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CHAPTER I

THE ETHICAL PROBLEM IN ANCIENT TIMES

THE history of ethics has, apart from the light which it throws on philosophy in general, an interest peculiar to itself. For, whilst metaphysical theories are often the work of men not in close contact with practical life, the ethical theories of a philosopher, on the contrary, give nearly always an ideal interpretation of the customs and moral sentiments of his age.

Moralists are in a sense the legislators of nations, for they in truth dictate laws to the nobler minds, whose ideal of conduct is not bounded by the narrow limits of mere legality. Ethical systems, no less than legal codes, have for their foundations, as Plato says, not "rocks and oaks, but the customs of the state" (Rep. Book VIII, Chapter II); and far more clearly than philosophy or science, they reveal to us the character and spirit of the nations to which they belong. The history of human societies explains, and is in its turn explained by the history of ethics.

Practical morality which is too often ignored in the exposition of moral systems, as if it were subordinate and a matter of detail, really possesses the same historical interest as theoretical ethics. It is in a way even more instructive, for it enables us to penetrate more deeply into the life and thought of past centuries. Practice has often been not only the starting point, but perhaps also the determining cause of moral theory. Logic comes later to the support of morality and only to justify, by means of reasoning, ideas which were originally simple intuitions. Moral truths gain cogency when they are presented in the form of deductions, and so afford each other

mutual support.

Hence moral teachers, who are in any case anxious to prove that their precepts are based on the authority of reason, have grouped their ideas systematically, thereby gratifying the human mind in its love of order.

If the doctrines of philosophers thus express in the most perfect form the moral conceptions of a people, they may be taken at the same time as the measure of the progress made by the human conscience in the different ages. Thus, in addition to their purely historical interest, these ethical doctrines have a speculative interest of the highest order, for they prove that conscience itself obeys the law of evolution.

Nevertheless, we must not fall into the common error of believing that even those theoretical speculations, which to the intelligence have been most convincing, have changed the customary morality of a people. For men's hearts are not transformed by speculative doctrines, not even by those that bring most conviction to their minds. If conscience changes it is only by a slow and gradual progress. Nor is this progress uniform and continuous. The deviations in its course give evidence of the diversity of the minds in which, at different times and in many different ways, it has been actualized.

Ethical Notions of Pre-philosophic times.

Ethical thought began to manifest itself at the earliest period of the existence of human societies, and found expression both in the works of law-givers and of poets. Arising out of reflections which not only great events but also the ordinary accidents of life must suggest to all men, moral science took at first the form of an entirely practical teaching. In Greece its first expositors were: Homer, in whose pictures of real life Horace professes to find a lofty morality (Epistles, 1, 2), Hesiod (Works and Days), the gnomic poets, Solon, Theognis, and the seven sages whose very names are uncertain.

Ethics in Homer appears as the courage and tenderness of Achilles, the perseverance of Ulysses, the fidelity of Penelope, the punishment of Paris in the Iliad, and of the suitors in the Odyssey. With Hesiod moral reflection proper begins to appear, but it is still feeble, and only shows

itself in connection with the poet's individual experiences. He was thinking of his quarrels with his brother when he wrote, "there are two kinds of contests, one is odious and reprehensible, for example lawsuits and trials, the other is noble and salutary, such is the emulation of artists and artisans." The fable of the nightingale and the hawk was suggested to him by all he had suffered through the injustice of kings.

Of the poems written between the ninth century (the supposed time of Hesiod) and the sixth, only a few fragments have come down to us. The seven sages were not philosophers, but practical men who endeavoured to inculcate and popularize moral ideas by means of short maxims and familiar discourses. They made no attempt at argument or discussion, being content to set forth clearly truths that were supposed to be either self-evident or based on some divine authority. The gnomic poets, Solon and Phocylides, likewise expressed in their moral reflections the results of human experience: the dangers of violence, the necessity of moderation in private as in public life, and so forth.

The Naturalism of Democritus. Mystic Morality of the Pythagoreans. The Sophists; Nature Opposed to Law.

Heraclitus and Democritus were the first philosophers to set forth ethical notions as the logical consequences of a philosophical theory. Heraclitus, while teaching that everything is in a state of flux and that nothing endures, counsels man to submit to the universal order of things, and to let himself be gently borne along with the unceasing flow of phenomena.

Democritus derives from sensuous principles the morality of an intelligent self-interest. He regards happiness as the end of life, but he makes it consist in good health, good humour, and peace of mind, and thus makes temperance its necessary condition.

The greatest moral teachers amongst pre-Socratic philosophers were the Pythagoreans. It is difficult to determine precisely the connection between their practical and their speculative philosophy, but the general tendency of their morality was mystic. The Pythagoreans taught that human life is in God's hands, and consequently they condemned suicide as an act of impiety.

But it was not by describing its delights that they sought t reconcile man to life; on the contrary, they maintained tha it would be well for the soul to be delivered from the prison house of the body, but she must respect God's commands, and remain on earth to expiate the sins of a former life. It would seem that for them the renunciation of happiness is the necessary condition of virtue. Temperance is the contest waged by the rational soul against the passions. The idea of Justice is expressed by the stern law of retaliation, and to define it the Pythagoreans use an untranslatable term, ἀντιπεπονθός

-"to suffer from another that which one has done to him." Friendship, for the Pythagoreans, was a manly virtue, free from all weakness. "We should help others to take up their burdens," they said, "but we must not carry them in their stead." In the rules of the community at Crotona, the asceticism of their teaching is still more marked. Pythagoras anticipated all the notions of the founders of monastic orders. The community of goods, celibacy, the rule of silence, prayer, hymns sung in common, and self-examination, are all enjoined by him.

What have I
Having thus

"Let not thine eyelids yield to slumber, till thou hast submitted to thy reason all the actions of the day. In what have I failed? done? Of what is commanded, have I omitted aught?' reviewed the first of thine actions, consider them all one same way, and if thou hast done wrong, humble thyself. done well, rejoice” (Golden Sayings).

by one in the If thou hast

The influence of this austere morality of Pythagoras was destined to last long. Its traces are particularly visible in Platonism. In Pythagoreanism there appears for the first time the great conception of asceticism, which, broadly speaking, consists in sacrificing the natural to the moral.

In connection with this doctrine we may discuss a view which was more in accordance with the Greek spirit, and which found about the same time its first exponents in the Sophists-that of Naturalism. In ethics, as in politics, the starting point of the Sophists was the fundamental distinction made by them between nature (pois) and custom (éσis). From this principle was derived their theory of Law (vóμos). The antithesis between natural and conventional laws, so eloquently set forth by Hippias (Plato, Protag. 337 c) was adopted

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