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faculties of her being, that she knows that which is above existence and above truth" (Porphy. Sent. Art. 26). In ecstasy is perfect happiness; but this happiness which fills the soul to overflowing lasts but for one instant; it is part of its nature to elude consciousness. "Those reflections which sometimes accompany our actions, far from making them more perfect only enfeeble them, and diminish their intensity." Such then is the supreme Good, a gift of God rather than the fruit of virtue; it is fleeting, nay more, it is unfelt.

General Character of Ancient Ethics: The Notion of Duty.

The distinctive character of ancient ethics was the identification of happiness and virtue; the end set before man was always that Supreme Good in which, even here below, these two objects were to be reconciled, and to become one. The notion of duty, in the stricter sense of the word, is a modern one, though it was not altogether unknown to the ancients; but Kant was the first to emphasise this idea, and to found the whole of morality upon it. Plato and Aristotle speak continually of the Good (Ta'ya óv), and of virtue; but we do not find in their works any expression that corresponds to what we call duty. The terms (Tò opeλov, To déov) which come nearest to expressing this conception, are rarely met with in the exact sense which we give to the word duty.

At a very early period, however, the Greeks had formed the conception of a moral law, which commands and forbids like the civil laws, but differs from these in that it is unwritten. Socrates energetically upholds, in opposition to the Sophist Hippias, the doctrine of unwritten laws (vóuoi aypapo); and this notion must have been already familiar, since Sophocles put it into the mouth of Antigone in the play. In the Crito, Plato expresses the idea of absolute obligation which is inherent to the moral law. "Neither injury nor retaliation, nor warding off evil by evil is ever right." But as a rule, Plato seeks the good and the beautiful rather than the obligatory, and this characteristic is even more striking in Aristotle.

The Stoics, like Plato and Aristotle, aimed especially at determining the nature of the good. It was always with the notions of the good and of virtue, that they concerned themselves. Still, the distinction they made between κа0кov and

Kaтóρowμa, brought them very near to the modern notion of duty. The κañкоv, as we have seen, expresses every appropriate action, or in other words, every action for which one can give some plausible, natural reason; as, for example, reasons of utility or of sentiment, such as the care of one's health, of children, etc. A higher degree of wisdom or of virtue, constitutes the karóрowμa (Officia perfecta, or strictly, perfectum), which consists in doing the κaðýkovтa, but in a different spirit, namely, as things good in themselves and in harmony with the universal order. Of all the expressions therefore, in the ethical terminology of the ancients, kaтóρowμa is the one that corresponds most closely with our idea of absolute duty. Still, we must remember that xaтóp@wua indicates the ideal perfection of human wisdom rather than the notion of obligation in itself.

To sum up: the leading idea in ancient ethics is that of the Supreme Good, that is, of the harmonious union of virtue and happiness in the soul of the wise man.

CHAPTER II

THE ETHICAL PROBLEM IN MODERN TIMES

Christian Morality: Faith, Hope, and Charity.

All the pagan philosophers endeavoured to find the principle of human morality in the intellect: Plato and Aristotle, Epicurus and the Stoics, even the Sceptics and the Alexandrian Mystics all regarded the Supreme Good as the reward of wisdom. But according to Christian teaching, the mainspring of the moral life is not the intellect but the heart. Love is the supreme principle in practical life: love brings with it happiness and virtue, and every other good.

In the first place, faith is now substituted for knowledge. Faith is an act of the will as well as a conviction, or mental act. It is an act of self-surrender, of loving and trustful submission to the word of God, and to His will. The Christian dies according to the flesh that he may live anew according to the spirit.

The first effect of faith is a spiritual second birth (πadıyyeveσía, Titus, III, 5). The spirit dwells in regenerated man. "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness" (Gal. V, 22): all the Christian virtues. The greatest of the virtues, the principle of all the others, which is both derived from and contained in faith, for it is the fulfilment of the law, is charity. πλńρwμa vóμov ý ảɣáπη (Rom. XIII, 10) "Faith worketh by love" (Gal. V, 6) and charity manifests itself by good works. Charity includes the love of God and the love of our neighbour as a necessary consequence of the love of God. "Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. Herein was the love

of God manifested in us, that God hath sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. . . . Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. If we love one another,

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God abideth in us, and His love is perfected in us" (1 John, V, 7-12).

Love is to Christians what wisdom was to the ancients, the principle, that is to say, of all the virtues.

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'Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith so that I did remove mountains and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not beareth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things" (1 Cor. XIII, 1-7).

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We have seen that the Stoics had formed a conception of the brotherhood of man (Caritas generis humani); all men, in virtue of reason present in them, were sons of God. But the charity of the Stoics was a rational sentiment, the result of reflection, and of the consciousness of human dignity. Christian charity is deeper, more ardent. It is also derivative and indirect; for man by his nature is degenerate and corrupt, and our love for one another is only a consequence of the love which God bears to us; it is to please God, to unite ourselves in intention with Him that we should love our neighbour. Charity consists in desiring the moral good, the perfection of our neighbour, and in the alleviation of his woes. Towards the guilty it is shown in forgiveness and pity.

"He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her" (John, VIII, 7). "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

In accordance with this new morality, there arose a new conception of the Supreme Good, of the good, that is, in which happiness and virtue are united. All the ancients had admitted a relation of identity between virtue and happiness. For Socrates and Plato, for Aristotle and Zeno, to possess virtue is to possess happiness; while Epicurus holds that he who is happy is virtuous. But the Christian conception is quite different. Virtue is Charity; in other words, it is the love of God, and the love of man in God and for God. Happiness is the possession of God. It is true that to love

God is to possess Him to a certain extent, and to be loved by Him, but it is not to possess Him fully, and love tends towards a perfect union. Virtue, though it deserves happiness, is only the beginning of it, for the Supreme Good is not of this world; it is in another life that our destiny will be fulfilled. The faith that corresponds to this expectation, faith as belief in a Supreme Good that will in the future be real and necessary, takes the form of another virtue, namely, hope (λπis), which has for its object the bliss promised to the elect but not yet possessed by them. Faith, hope, and charity are the three great Christian virtues, and they are closely connected, inseparable indeed, since they all represent the same condition of the soul. But these virtues do not depend on the human will, because the condition that makes them possible implies Divine grace, and this we cannot give to ourselves. The Spirit bloweth where it listeth. We have already seen the difficulty which the Christian theologians had in reconciling the doctrines of free will and grace.

Mediaeval Ethics: Conscience; Synderesis and Conscientia.

In Ethics, as in the other branches of philosophy, the scholastic teachers sought no new principles. They adhered to the traditions of antiquity and of Christianity. But the practice of a religion in which the attention of the mind is constantly turned to itself, develops in the soul the sense of things spiritual. By looking into and examining their own minds during long hours of anxious and solitary introspection, the mediaeval theologians discovered conscience, of which they were the first to make an analysis. We find already, in the writings of Abelard, the part played by conscience in human morality clearly pointed out.

Christian morality is merely the natural law reformed (reformatio legis naturalis, quam secutos esse philosophos constat (Theol. Chr. II). Philosophers, like the gospel, made morality lie in the intention (intentio animi); and they rightly said that good men fly from evil through love of the good and not through fear of punishment. The Supreme Good in itself is God. Like Duns Scotus and Descartes later, Abelard makes the distinction between good and evil depend on the arbitrary will of God: unde et ea, quae per se videntur pessima et ideo culpanda, cum jussione fiunt dominica; constat itaque totam boni vel mali discretionem in divinae dispensationis placito consistere (Comm. in Ep. ad Rom. II, 869, Migne's ed.).

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