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-and it is Aristotle's merit to have stated this in the most unmistakable terms-it is easy to extend it to the altered circumstances of modern times.*

2. We are placed at the right point of view with regard to the true nature of goodness as an end in itself. Modern writers, by laying emphasis on the consequences of action in abstraction from the attitude of the will, or the state of the desires of which action is the expression, have often tended to represent virtue as a means. This confusion is perhaps most clearly marked in writers of the so-called Hedonist school, who represent an attendant circumstance of action, viz. the pleasure produced by it, as the source of its moral value. By his clear grasp of the truth that no action is truly good but that which is done for its own sake, or as he puts it, "because it is a fine thing," Aristotle frees ethics from the difficulty and confusion thus imported into it. Upon this head his teaching is, in fact, as Green says, final. His account of the nature of moral excellence itself was in a sense merely formal, and, as we have already seen, necessarily provisional. But that purity of heart in the sense of a conscious direction of the will to its attainment was the condition of all true virtue, and constituted the essential unity between one form of virtue and another this he taught with a consistency and directness that left nothing to be desired.t

* Speaking of Aristotle's statement that man is born to be a citizen (see above, p. 8, n.), Sir Frederick Pollock says: "There is hardly a saying in Greek literature so well worn as this; nor is there any that has worn better" (History of the Science of Politics, p. 18).

† See Note B.

CHAPTER II.

OPINIONS AS TO THE NATURE OF HAPPINESS.

"Other good

There is where man finds not his happiness;

It is not true fruition, not that blest
Essence, of every good the branch and root."

DANTE.

§ 1. Starting-point and Method of Discussion.

[I. iv. §§ 1-4.]

ARISTOTLE assumes that there will be no difference of opinion as to the general description of the end or good. All agree to call it Happiness. Among ourselves we should not find probably the same general agreement on this head, owing to the confusion of happiness in the wider sense with happiness in the narrower, the permanent state with the transient feeling, variously described as satisfaction, gratification, pleasure. The Greeks had two words, which were quite separate in their minds, the one indicating a quality of life as a whole (vdaμovía), the other the feeling accompanying a momentary state (ndový). It is itself a step in the right direction (ἡδονή). to note at the outset that we may admit that all

seek after happiness, without committing ourselves to the view that the good is pleasure.

In the discussion of the true nature of happiness thus defined, Aristotle has not far to seek for his starting-point. The conception of the chief good seems, as Grant points out,* to have been vaguely present before people's minds, and besides philosophical definitions, such as the "absolute good" of Plato (alluded to in c. i. § 3), Aristotle had before him several popular opinions which had already fixed upon one or other of the elements which required to be united in a complete definition. In what follows we have an excellent example of Aristotle's scientific method. Beginning with common opinions which, in contrast to Plato, he treats with the respect due to instinctive presentiments of the truth (cc. iv., v., vii.),† he works inward to the definition which he seeks (c. vii. § 9 foll.). From this he returns to current opinions (c. viii.), with the view of confirming his own account by showing that it differs from them only in stating fully and explicitly the truth of which they are a partial and confused expression.

§ 2. Digression on the True Foundation of
Ethical Theory'.

[I. c. iv. §§ 5-7.]

But before proceeding to the examination of current opinions we are brought back to the question of the general character of our study, and the important but

*Ethics of Aristotle, vol. i. p. 102.

Cp. X. ii. 4 (p. 301).

somewhat obscure passage which follows deals with the problem of the kind of knowledge or experience on which an ethical theory must be built. Every science starts from some previous knowledge of the student. What we discover is a continuation of, or, rather, is a development out of, what we know already. But if we ask what we mean by "knowing," we see that there are two senses in which we may be said to know a thing. We may know it simply as an object of sense-perception or "matter of fact." In this sense a child, or a savage, or any of us in ordinary moments may know a house. Or, secondly, we may know it as an illustration of a law or principle. In this sense an architect may know a house as illustrating certain principles of mechanics or of art. In the first of these cases we may say the house is "known to the individual." The knowledge differs according to the individual point of view. We might even say each individual sees a different house. In the second case we have knowledge "in the strict sense of the term; knowledge, that is, of something which is the same for all, and is independent of time and circumstances. Now, there is no doubt a sense in which this latter kind of knowledge is "nearer to us," and may be said to come first. Laws and principles touch us on the side most characteristic of us as men, viz. our thought.* Moreover, they come first in that they represent the controlling factors in the process whereby the thing comes to be what it is. On the other hand, the

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*"Principles," says one of the commentators, "are more intimately known because they are of the inner essence of mind."

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particular thing may be said to be nearer to us in the sense that it is an object of sense-perception rather than of thought. For the same reason it also may be said to come first, seeing we know through sense before we know through intelligence. While, then, knowledge of the principle may be said to be first in importance -whether looked at from the point of view of nature, which produces, or mind, which understands thingsthe knowledge of the "fact" is first in time.

All this being so, the answer to the question with which we started becomes clear. In the study of ethics and politics, as in other concrete sciences, we must begin with the actual facts of social life-the moral judgments of the citizens and the actual form which civil life takes, as represented by its laws and institutions. It is true that these judgments and institutions have come to be what they are by the more or less conscious effort of individuals to realize a social good. In this sense the Good may be said to be nearer to us and come first. The ideal towards which society is developing is that which makes us what we most truly are. On the other hand, in the process of realizing in consciousness what the nature of this ideal is, as in knowledge in general, we must begin with the facts of ordinary sense experience. As Professor Stewart puts it: "Happiness is the Final Cause of Life. The various 'virtues' are naturally subsequent to it as being its effects, i.e. as being what they are in virtue of it, just as the hand is a hand in virtue of the body; but they are more evident to us than it is, i.e. we learn (under the influence of

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