in wise insight; secondly, in being disconnected from any assumption, or theory, of the immortality of the soul, from all that we should call "Faith." Whether or not Aristotle denied a future life is another question to be considered later. But at all events he constructed ethics independently of such a doctrine. On the other hand, his system differs from the modern point of view, in that he asks, not, What is right] what is our duty? or what is the ground of moral obligation] but, What is the chief good for man 1? In order to answer this question, he calls in the aid of his metaphysical forms of thought, 1 such as the doctrine of the Four Causes, and of Actuality and Potentiality. From these he deduces that the chief good for man must consist in something which is an End in itself, and that it must be found in the actuality of the human powers. It is a weak point in the system that, instead of at once recognising the law of moral obligation as the deepest thing in man, it introduces 2 the idea of virtue and morality in a dry logical way, saying that the chief good for man must be the actuality of his powers according to their own proper law of excellence (Kara r^v ot/ceiW dper-^v). Having in this colourless and neutral way brought in the term dpe-n; = excellence or virtue, Aristotle divides it, in relation to man, into moral and intellectual. The part of his work which treated of intellectual excellence is lost, or was left unwritten. His discussion on moral excellence or virtue is full of interest. Its salient points are -first, the doctrine oi the formation of habits or states of mind; second, the doctrine of "the mean," as the essential determinator of virtue; third, a brilliant analysis of the qualities and characters which were reckoned either as cardinal or secondary virtues in Greece. On Aristotle's doctrine of "the mean" a word must be said. Objection has been made to it in modern times, on the ground that it sets up a merely quantitative difference between virtue and vice. But Aristotle's point of view was thoroughly Greek, it was based on the analogy of Art. When we speak of actions being "right" or "wrong" the Greeks spoke of them as being "beautiful" ( K aXa) or " ugly "(alcrxpa). In all Greek art and literature the great aim was to avoid the "too much" and the "too little," and in this way to attain perfection. Aristotle only followed Greek feeling, and the lead of Plato, 3 in applying the same idea to morals. It might, indeed, be urged that this idea of " the mean," of "neither too much nor too little," is a negative and merely regulative conception, and that it does not suffice to explain the moral beauty of the phenomena which Aristotle had in view. For instance, he describes the brave man 4 consciously meeting death for a worthy object, and consciously sacrificing life and happiness, and much that he holds dear, because he feels that it is " beautiful " to do so. But, so far as we can learn from Aristotle, the "beauty" here consists in exhibiting neither too much nor too little boldness, but the exact mean. In this there is obviously something inadequate; but the fault seems to lie, not so much in laying down "the mean" as the law of beauty, but rather in not going beyond the identification of the morally admirable with the beautiful. This leaves each moral action, or course of conduct, to be judged of as a work of art. The proportions in each case are relative, but he who can judge aright will feel the harmony or otherwise of the details. With this artistic and somewhat superficial conception of morality, Aristotle is, in his own way, an intuitionist. He thinks 5 that we have a sense (See) for moral beauty, but that this sense exists in perfection in the wise man (<poVi/^os), to whom in all casca must be the ultimate appeal.
But the whole question of man's moral nature is really subsidiary in the Ethics of Aristotle. His question is, What is the chief good for man? and the answer to this question is, It must consist in the evocation and actuality of man's highest faculty, namely, the Reason. Thus, the highest happiness is to be found in contemplation and speculative thought; the joys of the philosopher are beyond compare. A satisfaction of an inferior kind is to be found in the exercise of the moral virtues. Such is, in brief, the view which Aristotle gives of human life. He excludes religion from his consideration of the subject, though his disciple, Eudemus, 6 in restating his conclusions, tries to introduce it. The same question, What is the summum bonum for man] has been answered in somewhat similar terms, in modern times, by Spinoza. 7
The concluding paragraphs of the Nicomachean Ethics form the prelude and introduction to the Politics of Aristotle. Neither virtue nor happiness, 8 he says, can be attained by the individual separately. Moral development and the realisation of our powers (erepyeia) require as external conditions a settled community, social habits, the restraint and protection of laws, and a wisely-regulated system of public education. Man is by nature a political creature; he cannot isolate himself without becoming either less or more than man (^ 6-rjpiov?} $tos). Thus the state is a prime necessity to man, and, indeed, the state is prior in idea to the individual, that is to say, the normal conception of man is of man in a state of civilisation, and this implies beforehand the conception of a state. On these grounds Aristotle went on from his Ethics to the composition of his Politics. Some little time, 9 however, may have elapsed between the two works. This is suggested by the mature and free handling given to ethical questions when they occur in the Politics. Aristotle, with his usual tendency to seek a solid basis of experiences for his theories, may, in this interval, have been engaged in making that remarkable collection called the Constitutions (noAn-eTai), which, according to Diogenes Laertius (v. 27), contained a description and history of the constitutions, manners, and usages of 158 states, and of which numerous fragments 10 remain. However this may be, the Politics, as we possess them, are full of learning and information. After a preliminary dissertation on the family as a unit in, the state, they give a critical history of previous philosophical theories of politics, and an examination of some of the chief existing constitutional systems, before proceeding to the statement of Aristotle's own view. The treatise is unfinished; in Bekker's edition it breaks off in the middle of Aristotle's theory of education (book viii.) Some have thought that this unfinished book was put last by some editor because it was unfinished, but that it originally stood earlier in the treatise, and that the commonly received order of the books should be transposed as follows: i. ii. iii. vii. viii. iv. vi. v. It is forcibly argued 11 that a better
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]
[11]- ↑ 1 See Grant's Ethics, vol. i. essay 4.
- ↑ 2 Eth. Nic., i. 7, 15.
- ↑ 3 Plato's term for the law of the beautiful was Fl-ilebus, pp. 23-27, and Grant's Ethics, essay 4.
- ↑ 4 Eth. Xic., iii. 9, 4.
- ↑ 1 Se Politics, i. 2, 12.
- ↑ 6 See Fritzschius, Eudemi Rhodii Ethica (Ratisbon, 1851), p. 40 note, p. 261, note; and Grant's Ethics, essay 1.
- ↑ 7 De Intellcctus Emendations, ii. 13, 14. The highest good (says Spinoza) is to arrive at a state consisting in knowledge of the union which the mind has with the whole of nature, and to be able to enjoy that state in common with other individuals.
- ↑ 8 Eth. Nic., x. 10, 8-23; Pol., L 2, 8, 9.
- ↑ 9 Spengel thinks that "the Politics were written long after the Ethics."
- ↑ 10 These, as collected and annotated by C. F. Neumann, are given in Bekker's Oxford edition of Aristotle.
- ↑ 11 See M. Barthelemy St Hilaire's Politique cC Aristotle (Paris, 1837); Spengel, " Ueber die Pol. des Ar." (Abhand. dcr Bayerisch. Akad., 1849); Nickes, De Arist. Polit. Lib. (Bonn, 1851); and MrCongrcvc a Pol. of Ar. (London, 1855, 1874).
