Philosophical Works of the Late James Frederick Ferrier/Lectures on Greek Philosophy (1888)/Aristotle
ARISTOTLE.
1. The writings of Aristotle, even in the imperfect state in which they have come down to us, are exceedingly multifarious. They are usually divided by his commentators into three departments: 1st, Logical; 2d, Theoretical; and, 3d, Practical. Under the logical division are comprised the treatises called the Organon. Under the theoretical division are placed the physics, mathematics, metaphysics, and the treatise on the soul. Under the practical division are comprehended ethics and politics. There are also extant a work by Aristotle on rhetoric, another on poetics, and several minor treatises. The only works of Aristotle on which I propose to touch in these lectures are the logic, the metaphysics, the treatise on the soul, and the ethics, and of these the ethics alone shall engage a considerable share of our attention.
2. The logic which you have already studied elsewhere is derived entirely from Aristotelian sources: and therefore, as I may presume that you are already familiar with its details, I shall touch very cursorily on this part of Aristotle's philosophy. The logic of Aristotle is usually termed formal or deductive, to distinguish it from the inductive logic, for which Bacon usually gets the credit. It was at one time, and not very long ago, supposed that the inductive logic, which studied real nature, was much more valuable than the deductive logic, which merely scrutinised mental processes; but it is now generally acknowledged that both sciences are equally worthy of our attention. In point of technical precision, the logic of Aristotle, and in particular his doctrine of the syllogism, is unrivalled; and it is not a little remarkable that it should have sprung at once into perfection. The industry and ingenuity of more than two thousand years have added little or nothing to the symmetrical beauty, the finished excellence, of the logical system of the mighty Stagirite. Aristotle's logical treatises have been collected together under the general title of the Organon. The Organon comprises treatises on the Categories (κατηγορίαι), and on the interpretation or expression of thought, περὶ ἑρμηνείας (as (the genuineness of these writings, however, has been doubted). It contains a treatise called the Prior Analytics (ἀναλυτικὰ προτέρα), which deals with propositions, and another entitled ἀναλυτικὰ ὕστερα, which deals with proof, definition, and division. It also contains τοπικά, or topics, a treatise on probable reasoning, and a treatise on sophistical fallacies and their solution (περὶ σοφιστικῶν ἐλέγχων). These are the logical writings of Aristotle. They deal with the method of science, and are therefore classed together as the Organon or instrument of inquiry. The Categories, or general heads under which all things may be classed, are the following ten: οὐσία, or substance; πόσον, quantity; ποιόν, quality; πρός τι, relation; ποῦ, where; ποτὲ, when; κεῖσθαι, position; ἔχειν, having; ποιεῖν, doing; πάσχειν, suffering. These might be reduced to two, substance and accident; or, viewed logically, subject and predicate: thus οὐσία is the subject, for example "man," and all the other categories denote what may be predicated of man. Thus, Whatever we say of man must be either something about his size, or his qualities, or his relation to other things, or the place where he is or was, or the time when he is or was, or his attitude, or his possessions, or his actings or sufferings. Aristotle's scheme of the Categories must be pronounced crude and imperfect, whether we regard it as a table of things or as a classification of the forms of predication.
3. In his work, entitled the 'Metaphysics,' or first philosophy, as he himself calls it, Aristotle treats of the principles common to all things, the universal constituents of Being. The term metaphysics is not employed by Aristotle. The explanation usually given of the origin of this word is, that some early commentator on Aristotle, finding certain treatises placed after the physics in the arrangement of his master's works, gave to these treatises the superscription τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικὰ the writings that come after the physics. In bestowing on them this name, however, it is uncertain whether he was influenced solely by the fact that these writings followed the others in a certain arbitrary arrangement, or whether he was guided partly by the consideration that these writings dealt with matters which were higher than mere physical truth, and which lay beyond the apprehension of our mere sensible experience. You will find this work frequently described as dealing with Being in so far as it is Being, with ens quatenus ens est, the meaning of which rather obscure words is simply this, that in this investigation Aristotle does not consider Being as this or that particular Being, but simply as Being, that is, as presenting the attributes or conditions common to all Being, differences being left out of view. These universal elements of Being are, according to Aristotle, four. First, Matter or substratum; in Greek, ἡ ὕλη or τὸ ὑποκείμενον. Secondly, Form or essence; in Greek, οὐσία, εἶδος, μορφή, or τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι. Third, the moving or efficient cause; in Greek, ἡ ἀρχὴ τῆς κινήσεως. Fourth, the end or final cause, also called the good; τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα, τὸ τέλος, or τὸ ἀγαθόν. These four principles are, according to Aristotle, the most general causes of things, and enter into the constitution of everything. They are truths for all intellect. He held that former systems had erred in not embracing the whole of these principles. Every antecedent system had left some of them out of its reckoning; hence they were all partial and incomplete. I may say a few words on each of them.
4. In regard to the first of these, matter or ὕλη, Aristotle's doctrine is this: Matter is not, properly speaking, the existent; neither is it the absolutely non-existent: it is mere potentiality (δύναμις), a capability of passing into the actual. When form, οὐσία εἶδος, supervenes to matter or ὕλη, the potential is converted into the actual, and the result is completed existence. This perfected existence, at least when organised, is called by Aristotle ἐντελέχεια, and also ἐνέργεια. Thus, δύναμις and ὕλη are nearly synonymous in the Aristotelic philosophy. They denote a mere capacity of existence; ἐντελέχεια and ἐνέργεια are also nearly synonymous, and denote the actuality of existence, existence realised. These words play an important part in the system of Aristotle, metaphysical, physical, and moral. There is another important word which I may mention here, στέρησις, privation. Matter devoid of all form would be in a state of στέρησις or privation. Thus, στέρησις is the opposite of ἐντελέχεια, for this latter term expresses the union of matter and form (ὕλη and οὐσία). It is not to be supposed that matter is ever in a state of absolute privation. Such a state is a mere mental abstraction, or rather it is a nonsensical, inconceivable condition.
5. The second principle which Aristotle lays down as one of the universal constituents of Being is Form or Essence (οὐσία), a principle on which I have touched in the preceding section. This principle was advanced by Aristotle in the place of the Platonic ideas which he endeavours to displace and refute. Whether he dealt altogether fairly with the Platonic theory is still a somewhat unsettled question. Aristotle understood Plato to maintain that the ideas existed by themselves apart (χωριστά) from the individual things which were formed after their pattern. That Plato maintained this in literal strictness is not by any means certain. Such, however, was Aristotle's understanding of him. And interpreting him this way, he objected to the doctrine of ideas on the following grounds: First, that such a doctrine is a mere doubling of sensible existences; the ideas are conceived as merely attenuated material objects. Aristotle calls them also αἰσθητά ἀΐδια, that is, everlasting sensibles. Secondly, he says that the ideas not being in things, cannot be the causes of motion or change, and therefore serve no purpose as explanatory of the phenomena of change. Thirdly, that not being in things, they cannot help us to any knowledge of things, and are therefore of no use as explanatory of the phenomenon of knowledge. Fourthly, that they are contradictory, inasmuch as they are represented as the essence of things, and yet as existing separate from things, as if it were possible that the essence of a thing could be separated from the thing of which it was the essence. Fifthly, that the doctrine of ideas is a poetical fancy, and that it is merely by a metaphor that things are said to be copies of ideas. And, sixthly, supposing the ideas to exist, they and the things which are their copies would require to be subsumed and reduced to unity under a higher idea, which is absurd; for example, if the idea man exists as something apart from actual men, we must have a higher idea to embrace both the ideal man and the actual men. This objection is called the argument of the τρίτος ἅνθρωπος, the third man; the other two being the idea of man and the reality of man. This argument, however, had been foreseen and stated by Plato himself. Such, stated shortly, is the tenor of Aristotle's argumentation against Plato's theory of ideas. All his objections are offshoots from his leading objection to the Platonic assertion (or what he regards as such), that the ideas are existences apart (χωριστὰ) from the things of which they are said to be the models.
6. But although Aristotle contested the Platonic doctrine, he advanced an ideal theory of his own. He did not hold that ideas were mere subjective conceptions, the fabrications of our own minds. He held that there was a correlative reality in the object answering to the conception in our minds, and this correlative reality he calls the form or essence, οὐσία. This essence is not an object of sense, but of intellect. It is, in fact, the Platonic idea under another name. So that we may say that Aristotle adopted the Platonic doctrine, with this modification, that whereas Plato (at least as understood by Aristotle) promulgated a doctrine in which ideas were represented as existing by themselves, and apart from things, Aristotle represented them as implicated in things, and as forming their most essential constituent. The idea, for example, considered as the one does not exist together with the many, but it exists in the many. Unity is essential to multiplicity. If we view ideas as laws, we might say that while Plato, at least as interpreted by Aristotle, regarded the laws as subsisting by themselves, and as constituting a world apart, Aristotle regarded them as inseparably united with the things of which they were the laws. (The individual is the essence in the first and proper sense of the word; only in a secondary sense can the genus be called the essence.) The genus has no existence apart from the individuals, yet although the genus or universal has no existence in and for itself, but only an existence in individuals, it is nevertheless the most significant, and in its nature the most knowable, and the proper object of knowledge. There can be no knowledge without it.
7. Aristotle's third and fourth principles are efficient cause and final cause. Every change from the potential to the actual is brought about by a cause, and this cause is distinguished by Aristotle as the moving or efficient cause, τὸ κινῆσαν. It may either operate from within, as in the case of organised existences, or from without, as when an artist forms a statue. In either case, there is an operative cause, through which the materials are moulded into form, Then, lastly, there is the end or final cause. Everything exists for some purpose. We may not know for what purpose, but we must think that everything exists for some purpose, and this purpose is called its end or final cause. A final cause always implies intelligence, which an efficient cause does not necessarily imply.
8. The three latter principles, essence, efficient cause, and end, are said by Aristotle to be very closely united, and often, indeed, to run into one. It is not difficult to see the identity of essence and end. Thus, for example, the possession of reason is the essence of man, and the possession of reason is also his end, or the most important part of his end. But it is not easy to identify efficient cause with the other two principles. I may here remark that Aristotle's conception of ends differs from that of Paley and other modern philosophers in being more comprehensive than theirs. Paley dwelt on the useful contrivances observable in the structure of organised bodies, and from thence inferred the existence of an intelligent designer. The same argument is implied in Aristotle. But he, moreover, holds that in everything that exists there is an indwelling end or purpose, and that this end or purpose is as much involved, although not so obtrusive or conspicuous, in such simple structures as a blade of grass, as it is in the most complicated organisations.
9. Aristotle's philosophy terminates in a sublime theology. Although matter never exists without form, and although the forms or essence of matter never exist apart from matter, there is nevertheless a form or essence which exists separate from all matter; and this is the first great cause of all that is, the intelligent and moving energy which originally sets in motion the whole machinery of the universe, and evolves potentiality into actuality. This cause is the Deity, the Godhead, which moves all, but is itself unmoved, pure matterless activity, the eternal self-thinking reason, the absolute spirit, in speaking of which Aristotle says, in the words of Homer, that the rule of many is not good, but that there is and should be only one sovereign over all;
Οὐκ ἀγαθὸν πολυκοιρανίη: εἷς κοίρανος ἔστω.
10. Aristotle's treatise περὶ ψυχῆς falls under the head of his theoretical philosophy, and properly falls under the subdivision of that head which is entitled physics. It is only in reference to this treatise on the soul of man, which he considers chiefly from a physical point of view (in his work περὶ ψυχῆς), that I shall speak of the physics of Aristotle. The word soul ψυχή, is in his vocabulary not by any means limited to intelligence. It signifies, in its widest sense, the power or principle of life; and in this sense it is what he calls the ἐντελέχεια, or perfected organisation of the body. There is a scale or series of these organisations in nature, rising one above another; and of these the higher forms always contain the lower. Thus, there is, first and lowest, a plant soul, or life in vegetables. This is a mere principle of nutrition and reproduction, τὸ θρεπτικόν. Plants are able to assimilate what is necessary to support them, and to continue their like. Then, secondly, there is an animal soul, a principle of animal life, which consists in sensation, desire, and locomotion, τὸ αἰσθητικόν, τὸ ὀρεκτικόν, τὸ κινητικόν (κατά τόπον). The functions of this principle are directed and checked by a moderating power (ἀρχή), which is altogether wanting in plants. The higher animals have some degree of fancy (φαντασία) and involuntary memory (μνήμη). Then, thirdly, there is the soul of man, which comprehends, in addition to all these principles, the power of reason (νοῦς). This reason is partly passive, determined, and temporal or transitory; partly active, determining, and immortal. So that the soul of man comprises, according to Aristotle, a power of nutrition and reproduction, a power of sensation, desire, and locomotion, a power of imagination and memory, a power of reason, and, in so far as reason is active and determining, a power of free will.
11. The ethics of Aristotle commence with the remark that the actions of all rational creatures aim at some end. Ends are of two kinds, subordinate and ultimate. The various arts and sciences have subordinate ends in view. The art of medicine, for example, has health for its end. The art of shipbuilding has a ship, and the art of war has victory for its end. These are subordinate ends. But there is an ultimate end, an end in reference to which these, and all other subordinate ends, may be considered as means, a chief end or summum bonum which is desired for its own sake, and not for the sake of anything beyond it. What is this end? This is the question with which political science has to deal; for Aristotle uses the word πολιτικὴ as comprising what we more usually term ethics.
12. The name of this ultimate end is very easily given. There is no dispute about that. Both philosophers and the vulgar agree in calling it happiness. Happiness is the chief good, the ultimate end at which all human beings aim.
13. But there is a great diversity of opinion as to what happiness is. Philosophers differ from the vulgar; they differ, too, among themselves as to the nature of happiness. There are four theories of happiness, or good, which may be briefly mentioned: first, "that the good is an abstract something which exists independently, and through which all things that are good are constituted good;" secondly, that "it is sensual pleasure;" thirdly, that it is honour as attained in society; and fourthly, that "it consists in a life of intellectual contemplation." Such are the four opinions enumerated by Aristotle as the theories of happiness most in vogue at the time when he wrote.
14. He expresses his dissatisfaction with them all. The first is the Platonic doctrine, according to Aristotle's interpretation of it. It is too abstruse and mystical to be of any practical value. The second theory may suit brute animals, but is not applicable to man. The third is true to some extent, but is incomplete. The fourth is the truest of the four, and is adopted by Aristotle as part of his own doctrine; but it too is incomplete, and requires to be largely supplemented before it can be embraced.
15. Aristotle then proceeds to declare his own views as to the nature of happiness, and as to the way in which the inquiry after it should be conducted. To find out what man's happiness is, we must first of all, he says, find out what man's proper work, or function, or vocation is. When we have discovered this, we shall have no difficulty in discovering wherein his happiness consists. For the function which a man has to fulfil, the work which he has to do, being known, his happiness will be seen to centre in the discharge of that function, in the performance of that work.
16. We ask, then, what is man's proper work or office? It may help us to find out this if we consider what his proper work is not. Man's proper work is not the maintenance of a mere organic life, for that, we may say, is the proper work of vegetables; but man is not a vegetable. Nor is the attainment and maintenance of pleasurable sensations the proper work of a man, for that is the proper business of mere animals, but man is not a mere animal. The proper work of man, therefore, is not mere life, because he is not a creature that merely lives; and it is not mere sensation, because he is not a creature that merely feels.
17. What, then, is the proper work of a man? To ascertain this we must ascertain what man's peculiar property or attribute is. His peculiar property or attribute is reason. He has life in common with all organised creatures; he has sensation in common with all animated creatures; but he has reason as an endowment, which is peculiar to himself. Man's proper work, therefore, the vocation he has to discharge, must stand closely related to the peculiar characteristic, namely, the rational nature, with which he has been endowed; and hence man's true work or function, as defined by Aristotle, is as follows—"The work of man is a conscious and active life of the soul in accordance with reason."[1] This, he says, is the proper work of all men; it is the endeavour of the good man to lead this life in the most noble and perfect manner possible.
18. Man's proper vocation having been thus defined by Aristotle, he then defines his proper happiness in accordance with that definition. The definition of happiness is this—" Man's good or happiness is a conscious and active and rational life of the soul in accordance with virtue or excellence, and carried on in favourable external circumstances."[2] You will perceive that this definition embraces in its latter clause those elements of happiness, namely, the good gifts of fortune, which the world at large is apt to regard as forming almost the sole constituents of felicity, but which some schools of morality, the Stoics, for example, were inclined to exclude altogether from the conception of happiness.
19. It is obvious that there is but little difference between these two definitions, the definition of man's work and the definition of his happiness. Man's work is defined in almost the same terms in which man's happiness is defined; and it may be thought that this close resemblance of the two shows rather a want of discrimination on the part of Aristotle. But a small degree of reflection may satisfy us that the two definitions must bear a close resemblance to each other, and that their perfection consists in their differing from each other but slightly; for, observe, if man's proper work be a certain kind of life or mode of action, then his proper happiness must consist in doing that work welt His vocation is a particular kind of life; his happiness, therefore, is his living that kind of life in the best way possible. For example, if it is the proper business of a tree to put forth blossoms and to produce fruits, then we might say it will be that the happiness of the tree would consist in doing this abundantly and well. So that Aristotle, having defined man's proper work as consisting in a particular kind of life, is strictly logical in his procedure when he defines his happiness as consisting in living that life well. The two definitions stated in their simplest forms will stand thus: first, in regard to man's work, man's proper work is living reasonably; second, in regard to man's happiness, man's happiness is his living reasonably, in the best and noblest manner, and in the midst of favourable external conditions.
20. These definitions, which may appear to be little better than truisms, and which look rather clumsy in any English translation that can be made of them, will lead us immediately into an inquiry of greater interest and importance. But first let us note the elements which are involved in Aristotle's definition of happiness. First, it is mental, and not bodily; it centres in reason, and not in sense; secondly, it implies excellence, that is, virtue; thirdly, it is an activity, or energy, and not a mere potentiality of our nature; and fourthly, it implies a life favourably situated in regard to its external lot. All these conditions must combine in order to render human happiness complete; and Aristotle holds that his definition is the only one which embraces within it the whole of them.
21. It has been said, in the terms of our definition, that man's proper office is to live rationally, and that his happiness consists in living rationally in the best or most excellent way. Hence the new question arises, What is the best or most excellent way of living rationally? To answer this question, we must again inquire into the constitution of human nature. This constitution is made up mainly of two parts. First, the principle of reason; and secondly, the principle of desire. Stated shortly, reason and passion are the two principal constituents of man's ψυχή, or immaterial part. In regard to reason, it has an excellence of its own in which the intellectual virtues consist. (These we leave out of view at present.) The matter which requires our consideration is the relation between reason and the passions. It is the office of reason to control the passions. The passions are able to obey, but they have also a tendency to resist the influence of reason. The passions, we may say, quicken and arouse the reason; the reason checks and guides the passions; and the action of the one of these upon the other constitutes the moral nature of man. The due and proper working of this moral nature constitutes man's excellence or virtue. So that the answer to our question, What is the best and most excellent way of living rationally? is this, That the best and most excellent way of living rationally is by maintaining the due and proper working of our moral nature, a nature made up, as has been said, of reason and passion.
22. This answer gives rise to the new question, But what is the due and proper working of man's moral nature? (I may here remark in passing, that in thus carrying on the inquiry by the way of question and answer, I am going to work more formally and methodically even than Aristotle himself. But this procedure may conduce, I think, to distinctness of exposition.) The obvious answer to this question is, that the due and proper working of man's moral nature must consist in such an adjustment between reason and passion, as that the one of these, the reason, shall guide and govern, and that the other, the passions, shall obey even while they contrive to impel. When this adjustment is effected, the right working of man's moral nature is secured; in other words, moral virtue is the result, while happiness is at the same time attained, inasmuch as man is now living a rational life in the best and noblest way in which such a life can be led—in accordance, namely, with excellence or virtue.
23. But a new question arises out of the answer which has just been given. That answer was this, that the right working of man's moral nature was an arrangement in which reason ruled and passion obeyed. This answer brings forward the new question, But how is such an arrangement or adjustment to be brought about? in other words, How is moral virtue to be produced?
24. To this question Aristotle answers in one word, that moral virtue is produced or acquired by habit. Practise the virtues and you will acquire them; and you can acquire them in no other way. This answer is more important and more profound than it appears. It is opposed at once to the doctrine that virtue is implanted in us by nature, or comes to us merely from nature, and to the doctrine which Plato seems to have favoured, that virtue might be merely theoretical, might consist in a mere knowledge of what is right. Both of these doctrines were impugned by Aristotle in the assertion that the practice of virtue, its habitual exercise, was necessary to the attainment and existence of virtue.
25. The following remarks, in which Aristotle shows that the moral virtues are not ours by nature, but are acquired by custom, are well worthy of your consideration. Near the commencement of book second he says—[3]
"Not one of the moral virtues comes to be in us merely by nature; because, of such things as exist by nature, none can be changed by custom; a stone, for instance, by nature gravitating downwards, could never by custom be brought to ascend, not even if one were to try and accustom it by throwing it up ten thousand times; nor could fire again be brought to descend, nor in fact could anything whose nature is in one way be brought by custom to be in another. The virtues, then, come to be in us neither by nature nor against nature; but we are naturally disposed to receive them, and are perfected in them by habit.
"Again, all the things that come to us by nature we possess first as faculties (δυνάμεις); afterwards we exhibit them in actual operation (τἀς ἐνέργειας). This is clear with regard to the senses, for we did not get our senses by hearing often and seeing often, but, on the contrary, we had them and then used them; we did not have them by using them. But the virtues we gain by having acted first, as is the case with the arts also, for those things which one must learn before one can do, one learns by doing; as, for instance, by building, builders are formed, and by harping, harpers. So too, by doing just things we become just; by doing temperate things, temperate; by doing brave things, brave.
"And to the truth of this, testimony is borne by what takes place in communities; because the lawgivers make the individual members good men by habituation: and this is the intention, certainly, of every lawgiver, and all who do it not well fail of their intent; and herein consists the difference between a good government and a bad one.
"Again, from the same given circumstances, and by the same means used, all excellence is both produced and destroyed, for by harp-playing both the good and the bad harpers are formed; and similarly of builders and all the rest, for by building well, men will become good builders, by building badly, bad ones; in fact, if this had not been so there would have been no need of instructors, but all men would have been at once good or bad in their several arts without them.
"So, too, is it with the virtues; for by acting in the various relations in which we are thrown with our fellow-men, we come to be, some just, some unjust; and by acting in dangerous positions, and being habituated to feel confidence or fear, we become, some brave, others cowards.
"Similarly also it is with respect to occasions of desire and anger, for some men become perfected in self-control, others become incontinent and passionate, the former by acting in certain circumstances in one way, and the latter by acting in similar circumstances in a different way. In one word, habits (ἕξεις) are formed out of corresponding acts (ἐνέργειαι), wherefore it is proper that the acts should be of a right quality, in order that the habits which they generate may be of a right quality too. And it makes no small, but a great, yea, the greatest of differences, whether we are accustomed to act in this or in that particular way, even from our earliest childhood."
26. I go on to offer a few words of comment on the quotation from Aristotle's Ethics brought before you in the preceding section. His doctrine in regard to our having no natural capacity, δύναμις, or virtue may require some slight explanation, in order to prevent it from being misconceived. There are, according to Aristotle, two kinds of δύναμις, a δύναμις properly so called, and a δύναμις less properly so called. The δύναμις properly so called is a natural power, always followed by a constant and uniform species of ἐνέργεια; the δύναμις less properly so called, may issue in two opposite species of ἐνέργεια. The former may be called a δύναμις restricted to one issue; the latter may be called a δύναμις capable of two opposite issues; it is in fact called so by Aristotle, δύναμις τῶν ἐναντίων. To illustrate these two, taking Aristotle's as well as other examples, a stone has a δύναμις of falling downwards to the earth; it is limited to that one issue; it has no δύναμις of falling upwards. When the δύναμις passes into act or ἐνέργεια, the stone takes a downward course, δύναμις proper. A grain of wheat has a δύναμις of passing into the green blade and then into the full ear. It has no power of doing the opposite. Its ἐνέργεια cannot issue either in a withholding of its increase or in the production of a noxious weed. So in regard to our senses. This is a case of δύναμις proper. The δύναμις of seeing or of hearing cannot issue in a result the opposite of hearing or of seeing. The capacities of seeing or of hearing terminate respectively in the acts of seeing or of hearing, and cannot terminate in blindness or in deafness, as alternatives equally open to them. These, then, are illustrations of δύναμις properly so called, that is, of δύναμις restricted, to one issue. And that issue follows or obeys the law of the δύναμις that is to say, nothing more than the δύναμις is required to bring about the resulting ἐνέργεια.
27. But suppose that a stone had a capacity for falling upwards as well as downwards. Suppose that wheat had a capacity, not only to grow but to refuse to grow, or that it had a capacity of growing into a noxious weed. Suppose that our eyes, when in their normal state, and when wide open, had a capacity of being blind as well as a capacity for seeing. Suppose that our ears, when their function was entire, had a capacity for being deaf as well as a capacity for hearing. In these cases we should have so many illustrations of what Aristotle calls the δύναμις τῶν ἐναντίων, which, properly speaking, is not a δύναμις at all. These cases are fictitious; but there are real cases of δύναμις τῶν ἐναντίων, the capacity of contraries; and such an example is found in the moral nature of man. We are capable of becoming either virtuous or vicious, and in the same circumstances too. And hence we have no capacity of virtue in the sense in which a stone has a capacity of falling downwards, or in which a man has a capacity of seeing. Of two seeds of the same kind, and placed in the same circumstances, the one cannot grow up an ear of corn and the other a useless weed; but of two men placed in the same circumstances, the one may grow up a virtuous and the other a vicious character. Hence the moral capacity of these two men, and we may say of man generally, is quite different from the physical capacity of things, and quite different from man's physical capacities, all of which are restricted to one issue, and are properly called δυνάμεις, because the acts (ἐνέργειαι) are determined by these capacities and arise out of them. But the others, the δύναμις τῶν ἐναντίων, being capable of issuing in two opposite acts or ἐνέργειαι, are not rightly regarded as δυνάμεις at all. At any rate you must keep in mind the broad distinction between them and the natural δυνάμεις. The δύναμις τῶν ἐναντίων being open indifferently to two issues, has obviously no power of determining its own issue. That issue is determined, not by the δύναμις, but by something else; that something else being, in the case of the moral virtues, the principle of free-will, of which I shall say a word immediately, and the power of custom.
28. You will now, I think, understand the sense in which Aristotle alleges that we have no natural capacity for virtue; we have no natural capacity for it in the way in which we have a capacity for seeing, or in which a stone has a capacity for falling to the earth. We have a capacity for virtue only in the sense that this capacity is also a capacity for vice. It may perhaps be convenient to retain the word capacity in this signification, but we must keep in mind that the word thus used signifies something very different from what is indicated by the other employment of the term. According to Aristotle, then, we have no natural capacity for virtue or for vice, but only what may be improperly termed a capacity for either of these indifferently. In certain circumstances a man may become virtuous; in the same circumstances he may also become vicious. This shows that man has no natural capacity for either of these. For out of a natural capacity the only issue that can come in the form of acts must be of one constant and uniform kind.
29. Out of this doctrine that man has no natural capacity for virtue, arises Aristotle's doctrine of freewill, προαίρεσις, deliberate purpose, determination, or choice. If man had a capacity for virtue, that is, a natural tendency, which was irresistible, and which carried him to virtue whether he would or not, he could, of course, have no free-will or power of choice. The law of the δύναμις would determine the act as its inevitable consequence. But man's capacity for virtue being equally a capacity for vice, in other words, not strictly speaking a capacity at all, it follows that man must be determined either to virtue or to vice by something different from such a capacity, and that by which he is determined is the power or principle of free-will (προαίρεσις).
30. Inasmuch, then, as man has no natural capacity of virtue, but only a capacity of being either virtuous or vicious, the question arises, How does man become determined either to a virtuous or to a vicious course of action? The answer is, that he is determined to the one or other of these through a power of free-will or choice (προαίρεσις), and not through any natural capacity. But this power of choice is not sufficient to make him either virtuous or vicious. He must acquire the one or the other of these dispositions through custom, as has been already pointed out to you. By the practice of virtue he acquires the habit, ἕξις, of virtue; by the practice of vice he acquires the habit of vice. In fact, this is a case in which δύναμις rather follows ἐνέργεια. In the case of the natural δύναμις the power or capacity precedes, the act, ἐνέργεια, follows, and the ἐνέργεια does not react, or reacts but little, on the δύναμις in the way of strengthening or confirming it. But in the virtues, and also in the operations involved in the different acts, ἐνέργεια comes first, and δύναμις follows; the capacity is created by the practice, the practice does not arise out of the capacity. When the capacity has been created by the practice, we may then say that we have a capacity or power of virtue, δύναμις τῆς ἀρητῆς; but Aristotle calls this power, not δύναμις, but ἕξις, or habit, which, however, is nothing but an acquired δύναμις.
31. These explanations having been given, we shall have no great difficulty in removing a certain objection which may be taken to this doctrine, of the origin of virtue. Aristotle has himself taken notice of the objection I refer to; it is this:—The objector says that some sort of paradox, or at least confusion, is involved in the doctrine that virtue is a habit. We are told, says he, that virtue is properly a habit, and then we are told that, in order to acquire this habit, we must first of all practise virtue. But how can we practise virtue, if, in order to practise it, we must have already practised it? How can we get a beginning? Or, if we can practise virtue before we have acquired the habit of virtue, how can it be said that virtue is properly a habit? For example, how can it be said that we become just, by doing just things? If we can do just things, in order to acquire the virtue of justice, we are surely just already, and antecedent to the practice of justice. Aristotle's solution of this difficulty or confusion seems to be as follows:—
32. "Virtue follows the analogy of the arts, in which the first essays of the learner may by chance, or by the guidance of his master (ἀπὸ τύχης καὶ ἄλλου ὑποθεμένου), attain a sort of success or an artistic appearance, but the learner is no artist as yet."[4] Playing on the fiddle, for example, is an art, and the power or capacity of playing on the fiddle may be called a habit—a habit acquired, and only to be acquired, by practising on that instrument. Thus we may say without a paradox, that a fiddler becomes a fiddler (i.e., a master on that instrument) by being already a fiddler (that is, a learner or imperfect performer on that instrument); and so of all the other arts, they are all acquired only by our already being to some extent that which we desire to become to a greater extent, and it is only after we have become completely what we already are imperfectly, that we are entitled to the name of artist. Thus we may say that painting is a habit and that he alone who has acquired this habit as a confirmed power of mind and of hand, is a painter; and yet it would be quite true to say that he could acquire this habit only by the practice of painting; in other words, that he could become a painter only by already being a painter, although his first essays might be unworthy of the name of painting.
33. So in regard to virtue, it is a habit, and it is acquired by means of certain virtuous acts; but these acts are as yet imperfect, are as little entitled to be called virtuous acts as the first harsh essays on the fiddle by a musical tyro are entitled to be called tunes; or as the first pair of leathern encumbrances fabricated by an apprentice to St Crispin are deserving of the appellation of shoes. "The first acts by which we acquire justice, are, according to Aristotle, not really and properly just: they want the moral qualification of that settled internal character in the heart and mind of the agent without which no external act is virtuous in the highest sense of the term." They are helps and tendencies towards the acquirement of this character, as the first essays of the artist are towards the acquirement of an art. But they are not to be confounded with those moral acts which flow from the character when developed and fixed.
34. Aristotle's doctrine in regard to virtue being a habit (in Greek ἕξις) will be better understood if we consider it in relation to what he calls δύναμις, that is, power or capacity, and to what he calls ἐνέργεια, that is, energy or actuality. All men are born with certain natural powers or capacities (δυνάμεις); they have a δύναμις or capacity of growth, of feeling pleasure and pain, of seeing, hearing, and of using their other senses. When from this capacity to grow growth actually ensues, the δύναμις passes into ἐνέργεια or actuality. When man's capacity to feel pleasure and pain, his capacity to see, hear, and so forth, become the actual feeling of pleasure or pain, become actual seeing, actual hearing, and so forth, the δύναμις; has passed into ἐνέργεια. Now, observe that in such cases the ἐνέργεια does not react upon the δύναμις. Actual seeing (ἐνέργεια) does not create the capacity of seeing. The capacity exists first: the practical operation is its consequence. This is to be particularly borne in mind in considering these natural δυνάμεις or capacities, and the practical operations that arise out of them: this, I say, is to be borne in mind, that the capacities come first and the operations second, and that the latter do not react, or react but very slightly, on the former. As I have said, it is not by using his eyes that a man acquires the power of seeing, it is not by actually feeling pleasure that a man acquires the power of feeling pleasure; he already has from nature the power of seeing and the power of feeling pleasure, and when these powers pass into act (ἐνέργεια), he sees and he feels pleasure. These are cases in which δύναμις comes first and ἐνέργεια follows.
35. Now, it has here to be asked, does this analogy hold good in regard to man's capacity of virtue and his practice of virtue? Has man first a power or capacity of virtue, and then a practice conformable thereto, just as he has a power of seeing and of performing other operations, and a practice arising out of these powers? Aristotle answers, No; the analogy does not hold good; the cases are entirely different. Instead of the practice of virtue (ἐνέργεια) arising out of the capacity or δύναμις of virtue, it is rather the δύναμις which arises out of the ἐνέργεια or practice. To acquire the power or capacity or disposition of virtue, we must first of all be virtuous. The practice of virtue reacts so powerfully on the capacity of virtue, that it may be said almost to create that capacity. In this respect, then, the δύναμις and ἐνέργεια of virtue are very different from the natural δυνάμεις and ἐνέργειαι before spoken of. In the latter cases the actuality proceeds out of the capacity; in the former the capacity is first formed by means of the actuality. Now a δύναμις, or power or capacity, acquired by practice, is called by Aristotle ἕξις, a habit or permanent condition; and this is what he says the true character of virtue is: it is not δύναμις, or natural power issuing anew in certain natural actions, but it is ἕξις, a moral habit acquired by the practice of certain actions, and issuing anew in the performance of actions which possess a higher moral significance on account of the habit out of which they flow.
36. Perhaps you will here ask, Has, then, man, according to Aristotle, no natural capacity of virtue? and if he has not, how does he ever put forth those acts by means of which he is said to acquire the habit, or disposition, or capacity of virtue? The answer seems to be, that man has no original capacity of virtue, but he has an original capacity of acquiring that capacity. Man has no original capacity of virtue as he has an original capacity of seeing; but although we cannot say that man has a natural or original capacity for virtue, we may nevertheless say that he has an original capacity of acquiring that capacity, just as he has an original capacity of acquiring a capacity of painting. Let me illustrate this.
37. Sir Joshua Reynolds has a capacity of painting. Is that an original capacity? No; all that he had originally was a capacity of acquiring that capacity. His capacity of painting he acquired by long study and repeated efforts; but no doubt he had an original capacity which enabled him to make these efforts. Now, this original capacity is, in Aristotle's language, a δύναμις, a natural power; the acquired capacity, the capacity of painting resulting from these repeated efforts, this, in Aristotle's language, is a ἕξις or confirmed habit; and it is in virtue of this, and not in virtue of the original power, that Sir Joshua is entitled to the name of a painter. So, in regard to virtue, all men have by nature the capacity of acquiring the capacity of virtue. But all men do not acquire this capacity. Those only acquire it who persevere in the practice of virtue, just as those only acquire the capacity of painting who labour assiduously with the brush and the pallet There is in man a natural power, or capacity, or δύναμις, which enables him to perform those actions by which the capacity of virtue is gradually acquired; but this natural power is not itself that capacity; or at any rate it is not this until it has been so reacted upon by the practice of virtue as to have become a confirmed habit, or ἕξις, of the mind. The main points then, comprehended under Aristotle's assertion that virtue is a habit may be summed up as follows:—
38. There is, first, an unconfirmed or indefinite power of acting either rightly or wrongly. This may be called a δύναμις in the sense already explained; but δύναμις more properly applies to powers which are limited by nature to one issue, which the power in question is not: it is open indifferently either to virtue or vice. Then, secondly, there is προαίρεσις, a power of choice, involving freedom, reflection, deliberation, and will. This power may for a time be guided by instructors. But its proper function is that of self-determination: a man is self-determined to be either virtuous or vicious. Then, thirdly, there is ἐνέργεια. This is the act, or rather the continually-repeated act, the practice or custom through which, fourthly, the ἕξις or habit of virtue (or vice) is formed. This practice is the most important element in the process: through it the ἕξις, or habit, or disposition, is built up. It is the sap which feeds and supports the life of our moral nature. ̒Έξισ includes an insight or recognition of the worth and excellence of this habit, and of the actions by which it has been formed. There is, fifthly, the conduct which flows out of this ἕξις, conduct to which alone the epithet of virtuous, in the highest sense of the word, can be applied.
39. A further point to be noticed in treating of the ethics of Aristotle is this, that virtue is voluntary, that is, it is dependent on ourselves. In other words, it is a matter of choice and election. We have it in our power to prefer and practise the right, and to reject and eschew the wrong. This position, in which there is certainly no great originality, seems to have been advanced in opposition to those who saw no other ground for morality than blind obedience to the dictates of law; to the sophistical opinion that the actions of men are prompted by a blind and irresistible instinct; that men always pursue what appears to them at the time to be for their own good; that they are not the masters or the makers of their own conception of good; that nature has fixed this for them; and that if they pursue evil under the appearance or semblance of good, the fault is not theirs but hers. In fact, even at this early period the doctrine seems to have been broached that man, in all his actions, was the slave or victim of necessity, that his conduct was determined by a power over which he had no control, and that therefore he could not justly be held responsible for his actions, or regarded as amenable to punishment when he had done wrong. In opposition to this doctrine, Aristotle maintains that man's conduct is voluntary; that he is a free as well as an intelligent agent; and that therefore he, and not nature, is the source and originator of his actions; and that, by a further consequence, he is accountable for the good or the evil which he does, and is a proper subject of praise and reward when he has done well, of reprobation and punishment when he has done ill. Aristotle admits that after men's dispositions are formed, after they have acquired a settled habit, either of virtue or of vice, that then they have little or no control over their conduct; that it is difficult, if not impossible, for the thoroughly depraved to reform. At the same time he holds that their character, at one period, was in their own hands; that the formation of their disposition was originally in their own power; that in acquiring the habit, whether of virtue or of vice, they were at first entirely free; that, by the early practice of virtuous actions, they might have attained, and would have attained, to that habit of mind which it is now too late for them to acquire; and therefore their plea of irresponsibility, grounded on their alleged want of control over their own conduct, can no more be listened to than can the argument of him who, after having thrown a stone, and been challenged for the damage he has done, should plead that he had no control over the stone after it had left his hand. The answer is, That may be very true, but why did it ever leave your hand? As long as it remained, in it, you had over it a perfect control. Compare Jeremy Taylor, 'On the Nature and Causes of Good and Evil,' c. 1:—"The will is the mistress of all our actions. . . . The action itself is good or bad by its conformity to, or difformity from, the rule of conscience; but the man is good or bad by the will;" and foll. (Vol. iii p. 630, ed. London, 1836.)
40. In connection with this topic, I may introduce a short discussion, which has application not to the ethics of Aristotle only, but to all ethical systems whatever. I ask, what is it that we pronounce our moral judgments upon? And I answer, that it is always upon the will, either of ourselves or others, that these judgments are directed. This may not always appear to be the case; for sometimes we seem to be judging the act without considering the will at all. How is this to be explained? How does it happen that the act appears frequently to be that which we judge, while in truth it is always the will of the agent on which a judgment is really pronounced. The answer is, or at least part of the answer is, that it is only by and through the act that we can know the mind or will of the agent. We can read no heart but our own, and even our own we read but imperfectly. The spirit of man lies enshrouded in secrecy till it leaps forth into action. Thus we only know the mind of others when shown in some act exterior to themselves, and in which the inner workings of their spirits have been made as we think visible. Our love and hate are thus suspended at first, at least, not directly on the will of the person whom we judge, but on the exterior symbols or evidences of that will. If we could read directly the minds of other men, we should judge them by their own inherent beauty and deformity, and not by that beauty and deformity as shown in their outward conduct and demeanour. But we cannot do this. We can only judge of what is within from our observation of what is without, and from that which shows itself overtly we judge of the hidden character. Hence it is that we often seem, even to ourselves, to be expending all our indignation on vicious actions, when in reality it is the vicious will of the agent which moves our resentment.
41. In explaining this apparent transference of our judgment from the will to the act, there is another circumstance of still greater importance to be attended to, this, namely, that the act is only the will completed. Till the moment of action, the last decision of the will is uncertain. A man knows not what he has the heart to do till the moment of action arrive. He goes forth armed for the execution of his purpose, but it is possible that compunction or remorse may hold him back; and hence, while the action is unperformed, the intention, too, of the agent must be regarded as uncertain, and we cannot pronounce an infallible judgment until the action has tested it. So long as the hand is restrained, the mind remains free; the will may still recoil from the deed of guilt on which it may have resolved. But when the act is consummated, all doubt is put an end to; the will is completed. Before this it was only incipient or inchoate; now it has put forth the full fruit of guilt. Hence a man's acts are of great importance in determining our judgments of his conduct, although it is really his will that we judge.
42. Further, in conceiving the manner in which our thoughts are inevitably affected by the act, as something distinct and separate from the mind and will of the agent, we cannot help considering the state in which a man has placed himself by his act, in comparison with the state he held before its perpetration. We suppose the act to be some deed of guilt. Before this act he occupied a respectable place in society. Now, the moment the act is over, he is, it may be, a murderer, and he feels the irrevocable doom that awaits him. One moment ago, his whole futurity hung in suspense before him: it was still possible for that futurity to be filled with virtue and happiness. That moment is past; the deed is done; there is no locus pœnitentiæ for him now, in so far, at least, as man is concerned; and the result must go with him for evermore. The indignation of his fellow-men pursues him from place to place; the phantom of an ignominious death haunts him till its shadow becomes a reality. All these horrors his one act has in a moment brought upon him. All these accompany the act, they intensify our imagination of it. But still, though our mind naturally fastens on the act, and on these its results, it is not these that are the objects of our judgment. It is the will of the agent that we condemn. But then we must look also to the act and to the circumstances, because it is by these only that the will is consummated or made known to us.
43. You may thus see how very different degrees of guilt and of reprehension attach to a will which, though wickedly inclined, shrinks from the commission of a meditated crime, and one which goes forward without flinching to the fulfilment of its purpose. Nature herself has raised barriers which the will, irresolute in wickedness, fears to overleap. This man has not passed the fatal Rubicon of crime. He still may be restored. His hand may have let fall the dagger when in the very act of striking the blow. He may have made up his mind to commit the murder, but he does not commit it. Our judgment of this man is very different from that which we pronounce on him whose will has gone forward to the perpetration of the deed. And our judgments are thus different: our judgment in the one case is much more lenient than in the other, because, although in both cases a guilty will is the subject of our condemnation, still the will of the one man did not pass into act, did not show that it was fully formed and complete, while that of the other did; and hence there is nothing inconsistent in our maintaining that it is the will alone on which our moral judgments are pronounced, although acts must also be looked to as the only evidence we can have of the matured existence of the will.
44. Shakespeare has a fine description in the following passage of the unsettled state of the mind when the will is hesitating about the perpetration of a great crime, and when the passions are threatening to overpower, and do eventually overpower, the reason and the conscience. Brutus, meditating on the conspiracy by which Julius Cæsar is slain, and in which he was to bear a prominent part, thus expresses himself:—
" Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream:
The Genius and the mortal instruments,
Are then in council; and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection."
One might have supposed that Shakespeare knew Plato.
45. I am endeavouring to give you as connected a view as possible of the ethics of Aristotle. The best way, perhaps, of overtaking this end is by presenting to you the system in a series of questions and answers, so couched that each answer calls up into view a new question, until the whole series has been gone through. Before bringing forward the question which arises out of our last answer, I shall recapitulate very shortly the catechism, as I may call it, which we have already gone over. First, What is the main purpose of ethical, or, as Aristotle frequently calls it, political science? Answer, To ascertain the chief and ultimate end of human action, and to point out the means of its attainment. Second question, What is the chief and ultimate end of human action? Answer, Human happiness. This raises the third question, What is human happiness? Answer: In order to reply to this question, we must ascertain what is the proper work or function of a man: for the happiness of any being must be intimately connected with the function which it has to discharge. What, then, is the function or proper work of a man? A conscious and active and rational life of the soul, or, more shortly, living reasonably, is the proper work of a man. Out of this definition arises the answer to our third question. That third question was, What is human happiness? And the answer as now obtained is, Human happiness is living reasonably in the best and noblest manner (κατ᾽ ἀρετὴν is Aristotle's expression), and in agreeable circumstances, for the happiness or well-being of every creature must consist in doing well that which is its proper work or vocation. This answer instantly raises the fourth question, But what is the best and noblest manner of living reasonably? Answer, By so regulating our moral nature, which is made up of reason and the passions, that reason shall govern and passion obey; in other words, by so regulating our moral nature as to develop the virtues: for the virtues arise out of the governance which reason exercises over the passions. This answer calls forward the fifth question, But how is this adjustment to be effected? by what means are the moral virtues to be developed? Answer, By means of custom. The practice of virtue, a practice which is sooner or later determined and directed by free-will, this practice produces the habit or disposition of virtue. While this habit is being formed the virtues are more or less incomplete. It is only when the habit is fully formed that they are complete, and are entitled to be called virtues in the highest and strictest sense of the word. But I must abstain from all discussion. The short answer to the fifth question is, The virtues are developed by means of custom or repeated practice. This answer brings up a new question, one on which I have not yet touched. I proceed to lay it before you.
46. Virtue, we have said, is a habit acquired through custom or practice. The new or sixth question which arises out of this answer is this, What is the kind of custom or practice which gives rise to the virtues? Answer, The practice out of which the virtues arise is a practice, to state it in short and somewhat technical language, a practice of aiming at the mean. Virtue is a middle between two extremes. Accustom yourselves to that middle, and you will settle down in the virtues. Perhaps a simpler and less formal answer to our question, What is the custom or practice which gives rise to the virtues? would be this, The practice which produces virtues is "the avoidance of excess and defect." Medio tutissimus ibis. And thus the answer to our sixth question, which, I think, is closely and logically affiliated to the questions which have gone before it, brings us to the celebrated Aristotelic position, that virtue is a mean or middle between two extremes, which in themselves are vices. We shall consider this position for a few minutes.
47. We are now able to define virtue, which we could not do until this sixth question was answered. Previous to that question we had declared that virtue was a habit. But there are other habits besides the virtuous. Vice may be called a habit. Habit, therefore, is only the genus under which virtue falls. We want its differentia. Do we obtain this when we say that virtue is a habit produced by practice? We certainly do not, for all habits are produced by practice. But we do obtain this differentia when we look to the answer to the sixth question, and when we say, Virtue is a habit which aims at the mean. Every habit which steers clear of excess on the one hand, and of defect on the other hand, partakes of the quality of virtue. And accordingly, Aristotle's definition of virtue is, that it is a disposition or state or habit (genus) of aiming at the mean between two opposite vices (difference).48. Virtue, according to Aristotle, consists in a medium between two extremes. This is a sound practical doctrine, and, viewed as a metaphysical truth, it is more profound than it appears. It of course means that any virtue, by being carried too far, either in the direction of excess or of deficiency, loses the character, and becomes undeserving of the name of virtue. Thus courage, ἀνδρεία, is a mean between cowardice and rashness. The man who flies from all danger is a coward; the man who rushes on all dangers is madly rash. But the brave man is he who neither flies from all dangers, nor rushes on all dangers, but who faces all dangers which reason directs him in the circumstances to encounter. The virtue of courage is thus a mean between the extremes of cowardice and rashness. So he who gives himself up to all pleasures is a voluptuary; and he who refuses all pleasures is austere, insensible, or unsociable. The virtue of temperance, σωφροσύνη, therefore lies in the middle between sensuality and asceticism; sensuality is the excess of self-indulgence; σωφροσύνη is the middle, self-control or temperance; asceticism or insensibility or repugnance to all pleasure is the defect on the opposite side. Aristotle regards this deficiency rather as imaginary than real, for insensibility to pleasure can very seldom or never be laid to the charge of human nature. Indeed, it may be said generally, that all the virtues incline more towards one of the two terms which are laid down as their extremes than towards the other; and therefore the statement is not perfectly accurate which represents each virtue as a mid-point between two extremes, if we mean by a mid-point a point exactly in the middle. For courage certainly inclines more towards rashness than it does towards cowardice; generosity inclines more towards profusion than towards stinginess; and so I believe in regard to every virtue that could be named; the one extreme always lies at a greater distance than the other from the virtue which is placed between them. But, no doubt, for practical purposes, it is a very true account of the virtues to represent them as occupying a middle place between two extremes, the extreme of excess and the extreme of deficiency. From this account of the virtues, you may perceive that Aristotle, like Adam Smith, makes their general characteristic to be propriety, i.e., a state in which they are not pushed to the extreme, either of extravagant excess or of still more reprehensible deficiency. In the same way Plato places the essence of virtue in propriety, i.e., in the equilibrium of the soul, which was described in preceding lectures.
49. This doctrine is of a much earlier date than the days of Aristotle. Indeed, it would seem to require no very advanced state of philosophy for men to discover the maxim that "moderation is best," that "excess is to be avoided." Thus, so far back as Hesiod, we find the praise of μέτρια ἔργα, moderate acts. The era of the seven sages produced the saying, afterwards inscribed on the temple of Delphi, μηδὲν ἄγαν, nothing in excess. Now, all that is contained in these popular and prudential sayings is of course also contained in the principle of μεσότης, or the mean which is so conspicuous in the ethics of Aristotle. But Aristotle's principle contains something deeper than this; it is not a mere application of the doctrine of moderation to the subject-matter of the various separate virtues. It takes us back to the Pythagorean ethics, one of the principles of which was, that evil was of the nature of the infinite (the unlimited, the immoderate), that good was of the nature of the finite (the bounded, the moderate). To say that the infinite is evil, and that the finite is good, may seem an entire contradiction to our modern ways of thinking. It is a mode of speech and of thought which may nevertheless be justified. The Pythagoreans held that number or limit was the origin of all intelligibility, of all order; and that whatever was infinite or unlimited (τὸ ἄπειρον) or incalculable, was unintelligible, chaotic, or, as we should say, nonsensical. Limit, τὸ πέρας, therefore, or that which made things finite, or gave them order, this it was which also made them good, just as the want of limit was that which left them in a state of disorder, and, consequently, in a condition of evil. Limit, in fact, was considered as identical with form or law, and the finite or limited was that which was obedient to law; while the unlimited or infinite was that which no law controlled. Out of the union of these two principles, the limiting and the unlimited, the universe arose according to the Pythagoreans. The limiting principle does not limit that which is already limited; such a statement would be absurd. It limits that which in its own nature is unlimited; and out of this combination the beauty and harmony of the universe are formed.
50. Now, this doctrine of the limit and the unlimited (πέρας and τὸ ἄπειρον), which the Pythagoreans applied to all things, this doctrine applied to morals gives rise to the Aristotelic doctrine of the μεσότης, or of virtue as a mean between two extremes. Many passions are in themselves of the nature of the infinite, the unlimited, the excessive; consequently, in themselves they are bad; they are vices. But when checked and controlled by the limit, they become good, they acquire the character of virtues. In fact, all the passions in excess are mere madnesses, and it is their nature to be in excess. But when reduced to finitude, to limit, they become the springs which move the world, the sources out of which all human happiness and all human greatness proceed. Reason or thought is the power which fixes a limit to passion. When this limit is fixed the passion shows as a μεσότης, or mean between two -extremes. Such is the metaphysical, and also historical, explanation of Aristotle's doctrine of the μεσότης. He borrowed it from the Pythagoreans. I should not omit to mention that Plato also has this doctrine; in the Dialogue entitled 'Philebus' it is distinctly propounded.
51. In close connection with our sixth question and answer, this, the seventh question, comes before us: By what test shall a man know whether he has attained to the perfect habit of virtue, or whether he is still but a stumbler in the ways of virtue? This is a question of some practical moment. And Aristotle answers it by saying that a man may know how far he is a proficient in virtue, by reflecting on the ease and satisfaction, or the difficulty and dislike, with which he performs virtuous actions. If the practice of virtue gives him pleasure, his virtuous habit is perfect, or nearly so. If the practice of virtue gives him pain or dissatisfaction, if he feels that it involves a struggle or sacrifice, in that case his virtue is far from perfect, the habit is by no means confirmed. For example, a man denies himself sensual indulgences; he is temperate, and he rejoices and finds pleasure in his temperance. His habit of mind is such that intemperance would give him pain. Such a man has truly attained the virtue of temperance. Again, another man denies himself all sensual gratifications, but he feels pain in doing so; he is grieved by such self-denial; it is to him a sacrifice; he has no pleasure in his temperance. Such a man, according to Aristotle, although he may be, indeed is, on the right road to the acquisition of a virtuous habit, has not yet attained to it; he is, in fact, a voluptuary still, for satisfaction does not accompany the practice of his temperance; and this, according to Aristotle, is the test of virtue, the test which proves whether temperance, or whatever the virtue may be, has truly been attained to or not. In short, if a man has no pleasure in his temperance, such temperance does not deserve the name of virtue. With this doctrine we may agree so far, I think, as to admit that the test which Aristotle lays down is indeed the criterion of the very highest virtue; in other words, that virtue of the most perfect kind always affords pleasure to him who practises it, and that unless it does this it cannot be of the highest order. At the same time, I think it would be unfair to refuse the name of virtuous to that disposition which, in the performance of virtuous actions, could not feel much pleasure, but, on the contrary, felt that some degree of self-sacrifice was involved in their performance. Such a restriction would, I think, be unfair; because such a disposition, though its virtue may not be altogether perfect, may nevertheless be very noble and magnanimous, and an object of our approbation all the more on account of the sacrifice which it is undergoing in the practice of virtue.
52. I believe that Aristotle himself would not have withheld the name of virtuous in a restricted sense to a mind which was struggling to be virtuous, but whose efforts were still accompanied by some degree of pain or self-sacrifice, although in accordance with the theory which makes virtue a habit, he could not admit that such a mind was virtuous in the highest, or indeed in any very high, degree. All habits, when acquired, issue in acts which are easy and agreeable to the agent; if they do not issue in such acts, the habits are not acquired, they are still in a state of formation. The performer is a tyro, but no proficient. He may be skilled in his art up to a certain point, but he is not yet perfect. This is true in regard to all the arts. The musician who plays with difficulty, even though he plays tolerably well, has still much to learn. So the virtuous man, whose virtue is a fight and a struggle, is still more or less in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity, and he may know that he is so just from the pain which accompanies his acts of virtue, as he may know that he has broken loose from these bonds entirely when pleasure mingles with his virtuous exercises. The delight, then, which a man finds in virtue, the misery which he finds in vice, this, according to Aristotle, is the test or criterion by which a man may try whether his virtue is perfect or not, and whether or not he has attained to the assured habit and disposition of virtue.
53. In concluding this account of the chief points contained in the ethical system of Aristotle, I may just add one word on his doctrine concerning happiness. Happiness was with him, as with all the ancient moralists, the great end of man. This is the highest good, the summum bonum, the end for which all beings live, the object which they all pursue. But Aristotle's standard of happiness is high and noble. It consists in the satisfaction, not of the inferior propensities, but of the loftier principles and capacities of our nature. The pleasures which arise when any of our lower desires are gratified, are satisfactions which man shares in common with the brutes. These, therefore, are not peculiar to man. In these human happiness, the happiness which is proper to man, is not to be found. The felicity appropriate to man is to be looked for only in the satisfactions which are aimed at not by a mere animal, but by an intelligent and rational existence. Now, all intelligence seeks and finds its happiness in the unimpeded energies of a life devoted either to action or to contemplation. Human happiness, therefore, consists in a wellbeing of the reason, which finds scope for the unrestrained exercise of its power in a life either of practical action, or of speculative contemplation, both of which lives are states both of wellbeing and of welldoing. In short, Aristotle keeps in view the two ends which I have set forth as constituting the proper goal of all human action, both the εὐπραξία and the εὐδαιμονία. We must first of all live, according to our true nature; we must fulfil the proper law of our being. We must preserve our status as rational beings, as, manly characters; and then, this being secured, we may draw as largely as we can upon the sources of external happiness.
54. In going over the main points of Aristotle's ethics, I have shown you what, according to him, the ultimate end of human action is, and what the means of its attainment are. We have seen, to state the matter in very simple language, that human happiness, or man's ultimate end, consists in living reasonably in the best way possible, and that the best way of living reasonably, is by subjugating our passions to reason. We have seen that this subjugation is effected through custom, and that the custom here practised is that which aims at the mean between two extremes. We have also seen what the test is by which a man may know whether he is truly virtuous or not. A man, according to Aristotle, may perform virtuous actions without being himself virtuous, because he may perform these occasionally, or by fits and starts, without possessing that fixed habit which alone constitutes virtue, in which case he is not properly regarded as a virtuous character.
55. I shall conclude this exposition with a few remarks quoted from Book x. of Aristotle's Ethics, in which he shows that happiness is to be found rather in a life of contemplation, than in a life of practical activity.[5] He says—"Now if happiness be a working in the way of excellence, of course that excellence must be the highest, that is to say, must be the excellence of the best principle of our nature. Whether, then, this best principle is intellect, or some other which is thought naturally to rule, and to lead, and to conceive of noble and divine things; whether being in its own nature divine, or the most divine of all our internal principles, the working of this principle in accordance with its own proper excellence, or the working of this principle in the best way possible, must be the most perfect happiness.
"That this happiness is contemplative, has been already said, and this would seem to be consistent with truth, for this, in the first place, contemplative working is of the highest kind, our intellect being the highest of our internal principles; and the subjects, moreover, with which it is conversant, are the highest that fall within the range of our knowledge.
"Next, this happiness is also the most continuous, for we are better able to contemplate than to do anything else whatever continuously.
"Again, pleasure must be in some way an ingredient of happiness, but speculation, and the pursuit of science, contain pleasures admirable for purity and permanence.
"Self-sufficiency, too, will attach chiefly to the activity of contemplation; for while all other men require companionship and co-operation, the man of pure science can contemplate and speculate even when quite alone, and the more entirely he deserves this appellation, the more able is he to do so; it may be he can do better for having fellow-workers, but still he is certainly most self-sufficient.
"Again, contemplation alone seems to be desired for its own sake, and, therefore, is alone an end in itself. Again, this life of contemplation seems to constitute each man's proper self, and being so, it would be absurd for a man not to choose his own life.
"Further, that the most perfect happiness must be a kind of contemplative activity (θεωρία), may appear also from the following consideration: our conception of the gods is, that they are, above all, blessed and happy. Now, what kind of moral actions are we to attribute to them? Those of justice? Nay, will they not be set in a ridiculous light, if represented as forming contrasts, and restoring deposits, and so on? Well, then, shall we picture them performing brave actions, withstanding objects of fear, and meeting dangers because it is noble to do so? or liberal ones? but to whom shall they be giving? In short, if one followed this subject into all details, the circumstances connected with moral actions will appear trivial and unworthy of the gods.
"Still every one believes that they live, and therefore that they work, because it is not supposed that they sleep their time away like Endymion: now, if from a living being you take away action, still more if creation, what remains but contemplation? So then the working of the gods, eminent in blessedness, will be one apt for contemplative speculation: and of all human workings, that will have the greatest capacity for happiness which is nearest akin to this."
- ↑ ἀνθρώπου δὲ τίθεμεν ἔργον ζωήν τινα, ταύτην δὲ ψυχῆς ἐνέργειαν καὶ πράξεις μετὰ λόγου (σπουδαίου δ᾽ ἀνδρὸς εὖ ταῦτα καὶ καλῶς.—Eth. Nic., 1. 7.
- ↑ Τὸ ἀνθρώπινον ἀγαθὸν ψυχῆς ἐνέργεια γίνεται κατ᾽ ἀρετήν, (εἰ δέ πλείους αἱ ἀρεταί, κατὰ τὴν ἀρίστην καὶ τελειοτάτην). Ἒτι δ᾽ ἐν βίῳ τελείῳ.
- ↑ The translation is partly taken from Mr Chase, partly from Sir A. Grant.
- ↑ Eth. Nic., B. II. 4; Grant p. 75, 1st ed., vol. i. p. 415, 2d ed.
- ↑ C. 7 and 8. Cited mainly from Chase's translation, p. 362 and foll.