and none of the other utterances of the Stagirite would attribute anything like will, providence, or ordering of affairs to the Deity. We are told (‘Eth.’ X. viii. 7) that it would be absurd to attribute to Him moral qualities or virtues, or any human function except philosophic thought. He enjoys, however, happiness of the most exalted kind, such as we can frame but an indistinct notion of by the analogy of our own highest and most blessed moods. This happiness is everlasting, and God “has, or rather is,” continuous and eternal life and duration.[1]
We have been unavoidably launched upon a solemn subject, because any account of Aristotle which did not sketch his theories of the Deity would have been incomplete. It will be seen that, on the whole, his tendency is to what we should call Pantheism. “Reason is divine, and Reason is everywhere, desiring the Good and moving the world:” that is a summary of Aristotle’s philosophy. Of all modern speculators, the one who most nearly approaches him is John Stuart Mill, who represents God as benevolent, but not omnipotent. Aristotle also would say that the desire for the Good which runs through Nature is baffled by the imperfections of matter and the irregularities of chance. The great defect in Aristotle’s conception of God is, that he denies that God can be a moral Being. This, in fact, entirely separates God from man; it leaves only Theology possible, but not
- ↑ The above statement of Aristotle’s views of the Deity is collected from ‘Metaphysics,’ XI. vi.-x.
