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moral training) to discriminate practically, or in our habitual conduct between good and bad actions, before we can form a notion of life as a great whole, and understand why and how they are good and bad; accordingly, we must begin our study of moral science with this merely empirical 'knowledge of the virtues,' and rise from it to the knowledge of their causehappiness."

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But here a difficulty suggests itself: "How," it may be asked, "from the merely empirical knowledge of the facts of the moral life, e.g. acts of courage, can we rise to a knowledge of their cause or principle? These facts are, or appear to be, merely particular physical events happening here and now, whereas the end or good is ex hypothesi a principle of conscious direction, ideal and therefore universal. What is the connexion between fact and principle by which we may ascend from the one to the other?" The answer is that the facts we spoke of as forming the starting-point are not merely particular physical events. As the outcome of "character," i.e. a general habit of the will, they are something far more. Thus the acts of courage, temperance, etc., which form the starting-point of moral science, are not mere isolated events, but represent a fixed character or habit of acting in a particular way, which has been acquired either under the unconscious pressure of social opinion or the influence of teachers conscious of the end they wish to promote. Through habit or character, therefore, the

*Notes on the Nicomachean Ethics, vol. i. p. 54. In this and in other quotations I have substituted the English for Greek terms,

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facts are already more than mere facts. They are facts that embody a principle, and may thus form the starting-point of an inquiry which is to issue in the knowledge of a principle.

This explains why at the outset (I. iii. 5 foll.) so much emphasis was laid upon character as a condition of the profitable study of ethics. Apart from character moral judgments are sounding phrasesmere physical facts-coming home to a man with as little conviction as verses of poetry to one who is drunk.* The man of good character, on the other hand, is already well on the way to a true moral philosophy. Aristotle seems, indeed, to go even further, and to say he does not require one. This, of course, is true, in a sense, of ordinary life; but if taken generally would contradict what has already been said about the practical value of philosophy. What is meant is that while a knowledge of the reason or principle is not necessary for ordinary life (men would not, as a rule, understand it-habit, and the accompanying opinion that the things habitually done are good, being in this case sufficient), for the teacher and the politician such a knowledge is essential. They are concerned with the genesis. of the citizen, and you might as well expect an architect to build good houses without a knowledge of the principles of his profession, as a teacher or a law-giver to produce good citizens without a knowledge of the principles which underlie our actions and judgments.

* Cp. Ethics, VII. c. iii. § 13.

§ 3. Character and Opinion.

[I. c. v. § I.]

The next section contains a further illustration of the relation between character and opinion. The order of thought may be put as follows. In chap. iv. § 3, Aristotle has reminded us that a man's opinions are frequently influenced by the circumstances in which he finds himself-the state of his health, his purse, or his mind, at the time. In chap. v. he goes further, and traces the origin of definite theories of the chief end of life to the habitual preferences of those who hold them. The common order is not, he tells us, first to seek for a true theory of conduct and then proceed to order one's life in accordance with it. On the contrary, a man's choice of life comes first, and reflects itself in any theory he may have occasion afterwards to formulate. Some, "influenced by the lives they lead," "like the slaves that they are," hold that pleasure is the good. Others, again, “with a practical turn," prefer to make honour the end. But after what has been said in the intermediate sections, this is only what we might expect to find. Show me a man,”

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Aristotle there seems to have said, "who is accustomed to do what is right, and I will show you one who is on the road to a right conclusion as to the meaning of what he does—the principle of life in general." Here we have the complementary truth, "Show me a man whose actions are habitually wrong,

*Not "to judge, as we reasonably may, from their lives," as in Peters' translation.

and I can show you one who is likely to hold a distorted view of life."

In maintaining that right action is the only avenue to the apprehension of the principle of reason in life, 'Aristotle here forestalls one of the most important doctrines of the Ethics. It follows directly from his view that moral action is already the implicit recognition of moral truth. It is thus the antithesis of a theory with which we have recently been made familiar in some popular works, viz. that moral beliefs are the result of habits and traditions that have grown up independently of the operation of human reason, and therefore lie beyond the scope of all logical tests.* According to this view conformity to social traditions is a mode of adaptation to environment, but brings a man no nearer to the logos or rational meaning of life. Aristotle admits that habit and tradition are moulding influences in belief, but holds that they themselves represent the action of the social reason seeking the means of that complete self-development which is the end of man. Seeing, then, that the ideal of human development is reflected, however imperfectly, in every action which contributes to true social well-being, in acting morally the individual is preparing himself for the conscious recognition of that ideal. We shall have an opportunity of returning to this, which is indeed the central truth of the Ethics, at a later stage.

*See, for example, Mr. A. J. Balfour's Foundations of Belief. The same view is applied to sociology by Mr. Benjamin Kidd in his Social Evolution.

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§ 4. Opinions as to the Nature of the Good.

[I. c. v. §§ 2 foll.]

The division of life into three main types seems to have been a commonplace of semi-philosophical thought. It is traceable to the celebrated metaphor attributed to Pythagoras, who, according to his biographer, compared the world to the Olympic games, to which some came to buy and sell and make gain; others for the sake of glory and to exhibit the prowess of their body; others-by far the noblest sort-to see the country and noble works of art, and contemplate every excellence of word and deed. Aristotle, in what follows, refines upon this classification by distinguishing between the money-making and the pleasure-seeking life as varieties of the lowest form, rejecting them on different grounds; while, at the other end of the scale, he draws a suggestive distinction between the life of a good man according as his powers are called into active exercise or remain dormant.

1. In dealing with the opinion that pleasure is the end (§3), Aristotle is not thinking of the deeper form which it had already assumed in the school of the Cyrenaics, and which was still further deepened and dignified by the Epicureans in the succeeding age. He is thinking merely of the popular form of the opinion, which identified the end of life with sensual enjoyment. This he dismisses contemptuously as a mere reflection of the degraded habits of those who profess it. The theory in its more refined and philosophical form, he reserves for later criticism.*

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