what have they to do with contracts and deposits? nor brave acts; for what danger can threaten them? nor temperate acts; for what passions have they to need restraint? And yet the Gods are in the full enjoyment of conscious life. If then this life is not one of action, still less one of production, nothing remains but that it should be a life of contemplation. And thus it is in the contemplative life that man approaches most nearly the eternal blessedness of the Gods. The other animals have no share in happiness because they are incapable of contemplation. is Something of external prosperity is needed for the putting forth of that activity which constitutes happiness, but the wisest of men are agreed that what is needful very small. And if there is any providential care of mankind, surely it is reasonable to suppose that he who cherishes reason above all things, and passes his life in harmony with reason, will be dear to those to whom reason is dear, and consequently under the special charge of the Gods and receive from them all he needs. Our theory is now complete, but theory has little influence except with the small minority who are predisposed to virtue. The mass of mankind are insensible to appeals to reason or honour. Living by the rule of their passions they know of no higher pleasures than can be obtained through these. What is to be done, if such as these are to be reformed? Some hold that goodness is a gift of nature, some that it comes from teaching, others that it comes from habituation. If the first is a true account, we can ascribe it only to a special divine blessing; the second, as we have said, is only efficacious where the soul of the learner has been duly prepared, as soil to receive good seed, by being accustomed to like and dislike as he ought; when a man is once enslaved to his passions, there is no reasoning with him. We must therefore begin a course of habituation early in life. It is a part of the duty of the State to provide a system of public education and to enforce discipline by punishments, and this authoritative control should be continued through the whole of life, as at Sparta. Where such a system does not exist, private individuals should do their best to train and influence for good those who come within their reach. For this purpose it is necessary that they should endeavour to acquaint themselves with the principles of legislation and gain something of the spirit of a legislator. But where and how is this to be learnt? Up to the present time we have nothing but the empirical politics of the statesman, or the doctrinaire politics of the sophist. Aristotle proposes to construct a science of Politics from which to determine the nature of the best State and the laws by which it will train its citizens to virtue. The sequel to the Ethics, as we might infer from the last sentence, is to be found in the Politics. Before proceeding to the analysis of the latter, I will make one or two brief remarks upon the former. First, as to Aristotle's general conception of Ethics, is he to be called a Eudaemonist? So it has often been said, because he makes evdaμovía the end to which man's life and actions should be referred. But the well-being and well-doing, the εὐζωία and εὐπραξία, which constitute the εὐδαιμονία of Aristotle, are carefully distinguished from any form of pleasurable sensation. Evdaovía with him is a particular kind of putting forth of the powers of the soul, which is intrinsically good by itself, quite apart from the pleasure which, as a matter of fact, attends it like its shadow. Virtuous activity does not become good because it is a means to pleasure; it is good as being itself the end we should aim at. We admire it in and for itself, as we admire a beautiful statue. This view is of course very far removed from the Epicurean and also from the modern Utilitarian. It agrees with these in so far as it determines the quality of our actions by referring them immediately to an end, instead of to an absolute law, or intuitive conception of right; but the end is neither pleasure to self nor pleasure to others, but the perfect. fulfilment of the epyov of man. And to know what this perfect fulfilment is, we must fall back on reason embodied in the judgment of the wise man. It is no doubt a grave defect in Aristotle's system, as compared with Utilitarianism or with Christianity, that in determining the quality of actions, he only incidentally, as in the discussion on friendship, notices their influence on the wellbeing of others; in fact, he nowhere gives any clear statement of the grounds of reason on which the wise man founds his judgment as to the virtuous mean. Secondly, as to the doctrine of the 'Mean' itself, I think every one must feel that, while it is highly important to insist on balance, proportion, moderation, as an element of a perfect character, yet to make this the differentia of virtue, is both superficial and misleading. Aristotle himself confesses that the definition is not always strictly applicable; and, if we try to apply it to the higher Christian conception of virtue, as love towards God and Man, it of course fails utterly: there can be no excess of such love. But confining ourselves to cases which Aristotle gives, and where the doctrine of the mean might seem least unsatisfactory, as in the definition of courage, this would seem to imply that there is a certain quality or instinct, which is found existing in three different degrees; a small degree constituting cowardice, a somewhat larger amount courage, a larger still rashness. Whereas the truth is that, while courage and rashness do differ in degree, and spring from the same instinctive root, cowardice differs from them both in kind, and springs from an entirely different instinct. There cannot be less of the natural impulse which, moralized and rationalized, becomes courage, than none at all; yet such a negative state would never give rise to the impulse to run away, which springs from another positive principle, the desire of self-preservation. Aristotle's 'Mean' is in fact an attempt to express two distinct circumstances in regard to the moral constitution of man, one that the several instincts are indeed the raw material of as many virtues, but that, if untrained and unchecked, they run to excess and become vices; and, secondly, that the perfect character is one in which all the various instincts are harmoniously developed, so that the adventurous instinct, for instance, is balanced by the cautious instinct; one giving rise to the virtue of courage, the other to the virtue of prudence. The last point on which I shall touch is the divergence between the Aristotelian and Christian ethics. I have mentioned the absence of benevolence from Aristotle's list of virtues. In this he fails to give a right idea of our relation towards our fellow-men; but the main defects of his system arise from his defective idea of our relation to God. In regard to theology, as in regard to every thing else, Aristotle seeks to find some confirmation for his own view in the ordinary belief of men. He thinks that the human race is for ever passing through alternate cycles of barbarism and civilization, and that in the traditional beliefs of men we may see, as it were, a ray of earlier light which has not been entirely extinguished in its passage through succeeding darkness'. [Such is Aristotle's matter-of-fact rendering of the 'Reminiscence' (áváμvnois) of Plato.] It is this primaeval tradition which teaches us that all nature is encompassed by Deity, and that the heaven itself and the heavenly bodies are divine. But this original belief has got incrusted with mythological additions, partly owing to man's natural tendency to generalize his own experience3, and attribute to the Gods whatever belongs to himself; and partly to design on the part of legislators with a view to moral or political expediency. While Aristotle considers these fables unworthy of serious attention he is not roused like Plato, to protest against their immoral tendency. Nor, again, will he accept Plato's idea of God as the Creator and Governor of the world. Such an idea appears to him unworthy of the Deity and inconsistent with the blessedness which we ascribe to Him. The supreme God of Aristotle is the perfection of wisdom, the never-ceasing cause of all the beauty and order of the universe; but we cannot speak of Him as acting, or, as 1 Cf. Zeller, II. 2. p. 792 with the references, especially Met. XII. 8. 2 See above p. 43. 3 Cf. Pol. I. 2, ὥσπερ τὰ εἴδη ἑαυτοῖς ἀφομοιοῦσιν οἱ ἄνθρωποι, οὕτω καὶ τοὺς βίους τῶν θεῶν. 4 Met. II. 4, περὶ τῶν μυθικῶς σοφιζομένων (such as Hesiod) οὐκ ἄξιον μετὰ σπουδῆς σκοπεῖν. M. P. 9 |