Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/326

Rh virtue and duty more prominently into the foreground as the proper topics of ethical investigation, still I believe that these latter can receive an adequate and intelligible explanation only when considered in subordination to the more comprehensive discussion which has happiness for its theme. Schemes of morality may err in two ways—either by representing duty and virtue as ultimate ends, to the exclusion of happiness, or by representing happiness as the ultimate end, to the exclusion of duty and virtue. In either case we obtain a system which is incomplete, one which is neither sound in itself, nor likely to meet with any general acceptance. Pure Eudaimonism, which teaches that happiness is all in all, however acceptable it may be practically, is a doctrine which cannot be theoretically approved of; while Asceticism, which contends for the abnegation of happiness in the pursuit of duty and virtue, is a scheme which will never enlist many practical adherents, however numerous its theoretical advocates may be. The only way of avoiding the errors incident to either extreme, and of effecting a rational compromise, is by instituting an inquiry into the nature of human happiness, with the view of ascertaining the relation in which it stands towards conscience and virtue and duty; and accordingly it is to this question that we now deliberately address ourselves.

4. The inquiry concerning happiness resolves