our English
word "gentleman." It combined the elements of birth, ability, and
refinement, but in the earlier usage the emphasis was upon the fact of
birth, even as our terms "generous," "noble," "gentle," originally
referred to membership in a "gens." Socrates investigated the current
estimates and found that the people who were generally regarded as the
"respectable," or, as we should say, the "best" people of Athens, were
not necessarily either "fine" or "good" in person or character; the
term had come to be one of "convention," without basis in reason. Plato
goes still further and with a direct application of the rational
standard to the current estimates, pokes fun at the conventional
judgment of what constitutes the respectable gentleman.
"When they sing the praises of family and say that some one is a
gentleman because he has had seven generations of wealthy
ancestors, he [the philosopher] thinks that their sentiments only
betray the dullness and narrowness of vision of those who utter
them, and who are not educated enough to look at the whole, nor to
consider that every man has had thousands and thousands of
progenitors, and among them have been rich and poor, kings and
slaves, Hellenes and barbarians, many times over. And when some
one boasts of a catalogue of twenty-five ancestors, and goes back
to Heracles, the son of Amphitryon, he cannot understand his
poverty of ideas. Why is he unable to calculate that Amphitryon
had a twenty-fifth ancestor, who might have been anybody, and was
such as fortune made him, and he had a fiftieth, and so on? He is
amused at the notion that he cannot do a sum, and thinks that a
little arithmetic would have got rid of his senseless vanity."
The type of life that is really noble or fine and good is to be found in
the seeker for true beauty and goodness. External beauty of form and
appearance has its value in kindling the desire for the higher forms of
beauty,--beauty of mind, of institutions and laws, of science,--until
finally the conception of the true beauty is reached. This true beauty,
as distinct from the particular beauties, and true good, as distinct
from seeming or partial good, are discovered only by the "philosopher,"
the seeker for wisdom.
=Popular Morals.=--Nor did the more positively recognized types of moral
excellence fare better. As recognized in common life, they were courage,
prudence or moderation, holiness or a certain respect for the serious
things of life, and justice: but none of these, Plato argues, is really
an independent excellence, apart from conscious and intelligent action.
Courage, for example, is not really courage unless one knows and
foresees the danger in all its strength; otherwise there is merely
reckless bravery. Prudence or moderation, to be really excellent, must
be measured by wisdom. Even justice cannot be regarded as at bottom
distinct from wisdom, the true measure of all the relations of life.
=Science and the Laws.=--The political control was likewise involved in
question by the same forces of intelligence which had challenged the
religious authority. The frequent changes of government, and the more or
less arbitrary measures that were oftentimes adopted, were adapted to
awaken doubt as to the absolute right and authority of the laws. The
despot who gained control in many a Greek city was not bound by ties of
blood to all members of the community, nor did he govern in accordance
with the ancestral traditions of the tribe. The political authority
frequently clashed with the instincts and traditions of family and
kinship. Under such circumstances, the political authority was likely to
be challenged and its constraining power stretched to the breaking
point. So in the _Antigone_ of Sophocles, the command of the ruler is
opposed to the "higher law" of kinship and nature. The law of man is not
the law of nature or of God. To disobey this conventional law of man is
to be guilty of "holiest crime." The old standards, both of religion and
of political life, crumbled before the analysis of the developing
intelligence, and the demand for some standard could be met only by the
intelligence itself. To question the old must inevitably seem irreverent
and anarchical. Some questioned merely to doubt; others, and of these
Socrates was the leader, questioned in order to find a firmer basis, a
more authoritative standard. But naturally the popular mind did not
distinguish between these two classes of questioners, and so Socrates
perished, not merely as the victim of unjust popular calumny, but as
the victim of the tragedy of moral progress, of the change from the
established to the new.
Sec. 3. COMMERCIAL AND POLITICAL INDIVIDUALISM
A further line of development joined forces with this growth of
intelligence, to emphasize the problem of moral control, and to set the
individual with his standards over against the objective standards of
society. This was the rapidly growing consciousness of individual goods
and interests. The commercial life, with its possibilities of individual
property, the rapid changes of political life, with the rise of
individuals to power and privilege, the increasing opportunities which a
high civilization brought both men and women for personal enjoyment and
gratification of rapidly increasing wants, all tended to make the
individual seek his own good, and to shift the emphasis of life from the
question, What is proper, or honorable? to the question, What is
_good_--good for _me_?
=Class Interests.=--The conviction that the authority of government and
law was largely dictated by the very considerations of private interests
which they were supposed to overrule and eliminate, made the situation
more acute. For the Greek States were no longer groups with common
interests. The growth of capital, the corresponding eagerness for gain,
the formation of distinct classes, each intent on its interests,
supplanted the older, more homogeneous State. "The whole development of
the political life of the Hellenic republics depended ultimately on the
decision of the question, which of the different social classes--the
capitalistic minority, the middle class, or the poor--should obtain the
dominant place." Aristotle defines an oligarchy as a State governed in
the interest of the rich; a democracy, as a State governed in the
interest of the poor. Another contemporary writer explains a democracy
as consulting the interests of the democrats, the "lower classes," and
considers this a matter of course, "for if the rich had the say, they
would do what was good for themselves but not for the multitude."
Naturally such dominance by classes called out vigorous criticisms upon
the laws and standards so established. The aristocratic minority
inveighed against "custom" or conventions which would tame the strong to
the level of the weak. Nature demands rather the "survival of the
fittest," i.e., of the strong. The enlightened spectator of the game of
government, on the other hand, declares that all laws are made in the
interest of ruling classes. The reader of current criticisms on laws and
courts will see how close is the parallel to present complaints. We have
to-day the same two classes: One inveighs against governmental
interference with the right to combine, to contract, and in general to
get from the earth or from men, women, and children all that superior
power and shrewdness can possibly extract. The other complains that
legislatures are owned by wealth, that judges are appointed from
corporation lawyers, that common law is a survival of ancient
aristocratic status, and that for these reasons labor can get no
justice.
Let us first hear the plea for inequality:
"Custom and nature are generally at variance with one another; ...
for by the rule of nature, that only is the more disgraceful which
is the greater evil; as, for example, to suffer injustice; but by
the rule of custom, to do evil is the more disgraceful. For this
suffering of injustice is not the part of a man, but of a slave,
who indeed had better die than live; for when he is wronged and
trampled upon, he is unable to help himself or any other about
whom he cares. The reason, as I conceive, is that the makers of
laws are the many weak; and they make laws and distribute praises
and censures with a view to themselves and their own interests;
and they terrify the mightier sort of men, and those who are able
to get the better of them, in order that they may not get the
better of them; and they say that dishonesty is shameful and
unjust; meanwhile, when they speak of injustice, they desire to
have more than their neighbors, for knowing their own
inferiority, they are only too glad of equality. And therefore,
this seeking to have more than the many is conventionally said to
be shameful and unjust, and is called injustice, whereas nature
herself intimates that it is just for the better to have more than
the worse, the more powerful than the weaker; and in many ways she
shows, among men as well as among animals, and indeed among whole
cities and races, that justice consists in the superior ruling
over and having more than the inferior. For on what principle of
justice did Xerxes invade Hellas, or his father the Scythians?
(not to speak of numberless other examples). They, I conceive, act
according to nature; yes, and according to the law of nature; not
perhaps, according to that artificial law which we frame and
fashion, taking the best and strongest of us from their youth
upwards, and taming them like young lions, and charming them with
the sound of the voice, saying to them that with equality they
must be content, and that this is the honorable and the just. But
if there were a man who had sufficient force, he would shake off
and break through and escape from all this; he would trample under
foot all our formulas and spells and charms, and all our laws,
sinning against nature; the slave would rise in rebellion and be
lord over us, and the light of natural justice would shine forth.
And this I take to be the lesson of Pindar, in the poem in which
he says that
"'Law is the King of all, mortals as well as immortals!'
This, as he says:
"'Makes might to be right, and does violence with exalted hand; as
I infer from the deeds of Heracles, for without buying them----'
"I do not remember the exact words, but the meaning is, that he
carried off the oxen of Geryon without buying them, and without
their being given to him by Geryon, according to the law of
natural right, and that the oxen and other possessions of the
weaker and inferior properly belong to the stronger and superior."
(PLATO, _Gorgias_, 482-4.)
The essence of this view is, therefore, that might is right, and that no
legislation or conventional code ought to stand in the way of the free
assertion of genius and power. It is similar to the teaching of
Nietzsche in recent times.
But the other side had its complaint also. The laws are made by the
"shepherds" of the people, as Homer called them. But who is now so
simple as to suppose that the "shepherds" fatten or tend the sheep with
a view to the good of the sheep, and not to their own good? All laws and
governments really exist for the interest of the ruling class.[65] They
rest upon convention or "institution," not upon "nature."
=Why Obey Laws?=--And if laws and social codes are but class
legislation, conventional, why obey them? The older Greek life had felt
the motives described in Chapter IV., though it had embodied them in
symbolism and imagery. The Nemesis that followed the guilty, the
Erinnys, or avenging goddesses, were the personified wrath of outraged
law; _aid[=o]s_, respect or reverence, _aischyne_, regard for public
opinion, were the inner feelings. But with the advancing tide of
intellectual criticism and individual interest, these sanctions were
discredited; feelings of personal enjoyment demanded recognition, and
the moralists at first appealed to this. "Parents and tutors are always
telling their sons and their wards that they are to be just; but only
not for the sake of justice, but for the sake of character and
reputation." But if the only reason for justice is reputation, there
might seem to be no sufficient reason for taking the thorny path, if
there be an easier. Will not the youth say, in the words of Pindar:
"Can I by justice, or by crooked ways of deceit, ascend a loftier
tower which may be a fortress to me all my days?"[66]
And if I decide that the crooked way is the easier, why shall I not
follow it? My party, or my "union", or my lawyer will stand by and see
me through:
"But I hear some one exclaiming that the concealment of wickedness
is often difficult; to which I answer, Nothing great is easy.
Nevertheless, the argument indicates this, if we would be happy,
to be the path along which we should proceed. With a view to
concealment we will establish secret brotherhoods and political
clubs. And there are professors of rhetoric who teach the art of
persuading courts and assemblies; and so, partly by persuasion and
partly by force, I shall make unlawful gains and not be punished.
Still I hear a voice saying that the gods cannot be deceived,
neither can they be compelled. But what if there are no gods? or,
suppose them to have no care of human things, why in either case
should we mind about concealment?"[67]
Besides, the greatest prizes, not only in material goods, but even in
the line of reputation, seemed to fall to the individualist if he could
only act on a sufficiently large scale. He could then be both prosperous
and "respectable." If he could steal the government, or, in modern
phrase, bribe a legislature to elect him to Congress, pass special
legislation, or grant a franchise, he could not merely escape
punishment, but be honored by his fellows.
"I am speaking of injustice on a large scale, in which the
advantage of the unjust is most apparent, and my meaning will be
most clearly seen in that highest form of injustice, the
perpetrator of which is the happiest of men, as the sufferers of
these who refuse to do injustice are the most miserable--I mean
tyranny which by fraud and force takes away the property of
others, not retail but wholesale; comprehending in one things
sacred as well as profane, private and public, for any one of
which acts of wrong, if he were detected perpetrating them singly,
he would be punished and incur great dishonor; for they who are
guilty of any of these crimes in single instances are called
robbers of temples and man-stealers and burglars and swindlers and
thieves. But when a man has taken away the money of the citizens
and made slaves of them, then instead of these dishonorable names,
he is called happy and blessed, not only by the citizens but by
all who hear of his having achieved the consummation of injustice.
For injustice is censured because the censurers are afraid of
suffering, and not from any fear which they have of doing
injustice. And thus, as I have shown, Socrates, injustice, when on
a sufficient scale, has more strength and freedom and mastery than
justice; and, as I said at first, justice is the interest of the
stronger, whereas injustice is a man's own profit and
interest."[68]
Sec. 4. INDIVIDUALISM AND ETHICAL THEORY
=The Question Formulated.=--The outcome of this first movement was thus
twofold: (a) It forced the questions, "What is just?" "What is good?"
into clear and definite consciousness. The very necessity of comparison
and of getting a _general standard_, forced the inquirer to disentangle
the concepts previously embodied in customs and laws. But when the
essence was thus found and freed, or disembodied, as it were, the custom
seemed lifeless, merely "convention", and the essence often quite
opposed to the form. (b) It emphasized the _personal interest_, the
affective or emotional side of conduct, and made the moral problem take
the form, "What is the good?"
Furthermore, two positive theses have been established by the very
forces which have been active in disintegrating the old status. If
custom no longer suffices, then reason must set the standard; if society
cannot prescribe the good to the individual, then the individual must
find some method of defining and seeking it for himself unless he is to
make shipwreck of his whole venture.
We may bring both aspects of the problem under the conception of
"nature", as opposed to convention or institution. Convention is indeed
outgrown, nature is the imperious authority. But granting that nature is
rightful master, is "nature" to be sought in the primitive beginnings,
or in the fullest development? in a life of isolation, or in a life of
society? in the desires and passions, or in reason and a harmonious
life?
Or, stating the same problem otherwise: granting that reason must fix
the measure, and the individual must define and seek the good for
himself, is the good to be found in isolation, or is it to be sought in
human society with its bonds of family, friendship, and justice? Is the
end to be pleasure, found in the gratification of desires, irrespective
of their quality, and is it the business of reason merely to measure one
gratification with another and get the most? or is wisdom itself a good,
and is it better to satisfy certain impulses rather than others? i.e.,
shall reason form the standard as well as apply it?
These contrasting solutions of the problem of life may be stated then
under the two pairs of antitheses: (1) The Individual _versus_ the
Social; (2) The Immediate Satisfaction _versus_ an Ideal Standard, at
once higher and more permanent.
=Typical Solutions.=--Poets, radicals, sensualists, individualists of no
philosophic school, as well as the historic philosophic schools,
contributed to the discussion and solution of these problems. All sought
the "natural" life; but it is noteworthy that all the philosophic
schools claimed Socrates as their master, and all sought to justify
their answers by reason, all made the wise man the ideal. The Cynics and
Cyrenaics, Stoics and Epicureans, Plato and Aristotle represent the
various philosophic answers to these alternatives. Cynics and Cyrenaics
both answer (1) by individualism, but diverge on (2), the Cynics placing
emphasis on independence from wants, the Cyrenaics on gratification of
wants. Stoics and Epicureans represent broader and more social
development of the same principles, the Stoics seeking a cosmopolitan
state, the Epicureans a community of friends; the Stoics emphasizing
reason or wisdom as the only good; the Epicureans finding for wisdom a
field in the selection of refined pleasures. Plato and Aristotle, with
varying emphasis but essential agreement, insist (1) that the good of
man is found in fulfilling completely his highest possible functions,
which is possible only in society; (2) that wisdom is not merely to
apply a standard but to form one; that while neither reason alone nor
feeling alone is enough for life, yet that pleasure is rather for life
than life for pleasure. Finally, Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, as
well as the tragic poets, contribute successively to the formation of an
ideal of responsible character.
=Early Individualistic Theories.=--Cynics and Cyrenaics were alike
individualists. Society, they held, is artificial. Its so-called goods,
on the one hand, and its restrictions on the other, are to be rejected
unless they favor the individual's happiness. Independence was the mark
of wisdom among the Cynics; Antisthenes, proud of the holes in his
garment; Diogenes, dwelling in his tent or sleeping in the street,
scoffing at the current "conventions" of decency, asking from Philip
only that he would get out of his sunshine--are the characteristic
figures. The "state of nature" was opposed to the State. Only the
primitive wants were recognized as natural. "Art and science, family and
native land, were indifferent. Wealth and refinement, fame and honor,
seemed as superfluous as those enjoyments of the senses which went
beyond the satisfaction of the natural wants of hunger and sex."
The Cyrenaics, or hedonists (_h[=e]don[=e]_, pleasure), gave a different
turn to wisdom. The good is pleasure, and wisdom is found in that
prudence which selects the purest and most intense. Hence, if this is
the good, why should a man trouble himself about social standards or
social obligations? "The hedonists gladly shared the refinement of
enjoyment which civilization brought with it; they found it convenient
and permissible that the intelligent man should enjoy the honey which
others prepared; but no feeling of duty or thankfulness bound them to
the civilization whose fruits they enjoyed. Sacrifice for others,
patriotism, and devotion to a general object, Theodorus declared to be
a form of foolishness which it did not become the wise man to
share."[69]
Sec. 5. THE DEEPER VIEW OF NATURE AND THE GOOD; OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND
THE SOCIAL ORDER
=Value of a State.=--Plato and Aristotle take up boldly the challenge of
individualism. It may indeed be granted that existing states are too
often ruled by classes. There are oligarchies in which the soldier or
the rich control for their own interests; there are tyrannies in which
the despot is greed and force personified; there are democracies (Plato
was an aristocrat) in which the mob bears rule, and those who flatter
and feed its passions are in authority. But all these do but serve to
bring out more clearly the conception of a true State, in which the rule
is by the wisest and best and is not for the interest of a class, but
for the welfare of all. Even as it was, the State of Athens in Plato's
day--except when it condemned a Socrates--meant completeness and freedom
of life. It represented not merely a police force to protect the
individual, but stood for the complete organization of all the life
which needs cooperation and mutual support. The State provided
instruction for the mind and training for the body. It surrounded the
citizen with an atmosphere of beauty and provided in the tragedy and
comedy opportunities for every citizen to consider the larger
significance of life or to join in the contagious sympathy of mirth. In
festivals and solemn processions it brought the citizen into unity of
religious feeling. To be an Athenian citizen meant to share in all the
higher possibilities which life afforded. Interpreting this life,
Aristotle proclaims that it is not in isolation, but in the State, that
"the goal of full independence may be said to be first attained."
=The Natural.=--Aristotle goes directly to the heart of the problem as
to what is natural by asserting that nature is not to be found in the
crude beginning, but rather in the complete development. "The nature of
anything, e.g., of a man, a horse, or a house, may be defined to be its
condition when the process of production is complete." Hence the State
"in which alone completeness of life is attained" is in the highest
sense natural:
"The object proposed or the complete development of a thing is its
highest good; but independence which is first attained in the
State is a complete development or the highest good and is
therefore natural." "For as the State was formed to make life
possible, so it exists to make life good."
"Thus we see that the State is a natural institution, that man is
naturally a political animal and that one who is not a citizen of
any State, if the cause of his isolation be natural and not
accidental, is either a superhuman being or low in the scale of
human civilization, as he stands alone like a 'blot' on the
backgammon board. The 'clanless, lawless, hearthless man,' so
bitterly described by Homer, is a case in point, for he is
naturally a citizen of no state and a lover of war."[70]
Nor does Aristotle stop here. With a profound insight into the relation
of man to society, and the dependence of the individual upon the social
body, a relation which modern social psychology has worked out in
greater detail, Aristotle asserts that the State is not merely the goal
of the individual's development, but the source of his life.
"Again, in the order of nature the State is prior to the household
or individual. For the whole must needs be prior to its part. For
instance, if you take away the body which is the whole, there will
not remain any such thing as a hand or foot, unless we use the
same word in a different sense, as when we speak of a stone hand
as a hand. For a hand separated from the body will be a disabled
hand; whereas it is the faculty or function of a thing which makes
it what it is, and therefore when things lose their function or
faculty, it is not correct to call them the same things, but
rather homonymous, i.e., different things having the same name.
We see, then, the State is a natural institution, and also that it
is prior to the individual. For if the individual as a separate
unit is not independent, he must be a part and must bear the same
relation to the State as the other parts to their wholes; and one
who is incapable of association with others or is independent and
has no need of such association, is no member of a State; in other
words, he is either a brute or a God."[71]
And, moreover, when we look into the nature of the individual, we do not
find him a being devoid of the sympathies and qualities which find their
natural expression not only in the State, but in various social and
friendly relations. There is "an impulse toward the life in common"
([Greek: philia]) which expresses itself in friendship, but which is
also so essential to that recognition of others called justice that we
may say "it is the most just of all just things." There is also a unity
of disposition and purpose ([Greek: omonoia]) which may be called
"political friendship."[72]
=Plato's Ideal State.=--How then is the State constituted and governed
which is to provide for man's full development, his complete good?
Evidently two principles must control. In the first place, it must be so
constituted that every man may develop in it the full capacities of his
nature, and thereby serve at once the perfection of the State and his
own completeness; and in the second place, the State or social whole
must be ruled by those best fitted for this work. Not the soldier, nor
the plutocrat, nor the artisan, but the man who knows, is the suitable
ruler for our ideal community. The soldier may defend, the artisan may
support, but the scientific or intelligent man should rule. And it is
evident that in settling this principle, we have also answered our first
problem; for the soldier and the artisan will find his full development
by doing the work which he can do well, not by meddling with a task in
which he must necessarily fail. In order to guard against the greed
which was so characteristic of the governments of his day, Plato would
provide that the rulers and warriors should have no private property,
and not even private families. Their eye should be single to the good of
the whole. When asked as to the practicability of a State governed by
such disinterested rulers, and with such wisdom, he admits indeed its
difficulty, but he stoutly demands its necessity:
"Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this
world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political
greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who
pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand
aside, cities will never have rest from their evils,--no, nor the
human race, as I believe,--and then only will this our State have
a possibility of life and behold the light of day."[73]
And yet the question of the actual existence of a perfect State is not
the question of supreme importance. For Plato has grasped the thought
that man is controlled not only by what he sees, but by what he images
as desirable. And if a man has once formed the image of an ideal State
or city of this kind, in which justice prevails, and life reaches fuller
and higher possibilities than it has yet attained, this is the main
thing:
"In heaven, there is laid up a pattern of it, methinks, which he
who desires may behold, and beholding, may set his own house in
order. But whether such an one exists, or ever will exist in fact,
is no matter: for he will live after the manner of that city,
having nothing to do with any other."[74]
=The Social as Law of Nature.=--The social nature of man, thus
vindicated by Plato and Aristotle, remained as the permanent possession
of Greek thought. Even the Epicureans, who developed further the
hedonistic theory of life, emphasized the values of friendship as among
the choicest and most refined sources of pleasure. The Stoics, who in
their independence of wants took up the tradition of the Cynics, were
yet far from interpreting this as an independence of society. The
disintegration of the Greek states made it impossible to find the social
body in the old city-state, and so we find with the Stoics a certain
cosmopolitanism. It is the highest glory of man to be a citizen not of
Athens but of the universe,--not of the city of Cecrops, but of the city
of Zeus. And through this conception the social nature of man was made
the basis of a "natural law," which found its expression in the
principles of Roman and modern jurisprudence.
=Passion or Reason.=--In answering the question as to the true nature of
man, Plato and Aristotle found the suggestions likewise for the problem
of individual good. For if the soldier as the seeker for fame and honor,
the avaricious man embodying the desire for wealth, and still more, the
tyrant personifying the unbridled expression of every lust and passion,
are abhorrent, is it not easy to see that an orderly and harmonious
development of impulses under the guidance and control of reason, is far
better than that uncramped expression of desires and cravings for which
some of the radical individualists and sensualists of the day were
clamoring? As representative of this class, hear Callicles:
"I plainly assert that he who would truly live ought to allow his
desires to wax to the uttermost, and not to chastise them; but
when they have grown to their greatest, he should have courage and
intelligence to minister to them and to satisfy all his longings.
And this I affirm to be natural justice and nobility." The
temperate man is a fool. It is only in hungering and eating, in
thirsting and drinking, in having all his desires about him, and
gratifying every possible desire, that man lives happily.[75]
But even Callicles himself admits that there are certain men, the
creatures of degraded desire, whose lives are not ideal, and hence
that there must be some choice of pleasure. And carrying out in the
individual life the thought above suggested by the State, Plato raises
the question as to whether man, a complex being, with both noble and
ignoble impulses, and with the capacity of controlling reason, can be
said to make a wise choice if he lets the passions run riot and choke
out wholly his rational nature:
"Is not the noble that which subjects the beast to the man, or
rather to the god in man; and the ignoble that which subjects the
man to the beast? He can hardly avoid admitting this,--can he now?
Not if he has any regard for my opinion. But, if he admits this,
we may ask him another question: How would a man profit if he
received gold and silver on the condition that he was to enslave
the noblest part of him to the worst? Who can imagine that a man
who sold his son or daughter into slavery for money, especially if
he sold them into the hands of fierce and evil men, would be the
gainer, however large might be the sum which he received? And will
any one say that he is not a miserable caitiff who sells his own
divine being to that which is most atheistical and detestable and
has no pity? Eriphyle took the necklace as the price of her
husband's life, but he is taking a bribe in order to compass a
worse ruin."[76]
=Necessity of a Standard for Pleasure.=--If, for the moment, we rule out
the question of what is noble or "kalon," and admit that the aim of life
is to live pleasantly, or if, in other words, it is urged as above that
justice is not profitable and that hence he who would seek the highest
good will seek it by some other than the thorny path, we must recognize
that the decision as to which kind of pleasure is preferable will depend
on the character of the man who judges:
"Then we may assume that there are three classes of men,--lovers
of wisdom, lovers of ambition, lovers of gain? Exactly. And there
are three kinds of pleasure, which are their several objects?
Very true. Now, if you examine the three classes and ask of them
in turn which of their lives is pleasantest, each of them will be
found praising his own and deprecating that of others; the
money-maker will contrast the vanity of honor or of learning with
the solid advantages of gold and silver? True, he said. And the
lover of honor,--what will be his opinion? Will he not think that
the pleasure of riches is vulgar, while the pleasure of learning,
which has no need of honor, he regards as all smoke and nonsense?
True, he said. But may we not suppose, I said, that philosophy
estimates other pleasures as nothing in comparison with knowing
the truth, and in that abiding, ever learning, in the pursuit of
truth, not far indeed from the heaven of pleasure? The other
pleasures the philosopher disparages by calling them necessary,
meaning that if there were no necessity for them, he would not
have them. There ought to be no doubt about that, he replied.
Since, then, the pleasure of each class and the life of each is in
dispute, and the question is not which life is most honorable, or
better or worse, but which is the more pleasant or painless,--how
shall we know? I cannot tell, he said. Well, but what ought to be
the criterion? Is any better than experience and wisdom and
reason? There cannot be a better, he said. If wealth and gain were
the criterion, then what the lover of gain praised and blamed
would surely be the truest? Assuredly. Of if honor or victory or
courage, in that case the ambitions or contentments would decide
best? Clearly. But since experience and wisdom and reason are the
judges, the inference of course is, that the truest pleasures are
those which are approved by the lover of wisdom and reason."[77]
It is thus evident that even if we start out to find the good in
pleasure, we need some kind of measuring art. We need a "standard for
pleasure," and this standard can be found only in wisdom. And this
forces us to maintain that wisdom is after all _the_ good. Not merely
intellectual attainment--a life of intellect without feeling would be
just as little a true human life as would the life of an oyster, which
has feeling with no intelligence. A life which includes sciences and
arts, and the pure pleasures of beauty, presided over by wisdom and
measure and symmetry,--this is Plato's vision of the life of the
individual, viewed from within.
=Eudaemonism.=--Aristotle's conception of the good is fundamentally the
same. It is a full development of man's capacities, culminating in a
rational and harmonious life. If, says Aristotle, we are to find the
ultimate good, we must try to find, if possible, some one end which is
pursued as an end in itself, and never as a means to something else, and
the most general term for this final end is "eudaimonia," or well-being,
"for we also choose it for itself and never for the sake of something
else." What is the essence of well-being? This, according to Aristotle,
is to be found by asking what is the function of man. The life of
nutrition and growth man has in common with the plants; the life of
sense in common with the animal. It is in the life of his rational
nature that we must find his especial function. "The good of man is
exercise of his faculties in accordance with their appropriate
excellence." External goods are valuable because they may be instruments
toward such full activity. Pleasure is to be valued because it "perfects
the activities, and therefore perfects life, which is the aim of human
desire"--rather than valued as an end in itself. No one would choose to
live on condition of having a child's intellect all his life, though he
were to enjoy in the highest possible degree all the pleasures of a
child.[78]
=The "Mean."=--The crowning importance of wisdom as the rational measure
of the ideal life is also illustrated in Aristotle's theory of
excellence (or virtue) as a "mean". This phrase is somewhat ambiguous,
for some passages would seem to indicate that it is merely striking an
average between two kinds of excesses, and finding, as it were, a
moderate amount of feeling or action; but there is evidently involved
here just the old thought of measure, and "the mean is what right reason
prescribes." It is not every one who can find the mean, but only he who
has the requisite knowledge. The supreme excellence or virtue is,
therefore, the wisdom which can find the true standard for action.[79]
=The Wise Man.=--Finally the conception of virtue as wisdom is
illustrated in the ideals of the three prominent schools in later Greek
thought,--the Sceptics, Epicureans, and Stoics. The wise man among
Sceptics is he who suspends judgment where it is impossible to be
certain. The wise man among Epicureans is he who chooses the finest and
surest and most lasting pleasures. The wise man among Stoics is he who
overcomes his emotions. But in every case the ideal is expressed in the
same phrase, "the wise man."
=Man and the Cosmos.=--We see thus how Greek thought, starting out to
challenge all society's laws and standards and bring them to the bar of
knowledge, has found a deeper value and higher validity in the true
social and moral order. The appeal was to the Caesar of reason, and
reason taken in its full significance carries us beyond the immediate
and transient to the broader and more permanent good. Nor can reason in
its search for good be content, urges Plato, with the superficial facts
of life and society. He who would find and achieve his complete
function, his full development, must broaden his horizon still further.
As his own particular life is but a part of the ongoing of the larger
world, whose forces act upon him, limit him, and determine his
possibilities, it becomes absolutely necessary to study not merely his
own end and purpose, but the end and purpose of the universe. Human good
requires us to know the larger good, _the_ Good, in the full and
complete sense. And this perfect Good which is, in truth, the very
essence of the universe, is but another term for God, and Plato often
uses the two as interchangeable terms.
So the "Nature" which Greek life was seeking gets its deepest
significance and reinterprets the old religious demand for unity of the
life of man with the forces of the unseen. And the Stoic later, in his
maxim "Follow Nature," gives more explicit recognition to the return of
the circle. For the great work of Greek science had brought out into
complete clearness the idea of Nature as a system of law. The universe
is a rational universe, a cosmos, and man, as above all else a rational
being, finds thus his kinship to the universe. To follow Nature,
therefore, means to know the all-pervading law of Nature and submit to
it in calm acceptance or resignation.
"All is harmonious to me that is harmonious to thee, O universe; all is
fruit to me which thy seasons bring."[80]
Sec. 6. THE CONCEPTION OF THE IDEAL
=Contrast of Actual and Ideal.=--The two stages of Greek thought which
we have sketched did more than to readjust Greek life to deeper views of
the State and the individual; of the good and of nature. The very
challenge and process brought into explicit consciousness a new feature
of the moral life, which is fundamental to true moral consciousness,
viz., the factor of contrast between the actual and the ideal. We have
seen that the clash of one-sided interests and political institutions
and, in the case of Plato, the tragic execution of Socrates, obliged
Plato and Aristotle to admit that the actual State did not subserve the
real purpose which they were forced to seek in social organization. Both
Plato and Aristotle, therefore, draw the picture of a State that should
serve the complete purposes of human development. And again, in the
individual life, both the conception of the development of man's highest
possibilities and the conception of a measure or standard for the
conflicting desires and purposes lead on to a conception which shall
embody not merely the existing status but the goal of yet unrealized
purpose.
=The Ideal as the True Reality.=--Various qualities and aspirations are
embodied by Plato in this conception, and with characteristic Greek
genius he has given to this conception of the ideal almost as concrete
and definite a form as the Greek sculptor of Apollo gave to his ideal of
light and clarity, or the sculptor of Aphrodite to the conception of
grace. As contrasted with the flux of transient emotions, or the
uncertain play of half-comprehended or futile goods, this ideal good is
conceived as eternal, unchanging, ever the same. It is superhuman and
divine. As contrasted with various particular and partial goods on which
the sons of men fix their affections, it is the one universal good which
is valid for all men everywhere and forever. In his effort to find
suitable imagery for this conception, Plato was aided by the religious
conceptions of the Orphic and Pythagorean societies, which had
emphasized the pre-existence and future existence of the soul, and its
distinction from the body. In its previous life, said Plato, the soul
has had visions of a beauty, a truth, and a goodness of which this life
affords no adequate examples. And with this memory within it of what it
has looked upon before, it judges the imperfect and finite goods of this
present world and longs to fly away again and be with God. This thought
of contrast between ideal and actual, to which Plato in some of his
writings gave the turn of a contrast between soul and body, passed on
with increased emphasis into Stoic and later Platonist schools, and
furnished a philosophic basis for the dualism and asceticism which is
found in Hellenistic and mediaeval morality.
=Ethical Significance.=--While the true ethical contrast between the
actual and the ideal was thus shifted over into a metaphysical contrast
between soul and body, or between what is fixed and what is changing,
the fundamental thought is highly significant, for it merely symbolizes
in objective form the characteristic of every moral judgment, viz., the
testing and valuing of an act by some standard, and what is even more
important, the forming of a standard by which to do the testing. Even
Aristotle, who is frequently regarded as the mere describer of what is,
rather than the idealistic portrayer of what ought to be, is no less
insistent upon the significance of the ideal. In fact, his isolation of
reflection or _theoria_ from the civic virtues was used by the mediaeval
church in its idealization of the "contemplative life." Like Plato, he
conceives the ideal as a divine element in human nature:
"Nevertheless, instead of listening to those who advise us as men
and mortals not to lift our thoughts above what is human and
mortal, we ought rather, as far as possible, to put off our
mortality and make every effort to live in the exercise of the
highest of our faculties; for though it be but a small part of us,
yet in power and value it far surpasses all the rest."[81]
Sec. 7. THE CONCEPTION OF THE SELF; OF CHARACTER AND RESPONSIBILITY
=The Poets.=--Out of the fierce competition of individual desires, the
clashing of individual ambitions, the conflict between the individual
and the state, and the deepening of the conception of the individual's
"nature," emerged also another conception of fundamental importance for
the more highly developed reflective moral life, viz., that of the moral
personality, its character and its responsibility. We may trace the
development of this conception through the poets, as well as in the
philosophers. Aeschylus set man over against the gods, subject to their
divine laws, but gave little play to human character or conscious
self-direction. With Sophocles, the tragic situation was brought more
directly into the field of human character, although the conception of
destiny and the limitations marked thereby were still the dominant note.
With Euripides, human emotions and character are brought into the
foreground. Stout-heartedness, the high spirit that can endure in
suffering or triumph in death, which shows not merely in his heroes but
in the women, Polyxena and Medea, Phaedra and Iphigenia, evinces the
growing consciousness of the self--a consciousness which will find
further development in the proud and self-sufficient endurance of the
Stoic. In more directly ethical lines, we find increasing recognition of
the self in the motives which are set up for human action, and in the
view which is formed of human character. Conscience in the earlier poets
and moralists, was largely a compound of Nemesis, the external messenger
and symbol of divine penalty, on the one hand, and Aidos, the sense of
respect or reverence for public opinion and for the higher authority of
the gods, on the other. But already in the tragedians we find
suggestions of a more intimate and personal conception. Pains sent by
Zeus in dreams may lead the individual to meditate, and thus to better
life. Neoptolemus, in Sophocles, says,
"All things are noisome when a man deserts
His own true self and does what is not meet."
and Philoctetes replies,
"Have mercy on me, boy, by all the gods,
And do not shame thyself by tricking me."
The whole _Antigone_ of Sophocles is the struggle between obedience to
the political rulers and obedience to the higher laws which as "laws of
reverence" become virtually inner laws of duty:
"I know I please the souls I ought to please."
=Plato.=--Here, as in the formulation of his conception of the ideal,
religious imagery helped Plato to find a more objective statement for
the conception of a moral judgment and a moral character. In the final
judgment of the soul after death, Plato sees the real self stripped bare
of all external adornments of beauty, rank, power, or wealth, and
standing as naked soul before the naked judge, to receive his just
reward. And the very nature of this reward or penalty shows the
deepening conception of the self, and of the intrinsic nature of moral
character. The true penalty of injustice is not to be found in anything
external, but in the very fact that the evil doers become base and
wicked:
"They do not know the penalty of injustice, which above all things
they ought to know,--not stripes and death, as they suppose, which
evil doers often escape, but a penalty which cannot be escaped.
THEOD. What is that?
SOC. There are two patterns set before them in nature; the one
blessed and divine, the other godless and wretched; and they do
not see, in their utter folly and infatuation, that they are
growing like the one and unlike the other, by reason of their evil
deeds; and the penalty is that they lead a life answering to the
pattern which they resemble."[82]
=The Stoics.=--It is, however, in the Stoics that we find the conception
of inner reflection reaching clearest expression. Seneca and Epictetus
repeat again and again the thought that the conscience is of higher
importance than any external judgment,--that its judgment is inevitable.
In these various conceptions, we see attained the third stage of Adam
Smith's description of the formation of conscience.[83] Man who read
his duty at first in the judgments of his fellows, in the customs and
laws and codes of honor, and in the religious precepts of the gods, has
again come to find in gods and laws, in custom and authority, the true
rational law of life; but it is now a law of self. Not a particular or
individual self, but a self which embraces within it at once the human
and the divine. The individual has become social and has recognized
himself as such. The religious, social, and political judgments have
become the judgments of man upon himself. "Duty," what is binding or
necessary, takes its place as a definite moral conception.
LITERATURE
Besides the writings of Plato (especially, the _Apology_, _Crito_,
_Protagoras_, _Gorgias_, and _Republic_), Xenophon (_Memorabilia_),
Aristotle (_Ethics_, _Politics_), Cicero (_On Ends, Laws, Duties_; _On
the Nature of the Gods_), Epictetus, Seneca, M. Aurelius, Plutarch, and
the fragments of various Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics, the tragedies
of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and the comedies of Aristophanes
(especially the _Clouds_) afford valuable material.
All the histories of philosophy treat the theoretical side; among them
may be mentioned Gomperz (_Greek Thinkers_, 1900-05), Zeller
(_Socrates_; _Plato_; _Aristotle_; _Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics_),
Windelband, Benn (_Philosophy of Greece_, 1898, chs. i., v.).
On the Moral Consciousness: Schmidt, _Ethik der alten Griechen_, 1882.
On the social conditions and theories: Poehlmann, _Geschichte des antiken
Kommunismus und Sozialismus_, 1893-1901; Doering, _Die Lehre des Sokrates
als sociales Reformsystem_, 1895. On the religion: Farnell, _Cults of
the Greek States_, 3 vols., 1896; Rohde, _Psyche_, 1894.
On Political Conditions and Theory: Newman, Introd. to _Politics of
Aristotle_, 1887; Bradley, _Aristotle's Theory of the State in
Hellenica_; Wilamovitz-Moellendorf, _Aristotle und Athen_, 1900.
On Nature and Law of Nature: Ritchie, _Natural Rights_, 1895; Burnet,
_Int. Journal of Ethics_, vii., 1897, pp. 328-33; Hardy, _Begriff der
Physis_, 1884; Voigt, _Die Lehre vom jus naturale_, 1856-75.
General: Denis, _Histoire des Theories et des Idees Morales dans
l'Antiquite_, 1879; Taylor, _Ancient Ideals_, 1900; Caird, _Evolution of
Theology in the Greek Philosophers_, 1904; Janet, _Histoire de la
Science Politique dans ses Rapports avec la Morale_, 1887; Grote,
_History of Greece_, 4th ed., 1872; _Plato and the Other Companions of
Socrates_, 1888.
FOOTNOTES:
[64] Cf. Xenophon's account of the impressive appeal of Clearchus: "For,
first and greatest, the oaths which we have sworn by the gods forbid us
to be enemies to each other. Whoever is conscious of having transgressed
these,--him I could never deem happy. For if one were at war with the
gods, I know not with what swiftness he might flee so as to escape, or
into what darkness he might run, or into what stronghold he might
retreat and find refuge. For all things are everywhere subject to the
gods, and the gods rule all everywhere with equity."--_Anabasis_, II.,
v.
[65] _Republic_, I., 343.
[66] _Republic_, II., 365.
[67] _Republic_, II., 365.
[68] _Republic_, I., 343 f.
[69] Windelband, _History of Philosophy_, p. 86.
[70] _Politics_, I., ii. Welldon's translation.
[71] _Politics_, I., ii. Welldon's translation.
[72] _Ethics_, VIII., i.; IX., vi.
[73] _Republic_, V., 473.
[74] _Ibid._, IX., 592.
[75] _Gorgias_, 491 ff.
[76] _Republic_, IX., 589 f.
[77] _Republic_, IX., 581 f.
[78] _Ethics_, X., ii.-iv.
[79] Among the various types of excellence which Aristotle enumerates as
exemplifying this principle, the quality of high-mindedness ([Greek:
megalopsychia]) is pre-eminent, and may be taken as embodying the trait
most prized in an Athenian gentleman. The high-minded man claims much
and deserves much; lofty in his standard of honor and excellence he
accepts tributes from good men as his just desert, but despises honor
from ordinary men or on trivial grounds; good and evil fortune are alike
of relatively small importance. He neither seeks nor fears danger; he is
ready to confer favors and forget injuries, slow to ask favors or cry
for help; fearless in his love and hatred, in his truth and his
independence of conduct; "not easily moved to admiration, for nothing is
great to him. He loves to possess beautiful things that bring no profit,
rather than useful things that pay; for this is characteristic of the
man whose resources are in himself. Further, the character of the
high-minded man seems to require that his gait should be slow, his voice
deep, his speech measured; for a man is not likely to be in a hurry when
there are few things in which he is deeply interested, nor excited when
he holds nothing to be of very great importance; and these are the
causes of a high voice and rapid movements" (_Ethics_, IV., vi.-viii.).
[80] Marcus Aurelius, _Thoughts_, IV., 23.
[81] _Ethics_, X., vii.
[82] _Theaetetus_, 176.
[83] Smith held that we (1) approve or disapprove the conduct of others;
(2) see ourselves as others see us, judging ourselves from their
standpoint; (3) finally, form a true social standard, that of the
"impartial spectator." This is an inner standard--conscience.