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 386 CRITICAL NOTICES I towards a certain kind of completeness, which the self aspires to. There is no prima facie reason to limit the self in the completion of which we are interested, and to which the objects of our will correspond, except accidentally by the limits of our knowledge. On the contrary, every contradiction in another self is in principle, so far as we can see, a contradiction in our own 1. It is a fact which conflicts with our nature, and the idea of which therefore moves us to its extinction. It is true that we are very limited creatures and cannot have everything, 2 and here is the force of Sidgwick's reminder that Green's account of Justice, Beneficence and Self- Sacrifice seems incompatible with his doctrine of the non-competitive good (Lect. V.). But is there a real difficulty here ? Is it not quite plain that the better one of us is in mind and heart, the better, so far, all others are likely to be ? Surely it is only the material means which are here competitive, 3 and not the good itself. Art and Science are no exception to this rule. The result is, no doubt, that real good as Green says, has to be sacrificed as an incident of the higher life ; in fact, we might add, as an incident of finite life at .all. But the choice seems to have no natural relation to the Antithesis of self and others ; all goods are good by the correspon- dence of their nature to the tendency of our spirit, and we take what under all the conditions we can take most fully. 4 In chapter vi., which deals with Green's account of the Greek ideal of Virtue, there is much that is very well worth considering for those who have been fascinated by Green's unusually attractive statement. The omission of the Stoic ideal, and consequently of the nearest Greek approach to the brotherhood of man, is, as Sidgwick says, a defect. Yet was Stoicism characteristically Greek in the same degree as the thought of Plato and Aristotle ? For the rest, I think it is true that Green has modernised. The pur- pose of his comparison led him to do so. But I am not convinced that he has " modernised naively ". On the contrary, I have been very greatly surprised at Sidgwick's general view of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, which, especially as regards the latter, pursues the line of Common Sense a very necessary and instructive line in due subordination almost, if I am right, in sheer defiance of modern scholarship. Any one who will compare Grant, Stewart or Burnet, on the Ethics, step by step with the views of this chapter, will find I think a good deal to astonish him. It does appear to me, though I should wish that some thoroughly com- petent scholar would look into the matter, that Green has modernised as a true scholar and philosophical student, w r ho has 1 Cf. paper in Aristotelian Proceedings. 9 Mr. Taylor puts this excellently in The Problem of Conduct. 3 The common tendency is greatly to over-rate the competitive character even of these. 4 Aristotelian Proceedings.