When a student passes from Plato to Aristotle, he is so forcibly impressed by the contrast between the habits of mind of the two authors, and the literary manners of the two philosophers, that it is easy to understandPlato and Aristotle.how their systems have come to be popularly conceived as diametrically opposed to each other; and the uncompromising polemic which Aristotle, both in his ethical and in his metaphysical treatises, directs against Plato and the platonists, has tended strongly to confirm this view. Yet a closer inspection shows us that when a later president of the Academy (Antiochus of Ascalon) repudiated the scepticism which for two hundred years had been accepted as the traditional Platonic doctrine, he had good grounds for claiming Plato and Aristotle as consentient authorities for the ethical position which he took up. For though Aristotle’s divergence from Plato is very conspicuous when we consider either his general conception of the subject of ethics, or the details of his system of virtues, still his agreement with his master is almost complete as regards the main outline of his theory of human good; the difference between the two practically vanishes when we view them in relation to the later controversy between Stoics and Epicureans. Even on the cardinal point on which Aristotle entered into direct controversy with Plato, the definite disagreement between the two is less than at first appears; the objections of the disciple hit that part of the master’s system that was rather imagined than thought; the main positive result of Platonic speculation only gains in distinctness by the application of Aristotelian analysis.
Plato, we saw, held that there is one supreme science or wisdom, of which the ultimate object is absolute good; in the knowledge of this, the knowledge of all particular goods—that is, of all that we rationally desire to know—is implicitly contained; and also all practical virtue, as no one who truly knows what is good can fail to realize it. But in spite of the intense conviction with which he thus identified metaphysical speculation and practical wisdom, we find in his writings no serious attempt to deduce the particulars of human well-being from his knowledge of absolute good, still less to unfold from it the particular cognitions of the special arts and sciences. Indeed, we may say that the distinction which Aristotle explicitly draws between speculative science or wisdom and practical wisdom (on its political side statesmanship) is really indicated in Plato’s actual treatment of the subjects, although the express recognition of it is contrary to his principles. The discussion of good (e.g.) in hisPhilebusrelates entirely to human good, and the respective claims of Thought and Pleasure to constitute this; he only refers in passing to the Divine Thought that is the good of the ordered world, as something clearly beyond the limits of the present discussion. So again, in his last great ethico-political treatise (theLaws) there is hardly a trace of his peculiar metaphysics. On the other hand, the relation between human and divine good, as presented by Aristotle, is so close that we can hardly conceive Plato as having definitely thought it closer. The substantial good of the universe, in Aristotle’s view, is the pure activity of universal abstract thought, at once subject and object, which, itself changeless and eternal, is the final cause and first source of the whole process of change in the concrete world. And both he and Plato hold that a similar activity of pure speculative intellect is that in which the philosopher will seek to exist, though he must, being a man, concern himself with the affairs of ordinary human life, a region in which his highest good will be attained by realizing perfect moral excellence. No doubt Aristotle’s demonstration of the inappropriateness of attributing moral excellence to the Deity seems to contradict Plato’s doctrine that the just man as such is “likest the gods,” but here again the discrepancy is reduced when we remember that the essence of Plato’s justice (δικαιοσύνη) is harmonious activity. No doubt, too, Aristotle’s attribution of pleasure to the Divine Existence shows a profound metaphysical divergence from Plato; but it is a divergence which has no practical importance. Nor, again, is Aristotle’s divergence from the Socratic principle that all “virtue is knowledge” substantially greater than Plato’s, though it is more plainly expressed. Both accept the paradox in the qualified sense that no one can deliberately act contrary to what appears to him good, and that perfect virtue is inseparably bound up with perfect wisdom or moral insight. Both, however, recognize that this actuality of moral insight is not a function of the intellect only, but depends rather on careful training in good habits applied to minds of good natural dispositions, though the doctrine has no doubt a more definite and prominent place in Aristotle’s system. The disciple certainly takes a step in advance by stating definitely, as an essential characteristic of virtuous action, that it is chosen for its own sake, for the beauty of virtue alone; but herein he merely formulates the conviction that his master inspires. Nor, finally, does Aristotle’s account of the relation of pleasure to human well-being (although he has to combat the extreme anti-hedonism to which the Platonic school under Speusippus had been led) differ materially from the outcome of Plato’s thought on this point, as the later dialogues present it to us. Pleasure, in Aristotle’s view, is not the primary constituent of well-being, but rather an inseparable accident of it; human well-being is essentially well-doing, excellent activity of some kind, whether its aim and end be abstract truth or noble conduct; knowledge and virtue are objects of rational choice apart from the pleasure attending them; still all activities are attended and in a manner perfected by pleasure, which is better and more desirable in proportion to the excellence of the activity. He no doubt criticizes Plato’s account of the nature of pleasure, arguing that we cannot properly conceive pleasure either as a “process” or as “replenishment”—the last term, he truly says, denotes a material rather than a psychical fact. But this does not interfere with the general ethical agreement between the two thinkers; and the doctrine that vicious pleasures are not true or real pleasures is so characteristically Platonic that we are almost surprised to find it in Aristotle.
In so far as there is any important difference between the Platonic and the Aristotelian views of human good, we may observe that the latter has substantially a closer correspondence to the positive element in the ethical teaching of Socrates,Aristotle’s ethics.though it is presented in a far more technical and scholastic form, and involves a more distinct rejection of the fundamental Socratic paradox. The same result appears when we compare the methods of the three philosophers. Although the Socratic induction forms a striking feature of Plato’s dialogues, his ideal method of ethics is purely deductive; he admits common sense only as supplying provisional steps and starting-points from which the mind is to ascend to knowledge of absolute good, through which knowledge alone, as he conceives, the lower notions of particular goods are to be truly conceived. Aristotle, discarding the transcendentalism of Plato, naturally retained from Plato’s teaching the original Socratic method of induction from and verification by common opinion. Indeed, the windings of his exposition are best understood if we consider his literary manner as a kind of Socratic dialogue formalized and reduced to a monologue. He first leads us by an induction to the fundamental notion of ultimate end or good for man. All men, in acting, aim at some result, either for its own sake or as a means to some further end; but obviously not everything can be sought merely as a means; there must be some ultimate end. In fact men commonly recognize such an end, and agree to call it well-being3(εὐδαιμονία). But they take very different views of its nature; how shall we find the true view? We observe that men are classified according to their functions; all kinds of man, and indeed all organs of man, have their special functions, and are judged as functionaries and organs according as they perform their functions well or ill. May we not then infer that man, as man, has his proper function, and that the well-being or “doing well” that all seek really lies in fulfilling well the proper function of man,—that is, in living well that life of the rational soul which we recognize as man’s distinctive attribute?
Again, this Socratic deference to common opinion is not shown merely in the way by which Aristotle reaches his fundamental conception; it equally appears in his treatment of the conception itself. In the first place, though in Aristotle’s view the most perfect well-being consists in the exercise of man’s “divinest part,” pure speculative reason, he keeps far from the paradox of putting forward this and nothing else as human good; so far, indeed, that the greater part of his treatise is occupied with an exposition of the inferior good which is realized in practical life when the appetitive or impulsive (semi-rational) element of the soul operates under the due regulation of reason. Even when the notion of “good performance of function” was thus widened, and when it had further taken in the pleasure that is inseparably connected with such functioning, it did not yet correspond to the whole of what a Greek commonly understood as “human well-being.” We may grant, indeed, that a moderate provision of material wealth is indirectly included, as an indispensable pre-requisite of a due performance of many functions as Aristotle conceives it—his system admits of no beatitudes for the poor; still there remain other goods, such as beauty, good birth, welfare of progeny, the presence or absence of which influenced the common view of a man’s well-being, though they could hardly be shown to be even indirectly important to his “well-acting.” These Aristotle attempts neither to exclude from the philosophic conception of well-being nor to include in his formal definition of it. The deliberate looseness which is thus given to his fundamental doctrine characterizes more or less his whole discussion of ethics. He plainly says that the subject does not admit of completely scientific treatment; his aim is to give not a definite theory of human good, but a practically adequate account of its most important constituents.
The most important element, then, of well-being or good life for ordinary men Aristotle holds to consist in well-doing as determined by the notions of the different moral excellences. In expounding these, he gives throughout the pure result of analytical observation of the common moral consciousness of his age. Ethical truth, in his view, is to be attained by careful comparison of particular moral opinions, just as physical truth is to be obtained by induction from particular physical observations. On account of the conflict of opinion in ethics we cannot hope to obtain certainty upon all questions; still reflection will lead us to discard some of the conflicting views and find a reconciliation for others, and will furnish, on the whole, a practically sufficient residuum of moral truth. This adhesion to common sense, though it involves a sacrifice of both depth and completeness in Aristotle’s system, gives at the same time an historical interest which renders it deserving of special attention as an analysis of the current Greek ideal of “fair and good life” (καλοκἀγαθία). His virtues are not arranged on any clear philosophic plan; the list shows no serious attempt to consider human life exhaustively, and exhibit the standard of excellence appropriate to its different departments or aspects. He seems to have taken as a starting-point Plato’s four cardinal virtues. The two comprehensive notions of Wisdom and Justice (δικαιοσύνη) he treats separately. As regards both his analysis leads him to diverge considerably from Plato. As we saw, his distinction between practical and speculative Wisdom belongs to the deepest of his disagreements with his master; and in the case ofδικαιοσύνηagain he distinguishes the wider use of the term to express Law-observance, which (he says) coincides with the social side of virtue generally, and its narrower use for the virtue that “aims at a kind of equality,” whether (1) in the distribution of wealth, honour, &c., or (2) in commercial exchange, or (3) in the reparation of wrong done. Then, in arranging the other special virtues, he begins with courage and temperance, which (after Plato) he considers as the excellences of the “irrational element” of the soul. Next follow two pairs of excellences, concerned respectively with wealth and honour: (1) liberality and magnificence, of which the latter is exhibited in greater matters of expenditure, and (2) laudable ambition and highmindedness similarly related to honour. Then comes gentleness—the virtue regulative of anger; and the list is concluded by the excellences of social intercourse, friendliness (as a mean between obsequiousness and surliness), truthfulness and decorous wit.
The abundant store of just and close analytical observation contained in Aristotle’s account of these notions give it a permanent interest, even beyond its historical value as a delineation of the Greek ideal of “fair and good” life.4But its looseness of arrangement and almost grotesque co-ordination of qualities widely differing in importance are obvious. Thus his famous general formula for virtue, that it is a mean or middle state, always to be found somewhere between the vices which stand to it in the relation of excess and defect, scarcely avails to render his treatment more systematic. It was important, no doubt, to express the need of observing due measure and proportion, in order to attain good results in human life no less than in artistic products; but the observation of this need was no new thing in Greek literature; indeed, it had already led the Pythagoreans and Plato to find the ultimate essence of the ordered universe in number. But Aristotle’s purely quantitative statement of the relation of virtue and vice is misleading, even where it is not obviously inappropriate; and sometimes leads him to such eccentricities as that of making simple veracity a mean between boastfulness and mock-modesty.5
It ought to be said that Aristotle does not present the formula just discussed as supplying a criterion of good conduct in any particular case; he expressly leaves this to be determined by “correct reasoning, and the judgment of the practically-wise man (ὁ φρόνιμος).” We cannot, however, find that he has furnished any substantial principles for its determination; indeed, he hardly seems to have formed a distinct general idea of the practical syllogism by which he conceives it to be effected.6The kind of reasoning which his view of virtuous conduct requires is one in which the ultimate 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 “political” 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 providing 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.
On the whole, there is probably no treatise so masterly as Aristotle’sEthics, and containing so much close and valid thought, that yet leaves on the reader’s mind so strong an impression of dispersive and incomplete work.Transition to Stoicism.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, as compared with the effect which it has had, directly or indirectly, in shaping the thought of modern Europe. Partly, no doubt, the limited influence of his disciples, the Peripatetics (q.v.), 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 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. Its demands were met by the Stoic school which separated the moral from the worldly view of life, with an absoluteness and definiteness that caught the imagination; which regarded practical goodness as the highest manifestation of its ideal of wisdom; and which bound the common notions of duty into an apparently coherent system, by a formula that comprehended the whole of human life, and exhibited its relation to the ordered process of the universe. The intellectual descent of its ethical doctrines is principally to be traced to Socrates through the Cynics, though an important element in them seems attributable to the school that inherited the “Academy” 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 well-being; all else is indifferent to him. It is true that the Cynics were more concerned to emphasize the negative side of the sage’s well-being, while the Stoics brought into more prominence its positive side. This difference, however, 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.7
Wherein, then, consists this knowledge or wisdom that makes free and perfect? Both Cynics and Stoics (q.v.) agreed that the most important part of it was the knowledge that the sole good of man lay in this knowledge or wisdomStoicism.itself. It must be understood 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, “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 is a morbid condition of the rational soul, involving erroneous judgment as to what is to be sought or shunned. From such passionate errors the truly wise man will of course be free. He will be conscious indeed 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 like other men he will be subject 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.
That this impassive sage was a being not to be found among living men the later Stoics at least were fully aware. They faintly suggested that one or two moral heroes of old time might have realized the ideal, but they admitted that all other philosophers (even) were merely in a state of progress towards it. This admission did not in the least diminish the rigour of their demand for absolute loyalty to the exclusive claims of wisdom. The assurance of its own unique value that such wisdom involved they held to be an abiding possession for those who had attained it;8and without this assurance no act could be truly wise or virtuous. Whatever was not of knowledge was of sin; and the distinction between right and wrong being absolute and not admitting of degrees all sins were equally sinful; whoever broke the least commandment was guilty of the whole law. Similarly, all wisdom was somehow involved in any one of the manifestations of wisdom, commonly distinguished as particular virtues; though whether these virtues were specifically distinct, or only the same knowledge in different relations, was a subtle question on which the Stoics do not seem to have been agreed.
Aristotle had already been led to attempt a refutation of the Socratic identification of virtue with knowledge; but his attempt had only shown the profound difficulty of attacking the paradox, so long as it was admitted that no one could of deliberate purpose act contrary to what seemed to him best. Now, Aristotle’s divergence from Socrates had not led him so far as to deny this; while for the Stoics who had receded to the original Socratic position, the difficulty was still more patent. This theory of virtue led them into two dilemmas. Firstly, if virtue is knowledge, does it follow that vice is involuntary? If not, it must be that ignorance is voluntary. This alternative is the less dangerous to morality, and as such the Stoics chose it. But they werenot yet at the end of their perplexities; for while they were thus driven to an extreme extension of the range of human volition, their view of the physical universe involved an equally thorough-going determinism. How could the vicious man be responsible if his vice were strictly pre-determined? The Stoics answered that the error which was the essence of vice was so far voluntary that it could be avoided if men chose to exercise their reason. No doubt it depended on the innate force and firmness9of a man’s soul whether his reason was effectually exercised; but moral responsibility was saved if the vicious act proceeded from the man himself and not from any external cause.
With all this we have not ascertained the positive practical content of this wisdom. How are we to emerge from the barren circle of affirming (1) that wisdom is the sole good and unwisdom the sole evil, and (2) that wisdom is the knowledge of good and evil; and attain some method for determining the particulars of good conduct? The Cynics made no attempt to solve this difficulty; they were content to mean by virtue what any plain man meant by it, except in so far as their sense of independence led them to reject certain received precepts and prejudices. The Stoics, on the other hand, not only worked out a detailed system of duties—or, as they termed them, “things meet and fit” (καθήκοντα) for all occasions of life; they were further especially concerned to comprehend them under a general formula. They found this by bringing out the positive significance of the notion of Nature, which the Cynic had used chiefly in a negative way, as an antithesis to the “consentions” (νόμος), from which his knowledge had made him free. Even in this negative use of the notion it is necessarily implied that whatever active tendencies in man are found to be “natural”—that is, independent of and uncorrupted by social customs and conventions—will properly take effect in outward acts, but the adoption of “conformity to nature” as a general positive rule for outward conduct seems to have been due to the influence on Zeno of Academic teaching. Whence, however, can this authority belong to the natural, unless nature be itself an expression or embodiment of divine law and wisdom? The conception of the world, as organized and filled by divine thought, was common, in some form, to all the philosophies that looked back to Socrates as their founder,—some even maintaining that this thought was the sole reality. This pantheistic doctrine harmonized thoroughly with the Stoic view of human good; but being unable to conceive substance idealistically, they (with considerable aid from the system of Heraclitus) supplied a materialistic side to their pantheism,—conceiving divine thought as an attribute of the purest and most primary of material substances, a subtle fiery aether. This theological view of the physical universe had a double effect on the ethics of the Stoic. In the first place it gave to his cardinal conviction of the all-sufficiency of wisdom for human well-being a root of cosmical fact, and an atmosphere of religious and social emotion. The exercise of wisdom was now viewed as the pure life of that particle of divine substance which was in very truth the “god within him”; the reason whose supremacy he maintained was the reason of Zeus, and of all gods and reasonable men, no less than his own; its realization in any one individual was thus the common good of all rational beings as such; “the sage could not stretch out a finger rightly without thereby benefiting all other sages,”—nay, it might even be said that he was “as useful to Zeus as Zeus to him.”10But again, the same conception served to harmonize the higher and the lower elements of human life. For even in the physical or non-rational man, as originally constituted, we may see clear indications of the divine design, which it belongs to his rational will to carry into conscious execution; indeed, in the first stage of human life, before reason is fully developed, uncorrupted natural impulse effects what is afterwards the work of reason. Thus the formula of “living according to nature,” in its application to man as the “rational animal,” may be understood both as directing that reason is to govern, and as indicating how that government is to be practically exercised. In man, as in every other animal, from the moment of birth natural impulse prompts to the maintenance of his physical frame; then, when reason has been developed and has recognized itself as its own sole good, these “primary ends of nature” and whatever promotes these still constitute the outward objects at which reason is to aim; there is a certain value (ἀξία) in them, in proportion to which they are “preferred” (προηγμένα) and their opposites “rejected” (ἀποπροηγμένα); indeed it is only in the due and consistent exercise of such choice that wisdom can find its practical manifestation. In this way all or most of the things commonly judged to be “goods”—health, strength, wealth, fame,11&c.,—are brought within the sphere of the sage’s choice, though his real good is solely in the wisdom of the choice, and not in the thing chosen.
The doctrine of conformity to Nature as the rule of conduct was not peculiar to Stoicism. It is found in the theories of Speusippus, Xenocrates, and also to some extent in those of the Peripatetics. The peculiarity of the Stoics lay in their refusing to use the terms “good and evil” in connexion with “things indifferent,” and in pointing out that philosophers, though independent of these things, must yet deal with them in practical life.
So far we have considered the “nature” of the individual man as apart from his social relations; but the sphere of virtue, as commonly conceived, lies chiefly in these, and this was fully recognized in the Stoic account of duties (καθήκοντα); indeed, in their exposition of the “natural” basis of justice, the evidence that man was born not for himself but for mankind is the most important part of their work in the region of practical morality. Here, however, we especially notice the double significance of “natural,” as applied to (1) what actually exists everywhere or for the most part, and (2) what would exist if the original plan of man’s life were fully carried out; and we find that the Stoics have not clearly harmonized the two elements of the notion. That man was “naturally” a social animal Aristotle had already taught; that all rational beings, in the unity of the reason that is common to all, form naturally one community with a common law was (as we saw) an immediate inference from the Stoic conception of the universe as a whole. That the members of this “city of Zeus” should observe their contracts, abstain from mutual harm, combine to protect each other from injury, were obvious points of natural law; while again, it was clearly necessary to the preservation of human society that its members should form sexual unions, produce children, and bestow care on their rearing and training. But beyond this nature did not seem to go in determining the relations of the sexes; accordingly, we find that community of wives was a feature of Zeno’s ideal commonwealth, just as it was of Plato’s; while, again, the strict theory of the school recognized no government or laws as true or binding except those of the sage; he alone is the true ruler, the true king. So far, the Stoic “nature” seems in danger of being as revolutionary as Rousseau’s. Practically, however, this revolutionary aspect of the notion was kept for the most part in the background; the rational law of an ideal community was not distinguished from the positive ordinances and customs of actual society; and the “natural” ties that actually bound each man to family, kinsmen, fatherland, and to unwise humanity generally, supplied the outline on which the external manifestation of justice was delineated. It was a fundamental maxim that the sage was to take part in public life; and it does not appear that his political action was to be regulated by any other principles than those commonly accepted in his community. Similarly, in the view taken by the Stoics of the duties of social decorum, and in their attitude to the popular religion, we find a fluctuating compromise between the disposition to repudiate what is conventional, and the disposition to revere what isestablished, each tendency expressing in its own way the principle of “conforming to nature.”
Among the primary ends of nature, in which wisdom recognized a certain preferability, the Stoics included freedom from bodily pain; but they refused, even in this outer court of wisdom, to find a place for pleasure. TheyStoics and hedonists.held that the latter was not an object of uncorrupted natural impulse, but an “aftergrowth” (ἐπιγέννημα). They thus endeavoured to resist Epicureanism even on the ground where the latter seems prima facie strongest; in its appeal, namely, to the natural pleasure-seeking of all living things. Nor did they merely mean by pleasure (ἡδονή) the gratification of bodily appetite; we find (e.g.) Chrysippus urging, as a decisive argument against Aristotle, that pure speculation was “a kind of amusement; that is, pleasure.” Even the “joy and gladness” (χαρά, εὐφροσύνη) that accompany the exercise of virtue seem to have been regarded by them as merely an inseparable accident, not the essential constituent of well-being. It is only by a later modification of Stoicism that cheerfulness or peace of mind is taken as the real ultimate end, to which the exercise of virtue is merely a means. At the same time it is probable that the serene joys of virtue and the grieflessness which the sage was conceived to maintain amid the worst tortures, formed the main attractions of Stoicism for ordinary minds. In this sense it may be fairly said that Stoics and Epicureans made rival offers to mankind of the same kind of happiness; and the philosophical peculiarities of either system may be traced to the desire of being undisturbed by the changes and chances of life. The Stoic claims on this head were the loftiest; as the well-being of their sage was independent, not only of external things and bodily conditions, but of time itself; it was fully realized in a single exercise of wisdom and could not be increased by duration. This paradox is violent, but it is quite in harmony with the spirit of Stoicism; and we are more startled to find that the Epicurean sage, no less than the Stoic, is to be happy even on the rack; that his happiness, too, is unimpaired by being restricted in duration, when his mind has apprehended the natural limits of life; that, in short, Epicurus makes no less strenuous efforts than Zeno to eliminate imperfection from the conditions of human existence. This characteristic, however, is the key to the chief differences between Epicureanism and the more naïve hedonism of Aristippus. The latter system gave the simplest and most obvious answer to the inquiry after ultimate good for man; but besides being liable, when developed consistently, to offend the common moral consciousness, it conspicuously failed to provide the “completeness” and “security” which, as Aristotle says, “one divines to belong to man’s true Good.” Philosophy, in the Greek view, should be the art as well as the science of good life; and hedonistic philosophy would seem a bungling and uncertain art of pleasure, as pleasure is ordinarily conceived. Nay, it would even be found that the habit of philosophical reflection often operated adversely to the attainment of this end, by developing the thinker’s self-consciousness, so as to disturb that normal relation to external objects on which the zest of ordinary enjoyment depends. Hence we find that later thinkers of the Cyrenaic school felt themselves compelled to change their fundamental notion; thus Theodorus defined the good as “gladness” (χαρά) depending on wisdom, as distinct from mere pleasure, while Hegesias proclaimed that happiness was unattainable, and that the chief function of wisdom was to render life painless by producing indifference to all things that give pleasure. But by such changes their system lost the support that it had had in the pleasure-seeking tendencies of ordinary men. It was clear that if philosophic hedonism was to be established on a broad and firm basis, it must in its notion of good combine what the plain man naturally sought with what philosophy could plausibly offer. Such a combination was effected, with some little violence, by Epicurus; whose system with all its defects showed a remarkable power of standing the test of time, as it attracted the unqualified adhesion of generation after generation of disciples for a period of some six centuries.
In the fundamental principle of his philosophy Epicurus is not original. Aristippus (cf. also Plato in theProtagorasand Eudoxus) had already maintained that pleasure is the sole ultimate good, and pain the sole evil; thatEpicurus.no pleasure is to be rejected except for its painful consequences, and no pain to be chosen except as a means to greater pleasure; that the stringency of all laws and customs depends solely on the legal and social penalties attached to their violation; that, in short, all virtuous conduct and all speculative activity are empty and useless, except as contributing to the pleasantness of the agent’s life. And Epicurus assures us that he means by pleasure what plain men mean by it; and that if the gratifications of appetite and sense are discarded, the notion is emptied of its significance. So far the system would seem to suit the inclinations of the most thorough-going voluptuary. The originality of Epicurus lay in his theory that the highest point of pleasure, whether in body or mind, is to be attained by the mere removal of pain or disturbance, after which pleasure admits of variation only and not of augmentation; that therefore the utmost gratification of which the body is capable may be provided by the simplest means, and that “natural wealth” is no more than any man can earn. When further he teaches that the attainment of happiness depends almost entirely upon insight and right calculation, fortune having very little to do with it; that the pleasures and pains of the mind are far more important than those of the body, owing to the accumulation of feeling caused by memory and anticipation; and that an indispensable condition of mental happiness lies in relieving the mind of all superstitions, which can be effected only by a thorough knowledge of the physical universe—he introduces an ample area for the exercise of the philosophic intellect. So again, in the stress that he lays on the misery which the most secret wrong-doing must necessarily cause from the perpetual fear of discovery, and in his exuberant exaltation of the value of disinterested friendship, he shows a sincere, though not completely successful, effort to avoid the offence that consistent egoistic hedonism is apt to give to ordinary human feeling. As regards friendship, Epicurus was a man of peculiarly unexclusive sympathies.12The genial fellowship of the philosophic community that he collected in his garden remained a striking feature in the traditions of his school; and certainly the ideal which Stoics and Epicureans equally cherished of a brotherhood of sages was most easily realized on the Epicurean plan of withdrawing from political and dialectical conflict to simple living and serene leisure, in imitation of the gods apart from the fortuitous concourse of atoms that we call a world. No doubt it was rather the practical than the theoretical side of Epicureanism which gave it so strong a hold on succeeding generations.
The two systems that have just been described were those that most prominently attracted the attention of the ancient world, so far as it was directed to ethics, from their almost simultaneous origin to the end of the 2ndLater Greek philosophy. Stoicism in Rome.centuryA.D., when Stoicism almost vanishes from our view. But side by side with them the schools of Plato and Aristotle still maintained a continuity of tradition, and a more or less vigorous life; and philosophy, as a recognized element of Graeco-Roman culture, was understood to be divided among these four branches. The internal history, however, of the four schools was very different. We find no development worthy of notice in Aristotelian ethics (seePeripatetics). The Epicureans, again, from their unquestioning acceptance of the “dogmas”13of their founder, almost deserve to be called a sect rather than a school. On the other hand, the changes in Stoicism are very noteworthy; and it is the more easy to trace them, as the only original writings of this school which we possess are those of the later Roman Stoics. These changes may be attributed partly to the natural inner development of the system, partly to the reaction of the Roman mindon the essentially Greek doctrine which it received,—a reaction all the more inevitable from the very affinity between the Stoic sage and the ancient Roman ideal of manliness. It was natural that the earlier Stoics should be chiefly occupied with delineating the inner and outer characteristics of ideal wisdom and virtue, and that the gap between the ideal sage and the actual philosopher, though never ignored, should yet be somewhat overlooked. But when the question “What is man’s good?” had been answered by an exposition of perfect wisdom, the practical question “How may a man emerge from the folly of the world, and get on the way towards wisdom?” naturally attracted attention; and the preponderance of moral over scientific interest, which was characteristic of the Roman mind, gave this question especial prominence. The sense of the gap between theory and fact gives to the religious element of Stoicism a new force; the soul, conscious of its weakness, leans on the thought of God, and in the philosopher’s attitude towards external events, pious resignation preponderates over self-poised indifference; the old self-reliance of the reason, looking down on man’s natural life as a mere field for its exercise, makes room for a positive aversion to the flesh as an alien element imprisoning the spirit; the body has come to be a “corpse which the soul sustains,”14and life a “sojourn in a strange land”;15in short, the ethical idealism of Zeno has begun to borrow from the metaphysical idealism of Plato.
In no one of these schools was the outward coherence of tradition so much strained by inner changes as it was in Plato’s. The alterations, however, in the metaphysical position of the Academics had little effect on their ethical teaching,History of Plato’s school.as, even during the period of Scepticism, they appear to have presented as probable the same general view of human good which Antiochus afterwards dogmatically announced as a revival of the common doctrine of Plato and Aristotle. And during the period of a century and a half between Antiochus and Plutarch, we may suppose the school to have maintained the old controversy with Stoicism on much the same ground, accepting the formula of “life according to nature,” but demanding that the “good” of man should refer to his nature as a whole, the good of his rational part being the chief element, and always preferable in case of conflict, but yet not absolutely his sole good. In Plutarch, however, we see the same tendencies of change that we have noticed in later Stoicism. The conception of a normal harmony between the higher and lower elements of human life has begun to be disturbed, and the side of Plato’s teaching that deals with the inevitable imperfections of the world of concrete experience becomes again prominent. For example, we find Plutarch amplifying the suggestion in Plato’s latest treatise (theLaws) that this imperfection is due to a bad world-soul that strives against the good,—a suggestion which is alien to the general tenor of Plato’s doctrine, and had consequently been unnoticed during the intervening centuries. We observe, again, the value that Plutarch attaches, not merely to the sustainment and consolation of rational religion, but to the supernatural communications vouchsafed by the divinity to certain human beings in dreams, through oracles, or by special warnings, like those of the genius of Socrates. For these flashes of intuition, he holds, the soul should be prepared by tranquil repose and the subjugation of sensuality through abstinence. The same ascetic effort to attain by aloofness from the body a pure receptivity for supernatural influences, is exhibited in Neo-Pythagoreanism. But the general tendency that we are noting did not find its full expression in a reasoned system until we come to the Egyptian Plotinus.
The system of Plotinus (205-270A.D.) is a striking development of that element of Platonism which has had most fascination for the medieval and even for the modern mind, but which had almost vanished out of sight in theNeoplatonism.controversies of the post-Aristotelian schools. At the same time the differences are the more noteworthy from the reverent adhesion which the Neoplatonists always maintain to Plato. Plato identified good with the real essence of things; with that in them which is definitely conceivable and knowable. It belongs to this view to regard the imperfection of things as devoid of real being, and so incapable of being definitely thought or known; accordingly, we find that Plato has no technical term for that in the concrete sensible world which hinders it from perfectly expressing the abstract ideal world, and which in Aristotle’s system is distinguished as absolutely formless matter (ὕλη). And so, when we pass from the ontology to the ethics of Platonism, we find that, though the highest life is only to be realized by turning away from concrete human affairs and their material environment, still the sensible world is not yet an object of positive moral aversion; it is rather something which the philosopher is seriously concerned to make as harmonious, good and beautiful as possible. But in Neoplatonism the inferiority of the condition in which the embodied human soul finds itself is more intensely and painfully felt; hence an express recognition of formless matter (ὕλη) as the “first evil,” from which is derived the “second evil,” body (σῶμα), to whose influence all the evil in the soul’s existence is due. Accordingly the ethics of Plotinus represent, we may say, the moral idealism of the Stoics cut loose from nature. The only good of man is the pure existence of the soul, which in itself, apart from the contagion of the body, is perfectly free from error or defect; if only it can be restored to the untrammelled activity of its original being, nothing external, nothing bodily, can positively impair its perfect welfare. It is only the lowest form of virtue—the “civic” virtue of Plato’sRepublic—that is employed in regulating those animal impulses whose presence in the soul is due to its mixture with the body; higher or philosophic wisdom, temperance, courage and justice are essentially purifications from this contagion; until finally the highest mode of goodness is reached, in which the soul has no community with the body, and is entirely turned towards reason. It should be observed that Plotinus himself is still too Platonic to hold that the absolute mortification of natural bodily appetites is required for purifying the soul; but this ascetic inference was drawn to the fullest extent by his disciple Porphyry.
There is, however, a yet higher point to be reached in the upward ascent of the Neoplatonist from matter; and here the divergence of Plotinus from Platonic idealism is none the less striking, because it is abona fideresult of reverent reflection on Plato’s teaching. The cardinal assumption of Plato’s metaphysic is, that the real is definitely thinkable and knowable in proportion as it is real; so that the further the mind advances in abstraction from sensible particulars and apprehension of real being, the more definite and clear its thought becomes. Plotinus, however, urges that, as all thought involves difference or duality of some kind, it cannot be the primary fact in the universe, what we call God. He must be an essential unity prior to this duality, a Being wholly without difference or determination; and, accordingly, the highest mode of human existence, in which the soul apprehends this absolute, must be one in which all definite thought is transcended, and all consciousness of self lost in the absorbing ecstasy. Porphyry tells us that his master Plotinus attained the highest state four times during the six years which he spent with him.
Neoplatonism, originally Alexandrine, is often regarded as Hellenistic rather than Hellenic, a product of the mingling of Greek with Oriental civilization. But however Oriental may have been the cast of mind that welcomed this theosophic asceticism, the forms of thought by which these views were philosophically reached are essentially Greek; and it is by a thoroughly intelligible process of natural development, in which the intensification of the moral consciousness represented by Stoicism plays an important part, that the Hellenic pursuit of knowledge culminates in a preparation for ecstasy, and the Hellenic idealization of man’s natural life ends in a settled antipathy to the body and its works. At the same time we ought not to overlook the affinities between the doctrine of Plotinus and that remarkable combination of Greek and Hebrew thought which Philo Judaeus had expounded two centuries before; nor the fact that Neoplatonism was developed inconscious antagonism to the new religion which had spread from Judea, and was already threatening the conquest of the Graeco-Roman world, and also to the Gnostic systems (seeGnosticism); nor, finally, that it furnished the chief theoretical support in the last desperate struggle that was made under Julian to retain the old polytheistic worship.
B.Christianity and Medieval Ethics.—In the present article we are not concerned with the origin of the Christian religion, nor with its outward history. Nor have we to consider the special doctrines that have formed the bond of union of the Christian communities except in their ethical aspect, their bearing on the systematization of human aims and activities. This aspect, however, must necessarily be prominent in discussing Christianity, which cannot be adequately treated merely as a system of theological beliefs divinely revealed, and special observances divinely sanctioned; for it claims to regulate the whole man, in all departments of his existence. It was not till the 4th centuryA.D.that the first attempt was made to offer a systematic exposition of Christian morality; and nine centuries more had passed away before a genuinely philosophic intellect, trained by a full study of Aristotle, undertook to give complete scientific form to the ethical doctrine of the Catholic church. Before, however, we take a brief survey of the progress of systematic ethics from Ambrose to Thomas Aquinas, it may be well to examine the chief features of the new moral consciousness that had spread through Graeco-Roman civilization, and was awaiting philosophic synthesis. It will be convenient to consider first the newformor universal characteristics of Christian morality, and afterwards to note the chief points in thematteror particulars of duty and virtue which received development or emphasis from the new religion.
The first point to be noticed is the new conception of morality as the positive law of a theocratic community possessing a written code imposed by divine revelation, and sanctioned by divine promises and threatenings. ItChristian and Jewish “law of God.”is true that we find in ancient thought, from Socrates downwards, the notion of a law of God, eternal and immutable, partly expressed and partly obscured by the shifting codes and customs of actual human societies. But the sanctions of this law were vaguely and, for the most part, feebly imagined; its principles were essentially unwritten, and thus referred not to the external will of an Almighty Being who claimed unquestioning submission, but rather to the reason that gods and men shared, by the exercise of which alone they could be adequately known and defined. Hence, even if the notion of law had been more prominent than it was in ancient ethical thought, it could never have led to a juridical, as distinct from a philosophical, treatment of morality. In Christianity, on the other hand, we early find that the method of moralists determining right conduct is to a great extent analogous to that of juris-consults interpreting a code. It is assumed that divine commands have been implicitly given for all occasions of life, and that they are to be ascertained in particular cases by interpretation of the general rules obtained from texts of scripture, and by inference from scriptural examples. This juridical method descended naturally from the Jewish theocracy, of which Christendom was a universalization. Moral insight, in the view of the most thoughtful Jews of the age immediately preceding Christianity, was conceived as knowledge of a divine code, emanating from an authority external to human reason which had only the function of interpreting and applying its rules. This law was derived partly from Moses, partly from the utterances of the later prophets, partly from oral tradition and from the commentaries and supplementary maxims of generations of students. Christianity inherited the notion of a written divine code acknowledged as such by the “true Israel”—now potentially including the whole of mankind, or at least the chosen of all nations,—on the sincere acceptance of which the Christian’s share of the divine promises to Israel depended. And though the ceremonial part of the old Hebrew code was altogether rejected, and with it all the supplementary jurisprudence resting on tradition and erudite commentary, still God’s law was believed to be contained in the sacred books of the Jews, supplemented by the teaching of Christ and his apostles. By the recognition of this law the church was constituted as an ordered community, essentially distinct from the State; the distinction between the two was emphasized by the withdrawal of the early Christians from civic life, to avoid the performance of idolatrous ceremonies imposed as official expressions of loyalty, and by the persecutions which they had to endure, when the spread of an association apparently so hostile to the framework of ancient society had at length alarmed the imperial government. Nor was the distinction obliterated by the recognition of Christianity as the state religion under Constantine.
Thus the jural form in which morality was conceived only emphasized the fundamental difference between it and the laws of the state. The ultimate sanctions of the moral code were the infinite rewards and punishments awaiting the immortal soul hereafter; but the church early felt the necessity of withdrawing the privileges of membership from apostates and allowing them to be gradually regained only by a solemn ceremonial expressive of repentance, protracted through several years. This formal and regulated “penitence” was extended from apostasy to other grave—or, as they were subsequently called, “deadly”—sins; while for minor offences all Christians were called upon to express contrition by fasting and abstinence from ordinarily permitted pleasures, as well as verbally in public and private devotions. “Excommunication” and “penance” thus came to be temporal ecclesiastical sanctions of the moral law. As the graduation of these sanctions naturally became more minute, a correspondingly detailed classification of offences was rendered necessary, and thus a system of ecclesiastical jurisprudence was gradually produced, somewhat analogous to that of Judaism. At the same time this tendency to make prominent a scheme of external duties has always been counteracted in Christianity by the remembrance of its original antithesis to Jewish legalism. We find that this antithesis, as exaggerated by some of the Gnostic sects of the 2nd and 3rd centuriesA.D., led, not merely to theoretical antinomianism, but even (if the charges of their orthodox opponents are not entirely to be discredited) to gross immorality of conduct. A similar tendency has shown itself at other periods of church history. And though such antinomianism has always been sternly repudiated by the moral consciousness of Christendom, it has never been forgotten that “inwardness,” rightness of heart or spirit, is the pre-eminent characteristic of Christian goodness. It must not, of course, be supposed that the need of something more than mere fulfilment of external duty was ignored even by the later Judaism. Rabbinic erudition could not forget the repression of vicious desires in the tenth commandment, the stress laid in Deuteronomy on the necessity of service to God, or the inculcation by later prophets of humility and faith. “The real and only Pharisee,” says the Talmud, “is he who does the will of his Father because he loves Him.” But it remains true that the contrast with the “righteousness of the scribes and pharisees” has always served to mark the requirement of “inwardness” as a distinctive feature of the Christian code—an inwardness not merely negative, tending to the repression of vicious desires as well as vicious acts, but also involving a positive rectitude of the inner state of the soul.
In this aspect Christianity invites comparison with Stoicism, and indeed with pagan ethical philosophy generally, if we except the hedonistic schools. Rightness of purpose, preference of virtue for its own sake, suppression ofChristian and Pagan inwardness.vicious desires, were made essential points by the Aristotelians, who attached the most importance to outward circumstances in their view of virtue, no less than by the Stoics, to whom all outward things were indifferent. The fundamental differences between pagan and Christian ethics depend not on any difference in the value set on rightness of heart, but on different views of the essential form or conditions of this inward rightness. In neither case is it presented purely and simply as moral rectitude. By the pagan philosophers it was always conceived under the form of Knowledge or Wisdom,it being inconceivable to all the schools sprung from Socrates that a man could truly know his own good and yet deliberately choose anything else. This knowledge, as Aristotle held, might be permanently precluded by vicious habits, or temporarily obliterated by passion, but if present in the mind it must produce rightness of purpose. Or even if it were held with some of the Stoics that true wisdom was out of the reach of the best men actually living, it none the less remained the ideal condition of perfect human life. By Christian teachers, on the other hand, the inner springs of good conduct were generally conceived asFaith.Faith and Love. Of these notions the former has a somewhat complex ethical import; it seems to blend several elements differently prominent in different minds. Its simplest and commonest meaning is that emphasized in the contrast of “faith” with “sight”; where it signifies belief in the invisible divine order represented by the church, in the actuality of the law, the threats, the promises of God, in spite of all the influences in man’s natural life that tend to obscure this belief. Out of this contrast there ultimately grew an essentially different opposition between faith and knowledge or reason, according to which the theological basis of ethics was contrasted with the philosophical; the theologians maintaining sometimes that the divine law is essentially arbitrary, the expression of will, not reason; more frequently that its reasonableness is inscrutable, and that actual human reason should confine itself to examining the credentials of God’s messengers, and not the message itself. But in early Christianity this latter antithesis was as yet undeveloped; faith means simply force in clinging to moral and religious conviction, whatever their rational grounds may be; this force, in the Christian consciousness, being inseparably bound up with personal loyalty and trust towards Christ, the leader in the battle with evil, the ruler of the kingdom to be realized. So far, however, there is no ethical difference between Christian faith and that of Judaism, or its later imitation, Mahommedanism; except that the personal affection of loyal trust is peculiarly stirred by the blending of human and divine natures in Christ, and the rule of duty impressively taught by the manifestation of his perfect life. A more distinctively Christian, and a more deeply moral, significance is given to the notion in the antithesis of “faith” and “works.” Here faith means more than loyal acceptance of the divine law and reverent trust in the lawgiver; it implies a consciousness, at once continually present and continually transcended, of the radical imperfection of all human obedience to the law, and at the same time of the irremissible condemnation which this imperfection entails. The Stoic doctrine of the worthlessness of ordinary human virtue, and the stern paradox that all offenders are equally, in so far as all are absolutely, guilty, find their counterparts in Christianity; but the latter (maintaining this ideal severity in the moral standard, with an emotional consciousness of what is involved in it quite unlike that of the Stoic) overcomes its practical exclusiveness through faith. This faith, again, may be conceived in two modes, essentially distinct though usually combined. In one view it gives the believer strength to attain, by God’s supernatural aid or “grace,” a goodness of which he is naturally incapable; in the other view it gives him an assurance that, though he knows himself a sinner deserving of utter condemnation, a perfectly just God still regards him with favour on account of the perfect services and suffering of Christ. Of these views the former is the more catholic, more universally present in the Christian consciousness; the latter more deeply penetrates the mystery of the Atonement, as expounded in the Pauline epistles.
But faith, however understood, is rather an indispensable pre-requisite than the essential motive principle of Christian good conduct. This motive is supplied by the other central notion, love. On love depends the “fulfillingLove.of the law,” and the sole moral value of Christian duty—that is, on love to God, in the first place, which in its fullest development must spring from Christian faith; and, secondly, love to all mankind, as the objects of divine love and sharers in the humanity ennobled by the incarnation. This derivative philanthropy characterizes the spirit in which all Christian performance of social duty is to be done; loving devotion to God being the fundamental attitude of mind that is to be maintained throughout the whole of the Christian’s life. But further, as regards abstinence from unlawful acts and desiresPurity.prompting to them, we have to notice another form in which the inwardness of Christian morality manifests itself, which, though less distinctive, should yet receive attention in any comparison of Christian ethics with the view of Graeco-Roman philosophy. The profound horror with which the Christian’s conception of a suffering as well as an avenging divinity tended to make him regard all condemnable acts was tinged with a sentiment which we may perhaps describe as a ceremonial aversion moralized—the aversion, that is, to foulness or impurity. In Judaism, as in other, especially Oriental, religions, the natural dislike of material defilement has been elevated into a religious sentiment, and made to support a complicated system of quasi-sanitary abstinences and ceremonial purifications; then, as the ethical element predominated in the Jewish religion, a moral symbolism was felt to reside in the ceremonial code, and thus aversion to impurity came to be a common form of the ethico-religious sentiment. Then, when Christianity threw off the Mosaic ritual, this religious sense of purity was left with no other sphere besides morality; while, from its highly idealized character, it was peculiarly well adapted for that repression of vicious desires which Christianity claimed as its special function.
The distinctive features of Christian ethics are obedience, unworldliness, benevolence, purity and humility. They are naturally connected with the more generalDistinctive particulars of Christian morality.characteristics just stated; though many of them may also be referred directly to the example and precepts of Christ, and in several cases they are clearly due to both causes, inseparably combined.
1. We may notice, in the first place, that the conception of morality as a code which, if not in itself arbitrary, is yet to be accepted by men with unquestioning submission, tends naturally to bring into prominence the virtue ofobedience to authority; just as the philosophic view of goodness as the realization of reason gives a special value toself-determinationand independence (as we see more clearly in the post-Aristotelian schools where ethics is distinctly separated from politics).
2. Again, the opposition between the natural world and the spiritual order into which the Christian has been born anew led not merely to a contempt equal to that of the Stoic for wealth, fame, power, and other objects of worldly pursuit, but also, for some time at least, to a comparative depreciation of the domestic and civic relations of the natural man. This tendency was exhibited most simply and generally in the earliest period of the church’s history. In the view of primitive Christians, ordinary human society was a world temporarily surrendered to Satanic rule, over which a swift and sudden destruction was impending; in such a world the little band who were gathered in the ark of the church could have no part or lot,—the only attitude they could maintain was that of passive alienation. On the other hand, it was difficult practically to realize this alienation, and a keen sense of this difficulty induced the same hostility to the body as a clog and hindrance, that we find to some extent in Plato, but more fully developed in Neoplatonism, Neopythagoreanism, and other products of the mingling of Greek with Oriental thought. This feeling is exhibited in the value set on fasting in the Christian church from the earliest times, and in an extreme form in the self-torments of later monasticism; while both tendencies, anti-worldliness and anti-sensualism, seem to have combined in causing the preference of celibacy over marriage which is common to most early Christian writers.16Patriotism, again, and the sense of civic duty, the most elevated of all social sentiments in the Graeco-Roman civilization, tended, under the influence of Christianity, either to expand itself into universal philanthropy, or to concentrateitself on the ecclesiastical community. “We recognize one commonwealth, the world,” says Tertullian; “we know,” says Origen, “that we have a fatherland founded by the word of God.” We might further derive from the general spirit of Christian unworldliness that repudiation of the secular modes of conflict, even in a righteous cause, which substituted a passive patience and endurance for the old pagan virtue of courage, in which the active element was prominent. Here, however, we clearly trace the influence of Christ’s express prohibition of violent resistance to violence, and his inculcation, by example and precept, of a love that was to conquer even natural resentment. An extreme result of this influence is shown in Tertullian’s view, that no Christian could properly hold the office of a secular magistrate in which he would have to doom to death, chains, imprisonment; but even more sober writers, such as Ambrose, extend Christian passivity so far as to preclude self-defence even against a murderous assault. The common sense of Christendom gradually shook off these extravagances; but the reluctance to shed blood lingered long, and was hardly extinguished even by the growing horror of heresy. We have a curious relic of this in the later times of ecclesiastical persecution, when the heretic was doomed to the stake that he might be punished in some manner “short of bloodshed.”17
3. It is, however, in the impulse given to practical beneficence in all its forms, by the exaltation of love as the root of all virtues, that the most important influence of Christianity on the particulars of civilized morality is to be found;Benevolence.although the exact amount of this influence is here somewhat difficult to ascertain, since it merely carries further a development traceable in the history of pagan morality. This development appears when we compare the different post-Socratic systems of ethics. In Plato’s exposition of the different virtues there is no mention whatever of benevolence, although his writings show a keen sense of the importance of friendship as an element of philosophic life, especially of the intense personal affection naturally arising between master and disciple. Aristotle goes somewhat further in recognizing the moral value of friendshipφιλία; and though he considers that in its highest form it can be realized only by the fellowship of the wise and good, he yet extends the notion so as to include the domestic affections, and takes notice of the importance of mutual kindness in binding together all human societies. Still in his formal statement of the different virtues, positive beneficence is discernible only under the notion of “liberality,” in which form its excellence is hardly distinguished from that of graceful profusion in self-regarding expenditure (Nic. Eth. iv. 1). Cicero, on the other hand, in his paraphrase of a Stoic treatise on external duties (De officiis), ranks the rendering of positive services to other men as a chief department of social duty; and the Stoics generally recognized the universal fellowship and natural mutual claims of human beings as such. Indeed, this recognition in later Stoicism is sometimes expressed with so much warmth of feeling as to be hardly distinguishable from Christian philanthropy. Nor was this regard for humanity merely a doctrine of the school. Partly through the influence of Stoic and other Greek philosophy, partly from the natural expansion of human sympathies, the legislation of the Empire, during the first three centuries, shows a steady development in the direction of natural justice and humanity; and some similar progress may be traced in the general tone of moral opinion. Still the utmost point that this development reached fell considerably short of the standard of Christian charity. Without dwelling on the immense impetus given to the practice of social duty generally by the religion that made beneficence a form of divine service, and identified “piety” with “pity,” we have to put down as definite changes introduced by Christianity—(1) the severe condemnation and final suppression of the practice of exposing infants; (2) effective abhorrence of the barbarism of gladiatorial combats; (3) immediate moral mitigation of slavery, and a strong encouragement of emancipation; (4) great extension of the eleemosynary provision made for the sick and the poor. As regards almsgiving, however—the importance of which has caused it to usurp, in modern languages, the general name of “charity”—it ought to be observed that Christianity merely universalized a duty which has always been inculcated by Judaism, within the limits of the chosen people.
4. The same may be said of the stricter regulation which Christianity enforced on the relations of the sexes; except so far as the prohibition of divorce is concerned, and the stress laid on “purity of heart” as contrasted with merely outward chastity.
5. Even the peculiarly Christian virtue of humility, which presents so striking a contrast to the Greek “highmindedness,” was to some extent anticipated in the Rabbinic teaching. Its far greater prominence under the new dispensation may be partly referred to the express teaching and example of Christ; partly, in so far as the virtue is manifested in the renunciation of external rank and dignity, or the glory of merely secular gifts and acquirements, it is one aspect of theunworldlinesswhich we have already noticed; while the deeper humility that represses the claim of personal merit even in the saint belongs to the strict self-examination, the continual sense of imperfection, the utter reliance on strength not his own, which characterize the inner moral life of the Christian. Humility in this latter sense, “before God,” is an essential condition of all truly Christian goodness.
We have, however, yet to notice the enlargement of the sphere of ethics due to its close connexion with theology; for while this added religious force and sanction to ordinary moral obligations, it equally tended to impart a moral aspect to religious belief and worship. “Duty to God”—as distinct from duty to man—had not been altogether unrecognized by pagan moralists; but the rather dubious relations of even the more orthodox philosophy to the established polytheism had generally prevented them from laying much stress upon it. Again,—just as the Stoics held wisdom to be indispensable to real rectitude of conduct, while at the same time they included under the notion of wisdom a grasp of physical as well as ethical truth,—so the similar emphasis laid on inwardness in Christian ethics caused orthodoxy or correctness of religious belief to be regarded as essential to goodness, and heresy as the most fatal of vices, corrupting as it did the very springs of Christian life. To the philosophers (with the single exception of Plato), however, convinced as they were that the multitude must necessarily miss true well-being through their folly and ignorance, it could never occur to guard against these evils by any other method than that of providing philosophic instruction for the few; whereas the Christian clergy, whose function it was to offer truth and eternal life to all mankind, naturally regarded theological misbelief as insidious preventible contagion. Indeed, their sense of its deadliness was so keen that, when they were at length able to control the secular administration, they rapidly overcame their aversion to bloodshed, and initiated that long series of religious persecutions to which we find no parallel in the pre-Christian civilization of Europe. It was not that Christian writers did not feel the difficulty of attributing criminality to sincere ignorance or error. But the difficulty is not really peculiar to theology; and the theologians usually got over it (as some philosophers had surmounted a similar perplexity in the region of ethics proper) by supposing some latent or antecedent voluntary sin, of which the apparently involuntary heresy was the fearful fruit.
Lastly, we must observe that, in proportion as the legal conception of morality as a code of which the violation deserves supernatural punishment predominated over the philosophic view of ethics as the method for attaining natural felicity, the question of man’s freedom of will to obey the law necessarily became prominent. At the same time it cannot be broadly said that Christianity took a decisive side in the metaphysical controversy on free-will and necessity; since, just as in Greek philosophy the need of maintaining freedom as the ground of responsibility clashes with the conviction that no one deliberately chooses his own harm, so in Christian ethics it clashes with theattribution of all true human virtue to supernatural grace, as well as with the belief in divine foreknowledge. All we can say is that in the development of Christian thought the conflict of conceptions was far more profoundly felt, and far more serious efforts were made to evade or transcend it.