all philosophical ideas, it grips none, and can hold nothing
fast. It seizes its object, but its flabby grasp relaxes and
slips off. Hinduism, like modern science, has its doctrine of
evolution. But it has no philosophy of evolution.
{314}
- Ethics.
(a) The Individual.
A strong note of practical moderation pervades the ethics
of Aristotle. While Plato’s ethical teaching transcended
the ordinary limits of human life, and so lost itself in ideal
Utopias, Aristotle, on the other hand, sits down to make
practical suggestions: He wishes to enquire what the good
is, but by this he means, not some ideal good impossible of
attainment upon this earth, but rather that good which, in
all the circumstances in which men find themselves, ought
to be realizable. The ethical theories of Plato and Aristotle
are thus characteristic of the two men. Plato despised the
world of sense, and sought to soar altogether beyond the
common life of the senses. Aristotle, with his love of facts
and of the concrete, keeps close within the bounds of actual
human experience.
The first question for ethics is the nature of thesummum
bonum. We desire one thing for the sake of a second, we
desire that for the sake of a third. But if this series of
means and ends goes onad infinitum, then all desire and
all action are futile and purposeless. There must be some
one thing which we desire, not for the sake of anything
else, but on its own account. What is this end in itself, this
summum bonum, at which all human activity ultimately
aims. Everybody, says Aristotle, is agreed about the name
of this end. It is happiness. What all men seek, what is
the motive of all their actions, that which they desire for
the sake of itself and nothing beyond, is happiness. But
though all agree as to the name, beyond that there is no
agreement. Philosophers, {315} no less than the vulgar,
differ as to what this word happiness means. Some say it is
a life of pleasure. Others say it consists in the renunciation
of pleasures. Some recommend one life, some another.We must repeat here the warning which was found nec-
essary in the case of Plato, who also called thesummum
bonum happiness. Aristotle’s doctrine is no more to be
confused with modern utilitarianism than is Plato’s. Moral
activity is usually accompanied by a subjective feeling of
enjoyment. In modern times the word happiness connotes
the feeling of enjoyment. But for the Greeks it was the
moral activity which the word signified. For Aristotle an
action is not good because it yields enjoyment. On the
contrary, it yields enjoyment because it is good. The util-
itarian doctrine is that the enjoyment is the ground of the
moral value. But, for Aristotle, the enjoyment is the conse-
quence of the moral value. Hence when he tells us that the
highest good is happiness, he is giving us no information
regarding its nature, but merely applying a new name to
it. We have still to enquire what the nature of the good
is. As he himself says, everyone agrees upon the name, but
the real question is what this name connotes.Aristotle’s solution of this problem follows from the general
principles of his philosophy. We have seen that, throughout