Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/325

270 conciliation had not been effected, or effected but obscurely and imperfectly, in the course of the Socratic disputations. Hence the question still remained unresolved, and still recurred, What is this good which is so frequently and earnestly insisted on? is it happiness or is it virtue? Which of these is the summum bonum, the chief end, of man? Their reduction to unity had not been clearly shown, so that the one or the other of these alternatives had to be chosen. The Cyrenaics chose the alternative which placed the good or chief end of man in happiness. The Cynics chose the alternative which placed the good or chief end of man in virtue. I believe that the Socratic philosophy contained, as I have said, a principle by which these two, happiness and virtue, were conciliated and made one; but this principle had not been fully developed; and these two sects, the Cyrenaic and the Cynic, did nothing to develop it. The one of them dwelt on happiness as the ultimate good of man, almost to the exclusion of virtue; the other dwelt on virtue as his ultimate good, making happiness altogether subordinate. 3. The question in regard to happiness has been much debated in almost every school of moral philosophy—in those of ancient, no less than in those of modern, times. It is, indeed, the cardinal question of ethics; for although some systems endeavour to shelve this question, and to bring conscience and