pleasures of the body," shown in these passages as in a peculiar degree threatening the equilibrium of human life as conceived by the Greeks, we have the large belief here manifested in the pleasures of the higher senses, especially those of sight and hearing, as a substantial addition to human happiness. If it were pointed out that these also might be carried to excess, Aristotle was prepared to admit it in the abstract (see c. x. § 3); but he has no vivid sense of any social circumstances under which it might become a part of the rational life, and so a pressing obligation on the part of individuals to set vigilant limits to indulgence in them, or even renounce them altogether. If we ask what it is in our own time that has led to the extension of the duty of selfdenial to these pleasures and at the same time to the ideal of a still more complete control of the bodily appetites, we come to the second of the above questions.

§ 4. Deepening in Modern Conceptions of the
Scope of Temperance.

The answer is to be looked for in our extended conception of the noble object or "beautiful thing," which gives meaning to the virtue of temperance. In two closely related respects we may say that our modern conceptions are in advance of the Greek. (a) To the Greek, the "end" of temperance, as of

*This is connected with the distinction running through both Plato and Aristotle between things pleasant and desirable in themselves because they call forth harmonious activity of the soul independently of previous want, and things that are only accidentally pleasant as satisfying a want of the body. (See chapter xiii. p. 195, below.)

the other virtues, was the maintenance of a high level of civilization among a comparatively small group of cultured equals-supported by the labour and ministered to by the moral degradation of the great mass of the population. To us it is no less than the development in all who are capable of it -and all who bear the human shape are capable of it in some degree-of the elements of our common humanity. For the maxim: See that you treat free citizenship in your own person, and in the person of others, always as an end, and never as a means only, we have accepted, in principle at any rate, the maxim of Kant: See that you so treat Humanity. With this enlarged ideal of the end which is to be served goes an enlarged conception of the sacrifices which may be entailed by the service. From the Greek all that seemed to be required was such self-denial as was implied in abstaining from all excesses that would unfit a man for the performance of his civil or military duties. Under modern conditions individuals and classes may find themselves, in addition to this. minimum, called upon, for the sake of objects which to the Greek would have seemed wholly impalpable and illusory, to accept a life in which the pleasures of the senses or even of the mind have little or no place. If it be said that, admitting all this, the Greek ideal of a society in which the higher pleasures will constitute an element in life which no one will be called upon to renounce, is nevertheless the higher of the two, the answer is twofold. In the first place, this ideal is not likely to be realized unless there are,

meantime, some who value more the opening of them to others than the personal enjoyment of them. In the second place, so far as the individual is concerned, there is no evidence that with the advance of civilization there will be less need for temperance and self-denial. On the contrary, it may very well be that just as the advance of civilization brings, as we have seen, new pains and fears, and with them new occasions for courage, so it brings with it new pleasures which the man who desires to live for larger aims has to do without.

(b) Following on this enlarged conception of the "end" has gone a more vivid sense of its spirituality. The beautiful object is not confined to the favoured members of any race or city, but consists in the development of the qualities of mind and character that are characteristic of man. Indulgences, therefore, whose relation to this human ideal was obscured by the narrowness with which it was conceived, are now seen to be incompatible with it. Loyalty to the wider ideal implies a more exacting standard in the individual's own life. Temperance not only has a broader basis: it moves on a higher plane. So far is it from being true, as has been sometimes suggested by ardent reformers, that the recognition of the wider claim of human brotherhood absolves from the obligation to maintain a strict standard of temperance in respect to the pleasures of the body, that it is precisely the ground upon which we have a right to expect a stricter discipline of thought and act than has hitherto been generally acknowledged.

CHAPTER IX.

IMPERFECT SELF-CONTROL.

"The great Socratic thesis that virtue is knowledge is an aspect of the truth which was lost almost as it was formed; and yet has to be recovered by every one for himself who would pass the limits of proverbial and popular philosophy. It is not to be regarded only as a passing stage in the history of the human mind, but as our anticipation of the reconcilement of the moral and intellectual elements of human nature." JOWETT.

§ 1. Continence and Temperance.

[VII. cc. i. foll.]

The account of Temperance in Book III. is only part of the larger treatment of the habit of Self-control. The subject is resumed in Book VII., where the imperfect form of the virtue of Temperance known as Continence comes in for fuller discussion. While from the side of the growth of ethical ideas the former analysis is the more interesting, from the side of psychology and education the latter is undoubtedly the more important. Continence and incontinence differ from temperance and intemperance respectively

in the first place in falling short of the complete virtue and the settled vice; and, secondly, in being taken, contrary to the English usage, rather as the

*

element of self-control that enters into all virtue, than as confined to the pleasures of the lower bodily appetites the writer recognizing an incontinence "with respect to money, gain, or honour, or anger," as well as with respect to "nutrition, the propagation of the species, and other bodily appetities." Starting from the common idea that continence consists in knowing that a desire is wrong and at the bidding of reason refusing to indulge it-incontinence in doing at the bidding of passion what one knows to be wrong,† we are at once face to face with the question, How is incontinence possible?

§ 2. The Socratic Doctrine of Continence.

The way in which the great Greek philosophers dealt with this question is an interesting example of progressive analysis. The general form of the answer which Socrates gave is well-known. “Wisdom and temperance," says Xenophon, " he did not define; but the man who, knowing what is noble and good, does it, and, again, knowing what is base, avoids it, he called wise and temperate. And when asked if he considered those who know what is right but do what is wrong, wise and continent, he replied, 'On the contrary, I consider them foolish and incontinent, for I hold that of possible courses of action all men choose that which they think is best for them. I therefore consider those who act wrongly neither

* Perhaps Eudemus. I have disregarded the distinction between master and disciple in what follows.

+ VII. c. i. § 6.