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288 on the one hand, and its impairment or imperfection on the other hand. The obligatory law, the duty which binds him, will be to do everything to maintain and strengthen his power of thought, of reason, of self-consciousness, and to avoid everything by which these may be weakened or overpowered. In short, his morality will consist in his doing all that he can to maintain and preserve and strengthen himself as a man simply—that is, as a rational and thinking being—and in his avoiding all that may imperil his rational existence. He will maintain himself as a moral being in maintaining himself as an intelligent and self-conscious being; and if we suppose, as we very well may, that virtue consists in the perfecting of our nature, the end of this being will be virtue, and there will be no happiness, none, at least, different from virtue itself, to distract him from this end. Such then, I think, is the morality applicable to man considered simply as man. It consists in the pursuit of virtue, in the perfecting of our rational nature, and not in the pursuit of happiness. Here then we have a morality which would please the anti-Utilitarians. I may add that, on such a condition, it would be a man's duty to strive not only after his own natural perfection, but to assist others in striving after theirs.

22. But this condition is only a part of our condition as human beings. Man is man simply, but he is also more than this; in his actual state, he is in