Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/357

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302
GREEK PHILOSOPHY.

the eager pursuit and active diffusion of this happiness, he may be exhorted as a duty which cannot be too abundantly fulfilled.

35. We thus see that a complete body of ethics should embrace two codes, two systems of rules, the one of which we may call the fundamental or antecedent, or under-ground ethics, as underlying the other; and the other of which we may call the upper or subsequent, or above-ground ethics, as resting on, and modified by the former. The under-ground ethics would inculcate on man the necessity of being what he truly is, namely, a creature of reason and of thought; in short, the necessity of being a man, and of preserving to himself this status. Here the end is virtue, that is, the life and health of the soul, and nothing but this. The above-ground ethics would inculcate on man the necessity of being a happy man. It is not enough for man to be; he must, moreover, if possible, be happy. The fundamental ethics look merely to his being, i.e., his being rational; the upper ethics look principally to his being happy, but they are bound to take care that in all his happiness he does nothing to violate his rationality, the health and virtue of the soul.

36. We now see more clearly than we have yet done the error into which the anti-utilitarians fall. They make the under-ground ethics all in all. They allow no end but virtue. They shut off happiness