Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/605

Rh ETHICS 583 It ought to be said that Aristotle does not present the formula just discussed us supplying a criterion of good con duct in any particular case ; he expressly leaves this to be determined by &quot; correct reasoning, and the judgment of the practically wise man.&quot; We cannot, however, find that he has furnished any substantial principles for its determination; indeed, lie hardly seems to have formed a distinct general idea of the practical syllogism by which he conceives it to b3 effected, 1 And, indeed, it would not have been easy for him to make this point plain, without bring ing into prominence a profound discrepancy between his own view of rational action and the common opinion and practice of mankind. The kind of reasoning which his view of virtuous conduct requires is one in which the ulti mate major premise states a distinctive characteristic of some virtue, and one or more minor premises show that such characteristic belongs to a certain mode of conduct under given circumstances; since it is essential to good conduct that it should contain its end in itself, and be chosen for its own sake. But he has not failed to observe that practical reasonings are not commonly of this kind, but are rather concerned with actions as means to ulterior ends ; indeed, he lays stress on this as a characteristic of the &quot; political&quot; life, when he wishes to prove its inferiority to the life of pure speculation. Though common sense will admit that virtues are the best of goods, it still undoubtedly conceives practical wisdom as chiefly exercised in provid ing those inferior goods which Aristotle, after recognizing the need or use of them for the realization of human well- being, has dropped out of sight ; and the result is that, in trying to make clear his conception of practical wisdom, we find ourselves fluctuating continually between the common notion, which he does not distinctly reject, and the notion required as the keystone of his ethical system. la i. On the whole, there is probably no treatise so masterly as to Aristotle s Ethii:s, and containing so much close and valid cism. thought, that yet leaves on the reader s mind so strong an impression of dispersive and incomplete work. It is only by dwelling on these defects that we can understand the small amount of influence that his system exercised during the five centuries after his death, in which the schools sprung from Socrates were still predominant in Grseco Roman culture; as compared with the effect which it has had, directly or in directly, in shaping the thought of modern Europe. Partly, no doubt, the limited influence of the Peripatetics 2 (as Aristotle s disciples were called) is to be attributed to that exaltation of the purely speculative life which distinguished the Aristotelian ethics from other later systems, and which was too alien from the common moral consciousness to find much acceptance in an age in which the ethical aims of philosophy had again become paramount. Partly, again, the analytical distinctness of Aristotle s manner brings into special prominence the difficulties that attend the Socratic effort, to reconcile the ideal aspirations of men, and the principles on which they agree to distribute mutual praise and blame, with the principles on which their practical reasonings are commonly conducted. The conflict between these two elements of Common Sense was too profound to be compromised. and the moral consciousness of mankind demanded a more trenchant partisanship than Aristotle s. 1 There is a certain difficulty in discussing Aristotle s views on the subject of practical wisdom, and the relation of the intellect to moral action, since it is most probable that the only accounts that we have of these views aie not part of the genuine writings of Aristotle. Still books vi. ami vii. of the Nicomachean Ethics contain no doubt as pure Aristotelian doctrine as a disciple could give, and appear to supply a sufficient foundation for the general criticism expressed in the text. - The term is derived from irtp/n-aTtl*., &quot;to walk about,&quot; and was applied to the disciples of Aristotle in consequence of the master s custom of giving instruction while walking to and fro in the shady avenues of the gymnasium where be lectured. Its demands were met by a school which separated the moral from the worldly view of life, with an absoluteness and de- finitenesa that caught the imagination ; which regarded prac tical goodness as the highest result and manifestation of its ideal of wisdom ; and which bound the common notions of duty into an apparently complete and coherent system, by a formula that comprehended the whole of human life, and exhibited ito relation to the ordered process of the universe. This school was always known as the &quot; Stoic,&quot; from the portico (o-Tod) in which its founder Zeno used to teach. The intellectual descent of its ethical doctrines is principally to be traced to Socrates through the Cynics, though an im portant element in them seems attributable to the school that inherited the u Academy&quot; of Plato. Both Stoic and Cynic maintained, in its sharpest form, the fundamental tenet that the practical knowledge which is virtue, with the condition of soul that is inseparable from it, is alone to be accounted good. He who exercises this wisdom or knowledge has complete wellbeing ; all else is indifferent to him. It is true that the Cynics were more concerned to emphasize the negative side of the sage s wellbeing, its independence of bodily health and strength, beauty, pleasure, wealth, good birth, good fame ; while the Stoics brought into more prominence its positive side, the mag nanimous confidence, the tranquillity undisturbed by grief, the joy and good cheer of the spirit, which inseparably attended the possession of wisdom. This difference, how ever, did not amount to disagreement. The Stoics, in fact, seem generally to have regarded the eccentricities of Cynicism as an emphatic manner of expressing the essential antithesis between philosophy and the world ; a manner which, though not necessary or even normal, might yet be advantageously adopted by the sage under certain circumstances. 3 Wherein, then, does this knowledge or wisdom that Stoicism, makes free and perfect consist 1 Both Cynics and Stoics agreed that the most important part of it, that which con stituted the fundamental distinction between the wise and the unwise, was the knowledge that the sole good of man lay in this knowledge or wisdom itself. It must be under stood that by wisdom they meant wisdom realized in act ; indeed, they did not conceive the existence of wisdom as separable from such realization. We may observe, too, that the Stoics rejected the divergence which we have seen gradually taking place in Platonic-Aristotelian thought from the position of Socrates, &quot;that no one aims at what he knows to be bad. The stress that their psychology laid on the essential unity of the rational self that is the source of voluntary action, prevented them from accepting Plato s analysis of the soul into a regulative element and elements needing regulation. They held that what we call passion, so far as it governs the voluntary action of a reasoning being, must always be erroneous judgment as to what is to be sought or shunned. From such passions or errors the truly wise man will be free. He will of course be con scious of the solicitations of physical appetite ; but he will not be misled into supposing that its object is really a good ; he cannot, therefore, hope for the attainment of this object or fear to miss it, as these states involve the conception of it as a good. Similarly, though he will be subject like other men to bodily pain, this will not cause him mental grief or disquiet, as his worst agonies will not disturb his clear conviction that it is really indifferent to his true reasonable self. And so of all other objects that commonly excite men s hope, fear, joy, or grief, they cannot produce these states in the sage, because he cannot judge them to be 3 It has been suggestively said that Cynicism waj to Stoicism what monaaticisni wa? to early Christianity. The analogy, however, must not be pressed too far, since orthodox Stoics do not ever seem to hi.vo regarded Cyuicisiu as the more perfect way.