former;[1] and even he[2] who could conceive and portray morality in its purest form, thinks himself bound to supply happiness to his ideal of human nature through the medium of a highly artificial machinery, and this rather as a reward from without, than as a boon obtained by man's own exertions. I need not trace any further the features of this striking difference, but will draw these hints to a conclusion with an illustrative passage from Aristotle's Ethics:—"For that which peculiarly belongs to each by nature, is best and most pleasant to every one; and consequently, to man, the life according to intellect (is most pleasant), if intellect especially constitutes Man. This life therefore is the most happy.[3]"
It has been from time to time disputed by publicists,
- ↑ This difference is never so strikingly evident as when we make the comparison between the ancient and modern philosophers. In place of other illustration, I quote some remarks of Tiedemann on one of the finest passages in Plato's Republic:—"Quanquam autem per se sit justitia grata nobis: tamen si exercitium ejus nullam omnino afferret utilitatem, si justo ea omnia essent patienda, quæ fratres commemorant; injustitia Justitiæ foret præferenda; quæ enim ad felicitatem maxime faciunt nostram, sunt absque dubio aliis præponenda. Jam corporis cruciatus, omnium rerum inopia, fames, infamia, quæque alia evenire justo fratres dixerunt, animi illam e justitia manantem voluptatem dubio procul longe superant, essetque adeo injustitia Justitiæ antehabenda et in virtutum numero collocanda." (Tiedemann in argumentis dialogorum Platonis. Ad 1. 2, de Republica.)—"Now although justice is pleasing to us in its own nature, still if the practice of it did not confer any advantage whatever, if the just man had to endure all that the brothers relate, injustice would be preferable to justice; for the things which especially contribute to our happiness, are unquestionably to be preferred to others. Now-bodily torture, utter indigence, hunger, infamy, and whatever else the brothers observed to befall the just man, far outweigh, doubtless, that spiritual pleasure which flows from justice; and so injustice would have to be preferred to justice, and ranked in the number of virtues."
- ↑ Kant, on the Summum Bonum, in his Elements of Moral Metaphysics (Riga, 1785), and in the Critique of Practical Reason.
- ↑ Τὸ γὰρ οἰκεῖον ἑκάστῳ τῇ φύσει κράτιστον καὶ ἥδιστόν ἐστιν ἑκάστῳ· καὶ τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ δὴ ὁ κατὰ τὸν νοῦν Βίος, εἴπερ μάλιστα τοῦτο ἄνθρωποσ· οὗτος ἄρα καὶ εὐδαιμονέστατος.—Arist. Eth. Nich. bk. x. ch. 7 sub fin.
