and the fool. All men are divided into these two classes.
There is no middle term between them. Virtue being one
and indivisible, either a man possesses it whole or does not
possess it at all. In the former case he is a wise man, in
the latter case a fool. The wise man possesses all virtue, all
knowledge, all wisdom, all happiness, all perfection. The
fool possesses all evil, all misery, all imperfection.
The Cyrenaics.
For the Cyrenaics, too, virtue is, at least formally, the sole
object of life. It is only formally, however, because they
give to virtue a definition which robbed it of all meaning.
Socrates had not infrequently recommended virtue on ac-
count of the advantages which it brings. Virtue, he said, is
the sole path to happiness, and he had not refrained from
holding out happiness as a motive for virtue. This did not
mean, however, that he did not recognize a man’s duty to
do the right for its own sake, and not for the sake of the
advantage it brings. “Honesty,” we say, “is the best policy,”
{161} but we do not mean thereby to deny that it is the
duty of men to be honest even if it is not, in some par-
ticular case, the best policy. Socrates, however, had not
been very clear upon these points, and had been unable
to find any definite basis for morality, other than that of
happiness. It was this side of his teaching which Aristip-
pus now pressed to its logical conclusions, regardless of all
other claims. Doubtless virtue is the sole end of life, but
the sole end of virtue is one’s own advantage, that is to say,
pleasure. One may as well say at once that the sole end of
life is pleasure.
The influence of Protagoras and the Sophists also played its
part in moulding the thought of Aristippus. Protagoras had
denied the objectivity of truth, and the later Sophists had
applied the same theory to morals. Each man is a law unto
himself. There is no moral code binding upon the individual
against his own wishes. Aristippus combined this with his
doctrine of pleasure. Pleasure being the sole end of life, no
moral law externally imposed can invalidate its absolute
claims. Nothing is wicked, nothing evil, provided only it
satisfies the individual’s thirst for pleasure.Whether such a philosophy will lead, in practice, to the
complete degradation of its devotees, depends chiefly upon
what sort of pleasure they have in mind. If refined and
intellectual pleasures are meant, there is no reason why a
comparatively good life should not result. If bodily plea-
sures are intended, the results are not likely to be noble.
The Cyrenaics by no means wholly ignored the pleasures
of the mind, but they pointed out that feelings of bod-
ily pleasure are more potent and intense, and it was upon
these, therefore, that they chiefly {162} concentrated their
attention. Nevertheless they were saved from the lowest
abysses of sensuality and bestiality by their doctrine that,
in the pursuit of pleasure, the wise man must exercise pru-
dence. Completely unrestrained pursuit of pleasure leads
in fact to pain and disaster. Pain is that which has to be
avoided. Therefore the wise man will remain always mas-
ter of himself, will control his desires, and postpone a more
urgent to a less urgent desire, if thereby in the end more
pleasure and less pain will accrue to him. The Cyrenaic
ideal of the wise man is the man of the world, bent indeed