Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/603

Rh ETHICS 581 pression. that it is easy to understand how their systems have come to be popularly conceived as diametrically opposed to each other ; and the uncompromising polemic which Aristotle, both in his ethical and his metaphysical treatises, directs against Plato and the Platonists, has tended strongly to confirm this view. Yet a closer inspection shows us that when a later president of the Academy (Antiochus of Ascalon) repudiated the scepticism which for two hundred years had been accepted as the traditional Platonic doctrine, he had good grounds for claiming Plato and Aristotle as coincident authorities for the ethical position which he took up. The truth is that, though Aristotle s divergence from Plato is very conspicuous when we con sider either his general conception of the subject of ethics, or the scientific working out of his system of virtues, still his agreement with his master is almost complete as regards the main outline of his theory of human good ; the difference between the two practically vanishes when we view them in relation to the later controversy between Stoics and Epicureans. Even on the cardinal point on which Aristotle entered into direct controversy with Plato, the definite disagreement between the two is less than at first appears ; the objections of the disciple hit that part of the master s system that was rather imagined than thought ; the positive result of Platonic speculation only gains in dis tinctness by the application of Aristotelian analysis. Plato, we saw, held that there is one supreme science or wisdom, of which the ultimate object is absolute good ; in the knowledge of this, the knowledge of all particular goods, that is, of all that we rationally desire to know, is im plicitly contained ; and also all practical virtue, as no one who truly knows what is good can fail to realize it. But in spite of the intense conviction with which he thus identi fied metaphysical speculation and practical wisdom, we find in his writing? no serious attempt to deduce the particulars of human wellbeing from his knowledge of absolute good, still less to unfold from it the particular cognitions of the special arts and sciences. Indeed, we may say that the dis tinction which Aristotle explicitly draws between specula tive science or wisdom, which is concerned with the eternal and immutable truths of being, and practical wisdom (on its political side statesmanship), which has for its object &quot;human &quot; or &quot;practicable&quot; good, is really indicated in Plato s actual treatment of the subjects, although the ex press recognition of it is contrary to his principles. The discussion of good (e.g.] in his Phifdnts relates entirely to human good, and the respective claims of Thought and Pleasure to constitute this; he only refers in passing to the Divine Thought that is the good of the ordered world, as something clearly beyond the limits of the present discussion. So again, in his last great ethico-political treatise (the Laws) there is hardly a trace of his peculiar metaphysics; it is from the union of practical wisdom (ro (frpovtlv) not philosophy with power that the realiza tion of the ideal state is now expected. On the other hand, the relation between human and divine good, as presented by Aristotle, is so close that we can hardly conceive Plato as having definitely thought it closer. The substantial good of the universe, in Aristotle s view, is the pure activity of universal abstract thought, at once subject and object, which, itself changeless and eternal, is the final cause and first source of the whole process of change in the con crete world. And he holds, with Plato, that a similar activity of pure speculative intellect is the highest and best mode of human existence, and that in which the philosopher will seek to exist as far as possible ; though he must, being a man, concern himself with the affairs of ordinary human life, in which region his highest good will be attained by realizing perfect moral excellence. No doubt Aristotle s demonstration of the inappropriateness of attributing moral excellence to the Deity seems to contradict Plato s doctrine that the just man as such is &quot; likest the gods;&quot; but here again the discrepancy is reduced when we remember that the essence of Plato s justice (Sucaiotrwif) is harmonious activity. Nor, again, is Aristotle s divergence from the Socratic principle that all &quot;virtue is knowledge&quot; substan tially greater than Plato s. Both accept the paradox in the qualified sense that no one can deliberately act contrary to what appears to him good, and that perfect virtue is inseparably bound up with perfect wisdom or moral insight. Both, however, see that this moral insight is not to be im parted by mere teaching, but depends rather oa careful training in good habits applied to minds of good natural dispositions ; though the doctrine has no doubt a more definite and prominent place in Aristotle s system. In the same way the latter draws more clearly, and develops more fully, the distinction between impulsive offences and the deliberate choice of evil for good which belongs to confirmed vice; which is, however, implied in Plato s later recognition (in the Sophiata) of &quot; disorder &quot; of the soul as a kind of badness essentially different from ignorance. The disciple, no doubt, takes a step in advance by stating definitely, as an essential characteristic of virtuous action, that it is chosen for its own sake, for the beauty of virtue alone ; but herein he merely formulates the conviction that his master more persuasively inspires. Nor, finally, does Aristotle s account of the i elation of pleasure to human wellbeing differ materially from the outcome of Plato s thought on this point, as the later dialogues present it to us, although he has to combat the extreme anti-hedonism to which the Platonic school under Speusippus had been led. Pleasure, in Aristotle s view, is not the essence of wellbeing, but rather an inseparable accident of it ; human wellbeing is essentially well doing, excellent activity of some kind, whether its aim and end be abstract truth or noble con duct ; but all activities are attended and in a manner perfected by pleasure, which is better and more desirable in proportion to the excellence of the activity. He no doubt criticises Plato s account of the nature of pleasure, arguing that we cannot properly conceive pleasure either as a &quot;process&quot; or as &quot;replenishment&quot; the last term, he truly says, denotes a material rather than a psychical fact ; but this does not interfere with the general ethical agreement between the two ; and the doctrine that vicious pleasures are not true or real pleasures is so characteristically Platonic that we are almost surprised to find it in Aristotle. In so far as there is any important difference between Aris- the Platonic and the Aristotelian views of human good, totle s we may observe that the latter is substantially the more ethic8 - faithful development of the ethical teaching of Socrates, although it is presented in a far more technical and scho lastic form, and involves a more distinct rejection of the fundamental Socratic paradox. The same result appears when we compare the methods of the three philosophers. Although the Socratic induction forms a striking feature of Plato s dialogues, his ideal method of ethics is purely deductive ; he only admits common sense as supplying provisional steps and starting points from which the mind is to ascend to knowledge of absolute good ; by deduction from which, as he conceives, the lower notions of particular goods are to be truly apprehended. Aristotle, discarding the transcendentalism of Plato, naturally receded towards the original Socratic method of induction from and verification by common opinion. Indeed, the turns and windings of his exposition are best understood if we consider his literary manner as a kind of Socratic dialogue formalized and reduced to a monologue transferred, we may say, from the market place to the lectnre-room. He first leads us by an indue-