own minds; in disregard of the fact that the idea and sentiment of Virtue have their foundation not exclusively in the self-regarding, but also, and even more directly, in the social feelings : a truth first fully accepted by the Stoics, who have the glory of being the earliest thinkers who grounded the obligation of morals on the brotherhood, the συγγένεια, of the whole human race. The grand defect of Platds ethical conceptions (excellcntly discussed in Mr. Grote,s remarks on the Republic) was in overlooking, what was completely seizcd by Aristotle _— that the essential part of the virtue of justice is the recognition and obscrvance of the rights of other people.[1]
It is noticeable that even in the Republic, the governing and controlling principle of the mind, which we have translated Reason, and whose unresisted authority constitutes the essence of Virtue, is τὸ λογισιιιιόν — literally the calculating principle (λογισπχή being used by Plate himself, in the Gorgias, to dcnote a portion of Arithmetic). This is the very doctrine of the Protagoras, except that the elements to be calculated are different. And, through the whole series of the dialogues, a Measuring Art, μετρητικὴ τέχνη, as a means of distinguishing the truth of things from their superlicial appea ~ance, is everywhere desiderated as the great requisite both of Wisdom and of virtue. When, however, the
- ↑ Grote, vol. iii. pp. 138-159. The only vestige we find in Plato of the conception of moralny which refers to the general happiness, is when, in answering the remark that the guardians of his ideal republic, being denied all the interents to which human life is generally devoted,would have a poor and undesirable existence, he says, “ Perlmps it may turn out that theirs would be the happiest of all; but even if what you say is true, our object is not that one portion of the community may be as happy as possible, but that the whole community may be so.”
