Page:Dissertations and Discussions, Vol. 4 (1867).djvu/355

296 through the whole process of constructing an ideal commonwealth to arrive at it, the result is brought out, that Justice is synonymous with the complete supremacy of Reason in the soul. The human mind is analyzed into the celebrated three elements, Reason, Spirit or Passion (τὸ θυμοειδὲς, another troublesome Mixed Mode), and Appetite. The just mind is that in which each of the three keeps its proper place; in which Reason governs, Passion makes itself the aid and instrument of Reason, and the two combined keep Appetite in a state of willing subjection. In the Philebus, which is professedly De Bono (or rather De Summe Bono), the subject is more discriminatingly scrutinized. After a long discussion, in which those who uphold Pleasure, and those who contend for Wisdom or intelligence (φρόνησις), as the ultimate end, are both confuted; Good, or that which is worthy of being desired, is found to consist of five things, desirable in unequal degrees. We shall not quote the whole list, as, from the vagueness of some of the conceptions, and the extremely abstract nature of the phraseology, even Mr. Grote confesses how hard it is to be understood. The first four, however, have exclusive reference to the rational elements of the mind, while the fifth, placed far below the others, consists of the few pleasures which are gentle and unmixed with pain; all others, and especially the intenser pleasures, having been eliminated, as belonging to a distempered mental condition. All these theories lay themselves open to Mr. Grote's criticism, by defining virtue with reference to the good only οἷ the agent himself; even justice, pre-eminently the social virtue, being resolved into the supremacy of reason within our