Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/193

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138
GREEK PHILOSOPHY.

his ethical speculations. The substance of his ethical doctrine is this, that man lives and acts rightly in so far as he lives and acts in conformity with the κοινὸς λόγος, the universal reason in which he participates, but which does not properly belong to him; and that he lives and acts wrongly in so far as he lives and acts in conformity with the ἰδία φρόνησις, or that part of his nature which is more properly his own. The κοινὸς λόγος, when its behests are obeyed, leads him away from his own private and personal aims; if lifts him above the sphere of his own selfish interests, and teaches him to think of something far greater than himself: the ἰδία φρόνησις, when it is yielded to, binds him down within the sphere of his own selfishness, and makes him regard his own private advantage as the great and sole end of his existence. Thus viewed ethically, the κοινὸς λόγος may be called the great moral law, the ἰδία φρόνησις may be called "man's own conceit." Heraclitus thus seems to have been the first moralist who identified man's true moral nature with the universal faculty in man, and man's wrong and immoral nature with his particular faculty. This ethical doctrine comes much more fully to light under the treatment of subsequent moralists, and therefore I shall content myself at present with having merely broached it for your consideration.

31. In my summary of the philosophy of Heraclitus, I shall endeavour to point out the relation in