Chapter XI: Part II: The Ethical Systems (4)

The Stoic was taught to reflect how much that _appears_ to be desirable, terror-striking, provocative, &c., is not really so, but is made to appear so by false and curable associations. And while he thus discouraged those self-regarding emotions that placed him in hostility with others, he learnt to respect the self of another man as well as his own. Epictetus advises to deal mildly with a man that hurts us either by word or deed; and advises it upon the following very remarkable ground. 'Recollect that in what he says or does, he follows his own sense of propriety, not yours. He must do what appears to him right, not what appears to you; if he judges wrongly, it is he that is hurt, for he is the person deceived. Always repeat to yourself, in such a case: The man has acted on his own opinion.'

The reason here given by Epictetus is an instance, memorable in ethical theory, of respect for individual dissenting conviction, even in an extreme case; and it must be taken in conjunction with his other doctrine, that damage thus done to us unjustly is really little or no damage, except so far as we ourselves give pungency to it by our irrational susceptibilities and associations. We see that the Stoic submerges, as much as he can, the pre-eminence of his own individual self, and contemplates himself from the point of view of another, only as one among many. But he does not erect the happiness of others into a direct object of his own positive pursuit, beyond the reciprocities of family, citizenship, and common humanity. The Stoic theorists agreed with Epicurus in inculcating the reciprocities of justice between all fellow-citizens; and they even went farther than he did, by extending the sphere of such duties beyond the limits of city, so as to comprehend all mankind. But as to the reciprocities of individual friendship, Epicurus went beyond the Stoics, by the amount of self-sacrifice and devotion that he enjoined for the benefit of a friend.

There is also in the Stoical system a recognition of duties to God, and of morality as based on piety. Not only are we all brethren, but also the 'children of one Father.'

The extraordinary strain put upon human nature by the full Stoic _ideal_ of submerging self in the larger interests of being, led to various compromises. The rigid following out of the ideal issued in one of the _paradoxes_, namely.--That all the actions of the wise man are equally perfect, and that, short of the standard of perfection, all faults and vices are equal; that, for example, the man that killed a cock, without good reason, was as guilty as he that killed his father. This has a meaning only when we draw a line between spirituality and morality, and treat the last as worthless in comparison of the first. The later Stoics, however, in their exhortations to special branches of duty, gave a positive value to practical virtue, irrespective of the _ideal_.

The idea of Duty was of Stoical origin, fostered and developed by the Roman spirit and legislation. The early Stoics had two different words,--one for the 'suitable' [Greek: kathaekon], or incomplete propriety, admitting of degrees, and below the point of rectitude, and another for the 'right' [Greek: katorthoma], or complete rectitude of action, which none could achieve except the wise man. It is a significant circumstance that the 'suitable' is the lineal ancestor of our word 'duty' (through the Latin _officium_).

It was a great point with the Stoic to be conscious of 'advance' or improvement.[11] By self-examination, he kept himself constantly acquainted with his moral state, and it was both his duty and his satisfaction to be approaching to the ideal of the perfect man.

It is very illustrative of the unguarded points and contradictions of Stoicism, that contentment and apathy were not to permit grief even for the loss of friends. Seneca, on one occasion, admits that he was betrayed by human weakness on this point. On strict Stoical principles, we ought to treat the afflictions and the death of others with the same frigid indifference as our own; for why should a man feel for a second person _more_ than he ought to feel for himself, as a mere unit in the infinitude of the Universe? This is the contradiction inseparable from any system that begins by abjuring pleasure, and relief or protection from pain, as the ends of life. Even granting that we regard pleasure and relief from pain as of no importance in our own case, yet if we apply the same measure to others we are bereft of all motives to benevolence; and virtue, instead of being set on a loftier pinnacle, is left without any foundation.

EPICURUS. [311--270 B.C.]

Epicurus was born 341 B.C. in the island of Samos. At the age of eighteen, he repaired to Athens, where he is supposed to have enjoyed the teaching of Xenocrates or Theophrastus. In 306 B.C., he opened a school in a garden in Athens, whence his followers have sometimes been called the 'philosophers of the garden.' His life was simple, chaste, and temperate. Of the 300 works he is said to have written, nothing has come down to us except three letters, giving a summary of his views for the use of his friends, and a number of detached sayings, preserved by Diogenes Laertius and others. Moreover, some fragments of his work on Nature have been found at Herculaneum. The additional sources of our knowledge of Epicurus are the works of his opponents, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and of his follower Lucretius. Our information from Epicurean writers respecting the doctrines of their sect is much less copious than what we possess from Stoic writers in regard to Stoic opinions. We have no Epicurean writer on Philosophy except Inicretius; whereas respecting the Stoical creed under the Roman Empire, the important writings of Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Antoninus, afford most valuable evidence.

To Epicurus succeeded, in the leadership of his school, Hermachus, Polystratus, Dionysius, Basilides, and others, ten in number, down to the age of Augustus. Among Roman Epicureans, Lucretius (95--51 B.C.) is the most important, his poem (De Rerum Natura), being the completest account of the system that exists. Other distinguished followers were Horace, Atticus, and Lacian. In modern times, Pierre Gassendi (1592--1655) revived the doctrines of Epicurus, and in 1647 published his 'Syntagma Philosophiae Epicuri,' and a Life of Epicurus. The reputation of Gassendi, in his life time, rested chiefly upon his physical theories; but his influence was much felt as a Christian upholder of Epicureanism. Gassendi was at one time in orders as a Roman Catholic, and professor of theology and philosophy. He established an Epicurean school in France, among the disciples of which were, Moliere, Saint Evremond, Count de Grammont, the Duke of Rochefoncalt, Fontenelle, and Voltaire.

The standard of Virtue and Vice is referred by Epicurus to pleasure and pain. Pain is the only evil, Pleasure is the only good. Virtue is no end in itself, to be sought: Vice is no end in itself, to be avoided. The motive for cultivating Virtue and banishing Vice arises from the consequences of each, as the means of multiplying pleasures and averting or lessening pains. But to the attainment of this purpose, the complete supremacy of Reason is indispensable; in order that we may take a right comparative measure of the varieties of pleasure and pain, and pursue the course that promises the least amount of suffering.[12]

In all ethical theories that make happiness the supreme object of pursuit, the position of virtue depends entirely upon the theory of what constitutes happiness. Now, Epicurus (herein differing from the Stoics, as well as Aristotle), did not recognize Happiness as anything but freedom from pain and enjoyment of pleasure. It is essential, however, to understand, how Epicurus conceived pleasure and pain, and what is the Epicurean scale of pleasures and pains, graduated as objects of reasonable desire or aversion? It is a great error to suppose that, in making pleasure the standard of virtue, Epicurus had in view that elaborate and studied gratification of the sensual appetites that we associate with the word _Epicurean_. Epicurus declares--'When we say that pleasure is the end of life, we do not mean the pleasures of the debauchee or the sensualist, as some from ignorance or from malignity represent, but freedom of the body from pain, and of the soul from anxiety. For it is not continuous drinkings and revellings, nor the society of women, nor rare viands, and other luxuries of the table, that constitute a pleasant life, but sober contemplation, such as searches out the grounds of choice and avoidance, and banishes those chimeras that harass the mind.

Freedom from pain is thus made the primary element of happiness; a one-sided view, respected in the doctrine of Locke, that it is not the idea of future good, but the present greatest uneasiness that most strongly affects the will. A neutral state of feeling is necessarily imperilled by a greedy pursuit of pleasures; hence the _dictum_, to be content with little is a great good; because little is most easily obtained. The regulation of the desires is therefore of high moment. According to Epicurus, desires fall into three grades. Some are _natural_ and _necessary_, such as desire of drink, food, or life, and are easily gratified. But when the uneasiness of a want is removed, the bodily pleasures admit of no farther increase; anything additional only _varies_ the pleasure. Hence the luxuries which go beyond the relief of our wants are thoroughly superfluous; and the desires arising from them (forming the _second_ grade) though _natural, are not necessary_. A _third_ class of desires is neither natural nor necessary, but begotten of vain opinion; such as the thirst for civic honours, or for power over others; those desires are the most difficult to gratify, and even if gratified, entail upon us trouble, anxiety, and peril. [This account of the desires, following up the advice--If you wish to be rich, study not to increase your goods, but to diminish your desires--is to a certain extent wise and even indispensable; yet not adapted to all temperaments. To those that enjoy pleasure very highly, and are not sensitive in an equal degree to pain, such a negative conception of happiness would be imperfect.] Epicurus did not, however, deprecate positive pleasure. If it could be reached without pain, and did not result in pain, it was a pure good; and, even if it could not be had without pain, the question was still open, whether it might not be well worth the price. But in estimating the worth of pleasure, the absence of any accompanying pain should weigh heavily in the balance. At this point, the Epicurean theory connects itself most intimately with the conditions of virtue; for virtue is more concerned with averting mischief and suffering, than with multiplying positive enjoyments.

Bodily feeling, in the Epicurean psychology, is prior in order of time to the mental element; the former was primordial, while the latter was derivative from it by repeated processes of memory and association. But though such was the order of sequence and generation, yet when we compare the two as constituents of happiness to the formed man, the mental element much outweighed the bodily, both as pain and as pleasure. Bodily pain or pleasure exists only in the present; when not felt, it is nothing. But mental feelings involve memory and hope--embrace the past as well as the future--endure for a long time, and may be recalled or put out of sight, to a great degree, at our discretion.

This last point is one of the most remarkable features of the Epicurean mental discipline. Epicurus deprecated the general habit of mankind in always hankering after some new satisfaction to come; always discontented with the present, and oblivious of past comforts as if they had never been. These past comforts ought to be treasured up by memory and reflection, so that they might become as it were matter for rumination, and might serve, in trying moments, even to counterbalance extreme physical suffering. The health of Epicurus himself was very bad during the closing years of his life. There remains a fragment of his last letter, to an intimate friend and companion, Idomeneus--'I write this to you on the last day of my life, which, in spite of the severest internal bodily pains, is still a happy day, because I set against them in the balance all the mental pleasure felt in the recollection of my past conversations with you. Take care of the children left by Metrodorus, in a manner worthy of your demeanour from boyhood towards me and towards philosophy.' Bodily pain might thus be alleviated, when it occurred; it might be greatly lessened in occurrence, by prudent and moderate habits; lastly, even at the worst, if violent, it never lasted long; if not violent, it might be patiently borne, and was at any rate terminated, or terminable at pleasure, by death.

In the view of Epicurus, the chief miseries of life arose, not from bodily pains, but partly from delusions of hope, and exaggerated aspirations for wealth, honours, power, &c., in all which the objects appeared most seductive from a distance, inciting man to lawless violence and treachery, while in the reality they were always disappointments, and generally something worse; partly, and still more, from the delusions of fear. Of this last sort, were the two greatest torments of human existence--fear of Death, and of eternal suffering after death, as announced by prophets and poets, and Fear of the Gods. Epicurus, who did not believe in the continued existence of the soul separate from the body, declared that there could never be any rational ground for fearing death, since it was simply a permanent extinction of consciousness.[13] Death was nothing to us (he said); when death comes, we are no more, either to suffer or to enjoy. Yet it was the groundless fear of this nothing that poisoned all the tranquillity of life, and held men imprisoned even when existence was a torment. Whoever had surmounted that fear was armed at once against cruel tyranny and against all the gravest misfortunes. Next, the fear of the gods was not less delusive, and hardly less tormenting, than the fear of death. It was a capital error (Epicurus declared) to suppose that the gods employed themselves as agents in working or superintending the march of the Cosmos; or in conferring favour on some men, and administering chastisement to others. The vulgar religious tales, which represented them in this character, were untrue and insulting as regards the gods themselves, and pregnant with perversion and misery as regards the hopes and fears of mankind. Epicurus believed sincerely in the gods; reverenced them as beings at once perfectly happy, immortal, and unchangeable; and took delight in the public religious festivals and ceremonies. But it was inconsistent with these attributes, and repulsive to his feelings of reverence, to conceive them as agents. The idea of agency is derived from human experience; we, as agents, act with a view to supply some want, to fulfil some obligation, to acquire some pleasure, to accomplish some object desired but not yet attained--in short, to fill up one or other of the many gaps in our imperfect happiness; the gods already _have_ all that agents strive to get, and more than agents ever do get; their condition is one not of agency, but of tranquil, self-sustaining, fruition. Accordingly, Epicurus thought (as Aristotle[14] had thought before him) that the perfect, eternal, and imperturbable well-being and felicity of the gods excluded the supposition of their being agents. He looked upon them as types of that unmolested safety and unalloyed satisfaction which was what he understood by pleasure or happiness--as objects of reverential envy, whose sympathy he was likely to obtain by assimilating his own temper and condition to theirs, as far as human circumstances allowed.

These theological views were placed by Epicurus in the foreground of his ethical philosophy, as the only means of dispelling those fears of the gods that the current fables instilled into every one, and that did so much to destroy human comfort and security. He proclaimed that beings in immortal felicity neither suffered vexation in themselves nor caused vexation to others--neither showed anger nor favour to particular persons. The doctrine that they were the working managers in the affairs of the Cosmos, celestial and terrestrial, human and extra-human, he not only repudiated as incompatible with their attributes, but declared to be impious, considering the disorder, sufferings, and violence, everywhere visible. He disallowed all prophecy, divination, and oracular inspiration, by which the public around him believed that the gods were perpetually communicating special revelations to individuals, and for which Sokrates had felt so peculiarly thankful.[15]

It is remarkable that Stoics and Epicureans, in spite of their marked opposition in dogma or theory, agreed so far in practical results, that both declared these two modes of uneasiness (fear of the gods and fear of death) to be the great torments of human existence, and both strove to remove or counterbalance them.

So far, the teaching of Epicurus appears confined to the separate happiness of each individual, as dependent upon his own prudence, sobriety, and correct views of Nature. But this is not the whole of the Epicurean Ethics. The system also considered each man as in companionship with others; The precepts were shaped accordingly, first as to Justice, next as to Friendship. In both these, the foundation whereon Epicurus built was Reciprocity: not pure sacrifice to others, but partnership with others, beneficial to all. He kept the ideas of self and of others inseparably knit together in one complex association: he did not expel or degrade either, in order to give exclusive ascendancy to the other. The dictate of Natural Justice was that no man should hurt another: each was bound to abstain from doing harm to others; each, on this condition, was entitled to count on security and relief from the fear that others would do harm to him. Such double aspect, or reciprocity, was essential to social companionship: those that could not, or would not, accept this covenant, were unfit for society. If a man does not behave justly towards others, he cannot expect that they will behave justly towards him; to live a life of injustice, and expect that others will not find it out, is idle. The unjust man cannot enjoy a moment of security. Epicurus laid it down explicitly, that just and righteous dealing was the indispensable condition to every one's comfort, and was the best means of attaining it.

The reciprocity of Justice was valid towards all the world; the reciprocity of friendship went much farther; it involved indefinite and active beneficence, but could reach only to a select few. Epicurus insisted emphatically on the value of friendship, as a means of happiness to both the persons so united. He declared that a good friend was another self, and that friends ought to be prepared, in case of need, to die for each other. Yet he declined to recommend an established community of goods among the members of his fraternity, as prevailed in the Pythagorean brotherhood: for such an institution (he said) implied mistrust. He recommended efforts to please and to serve, and a forwardness to give, for the purpose of gaining and benefiting a friend, and he even declared that there was more pleasure in conferring favours than in receiving them; but he was no less strenuous in inculcating an intelligent gratitude on the receiver. No one except a wise man (he said) knew how to return a favour properly.[16]

Virtue and happiness, in the theory of Epicurus, were thus inseparable. A man could not be happy until he had surmounted the fear of death and the fear of gods instilled by the current fables, which disturbed all tranquillity of mind; until he had banished those factitious desires that pushed him into contention for wealth, power, or celebrity; nor unless he behaved with justice to all, and with active devoted friendship towards a few. Such a mental condition, which he thought it was in every man's power to acquire by appropriate teaching and companionship, constituted virtue; and was the sure as well as the only precursor of genuine happiness. A mind thus undisturbed and purified was sufficient to itself. The mere satisfaction of the wants of life, and the conversation of friends, became then felt pleasures; if more could be had without preponderant mischief, so much the better; but Nature, disburthened of her corruptions and prejudices, required no more to be happy. This at least was as much as the conditions of humanity admitted: a tranquil, undisturbed, innocuous, non-competitive fruition, which approached most nearly to the perfect happiness of the Gods.[17]

The Epicurean theory of virtue is the type of all those that make an enlightened self-interest the basis of right and wrong. The four cardinal virtues were explained from the Epicurean point of view. _Prudence_ was the supreme rule of conduct. It was a calculation and balancing of pleasures and pains. Its object was a judicious selection of pleasures to be sought. It teaches men to forego idle wishes, and to despise idle fears. _Temperance_ is the management of sensual pleasures. It seeks to avoid excess, so as on the whole to extract as much pleasure as our bodily organs are capable of affording. _Fortitude_ is a virtue, because it overcomes fear and pain. It consists in facing danger or enduring pain, to avoid greater possible evils. _Justice_ is of artificial origin. It consists in a tacit agreement among mankind to abstain from injuring one another. The security that every man has in his person and property, is the great consideration urging to abstinence from injuring others. But is it not possible to commit injustice with safety? The answer was, 'Injustice is not an evil in itself, but becomes so from the fear that haunts the injurer of not being able to escape the appointed avengers of such acts.'

The Physics of Epicurus were borrowed in the main from the atomic theory of Democritus, but were modified by him in a manner subservient and contributory to his ethical scheme. To that scheme it was essential that those celestial, atmospheric, or terrestrial phenomena that the public around him ascribed to the agency and purposes of the gods, should be understood as being produced by physical causes. An eclipse, an earthquake, a storm, a shipwreck, unusual rain or drought, a good or a bad harvest--and not merely these, but many other occurrences far smaller and more unimportant, as we may see by the eighteenth chapter of the Characters of Theophrastus--were then regarded as visitations of the gods, requiring to be interpreted by recognized prophets, and to be appeased by ceremonial expiations. When once a man became convinced that all these phenomena proceeded from physical agencies, a host of terrors and anxieties would disappear from the mind; and this Epicurus asserted to be the beneficent effect and real recommendation of physical philosophy. He took little or no thought for scientific curiosity as a motive _per se_, which both Democritus and Aristotle put so much in the foreground.

Epicurus adopted the atomistic scheme of Democritus, but with some important variations. He conceived that the atoms all moved with equal velocity in the downward direction of gravity. But it occurred to him that upon this hypothesis there could never occur any collisions or combinations of the atoms--nothing but continued and unchangeable parallel lines. Accordingly, he modified it by saying that the line of descent was not exactly rectilinear, but that each atom deflected a little from the straight line, and each in its own direction and degree; so that it became possible to assume collisions, resiliences, adhesions, combinations, among them, as it had been possible under the variety of original movements ascribed to them by Democritus. The opponents of Epicurus derided this auxiliary hypothesis; they affirmed that he invented the individual deflection of each atom, without assigning any cause, and only because he was perplexed by the mystery of man's _free-will_. But Epicurus was not more open to attack on this ground than other physical philosophers. Most of them (except perhaps the most consistent of the Stoic fatalists) believed that some among the phenomena of the universe occurred in regular and predictable sequence, while others were essentially irregular and unpredictable; each philosopher devised his hypothesis, and recognized some fundamental principle, to explain the first class of phenomena as well as the second. Plato admitted an invincible Erratic necessity; Aristotle introduced Chance and Spontaneity; Democritus multiplied indefinitely the varieties of atomic movements. The hypothetical deflexion alleged by Epicurus was his way, not more unwarranted than the others, of providing a fundamental principle for the unpredictable phenomena of the universe. Among these are the mental (including the volitional) manifestations of men and animals; but there are many others besides; and there is no ground for believing that the mystery of free-will was peculiarly present to his mind. The movements of a man or animal are not exclusively subject to gravitation and other general laws; they are partly governed by mental impulses and by forces of the organism, intrinsic and peculiar to himself, unseen and unfelt by others. For these, in common with many other untraceable phenomena in the material world, Epicurus provides a principle in the supplementary hypothesis of deflexion. He rejected the fatalism contained in the theories of some of the Stoics, and admitted a limited range of empire to chance, or irregularity. But he maintained that the will, far from being among the phenomena essentially irregular, is under the influence of motives; for no man can insist more strenuously than he does (see the Letter to Menoecens) on the complete power of philosophy,--if the student could be made to feel its necessity and desire the attainment of it, so as to meditate and engrain within himself sound views about the gods, death, and human life generally,--to mould our volitions and character in a manner conformable to the exigencies of virtue and happiness.

When we read the explanations given by Epicurus and Lucretius of what the Epicurean theory really was, and compare them with the numerous attacks made upon it by opponents, we cannot but remark that the title or formula of the theory was ill chosen, and was really a misnomer. What Epicurus meant by Pleasure was, not what most people meant by it, but something very different--a tranquil and comfortable state of mind and body; much the same as what Democritus had expressed before him by the phrase [Greek: euthymia]. This last phrase would have expressed what Epicurus aimed at, neither more nor less. It would at least have preserved his theory from much misplaced sarcasm and aggressive rhetoric.

THE NEO-PLATONISTS.

PLOTINUS (A.D. 205--70), PORPHYRY, &c.

Constructed with reference to the broken-down state of ancient society, and seeking its highest aim in a regeneration of humanity, the philosophical system of Neo-Platonism was throughout ethical or ethico-religious in spirit; yet its ethics admits of no great development according to the usual topics. A pervading ethical character is not incompatible with the absence of a regular ethical scheme; and there was this peculiarity in the system, that its end, though professedly moral, was to be attained by means of an intellectual regimen. In setting up its ideal of human effort, it was least of all careful about prescribing a definite course of external conduct.

The more strictly ethical views of PLOTINUS, the chief representative of the school, are found mainly in the first of the six Enneads into which Porphyry collected his master's essays. But as they presuppose the cosmological and psychological doctrines, their place in the works, as now arranged, is to be regarded as arbitrary. The soul having fallen from its original condition, and, in consequence and as a penalty, having become united with a material body, the one true aim recognized for human action is, to rise above the debasing connection with matter, and again to lead the old spiritual life. For those that have sunk so far as to be content with the world of sense, wisdom consists in pursuing pleasure as good, and shunning pain as evil: but the others can partake of a better life, in different degrees. The first step in reformation is to practise virtue in the affairs of life, which means to subject Sense and the lower desires to Reason. This is done in the fourfold form of the common cardinal virtues, called _political_ by Plotinus, to mark the sphere of action where they can be exerted, and is the virtue of a class of men capable of a certain elevation, though ignorant of all the rest that lies above them. A second step is made through the means of the [Greek: katharseis] or _purifying_ virtues; where it is sought to root out, instead of merely moderating, the sensual affections. If the soul is thus altogether freed from the dominion of sense, it becomes at once able to follow its natural bent towards good, and enters into a permanent state of calm. This is virtue in its true meaning--becoming like to the Deity, all that went before being merely a preparation. The pure and perfect life of the soul may still be described as a field whereon the four virtues are exercised, but they now assume a far higher meaning than as political virtues, having relation solely to the contemplative life of the Nous.

Happiness is unknown to Plotinus as distinct from perfection, and perfection in the sense of having subdued all material cravings (except as regards the bare necessities of life), and entered upon the undisturbed life of contemplation. If this recalls, at least in name, the Aristotelian ideal, there are points added that appear to be echoes of Stoicism. Rapt in the contemplation of eternal verities, the purified soul is indifferent to external circumstances: pain and suffering are unheeded, and the just man can feel happy even in the bull of Phalaris. But in one important respect the Neo-Platonic teaching is at variance with Stoical doctrine. Though its first and last precept is to rid the soul from the bondage of matter, it warns against the attempt to sever body and soul by suicide. By no forcible separation, which would be followed by a new junction, but only by prolonged internal effort is the soul so set free from the world of sense, as to be able to have a vision of its ancient home while still in the body, and to return to it at death. Small, therefore, as is the consideration bestowed by Neo-Platonism on the affairs of practical life, it has no disposition to shirk the burden of them.

One other peculiar aim, the highest of all, is proposed to the soul in the Alexandrian philosophy. It is peculiar, because to be understood only in connexion with the metaphysics and cosmology of the system. In the theory of Emanation, the primordial One or Good emits the Nous wherein the Ideas are immanent; the Nous, in turn, sends forth the Soul, and the Soul, Matter or nature; the gradation applying to man as well as to the Universe. Now, to each of these principles, there is a corresponding subjective state in the inner life of man. The life of sense answers to nature or the material body; the virtue that is founded upon free-will and reason, to the soul; the contemplative life, as the result of complete purification from sense, to the Nous or Sphere of Ideas; finally, to the One or Good, supreme in the scale of existence, corresponds the state of Love, or, in its highest form, _Ecstasy_. This peculiar elevation is something far above the highest intellectual contemplation, and is not reached by thought. It is not even a mere intuition of, but a real union or contact with, the Good. To attain it, there must be a complete withdrawal into self from the external world, and then the subject must wait quietly till perchance the state comes on. It is one of ineffable bliss, but, from the nature of man, transitory and rare.

SCHOLASTIC ETHICS.

ABAELARD (1079-1142) has a special treatise on the subject of Ethics, entitled _Scito te ipsum_. As the name implies, it lays chief stress upon the Subjective element in morality, and, in this aspect, is considered to supply the idea that underlies a very large portion of modern ethical speculation. By nature a notoriously independent thinker, Abaelard claimed for philosophy the right of discussing ethical questions and fixing a natural moral law, though he allowed a corrective in the Christian scheme. Having this position with reference to the church, he was also much less under the yoke of philosophical authority than his successors, from living at a time when Aristotle was not yet supreme. Yet, with Aristotle, he assigns the attainment of the highest good as the aim of all human effort, Ethics showing the way; and, with the schoolmen generally, pronounces the highest good to be God. If the highest good in itself is God, the highest human good is love to God. This is attained by way of virtue, which is a good Will consolidated into a habit. On the influence of habit on action his view is Aristotelian. His own specialty lies in his judging actions solely with reference to the intention _(intentio)_ of the agent, and this intention with reference to conscience _(conscientia)_. All actions, he says, are in themselves indifferent, and not to be called good or evil except from the intention of the doer. _Peccatum_, is properly only the action that is done with evil intent; and where this is present, where the mental consent _(consensus)_ is clearly established, there is _peccatum_, though the action remains unexecuted. When the _consensus_ is absent, as in original sin, there is only _vitium_; hence, a life without _peccata_ is not impossible to men in the exercise of their freedom, however difficult it may be.

The supremacy assigned by him to the subjective element of conscience appears in such phrases as, there is no sin except against conscience; also in the opinion he pronounces, that, though in the case of a mistaken moral conviction, an action is not to be called good, yet it is not so bad as an action objectively right but done against conscience. Thus, without allowing that conscientious persecutors of Christians act rightly, he is not afraid, in the application of his principle, to say that they would act still more wrongly if through not listening to their conscience, they spared their victims. But this means only that by following conscience we avoid sinning; for virtue in the full sense, it is necessary that the conscience should have judged rightly. By what standard, however, this is to be ascertained, he nowhere clearly says. _Contemptus Dei_, given by him as the real and only thing that constitutes an action bad, is merely another subjective description.

ST. BERNARD of Clairvaux (1091-1153), the strenuous opponent of Abaelard, and the great upholder of mysticism against rationalism in the early scholastic period when the two were not yet reconciled, gave utterance, in the course of his mystical effusions, to some special views of love and disinterestedness.

There are two degrees of Christian virtue, Humility and Charity or Love. When men look into themselves, and behold the meanness that is found there, the fitting state of mind is, first, humility; but soon the sense of their very weakness begets in them charity and compassion towards others, while the sense also of a certain human dignity raises within them feelings of love towards the author of their being. The treatise _De Amore Dei_ sets forth the nature of this love, which is the highest exercise of human powers. Its fundamental characteristic is its disinterestedness. It has its reward, but from meriting, not from seeking. It is purely voluntary, and, as a free sentiment, necessarily unbought; it has God for its single object, and would not be love to God, if he were loved for the sake of something else.

He distinguishes various degrees of love. There is, first, a natural love of self for the sake of self. Next, a motion of love towards God amid earthly misfortunes, which also is not disinterested. The third degree is different, being love to God for his own sake, and to our neighbour for God's sake. But the highest grade of all is not reached, until men come to love even themselves only by relation to God; at this point, with the disappearance of all special and interested affection, the mystic goal is attained.

JOHN of SALISBURY (d. 1180) is the last name to be cited in the early scholastic period. He professed to be a practical philosopher, to be more concerned about the uses of knowledge than about knowledge itself, and to subordinate everything to some purpose; by way of protest against the theoretic hair-splitting and verbal subtleties of his predecessors. Even more than in Ethics, he found in Politics his proper sphere. He was the staunchest upholder of the Papal Supremacy, which, after long struggles, was about to be established at its greatest height, before presiding at the opening of the most brilliant period of scholasticism.

In the _Policraticus_ especially, but also in his other works, the foundations and provisions of his moral system are found. He has no distinction to draw in Ethics between theology and philosophy, but uses Scripture and observation alike, though Scripture always in the final appeal. Of philosophizing, the one final aim, as also of existence, is Happiness; the question, of questions, how it is to be attained. Happiness is not pleasure, nor possession, nor honour, but consists in following the path of virtue. Virtue is to be understood from the constitution of human nature. In man, there is a lower and a higher faculty of Desire; or, otherwise expressed, there are the various affections that have their roots in sense and centre in self-love or the desire of self-preservation, and there is also a natural love of justice implanted from the beginning. In proportion as the _appetitus justi_, which consists in will, gains upon the _appetitus commodi_, men become more worthy of a larger happiness. Self-love rules in man, so long as he is in the natural state of sin; if, amid great conflict and by divine help, the higher affection gains the upper hand, the state of true virtue, which is identical with the theoretic state of belief, and also of pure love to God and man, is reached.

By the middle of the thirteenth century, the schoolmen had before them the whole works of Aristotle, obtained from Arabian and other sources. Whereas, previous to this time, they had comprehended nearly all the subjects of Philosophy under the one name of Dialectics or Logic, always reserving, however, Ethics to Theology, they were now made aware of the ancient division of the sciences, and of what had been accomplished in each. The effect, both in respect of form and of subject-matter, was soon apparent in such compilations or more independent works as they were able to produce after their commentaries on the Aristotelian text. But in Ethics, the nature of the subject demanded of men in their position a less entire submission to the doctrines of the pagan philosopher; and here accordingly they clung to the traditional theological treatment. If they were commenting on the Ethics of Aristotle, the Bible was at hand to supply his omissions; if they were setting up a complete moral system, they took little more than the ground-work from him, the rest being Christian ideas and precepts, or fragments borrowed from Platonism and other Greek systems, nearly allied in spirit to their own faith.

This is especially true, as will be seen, of Thomas Aquinas. His predecessors can be disposed of in a few words. ALEXANDER of HALES (d. 1245) was almost purely theological. BONAVENTURA (1221-74) in his double character of rigid Franciscan and mystic, was led far beyond the Aristotelian Ethics. The mean between excess and defect is a very good rule for the affairs of life, but the true Christian is bound besides to works of supererogation: first of all, to take on the condition of poverty; while the state of mystic contemplation remains as a still higher goal for the few. ALBERT THE GREAT (1193-1280), the most learned and complete commentator of Aristotle that had yet appeared, divide the whole subject of Ethics into _Monastica, Oeconomica_, and _Politica_. In this division, which is plainly suggested by the Aristotelian division of Politics in the large sense, the term _Monastica_ not inaptly expresses the reference that Ethics has to the conduct of men as individuals. Albert, however, in commenting on the Nicomachean Ethics, adds exceedingly little to the results of his author beyond the incorporation of a few Scriptural ideas. To the cardinal virtues he appends the _virtutes adjunctae_, Faith, Hope, and Charity, and again in his compendious work, _Summa Theologiae_, distinguishes them as _infusae_, the cardinal being considered as _acquisitae_.

Besides his commentaries on the Aristotelian works (the Ethics included) and many other writings, THOMAS AQUINAS (1226-74) left two large works, the _Summa philosophica_ and the famous _Summa Theologiae_. Notwithstanding the prominence assigned to theological questions, the first is a regular philosophical work; the second, though containing the exposition of philosophical opinions, is a theological textbook. Now, as it is in the Summary for theological purposes that the whole practical philosophy of Aquinas is contained, it is to be inferred that he regarded the subject of Ethics as not on the same level with other departments of philosophy. Moreover, even when he is not appealing to Scripture, he is seen to display what is for him a most unusual tendency to desert Aristotle, at the really critical moments, for Plato or Plotinus, or any other authority of a more theological cast.

In the (unfinished) _Summa Theologiae_, the Ethical views and cognate questions occupy the two sections of the second part--the so-called _prima_ and _secunda secundae_. He begins, in the Aristotelian fashion, by seeking an ultimate end of human action, and finds it in the attainment of the highest good or happiness. But as no created thing can answer to the idea of the highest good, it must be placed in God. God, however, as the highest good, can only be the object, in the search after human happiness, for happiness in itself is a state of the mind or act of the soul. The question then arises, "what sort of act?" Does it fall under the Will or under the Intelligence? The answer is, Not under the will, because happiness is neither desire nor pleasure, but _consecutio_, that is, a possessing. Desire precedes _consecutio_, and pleasure follows upon it; but the act of getting possession, in which lies happiness, is distinct from both. This is illustrated by the case of the miser having his happiness in the mere possession of money; and the position is essentially the same as Butler's, in regard to our appetites and desires, that they blindly seek their objects with no regard to pleasure. Thomas concludes that the _consecutio_, or happiness, is an act of the intelligence; what pleasure there is being a mere accidental accompaniment.

Distinguishing between two phases of the intellect--the theoretic and the practical--in the one of which it is an end to itself, but in the other subordinated to an external aim, he places true happiness in acts of the self-sufficing theoretic intelligence. In this life, however, such a constant exercise of the intellect is not possible, and accordingly what happiness there is, must be found, in great measure, in the exercise of the practical intellect, directing and governing the lower desires and passions. This twofold conception of happiness is Aristotelian, even as expressed by Thomas under the distinction of perfect and imperfect happiness; but when he goes on to associate perfect happiness with the future life only, to found an argument for a future life from the desire of a happiness more perfect than can be found here, and to make the pure contemplation, in which consists highest bliss, a vision of the divine essence face to face, a direct cognition of Deity far surpassing demonstrative knowledge or mortal faith--he is more theologian than philosopher, or if a philosopher, more Platonist than Aristotelian.

The condition of perfect happiness being a theoretic or intellectual state, the _visio_, and not the _delectatio_, is consistently given as its central fact; and when he proceeds to consider the other questions of Ethics, the same superiority is steadily ascribed to the intellectual function. It is because we _know_ a thing to be good that we wish it, and knowing it, we cannot help wishing. Conscience, as the name implies, is allied to knowledge. Reason gives the law to will.

After a long disquisition about the passions and the whole appetitive side of human nature, over which Reason is called to rule, he is brought to the subject of virtue. He is Aristotelian enough to describe virtue as _habitus_--a disposition or quality (like health) whereby a subject is more or less well disposed with reference to itself or something else; and he takes account of the acquisition of good moral habits (_virtutes acquisitae_) by practice. But with this he couples, or tends to substitute for it, the definition of Augustin that virtue is a good quality of mind, _quam Deus in nobis sine nobis operatur_, as a ground for _virtutes infusae_, conferred as gifts upon man, or rather on certain men, by free grace from on high. He wavers greatly at this stage, and in this respect his attitude is characteristic for all the schoolmen.

So again in passing from the general question of Virtue to the virtues, he puts several of the systems under contribution, as if not prepared to leave the guidance of Aristotle, but feeling at the same time the necessity of bridging over the distance between his position and Christian requirements. Understanding Aristotle to make a co-ordinate division of virtues into Moral and Intellectual, he gives reasons for such a step. Though virtue, he says, is not so much the perfecting of the operation of our faculties, as their employment by the will for good ends, it may be used in the first sense, and thus the intellectual virtues will be the habits of intelligence that procure the truest knowledge. The well-known division of the cardinal virtues is his next theme; and it is established as complete and satisfactory by a twofold deduction. But a still higher and more congenial view is immediately afterwards adopted from Plotinus. This is the Neo-Platonic description of the four virtues as _politicae, purgatoriae_, and _purgati animi_, according to the scale of elevation reached by the soul in its efforts to mount above sense. They are called by Thomas also _exemplares_, when regarded at once as the essence of the Deity, and as the models of human perfections.

This mystical division, not unsupported by philosophical authority, smooths the way for his account of the highest or _theological_ virtues. These bear upon the vision of Deity, which was recognized above as the highest good of humanity, and form an order apart. They have God for their object, are altogether inspired by God (hence called _infusae_), and are taught by revelation. Given in connection with the natural faculties of intellect and will, they are exhibited in the attainment of the supernatural order of things. With intellect goes _Faith_, as it were the intellect applied to things not intelligible; with Will go Hope and Charity or Love: Hope being the Will exercised upon things not naturally desired, and Love the union of Will with what is not naturally brought near to us.

Aquinas then passes to politics, or at least the discussion of the political ideas of law, right, &c.

Coming now to _modern_ thinkers, we begin with

THOMAS HOBBES. [1588-1679.]

The circumstances of Hobbes's life, so powerful in determining the nature of his opinions, had an equally marked effect on the order and number of expositions that he gave to the psychological and political parts of his system. His ethical doctrines, in as far as they can be dissociated from, his politics, may be studied in no less than three distinct forms; either in the first part of the Leviathian (1651); or in the De Cive (1647), taken along-with the _De Homine_ (1658); or in the Treatise of Human Nature (1650, but written ten years earlier), coupled with the De Corpore Politico (also 1650). But the same result, or with only unimportant variations, being obtained from all, we need not here go beyond the first-mentioned.

In the first part of the Leviathan, then, bearing the title _Of Man_, and designed to consider Man as at once the _matter_ and _artificer_ of the Commonwealth or State, Hobbes is led, after discussing Sense, Imagination, Train of Imaginations, Speech, Reason and Science, to take up, in chapter sixth, the Passions, or, as he calls them, the Interior beginnings of voluntary motions. Motions, he says, are either vital and animal, or voluntary. Vital motions, _e.g._, circulation, nutrition, &c., need no help of imagination; on the other hand, voluntary motions, as going and speaking--since they depend on a precedent thought of whither, which way, and what--have in the imagination their first beginning. But imagination is only the relics of sense, and sense, as Hobbes always declares, is motion in the human organs communicated by objects without; consequently, visible voluntary motions begin in invisible internal motions, whose nature is expressed by the word _Endeavour_. When the endeavour is towards something causing it, there is Appetite or Desire; endeavour 'fromward something' is Aversion. These very words, and the corresponding terms in Greek, imply an actual, not--as the schoolmen absurdly think--a metaphorical motion. Passing from the main question, he describes Love and Hate as Desire and Aversion when the object is present. Of appetites, some are born with us, others proceed from experience, being of particular things. Where we neither desire nor hate, we contemn [he means, disregard]. Appetites and aversions vary in the same person, and much more in different persons.

Then follows his definition of _good_,--the object of any man's appetite or desire, as evil is the object of his hate and aversion. Good and evil are always merely relative, either to the person of a man, or in a commonwealth to the representative person, or to an arbitrator if chosen to settle a dispute. Good in the promise is _pulchrum_, for which there is no exact English term; good in the effect, as the end desired, is _delightful_; good as the means, is _useful_ or _profitable_. There is the same variety of evil.

His next topic is Pleasure. As sense is, in _reality_, motion, but, in '_apparence_,' light or sound or odour; so appetite, in reality a motion or endeavour effected in the heart by the action of objects through the organs of sense, is, in 'apparence,' delight or trouble of mind. The emotion, whose _apparence_ (_i.e._, subjective side) is pleasure or delight, seems to be a corroboration of vital motion; the contrary, in the case of molestation. Pleasure is, therefore, the sense of good; displeasure, the sense of evil. The one accompanies, in greater or less degree, all desire and love; the other, all aversion and hatred. Pleasures are either of _sense_; or of the _mind_, when arising-from the expectation that proceeds from the foresight of the ends or consequence of things, irrespective of their pleasing the senses or not. For these mental pleasures, there is the general name _joy_. There is a corresponding division of displeasure into _pain_ and _grief_.

All the other passions, he now proceeds to show, are these _simple_ passions--appetite, desire, love, aversion, hate, joy, and grief, diversified in name for divers considerations. Incidental remarks of ethical importance are these. _Covetousness_, the desire of riches, is a name signifying blame, because men contending for them are displeased with others attaining them; the desire itself, however, is to be blamed or allowed, according to the means whereby the riches are sought. _Curiosity_ is a lust of the mind, that by a perseverance of delight in the continual generation of knowledge, exceedeth the short vehemence of any carnal pleasure. _Pity_ is grief for the calamity of another, arising from the imagination of the like calamity befalling one's self; the best men have, therefore, least pity for calamity arising from great wickedness. _Contempt_, or little sense of the calamity of others, proceeds from security of one's own fortune; 'for that any man should take pleasure in other men's great harms, without other end of his own, I do not conceive it possible.'

Having explained the various passions, he then gives his theory of the Will. He supposes a _liberty_ in man of doing or omitting, according to appetite or aversion. But to this liberty an end is put in the state of _deliberation_ wherein there is kept up a constant succession of alternating desires and aversions, hopes and fears, regarding one and the same thing. One of two results follows. Either the thing is judged impossible, or it is done; and this, according as aversion or appetite triumphs at the last. Now, the last aversion, followed by omission, or the last appetite, followed by action, is the act of _Willing_. Will is, therefore, the last appetite (taken to include aversion) in deliberating. So-called Will, that has been forborne, was _inclination_ merely; but the last inclination with consequent action (or omission) is Will, or voluntary action.