Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/832

 796 P H I P H I sidered as a branch of. philosophy. But it is not given simply in abstract terms ; aesthetics includes also an exposi tion of the concrete phases of art, as these have appeared in the history of the world, relating themselves to different stages of the spirit s insight into itself and into things. Of ETHICS (q.v.) it may also be said that many of the topics commonly embraced under that title are not strictly ethical at all, but are subjects for a scientific psychology employing the historical method with the conceptions of heredity and development, and calling to its aid, as such a psychology will do, the investigations of ethnology, and all its subsidiary sciences. To such a psychology must be relegated all questions as to the origin and development of moral ideas. Similarly, the question debated at such length by English moralists as to the nature of the moral faculty (moral sense, conscience, &c.) belongs entirely to psychology. This is more generally admitted in regard to the controversy concerning the freedom of the will, though that still forms part of most ethical treatises. If we ex clude such questions in the interest of systematic correct ness, and seek to determine for ethics a definite subject- matter, the science may be said to fall into two departments. The first of these deals with the notion of duty, as such, and endeavours to define the ultimate end of action ; the second lays out the scheme of concrete duties which are deducible from, or which, at least, are covered by, this abstractly-stated principle. The second of these depart ments is really the proper subject-matter of ethics considered as a separate science ; but it is often conspicuous by its absence from ethical treatises. However moralists may differ on first principles, there seems to be remarkably little practical divergence when they come to lay down the particular laws of morality. Hence, as it must necessarily be a thankless task to tabulate the commonplaces of con duct, the comparative neglect of this part of their subject is perhaps sufficiently explained. It may be added that, where a systematic account of duties is actually given, the connexion of. the particular duties with the universal form ula is in general more formal than real. It is only under the head of &quot;casuistry&quot; that ethics has been much cultivated as a separate science. The first department of ethics, on the other hand, is the branch of the subject in virtue of which ethics forms part of philosophy. As described above, it merges in general metaphysics or ontology, and ought rather to be called, in Kant s phrase, the meta- physic of ethics. A theory of obligation is ultimately found to be inseparable from a metaphysic of personality. The connexion of ethics with metaphysics will be patent as a matter of fact, if it be remembered how Plato s philosophy is summed up in the idea of the good, and how Aristotle also employs the essentially ethical notion of end as the ultimate category by which the universe may be explained or reduced to unity. But the neces sity of the connexion is also apparent, unless we are to suppose that, as regards the course of universal nature, man is altogether an imperium in imperio, or rather (to adopt the forcible phrase of Marcus Aurelius) an abscess or excrescence on the nature of things. If, on the con trary, we must hold that man is essentially related to &quot; a common nature,&quot; as, the same writer puts it, then it is a legitimate corollary that in man as intelligence we ought to -find the key of the whole fabric. At all events, this method of approach must be truer than any which, by restricting itself to the external aspect of phenomena as presented in space, leaves no scope for inwardness and life and all that, in Lotze s language, gives existence &quot; value.&quot; Historically we may be said in an intelligible sense to explain the higher by showing its genesis from the lower. But in philosophy it is exactly the reverse ; the lower is always to be explained by the higher. In the ethical reference it has been customary to argue, as Sir W. Hamilton does, from man s moral being to &quot;an Intelligent Creator and Moral Governor of the Universe.&quot; It is evident that the argument ex analogia hominis may sometimes be carried too far ; but if a &quot; chief end of man&quot; be discoverable ai $pw7rivov dya66v, as Aristotle wisely insisted that the ethical end must be determined then it may be assumed that this end cannot be irrelevant to that ultimate &quot; mean ing&quot; of the universe which, according to Lotze, is the quest of philosophy. If &quot; the idea of humanity,&quot; as Kant called it, has ethical perfection at its core, then a universe which is organic must be ultimately representable as a moral order or a spiritual kingdom such as Leibnitz named, in words borrowed from Augustine, a city of God. Politics, Sociology, Philosophy of History. In Aristotle we can observe how ethics is being differentiated from politics, but this differentiation does not, and ought not to, amount to a complete separation. The difficulty, already hinted at, which individualistic systems of ethics experi ence in connecting particular duties with the abstract prin ciple of duty is a proof of the failure of their method. For the content of morality we are necessarily referred, in great part, to the experience crystallized in laws and institutions and to the unwritten law of custom, honour, and good breeding, which has become organic in the society of which we are members. The development of society is therefore brought within the scope of philosophy. So far as this development is traced in a purely historical spirit, it will be simply a sequence of efficient causes, in which, starting with a b c, we eventually arrive at A B C. But, if this sequence is to be philosophized, it must be shown that we have no means of knowing what a b c is except in its relation to A B C, its resultant. We interpret the process, therefore, as the realization of an immanent end. The state, as the organism in whose play morality is realized, becomes an interest of reason ; and the different forms of state-organization are judged accord ing to the degree in which they realize the reconciliation of individual freedom and the play of cultured interests with stable objectivity of law and an abiding conscious ness of the greater whole in which we move. So far as the course of universal history can be truly represented as an approximation to this reconciliation by a widening and deepening of both the elements, we may claim to possess a philosophy of history. (A. SK;) PHILOSTRATUS, the eminent Greek sophist, was prob ably born in Lemnos between 170 and 180 A.D. From his incidental statements respecting himself we learn that he studied at Athens, and was afterwards attached to the court of the empress Julia Domna, consort of Severus. Since he does not speak of her as living, while mentioning her as his patroness in his Life of Apollonius of Ti/ana, this work was probably written after her death. From some passages in it and his Lives of the Sophists, he would seem to have been in Gaul with Caracalla, and he may probably have accompanied that emperor on his progress through his dominions. The only other fixed date we possess for his life is afforded by his dedication of the Lives of tin Sophists to Antonius Gordianus as proconsul. Gordianus was consul in 230, and his proconsulship must have been between that year and 234. It seems to be implied that Philostratus resided in Rome, and, according to Suidas, he lived until the reign of Philip (244-2-19). His works now extant are a biography of Apollonius of Tyana, Lives of the Sophists, Heroicon, Imagines, and Epistles. The Life of Apollonius of Tyana has been partly discussed under APOLLONIUS. It may be compared to the Cyropxdia of Xenophon as a romance founded on fact, treating of a distinguished historical person, not in an historical spirit, but as an ideal model for imitation. While, however, the