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the Olympic games set before themselves, viz. “to see the country and fine works of art and every excellence of word and deed." That Aristotle himself does not suggest this extension of the idea seems the more surprising, as he has already shown (c. vii. 1, § 2) that popular language itself in the use of the word "wise" bears witness to the connexion between the insight of the painter and sculptor and that of the philosopher. We know, moreover, from the wellknown passage in the Poetics where he compares poetry with history, that he was prepared to claim for the former that it was "more serious and more philosophical" than the latter, on the express ground that it reveals to us not individual facts but universal principles of human action. If we ask the reason why, with so natural an extension of the word so close at hand, he here limits himself to the narrower meaning, the explanation is no doubt partly to be looked for, as Professor Stewart suggests, in the partiality of the thinker and philosopher for his own favourite pursuit, but partly also in the fact that at this point in his argument the truth he is anxious to emphasize is that human life is incomplete unless it leads us to the conscious apprehension of principles that are universal and necessary. According to the view which he shared with Plato, it was in the study of philosophy, of which mathematics, physics, and theology, including astronomy, were parts, that these features of reality stood most clearly out and were most unmistakable. It was through it, therefore, that the human mind was led most directly to the point

of view from which it could see all things sub specie aeternitatis and reach, for the moment at least, the supreme goal of life. To these explanations we ought, perhaps, to add the peculiar Greek view of the work of the poet and artist which Aristotle shared with his contemporaries. Both by Plato and Aristotle the poet and artist are apt to be regarded as, at best, the professional exponents of truths which they imperfectly realize. They are rather the unconscious instruments than the free exponents of the Divine Spirit in the world. The "contemplation," on the other hand, which both Plato and Aristotle have in view when they speak of Philosophy, requires a detachment of mind which they conceived of as impossible to those who made art or literature a profession, and as only to be found in the pursuit of truth for its own sake. Yet that Aristotle has no intention of excluding art and literature, but holds, on the contrary, that when used as sources of enjoyment and not as a profession, they minister directly to the higher life, we see clearly from the well-known passage in the Politics which treats of the place of the arts in education." Aristotle there takes it for granted that art and literature minister to the higher form of happiness. and are the proper occupations of the life of leisure, treating the ordinary school curriculum, in a few suggestive strokes, as a preparation, not so much for the business as for the enjoyment of life.

*Politics, VIII., especially c. iii. § 3 foll., which the student interested in education would do well to read in connexion with the sections before us. See Note G.

Applying this extension of the term to the present passage, we reach a point of view from which it can be seen that there is in Aristotle's mind a closer connexion between the theoretic and the practical life than that indicated by the text. If "philosophy" be taken to include art and literature, it is impossible to regard it as merely a new and higher occupation which practical life subserves by furnishing the necessary external conditions. For art and poetry are neither something wholly out of relation to life nor yet a mere imitation of it. They mirror life, but they mirror it—and this Aristotle was perhaps the first to teach-at its best, and are thus, to use a modern phrase, in their essence a criticism of life." Their function is to raise life to a higher power by teaching us what it really is-what it has in it to become.

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It cannot, of course, be maintained that any extension of the Greek theoria which it is legitimate to suggest will suffice to bridge completely the gulf between Aristotelian and modern conceptions. Yet two things remain to be said. First, though there was a time—and not very long ago--when the life of leisure as above conceived seemed an impossible ideal for the great mass of mankind, in these latter days a great hope has sprung up that this will not always be so. Already, by the socialization of the means of enjoyment in science, art, and literature, this ideal may be said to have been brought within measurable distance. Secondly, having acknowledged that the deeper insight which, stripped of technicalities, consists in the recognition and acceptance of eternal laws underlying

reality in any of its manifold forms, may come through art and culture if only the heart is pure, as well as through philosophy in the technical sense, there is less difficulty in going a step further and asking why it may not also come through life itself under the same condition. In making this suggestion we may seem to have left Aristotle far behind. Yet in the sphere of practice, Aristotle has himself taught us that a man arrives at a knowledge of what is truly good through the discipline of good actions. It is only an extension of this principle to recognize that through a still fuller acceptance of the ends of life, prudence may pass into a still higher wisdom, the insight of the practical man into that of the philosopher, vision of Good in the City into vision of Good in the World.

CHAPTER XII.

FRIENDSHIP.

"Nature doth presume that how many men there are in the world, so many gods, as it were, there are, or at least ought to be, towards men." HOOKER.

"The good which a man seeks and loves, he will love with greater constancy if he sees that others love it too."

SPINOZA.

§ 1. The Place of Friendship in Aristotle's Scheme of the Virtues.

*

THE place which Friendship is intended to occupy in Aristotle's scheme of the virtues is not at once obvious. We have already heard of a virtue of Friendliness, which is defined as the mean with regard to pleasantness in life generally-the man who is "sweet and pleasant in the right way" being the friendly man. But clearly something far more than this is here intended. Moreover, although in the introductory sentences Aristotle speaks of Friendship as a virtue, or at least implying virtue, we are clearly not intended to take this seriously. We have left the discussion of the "virtues" behind us, nor is there any attempt made to bring friendship into line with the rest by treating it as a mean.

* II, vii. § 13; see p. 245.

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