The Ethics of Aristotle presuppose certain conditions in the persons to whom they are addressed, without which they cannot be read with profit. They presuppose a certain training, both moral and intellectual, in the pupil.
First, the reason of the pupil must be so far developed, as that he shall be capable of conceiving the idea of a scheme of life and action, and of regulating his momentary impulses more or less by a reference to this standard. He must not live by passion, obeying without reflection the appetite of the moment, and thinking only of grasping at this immediate satisfaction. The habit must have been formed of referring each separate desire to some rational measure, and of acting or refraining to act according as such a comparison may dictate. Next, a certain experience must have been acquired concerning human affairs, and concerning the actions of men with their causes and consequences. Upon these topics all the reasonings and all the illustrations contained in every theory of Ethics must necessarily turn: so that a person thoroughly inexperienced would be incompetent to understand them.
For both these two reasons, no youthful person, nor any person of mature years whose mind is still tainted with the defects of youth, can be a competent learner of Ethics or Politics (Eth. Nic. i. 7. Compare vii. 8). Such a pupil will neither appreciate the reasonings, nor obey the precepts (i. 3).
Again, a person cannot receive instruction in Ethics with advantage unless he has been subjected to a good practical discipline, so as to have acquired habits of virtuous action, and to have been taught to feel pleasure and pain on becoming occasions and in reference to becoming objects. Unless the circumstances by which he has been surrounded and the treatment which he has received, have been such as to implant in him a certain vein of sentiment and to give a certain direction to his factitious pleasures and pains — unless obedience to right 496precepts has to a certain degree been made habitual with him — he will not be able to imbibe, still less to become attached to, even the principia of ethical reasoning (Eth. Nic. i. 4. 7). The well-trained man, who has already acquired virtuous habits, has within himself the ἀρχὴ, or beginning, from which happiness proceeds: he may do very well, even though the reason on which these habits were formed should never become known to him: but he will at least readily apprehend and understand the reason when it is announced. The ἀρχαὶ or beginnings to which ethical philosophy points and from whence the conduct which it enjoins is derived, are obtained only by habituation, not by induction nor by perception, like other ἀρχαί: and we ought in all our investigations to look after the ἀρχὴ in the way which the special nature of the subject requires, and to be very careful to define it well (i. 4, i. 7).
In considering Aristotle’s doctrine respecting the ἀρχαὶ of ethical and political science, and the way in which they are to be discovered and made available, we should keep in mind that he announces the end and object of these sciences to be, not merely the enlargement of human knowledge, but the determination of human conduct towards certain objects: not theory, but practice: not to teach us what virtue is, but to induce us to practise it — “Since then the present science is not concerned with speculation, like the others. For here we enquire, not in order that we may know what virtue is, but in order that we may become good, otherwise there would be no profit in the enquiry” (ii. 2. See also i. 2, i. 5, vi. 5).
The remarks which Aristotle makes about the different ways of finding out and arriving at ἀρχαὶ, are curious. Some principles or beginnings are obtained by induction — others by perception — others by habituation in a certain way — others again in other ways. Other modes of arriving at ἀρχαὶ are noticed by the philosopher himself in other places. For example, the ἀρχαὶ of demonstrative science are said to be discovered by intellect (νοῦς) — vi. 6-7. There is a passage however in vi. 8 in which he seems to say that the ἀρχαὶ of the wise man (σόφος) and the natural man (φυσικὸς) are derived from experience: which I find it difficult to reconcile with the preceding chapters, where he calls wisdom a compound of intellect and science (ἐπιστήμη), and where he gives Thales and Anaxagoras as specimens of wise men. By vi. 6 — it seems that wisdom has reference to matters of demonstrative science: how then can it be true that a youth may be a mathematician without being a wise man?
Moreover, Aristotle takes much pains, at the commencement 497 of his treatise on Ethics, to set forth the inherent intricacy and obscurity of the subject, and to induce the reader to be satisfied with conclusions not absolutely demonstrative. He repeats this observation several times — a sufficient proof that the evidence for his own opinions did not appear to himself altogether satisfactory (Eth. Nic. i. 3, i. 7, ii. 2). The completeness of the proof (he says) must be determined by the subject-matter: a man of cultivated mind will not ask for better proof than the nature of the case admits: and human action, to which all ethical theory relates, is essentially fluctuating and uncertain in its consequences, so that every general proposition which can be affirmed or denied concerning it, is subject to more or less of exception. If this degree of uncertainty attaches even to general reasonings on ethical subjects, the particular applications of these reasonings are still more open to mistake: the agent must always determine for himself at the moment, according to the circumstances of the case, without the possibility of sheltering himself under technical rules of universal application: just as the physician or the pilot is obliged to do in the course of his profession. “Now the actions and the interests of men exhibit no fixed rule, just like the conditions of health. And if this is the case with the universal theory, still more does the theory that refers to particular acts present nothing that can be accurately fixed; for it falls not under any art or any system, but the actors themselves must always consider what suits the occasion, just as happens in the physician’s and the pilot’s art. But though this is the case with the theory at present, we must try to give it some assistance” (πειρατίον βοηθεῖν). — Eth. Nic. 2.
The last words cited are remarkable. They seem to indicate, that Aristotle regarded the successful prosecution of ethical enquiries as all but desperate. He had previously said (i. 3) — “There is so much difference of opinion and so much error respecting what is honourable and just, of which political science treats, that these properties of human action seem to exist merely by positive legal appointment, and not by nature. And there is the same sort of error respecting what things are good, because many persons have sustained injury from them, some having already been brought to destruction through their wealth, others through their courage.”
One cannot but remark how entirely this is at variance with the notion of a moral sense or instinct, or an intuitive knowledge of what is right and wrong. Aristotle most truly observes that the details of our daily behaviour are subject to such an infinite variety of modifications, that no pre-established rules can be 498delivered to guide them: we must act with reference to the occasion and the circumstances. Some few rules may indeed be laid down, admitting of very few exceptions: but the vast majority of our proceedings cannot be subjected to any rule whatever, except to the grand and all-comprehensive rule, if we are indeed so to call it, of conforming to the ultimate standard of morality.
Supposing the conditions above indicated to be realized — supposing a certain degree of experience in human affairs, of rational self-government, and of habitual obedience to good rules of action, to be already established in the pupil’s mind, the theory of ethics may then be unfolded to him with great advantage (i. 3). It is not meant to be implied that a man must have previously acquired the perfection of practical reason and virtue before he acquaints himself with ethical theory; but he must have proceeded a certain way towards the acquisition.
Ethics, as Aristotle conceives them, are a science closely analogous to if not a subordinate branch of Politics. (I do not however think that he employs the word Ἠθικὴ in the same distinct and substantive meaning as πολιτικὴ (ἐπιστήμη), although he several times mentions τὰ ἠθικὰ and ἠθικοὶ λόγοι.) Ethical science is for the individual what political science is for the community (i. 2).
In every variety of human action, in each separate art and science, the agents, individual or collective, propose to themselves the attainment of some good as the end and object of their proceedings. Ends are multifarious, and good things are multifarious: but good, under one shape or another, is always the thing desired by every one, and the determining cause of human action (οὗ πάντα ἐφίεται) — i. 1.
Sometimes the action itself, or the exercise of the powers implied in the action, is the end sought, without anything beyond. Sometimes there is an ulterior end, or substantive business, to be accomplished by means of the action and lying beyond it. In this latter class of cases, the ulterior end is the real good: better than the course of action used to accomplish it — “the external results are naturally (πέφυκε) better than the course of action” (i. 1). Taking this as a general position, it is subject to many exceptions: but the word πέφυκε seems to signify only that such is naturally and ordinarily the case, not that the reverse never occurs.
Again some ends are comprehensive and supreme; others, partial and subordinate. The subordinate ends are considered with reference to the supreme, and pursued as means to their 499accomplishment. Thus the end of the bridle-maker is subservient to that of the horseman, and the various operations of war to the general scheme of the commander. The supreme, or architectonic, ends, are superior in eligibility to the subordinate, or ministerial, which, indeed, are pursued only for the sake of the former.
One end (or one good), as subordinate, is thus included in another end (or another good) as supreme. The same end may be supreme with regard to one end different from itself, and subordinate with regard to another. The end of the general is supreme with reference to that of the soldier or the maker of arms, subordinate with reference to that of the statesman. In this scale of comprehensiveness of ends there is no definite limit; we may suppose ends more and more comprehensive as we please, and we come from thence to form the idea of one most comprehensive and sovereign end, which includes under it every other without exception — with reference to which all other ends stand in the relation either of parts or of means — and which is itself never in any case pursued for the sake of any other or independent end. The end thus conceived is the Sovereign Good of man, or The Good — The Summum Bonum — Τἀγαθὸν — Τὸ ἄριστον — Τἀνθρώπινον ἀγαθόν (i. 2).
To comprehend, to define, and to prescribe means for realizing the Sovereign Good, is the object of Political Science, the paramount and most architectonic Science of all, with regard to which all other Sciences are simply ministerial. It is the business of the political ruler to regulate the application of all other Sciences with reference to the production of this his End — to determine how far each shall be learnt and in what manner each shall be brought into practice — to enforce or forbid any system of human action according as it tends to promote the accomplishment of his supreme purpose — the Sovereign Good of the Community. Strategical, rhetorical, economical, science, are all to be applied so far as they conduce to this purpose and no farther: they are all simply ministerial; political science is supreme and self-determining (i. 2).
What Political Science is for the community, Ethical Science is for the individual citizen. By this it is not meant that the individual is to be abstracted from society or considered as living apart from society: but simply that human action and human feeling is to be looked at from the point of view of the individual, mainly and primarily — and from the point of view of the society, only in a secondary manner: while in political science, the reverse is the case — our point of view is, first as regards the 500society; — next, and subordinate to that, as regards the individual citizen (See Eth. Nic. vii. 8).
The object of the Ethical Science is, the Supreme Good of the individual citizen — the End of all Ends, with reference to his desires, his actions, and his feelings — the end which he seeks for itself and without any ulterior aim — the end which comprehends all his other ends as merely partial or instrumental and determines their comparative value in his estimation (i. 2, i. 4).
It is evident that this conception of an End of all Ends is what Kant would call an Idea — nothing precisely conformable to it, in its full extent, can ever exist in reality. No individual has ever been found, or ever will be found, with a mind so trained as to make every separate and particular desire subservient to some general preconceived End however comprehensive. But it is equally certain that this subordination of Ends one to another is a process performed to a greater or less degree in every one’s mind, even in that of the rudest savage. No man can blindly and undistinguishingly follow every immediate impulse: the impulse, whatever it be, when it arises, must be considered more or less as it bears upon other pursuits and other objects of desire. This is an indispensable condition even of the most imperfect form of social existence. In civilized society, we find the process carried very far indeed in the minds of the greater number of individuals. Every man has in his view certain leading Ends, such as the maintenance of his proper position in society, the acquisition of professional success, the making of his fortune, the prosecution of his studies, &c., each of which is essentially paramount and architectonic, and with reference to which a thousand other ends are simply subordinate and ministerial. Suppose this process to be pushed farther, and you arrive at the idea of an End still more comprehensive, embracing every other end which the individual can aspire to, and forming the central point of an all-comprehensive scheme of life. Such a maximum, never actually attainable, but constantly approachable, in reality, forms the Object of Ethical Science. Quorsum victuri gignimur!
What is the Supreme Good — the End of all Ends? How are we to determine wherein it consists, or by what means it is to be attained — at least, as nearly attained as the limitations of human condition permit? Ethical Science professes to point out what the end ought to be — Ethical precepts are suggestions for making the closest approaches to it which are practicable. Even to understand what the end is, is a considerable acquisition: since we thus know the precise point to aim at, even if we cannot hit it (i. 2).
501The approaches which different men make towards forming this idea, of an End of Ends or of a Supreme Good, differ most essentially: although there seems a verbal agreement between them. Every man speaks of Happiness as his End of Ends (ὀνόματι ὁμολογεῖται, i. 4): he wishes to live well or to do well, which he considers to be the same as being happy. But men disagree exceedingly in their opinions as to that which constitutes happiness: nay the same man sometimes places it in one thing, sometimes in another — in health or in riches, according as he happens to be sick or poor.
There are however three grand divisions, in one or other of which the opinions of the great majority of mankind may be distributed. Some think that happiness consists in a life of bodily pleasure (βίος ἀπολαυστικός): others, in a life of successful political action or ambition (βίος πολιτικός): others again, in a life of speculative study and the acquisition of knowledge (βίος θεωρητικός). He will not consent to number the life of the (χρηματιστὴς) money-maker among them because he attains his end at the expense of other people and by a force upon their inclinations (this at least seems the sense of the words — ὁ γὰρ χρηματιστὴς βίαιός τίς ἐστι), and because wealth can never be the good, seeing that it is merely useful for the sake of ulterior objects.
(The reason which Aristotle gives for discarding from his catalogue the life of the money-seeker, while he admits that of the pleasure-seeker and the honour-seeker, appears a very inconclusive one. He believed them to be all equally mistaken in reference to real happiness: the two last just as much as the first: and certainly, if we look to prevalence in the world and number of adherents, the creed of the first is at least equal to that of the two last.)
The first of the three is the opinion of the mass, countenanced by many Sovereigns such as Sardanapalus — it is more suitable to animals than to men, in the judgment of Aristotle (i. 5).
Honour and glory — the reward of political ambition, cannot be the sovereign good, because it is a possession which the person honoured can never be sure of retaining: for it depends more upon the persons by whom he is honoured than upon himself, while the ideas which we form of the sovereign good suppose it to be something intimately belonging to us and hard to be withdrawn (i. 5). Moreover those who aspire to honour, desire it not so much on its own account as in order that they may have confidence in their own virtue: so that it seems even in their estimation as if virtue were the higher aim of the two. But 502even virtue itself (meaning thereby the simple possession of virtue as distinguished from the active habitual exercise of it) cannot be the sovereign good: for the virtuous man may pass his life in sleep or in inaction — or he may encounter intolerable suffering and calamity (i. 5).
Besides, Happiness as we conceive it, is an End perfect, final, comprehensive and all-sufficient — an end which we always seek on its own account and never with a view to anything ulterior. But neither honour, nor pleasure, nor intelligence, nor virtue, deserves these epithets: each is an end special, insufficient, and not final — for each is sought partly indeed on its own account, but partly also on account of its tendency to promote what we suppose to be our happiness (i. 7). The latter is the only end always sought exclusively for itself: including as it always does and must do, the happiness of a man’s relatives, his children and his countrymen, or of all with whom he has sympathies; so that if attained, it would render his life desirable and wanting for nothing — ὃ μονούμενον, αἱρετὸν ποιεῖ τὸν βίον, καὶ μηδενὸς ἐνδεᾶ (i. 7).
The remark which Aristotle here makes in respect to the final aim or happiness of an individual — viz., that it includes the happiness of his family and his countrymen and of those with whom he has sympathies — deserves careful attention. It shows at once the largeness and the benevolence of his conceptions. We arrive thus at the same end as that proposed by political science — the happiness of the community: but we reach it by a different road, starting from the point of view of the individual citizen.
Having shown that this Happiness, which is “our being’s end and aim,” does not consist in any special acquisition such as pleasure, or glory, or intelligence, or virtue, Aristotle adopts a different method to show wherein it does consist. Every artist and every professional man (he says — i. 7), the painter, the musician, &c., has his peculiar business to do, and the Good of each artist consists in doing his business well and appropriately. Each separate portion of man, the eye, the hand and the foot, has its peculiar function: and in analogy with both these, man as such has his business and function, in the complete performance of which human Good consists. What is the business and peculiar function of Man, as Man? Not simply Life, for that he has in common with the entire vegetable and animal world: nor a mere sensitive Life, for that he has in common with all Animals: it must be something which he has, apart both from plants and animals — viz., an active life in conformity 503with reason (πρακτική τις τοῦ λόγον ἔχοντος); or the exercise of Reason as a directing and superintending force, and the exercise of the appetites, passions, and capacities, in a manner conformable to Reason. This is the special and peculiar business of man: it is what every man performs either well or ill: and the virtue of a man is that whereby he is enabled to perform it well. The Supreme Good of humanity, therefore, consisting as it does in the due performance of this special business of man, is to be found in the virtuous activity of our rational and appetitive soul: assuming always a life of the ordinary length, without which no degree of mental perfection would suffice to attain the object. The full position will then stand thus — “Happiness, or the highest good of a human being, consists in the working of the soul and in a course of action, pursuant to reason and conformable to virtue, throughout the full continuance of life.”
(The argument respecting a man’s proper business (ἔργον) and virtue (ἀρετὴ) seems to be borrowed from Plato — Republic, i. c. 23, p. 352; c. 24, p. 353. Compare also Xenophon — Memorabilia, iv. 2, 14.)
This explanation is delivered by Aristotle as a mere outline, which he seems to think that any one may easily fill up (i. 7). And he warns us not to require a greater degree of precision than the subject admits of: since we ought to be content with a rough approximation to the truth, and with conclusions which are not universally true, but only true in the majority of instances, such being the nature of the premisses with which we deal (i. 3).
Having determined in this manner what Happiness or the Supreme Good consists in, Aristotle next shows that the explanation which he gives of it conforms in a great degree to the opinions previously delivered by eminent philosophers, and fulfils at least all the requisite conditions which have ever been supposed to belong to Happiness (i. 8). All philosophers have from very early times agreed in distributing good things into three classes — Mental, Corporeal, and External. Now the first of these classes is incomparably the highest and most essentially good of the three: and the explanation which Aristotle gives of happiness ranks it in the first class.
Again, various definitions of happiness have been delivered by eminent authorities more or less ancient (πολλοὶ καὶ παλαιοί). Eudoxus laid down the principle that happiness consists in pleasure: others have maintained the opinion that it is entirely independent both of pleasure and pain — that the former is no 504good, and the latter no evil (i. 12, vii. 11-13, x. 1. 2). Some have placed happiness in virtue: others in prudence: others in a certain sort of wisdom (σοφία τις): others have added to the definition this condition, that pleasure or external prosperity should be coupled with the above-mentioned objects (i. 8). The moral doctrines propounded by Zeno and Epicurus were therefore in no way new: how far the reasonings by which these philosophers sustained them were new we cannot judge accurately, from the loss of the treatises of Eudoxus and others to which Aristotle makes reference.
Now, in so far as virtue is introduced, the explanation of Happiness given by Aristotle coincides with these philosophers and improves upon them by substituting the active exercise of virtuous habits in place of the mere possession of virtue. And in regard to pleasure, the man who has once acquired habits of virtuous agency stands in no need of pleasure from without, as a foreign accessory: for he finds pleasure in his own behaviour, and he would not be denominated virtuous unless he did so: “Now (he says) their life stands in no need of pleasure, like an extraneous appendage, but has pleasure in itself” (ii. 8). Again, ii. 3, he says that “the symptom of a perfect habit is the pleasure or pain which ensues upon the performance of the acts in which the habit consists: for the man who abstains from bodily pleasures and rejoices in doing so, is temperate, while he who does it reluctantly and painfully, is intemperate. And the man who sustains dangers with pleasure, or at least without pain, is courageous: if with pain, he is a coward. For ethical virtue has reference to our pleasures and pains: it is on account of pleasure that we commit vicious acts, and on account of pain that we shrink from virtuous performances. Wherefore, as Plato directs, we ought to be trained at once from our infancy by some means or other so as to feel pleasure and pain from the proper sources: for that is the right education.”
Moreover, the man who is in the active exercise of virtue derives his pleasure from the performance of that which is the appropriate business of humanity, so that all his pleasures are conformable to the pleasures natural to man and therefore consistent with each other: whereas the pleasures of most people are contradictory and inconsistent with each other, because they are not conformable to our nature (i. 8).
It is not easy to understand perfectly what Aristotle means by saying that the things agreeable to the majority of mankind are not things agreeable by nature. The construction above put upon this expression seems the only plausible one — that 505those pleasures which inhere in the performance of the appropriate business of man, are to be considered as our natural pleasures; those which do not so inhere, as not natural pleasures: inasmuch as they arise out of circumstances foreign to the performance of our appropriate business.
This however hardly consists with the explanation which Aristotle gives of τὸ φύσει — in another place and with reference to another subject. In the Magna Moralia (i. 34, pp. 1194-1195 Bek.), in distinguishing between natural justice (τὸ δίκαιον φύσει) and conventional justice (τὸ δίκαιον νόμῳ), he tells us that the naturally just is that which most commonly remains just. (Similarly Ethic. Eudem. iv. 14, p. 1217 Bek.) That which exists by nature (he says) may be changed by art and practice; the left hand may by these means be rendered as strong as the right in particular cases, but if in the greater number of cases and for the longer portion of time the left remains left and the right remains right, this is to be considered as existing by nature.
If we are to consider that arrangement as natural which we find to prevail in the greatest number of cases and for the greatest length of time, then undoubtedly the pleasures arising out of virtuous active behaviour must be regarded as less natural than those other pleasures which Aristotle admits to form the enjoyment of the majority of mankind.
But again there is a third passage, respecting nature and natural arrangements, which appears scarcely reconcilable with either of the two opinions just noticed. In Eth. Nicom. ii. 1: “Ethical virtue is a result of habit, whence it is evident that not one of the ethical virtues exists in us by nature. For none of those things which exist by nature is altered by habit. For example, the stone which naturally moves downwards cannot be habituated to move upwards, not even if a man should endeavour so to habituate it by throwing it upwards ten thousand times; nor in like manner fire downwards: nor can any other of the things formed by nature in one way be changed by habit to any other than that natural way. Virtues therefore are not generated in us either by nature, or contrary to nature; but we are formed by nature so as to be capable of receiving them, and we are perfected in them through the influence of habit.”
If it be true that nothing which exists in one manner by nature can be changed by habit so as to exist in another manner, I do not see how the assertion contained in the passage above cited out of the Magna Moralia can be reconciled with it, where we are told — “For even things which exist by nature partake of change. Thus if we all should practise throwing with the left 506hand, we should become ambidextrous: but still it is the left hand by nature, and the right hand is not the less better by nature than the left, although we should do everything with the left as we do with the right.” (Mag. Mor. i. 34, ut sup.) In the one case he illustrates the meaning of natural properties by the comparative aptitudes of the right and left hand: in the other by the downward tendency of the stone. The idea is plainly different in the one case and in the other.
On the other hand, there seems to be not less variance between the one passage quoted out of the Nicomacheian Ethics and the other. For in the passage last quoted, we are told that none of the ethical virtues is generated in us by nature — neither by nature, nor contrary to nature: nature makes us fit to receive them, habit introduces and creates them — an observation perfectly true and accurate. But if this was the sentiment of Aristotle, how could he also believe that the pleasures arising out of the active manifestation of ethical virtue were the natural pleasures of man? If ethical virtue does not come by nature, the pleasures belonging to it cannot come by nature either.
On the whole, these three passages present a variance which I am unable to reconcile in the meaning which Aristotle annexes to the very equivocal word — nature.
Although Aristotle tells us that the active exercise of the functions of the soul according to virtue confers happiness, yet he admits that a certain measure of external comfort and advantages must be superadded as an indispensable auxiliary and instrument. Disgusting ugliness, bad health, low birth, loss of friends and relatives or vicious conduct of friends and relatives, together with many other misfortunes, are sufficient to sully the blessed condition of the most virtuous man (ῥυπαίνουσι τὸ μακάριον — i. 8) — for which reason it is that some persons have ranked both virtue and good fortune as co-ordinate ingredients equally essential to happiness: and have doubted also whether it can ever be acquired either by teaching, or by training, or by any other method except chance or Divine inspiration. To suppose that so magnificent a boon is conferred by chance, would be an absurdity: it is a boon not unworthy indeed of the Divine nature to confer; but still the magnificence of it will appear equally great and equally undeniable, if we suppose it to be acquired by teaching or training. And this is really the proper account to give of the way in which Happiness is acquired: for the grand and primary element in it, is the virtuous agency of the soul, which is undoubtedly acquired by training: while external advantages, though indispensable up to a certain 507limit, are acquired only as secondary helps and instruments. The creation of these virtuous habits among the citizens is one of the chief objects of political science and legislation: when once acquired, they are the most lasting and ineffaceable of all human possessions: and as they are created by special training, they may be imparted to every man not disqualified by some natural defect of organization, and may thus be widely diffused throughout the community (i. 9).
This is an important property. If happiness be supposed to be derived from the possession of wealth or honour or power, it can only be possessed by a small number of persons. For these three considered as objects of human desire, are essentially comparative. A man does not think himself rich, or honoured, or powerful, unless he becomes so to a degree above the multitude of his companions and neighbours.
Aristotle insists most earnestly that the only way of acquiring the character proper for happiness is by a course of early and incessant training in virtuous action. Moral teaching, he says, will do little or nothing, unless it be preceded by, or at least coupled with, moral training. Motives must be applied sufficient to ensure performance of what is virtuous and abstinence from what is vicious, until such a course of conduct becomes habitual, and until a disposition is created to persevere in them. It is the business of the politician and the legislator to employ their means of working upon the citizens for the purpose of enforcing this training. It is not with virtue (he says) as it is with those faculties which we receive ready-made from nature, as for example, the external senses. We do not acquire the faculty of sight by often seeing, but we have it from nature and then exercise it: whereas with regard to virtue, we obtain our virtues by means of a previous course of virtuous action, just as we learn other arts. For those things which we must learn in order to do, we learn by actually doing: thus by building we become builders, and by harping we become harpers: by doing just and temperate and courageous actions, we become just and temperate and courageous. All legislators try, some in a better and others in a worse manner, to ethise (ἐθίζοντες) — to create habits among — the citizens for the purpose of making them good. “In one word habits are created by repeated action, wherefore our actions must be determined in a suitable way, for according as they differ, so will our habits differ. Nor is the difference small whether we are ethised in one way or in another, from our youth upwards: the difference is very great, or rather it is everything” (ii. 1).
508Neither an ox, nor a horse, can acquire such habits, and therefore neither of them can be called happy: even a child cannot be called so, except from the hope and anticipation of what he will become in future years.
It may appear somewhat singular that Aristotle characterises a child as incapable of happiness, since in common language a child when healthy and well treated is described as peculiarly happy. But happiness, as Aristotle understands it, is something measured more by the estimate of the judicious spectator than by the sentiment of the man in whose bosom it resides. No person is entitled to be called happy, whom the intelligent and reflective observer does not macarise (or eudæmonise), or whose condition he would not desire more or less to make his own. Now the life of a child, even though replete with all the enjoyments belonging to childhood, is not such as any person in the state of mind of a mature citizen could bring himself to accept (i. 10, x. 3). The test to which Aristotle appeals, either tacitly or openly, seems always to be the judgment of the serious man (i. 8, x. 5). It is no sufficient proof of happiness that the person who feels it is completely satisfied with his condition and does not desire anything beyond. Such self-satisfaction is indeed necessary, but is not by itself sufficient: it must be farther confirmed by the judgment of persons without — not of the multitude, who are apt to judge by a wrong standard — nor of princes, who are equally incompetent, and who have never tasted the relish of pure and liberal pleasures (x. 6) — but of the virtuous and worthy, who have arrived at the most perfect condition attainable by human beings (x. 5, x. 6, x. 8).
The different standard adopted by the many and by the more discerning few, in estimating human happiness, is again touched upon in Politica, vii. 1. It is in some respects treated more clearly and simply in this passage than in the Ethics. Both the Many and the Few (he says) agree that in order to constitute Happiness, there must be a coincidence of the three distinct kinds of Good things — The Mental — The Corporeal — The External. But with respect to the proportions in which the three ought to be intermingled, a difference of opinion arises. Most persons are satisfied with a very moderate portion of mental excellence, while they are immoderate in their desire for wealth and power (“For of virtue they think that they have a sufficiency, whatever be the quantity they have; but of wealth and possessions they seek the excess without bound.” — Pol. vii. 1). On the other hand, the opinion sanctioned by the few of a higher order of mind, and adopted by Aristotle, was, that Happiness 509was possessed in a higher degree by those who were richly set forth with moral and intellectual excellence and only moderately provided with external advantages, than by those in regard to whom the proportion was reversed (ib.). The same difference of estimate, between the few and the many, is touched upon Polit. vii. 13, where he says that men in general esteem external advantages to be the causes of happiness: which is just as if they were to say that the cause why a musician played well was his lyre, and not his proficiency in the art.
In this chapter of the Politica (vii. 13), he refers to the Ethica in a singular manner. Having stated that the point of first importance is, to determine wherein happiness consists, he proceeds to say — “We have said also in the Ethics, if there be any good in that treatise (εἴ τι τῶν λόγων ἐκείνων ὄφελος), that it (happiness) is the active exertion and perfected habit of virtue.” — This is a singular expression — “if there be any good in the Ethics” — it seems rather to fall in with the several passages in that treatise in which he insists upon the inherent confusion and darkness of the subject-matter.
The definition of what happiness really is seems to be one of the weak points of Aristotle’s treatise. In a work addressed to the public, it is impossible to avoid making the public judges of the pleasure and pain, the happiness and unhappiness of individuals. A certain measure of self-esteem on the part of the individual, and a certain measure of esteem towards him on the part of persons without, come thus to be regarded as absolutely essential to existence. Without these, life would appear intolerable to any spectator without, though the individual himself might be degraded enough to cling to it. But these are secured by the ordinary morality of the age and of the locality. The question arises as to degrees of virtue beyond the ordinary level: Are we sure that such higher excellence contributes to the happiness of the individual who possesses it? Assuming that it does so contribute, are we certain that the accession of happiness which he thereby acquires is greater than he would have acquired by an increase of his wealth and power, his virtue remaining still at the ordinary level? These are points which Aristotle does not establish satisfactorily, although he professes to have done so: nor do I think that they are capable of being established. The only ground on which a moralist can inculcate aspirations after the higher degrees of virtue, is, the gain which thereby accrues to the happiness of others, not to that of the individual himself.
Aristotle appeals to God as a proof of the superiority of an 510internal source of happiness to an external source — vii. 1, “using God as a witness who is happy and blessed, yet not through any external good, but through Himself and from His own nature.” Again, vii. 3, “For at leisure God would be happy, and the whole universe (κόσμος), who have no external actions except such as are proper to themselves” — in proof of the superiority of a life of study and speculation to a life of ambition and political activity. The same argument is insisted upon in Eth. Nic. x. 8. It is to be observed that the Κόσμος as well as God is here cited as experiencing happiness.
The analogy to which Aristotle appeals here is undoubtedly to a certain extent a just one. The most perfect happiness which we can conceive — our Idea, to use Kant’s phrase, of perfect happiness — is that of a being who is happy in and for his own nature, with the least possible aid from external circumstances — a being whose nature or habits dispose him only to acts, the simple performance of which confers happiness. But is this true of the perfectly virtuous nature and habits? Does the simple performance of the acts to which they dispose us, always confer happiness? Is not the existence of a very high standard of virtuous exigency in a man’s mind, a constant source of self-dissatisfaction, from the difficulty of acting up to his own ideas of what is becoming and commendable?
That the most virtuous nature is in itself and essentially the most happy nature, is a point highly questionable — to say the least of it: and even if we admit the fact, we must at the same time add that it cannot appear to be so to ordinary persons without. The internal pleasures of a highly virtuous man cannot be properly appreciated by any person not of similar character. So that unless a person be himself disposed to believe it, you could find no means of proving it to him. To a man not already virtuous, you cannot bring this argument persuasively home for the purpose of inducing him to become so.
In regard to prudence and temperance, indeed, qualities in the first instance beneficial to himself, it is clear that the more perfectly he possesses them, the greater and more assured will be his happiness. But in regard to virtuous qualities, beneficial in the first instance to others and not to himself, it can by no means be asserted that the person who possesses these qualities in the highest degree is happier than one who possesses them in a more moderate and ordinary degree.
Aristotle indeed says that the being just necessarily includes the having pleasure in such behaviour: for we do not call a man just or liberal unless he has a pleasure in justice or liberality 511(Eth. Nic. i. 8). But this does not refute the supposition, that another man, less just or liberal than he, may enjoy greater happiness arising out of other tastes and other conduct.
In order to sustain the conclusion of Aristotle respecting the superior happiness of the virtuous man, it is necessary to assume that the pleasures of self-esteem and self-admiration are generically distinguished from other pleasures and entitled to a preference in the eyes of every right judging person. And Aristotle does seem to assume something of this nature. He says — x. 3 — “Or that pleasures differ in kind? For the pleasures arising from the honourable are different from those arising from the base; and it is not the case that the unjust man experiences the pleasure of the just, or he that is unmusical that of the musician.” The inherent difference between various pleasures is again touched upon x. 5 — “And since the functions differ in goodness and badness — some of them being objects of desire, others of them to be eschewed, and others of them neither — so is it likewise with the pleasures: for each function has its own pleasures. The pleasure then that is proper to the function of good is good, and that which is proper to the function of bad is bad; for the desires of things honourable are praiseworthy, those of things base are to be blamed. And the pleasures attaching to them are more proper to the functions than are the appetencies themselves.” In the next chapter, in that remarkable passage where he touches upon the predilections of men in power for the society of jesters and amusing companions (“The many have recourse to the amusements of those that are accounted happy”) — “For it is not in kingly power that you find either virtue or intellect, on which the higher functions of man depend. Nay, not if princes who have never tasted the relish of pure and liberal pleasure, have recourse to the pleasures of the body, on which account these must be thought the more desirable. For children consider those things to be best that are held in honour among themselves.”
Here we have a marked distinction drawn between the different classes of pleasures — some being characterised as good, some bad, some indifferent. The best of all are those which the virtuous man enjoys, and which he considers the best: the pleasures inseparably annexed to virtuous agency. These pleasures are thus assumed to be of a purer and more exalted character, and to deserve a decided preference over every other class of pleasures. And if this be assumed, the superior happiness of the virtuous man follows as a matter of course.
512I should observe that Aristotle considers happiness to consist in the exercise of the faculties agreeably to virtue (ἐνέργεια κατ’ ἀρετὴν) — the pleasure (ἡδονὴ) is something different from the exercise (ἐνέργεια) — inseparably attending it, indeed, yet not the same — “conjoined with the functions (ἐνεργείαις), and the two are so inseparable as to raise a question whether the function is not identical with the pleasure” (x. 5). And he says, x. 7 — “We think that pleasure should be mixed up (παραμεμίχθαι) with happiness.”
It seems to be in the sense of self-esteem, which constitutes the distinctive mark of virtuous agency, that Aristotle supposes happiness to consist: the pleasure he supposes to be an inseparable concomitant, but yet not the same. The self-esteem is doubtless often felt in cases where a man is performing a painful duty — where the sum total of feelings accompanying the performance of the act is the very reverse of pleasurable. But still the self-esteem, or testimony of an approving conscience, is per se always pleasurable, and is in fact the essential pleasure inherent in virtuous behaviour. I do not see the propriety of the distinction here taken by Aristotle. He puts it somewhat differently, Polit. vii. 1 — “Living happily consists either in joy or in virtue to men, or in both.” And Polit. viii. 5 — “For happiness is a compound of both these (honour and pleasure).” So Polit. viii. 3.
Happiness (again he says — Polit. vii. 13, p. 440 E. p. 286) consists in the perfect employment and active exercise of virtue: and that absolutely (or under the most favourable external conditions) — not under limitation (ἐξ ὑποθέσεως) or subject to very trying and difficult circumstances. For a man of virtue may be so uncomfortably placed that he has no course open to him except a choice of evils, and can do nothing but make the best of a bad position. Such a man will conduct himself under the pressure of want or misfortune as well as his case admits: but happiness is out of his reach. (Compare Eth. Nic. i. 10.) To be happy, it is necessary that he should be so placed as to be capable of aspiring to the accomplishment of positive good and advantage — he must be admitted to contend for the great prizes, and to undertake actions which lead to new honours and to benefits previously unenjoyed: he must be relieved from the necessity of struggling against overwhelming calamities.
Aristotle tells us in the beginning of the Ethics (Eth. Nic. i. 3) — “But there is so much difference of opinion and so much error respecting what is honourable and just, of which political science treats, that these properties of human action seem to 513exist merely by positive legal appointment, and not by nature. And there is the same sort of error respecting what things are good.” If there be this widespread error and dissension among mankind with respect to the determining of what is good and just, what standard has Aristotle established for the purpose of correcting it? I do not find that he has established any standard, nor even that he has thought it necessary to make the attempt. There are indeed a great number of observations, and many most admirable observations in his Treatise, on the various branches of Virtue and Vice: many which tend to conduct the mind of the reader unconsciously to the proper standard: but no distinct announcement of any general principle, whereby a dispute between two dissentient moralists may be settled. When he places virtue in a certain mediocrity between excess on one side and defect on the other, this middle point is not in any way marked or discoverable: it is a point not fixed, but variable according to the position of the individual agent, and is to be determinable in every case by right reason and according to the judgment of the prudent man — “in the mean with reference to ourselves, as it has been determined by reason, and as the prudent man (ὁ φρόνιμος) would determine it” (Eth. Nic. ii. 6). But though the decision is thus vested in the prudent man, no mention is made of the principle which the appointed arbiter would follow in delivering his judgment, assuming a dispute to arise.
In a previous part of Chapter II., he defines “the mean with reference to ourselves” to be “that which neither exceeds, nor falls short of, the rule of propriety (τοῦ δέοντος). But this is not one, nor is it the same to all.”
To render this definition sufficient and satisfactory, Aristotle ought to have pointed out to us how we are to find out that rule of propriety (τὸ δέον) which marks and constitutes the medium point, of actions and affections, in relation to ourselves — this medium point being in his opinion virtue. To explain what is meant by a medium in relation to ourselves, by the words τὸ δέον, the rule of propriety, is only a change of language, without any additional information.
Thus the capital problem of moral philosophy still remains unsolved.
It is remarkable that Aristotle in some parts of his treatise states very distinctly what this problem is, and what are the points essential to its solution: he speaks as if he were fully aware of that which was wanting to his own treatise, and as if he were preparing to supply the defect: but still the promise is 514never realized. Take for example the beginning of Book VI. Eth. Nic.
“Since it has been already laid down, that we ought to choose the middle point and not either the excess or the defect — and since the middle point is that which right reason determines — let us distinguish what that is. For in all the mental habits which have been described, as well as in all others also, there is a certain aim, by a reference to which the rational being is guided either in relaxing or in restricting: and there is a certain definite boundary of those medial points, which we affirm to exist between excess and defect, determinable according to right reason. To speak thus, however, is indeed correct enough, but it gives no distinct information (οὐθὲν δὲ σαφές): for in all other modes of proceeding which are governed by scientific principles it is quite just to say that you ought neither to work nor to rest more than is sufficient nor less than is sufficient, but to a degree midway between the two and agreeably to right reason. But a man who has only this information would be no wiser than he was before it, any more than he would know what things he ought to apply to his body, by being simply told that he must apply such things as medical science and as the medical practitioner directed. Wherefore, with respect also to the habits of the soul we must not be content with merely giving a general statement in correct language, but we must farther discriminate what right reason is, and what is its definition.”
This is a very clear and candid statement of the grand and fundamental defect in Aristotle’s theory of Ethics. He says very truly that “there is a certain end and aim (σκόπος), to which a rational being has reference when he either restricts or relaxes any disposition.” It was incumbent on Aristotle to explain what this σκόπος was; but this he never does, though he seems so clearly to have felt the want of it. We might have supposed that after he had pointed out what was required to impart specific meaning to correct but vague generalities, he would have proceeded at once to fill up the acknowledged chasm in his theory: but instead of this, he enters into an analysis of the intellect, speculative and practical, and explains the varieties of intellectual, as contradistinguished from moral, excellence. This part of his work is highly valuable and instructive: but I cannot find that he ever again touches upon the σκόπος, which had been admitted to be as yet undetermined. In a certain sense, it is indeed true that he endeavours “to discriminate what right reason is, and what is its definition:” for he classifies the intellectual functions into intellect (νοῦς), science (ἐπιστήμη), wisdom 515(σοφία), art (τέχνη), prudence (φρόνησις): he states the general nature of each of these attributes, and the range of subjects to which it applies. He tells us that intellect and prudence have reference to human conduct — that prudence is “concerned with things just and honourable and good for man” (vii. 12) — “with the things of man, and those things regarding which we deliberate” (vii. 7) — “prudence must needs be a true habit according to reason, concerned with the good of man” (vii. 5). In explaining what prudence is, he tells us that it is according to reason: in explaining what is right reason, he tells us that it is according to prudence. He thus seems to make use of each as a part of the definition of the other. But however this may be, certain it is that he never fulfils the expectation held out in the beginning of the Sixth Book, nor ever clears up the οὐδὲν σαφὲς there acknowledged.
There is one sentence at the beginning of vi. 5, which looks as if it conveyed additional information upon the difficulty in question — “Now it seems to belong to the prudent man to be able to deliberate aright concerning the things that are good and profitable to himself — not in part, as concerning the things that have a reference to health or strength — but concerning the things that refer to the whole of living well” (πρὸς τὸ εὖ ζῇν). But this in point of fact explains nothing. For living well is the same as happiness: happiness is the active exercise of the soul according to virtue: therefore virtue must be known, before we can know what living well is.
I think that this σκόπος or end, which Aristotle alludes to in the beginning of the Sixth Book as not having been yet made clear, appears to be more distinctly brought out in a previous passage than it is in any portion of the Treatise after the beginning of the Sixth Book. In Book IV. 6, Aristotle treats of the virtues and defects connected with behaviour in social intercourse: the obsequious at one extreme, the peevish or quarrelsome at the other: and the becoming medium, though it had no special name, which lay between them. Speaking of the person who adopts this becoming medium, he says — “We have said generally, then, that he will associate with people as he ought; and having, moreover, a constant reference to what is honourable and what is expedient, he will aim at not giving pain or at contributing pleasure.”
Again in regard to Temperance — iii. 11 — he states the σκόπος of the temperate man — “What things have a reference to health or vigour, and are agreeable, these he desires in measure and as he ought; as well as the other agreeable things that are not 516opposed to these, either as being contrary to what is honourable or as being beyond his fortune. For he that desires things agreeable, which yet are contrary to what is honourable or beyond his fortune, loves these pleasures more than they are worth. But not so with the temperate man who lives according to right reason.”
These passages are not very distinct, as an explanation of the proper σκόπος: but I cannot find any passages after the beginning of the Sixth Book which are more distinct than they: or perhaps, equally distinct.
In one passage of the Seventh Book, Aristotle refers, though somewhat obscurely, to the average degree of virtue exhibited by the mass of mankind as the standard to be consulted when we pronounce upon excess or defect (vii. 7).
Aristotle seems in some passages to indicate pleasure and pain as the end with reference to which actions or dispositions are denominated good and evil. He says — vii. 11 — “To theorise respecting pleasure and pain, is the business of the political philosopher: for he is the architect of that end with reference to which we call each matter either absolutely good or absolutely evil. Moreover, it is indispensable to institute an enquiry respecting them: for we have explained ethical virtue and vice as referring to pleasures and pains: and most people affirm happiness to be coupled with pleasure: for which reason they have named τὸ μακάριον ἀπὸ τοῦ χαίρειν.”
In Book VIII. 9-10, the σκόπος is indeed stated very clearly, but not as such — not as if Aristotle intended to make it serve as such, or thought that it ought to form the basis upon which our estimate of what is the proper middle point should be found. In viii. 9-10, he tells us that all justice and benevolence (τὸ δίκαιον καὶ ἡ φιλία) is a consequence and an incident of established communion among human beings (κοινωνία) — that the grand communion of all, which comprehends all the rest, is the Political Communion — that the end and object of the Political Communion, as well that for which it was originally created as that for which it subsists and continues, is the common and lasting advantage (τὸ κοινῇ σύμφερον) — that all other communions, of relations, friends, fellow-soldiers, neighbours, &c., are portions of the all-comprehensive political communion, and aim at realizing some partial advantage to the constituent members. These chapters are very clear and very important, and they announce plainly enough the common and lasting interest as the foundation and measure of justice as well as of benevolence. But they do not apply the same measure, to the qualities which 517had been enumerated in the Books prior to the Sixth, as a means of ascertaining where the middle point is to be found which is alleged to constitute virtue. Nevertheless, Aristotle tells us that it is in the highest degree difficult to find the middle point which constitutes virtue (ii. 9).
It might seem at first sight not easy for Aristotle, consistently with the plan of his treatise, to point out any such standard or measure. For none can be mentioned, with any tolerable pretensions to admissibility, except that of tendency to promote happiness — the happiness both of the individual agent and of the society to which he belongs. But as he had begun by introducing the ideas of reason and virtue as media for explaining what happiness was, there would have been at least an apparent incongruity in reverting back to the latter as a means of clearing up what was obscure in the former. I say — at least an apparent incongruity — because after all the incongruity is more apparent than real. If we carefully preserve the distinction between the happiness of the individual agent and the happiness of the Society to which he belongs, it will appear that Aristotle might without any inconsistency have specified the latter as being the object to which reason has regard, in regulating and controlling the various affections of each individual.
Wherein consists the happiness of an individual man? In a course of active exertion of the soul conformably to virtue: virtue being understood to consist in a certain mediocrity of our various affections as determined by right reason.
When we next enquire, to what standard does right reason look in making this determination? it may without inconsistency be answered — Right reason determines the proper point of mediocrity by a reference to happiness generally — that is, to the happiness of society at large, including that of the individual agent in question — in other words, to the common and lasting advantage, which Aristotle describes as the grand object of the statesman. There is no inconsistency in reverting to happiness, thus explained, as the standard by which right reason judges in controlling our different affections.
In all moral enquiries, it is of the greatest importance to keep in view the happiness of the individual, and the happiness of the society at large, as two distinct and separate objects — which coincide indeed ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολύ, in the majority of instances and with regard to the majority of individuals — but which do not coincide necessarily and universally, nor with regard to every individual. A particular man may be placed in such a position, or animated with such feelings, that his happiness may be 518promoted by doing what is contrary to the happiness of the society. He will under these circumstances do what is good for himself but bad for others: he will do what is morally wrong, and will incur the blame of society. In speaking of good and evil it is always necessary to keep in mind, that what is good for an individual may be bad for the society: I mean, understanding the words good for an individual in the most comprehensive sense, as including all that he has to suffer from the unfavourable sentiments of society. Much confusion has arisen from moralists speaking of good and evil absolutely, without specifying whether they meant good for the individual or for the society: more particularly in the writings of the ancient philosophers.
From the manner in which Aristotle arrives at his definition of what constitutes happiness, we might almost suppose that he would have been led to the indication of the happiness of society at large as the standard for right reason to appeal to. For in examining what is the proper business of man in general, he has recourse to the analogy of the various particular arts and professions — the piper, the statuary, the carpenter, the carrier, &c. Each has his particular business and walk of action, and in the performance of that business consists the good and the well in his case (i. 7). So in like manner there is a special business for man in general, in the performance of which we are to seek human good.
Now this analogy of particular artists and professional men might have conducted Aristotle to the idea of the general happiness of society as a standard. For the business of every artist or artisan consists in conducing to the comfort, the protection, or the gratification of the public, each in his particular walk: professional excellence for them consists in accomplishing this object perfectly. For every special profession therefore the happiness of society at large, under one form or another, is introduced as the standard by which good and excellence are to be measured.
Apply this analogy to man in general, taken apart from any particular craft or profession. If each man, considered simply as such, has his appropriate business, in the good performance of which happiness for him consists, the standard of excellence in respect to such performance is to be found in its conduciveness to the happiness of society at large. It can be found nowhere else, if we are to judge according to the analogy of special arts and professions.
Until this want of a standard or measure is supplied, it is clear 519that the treatise of Aristotle is defective in a most essential point — a defect which is here admitted by himself in the first chapter of the Sixth Book. Nor is there any other way of supplying what is wanting except by reference to the general happiness of society, the end and object (as he himself tells us) of the statesman.
“What then,” says Aristotle,” prevents our calling him happy who is in the active exercise of his soul agreeably to perfect virtue, and is sufficiently well furnished with external goods, not for a casual period but for a complete lifetime?” (i. 10). He thinks himself obliged to add, however, that this is not quite sufficient — for that after death a man will still be affected with sympathy for the good or bad fortunes and conduct of his surviving relatives, affected however faintly and slightly, so as not to deprive him of the title to be called happy, if on other grounds he deserves it. The deceased person sees the misfortunes of his surviving friends with something of the same kind of sympathetic interest, though less in degree, as is felt by a living person in following the representation of a tragedy (i. 11). The difference between a misfortune, happening during a man’s life or after his death, is much greater than that between scenic representation of past calamities and actual reality (ib.).
It seems as if Aristotle was reluctantly obliged to make this admission — that deceased persons were at all concerned in the calamities of the living — more in deference to the opinions of others than in consequence of any conviction of his own. His language in the two chapters wherein he treats of it is more than usually hesitating and undecided: and in the beginning of Chapter XI., he says — “To have no interest whatever in the fortunes of their descendants and friends, seems exceedingly heartless and contrary to what we should expect” — he then, farther on, states it to be a great matter of doubt whether the dead experience either good or evil — but if anything of the kind does penetrate to them, it must be feeble and insignificant, so as to make no sensible difference to them.
Aristotle distributes good things into three classes — the admirable or worshipful — the praiseworthy — the potential.
1. Good — as an End: that which is worthy of being honoured and venerated in itself and from its own nature, without regard 520to anything ulterior: that which comes up to our idea of perfection.
2. Good — as a means: that which is good, not on its own account nor in its own nature, but on account of certain ulterior consequences which flow from it.
3. Good — as a means, but not a certain and constant means: that which produces generally, but not always, ulterior consequences finally good: that which, in order to produce consequences in themselves good, requires to be coupled with certain concomitant conditions.
1. Happiness belongs to the first of these classes: it is put along with the divine, the better, soul, intellect, the more ancient, the principle, the cause, &c. (Mag. Moral. i. 2). Such objects as these, we contemplate with awe and reverence.
2. Virtue belongs to the second of the classes: it is good from the acts to which it gives birth, and from the end (happiness) which those acts, when sufficiently long continued, tend to produce.
3. Wealth, power, beauty, strength, &c., belong to the third class: these are generally good because under most circumstances they tend to produce happiness: but they may be quite otherwise, if a man’s mind be so defectively trained as to dispose him to abuse them.
It is remarkable that this classification is not formally laid down and explained, but is assumed as already well known and familiar, in the Nicom. Ethics, i. 12: whereas it is formally stated and explained in the Magna Moralia, i. 2.
Praise, according to Aristotle, “does not belong to the best things, but only to the second-best. The Gods are to be macarised, not praised:” the praise of the Gods must have reference to ourselves, and must be taken in comparison with ourselves and our acts and capacities: and this is ridiculously degrading, when we apply it to the majesty of the Gods. In like manner the most divine and perfect men deserve to be macarised rather than praised. “No man praises happiness, as he praises justice, but macarises (blesses) it as something more divine and better.”
Happiness is to be numbered amongst the perfect and worshipful objects — it is the ἀρχὴ for the sake of which all of us do everything: and we consider the principle and the cause of all good things to be something divine and venerable (i. 12).
Since then Happiness is the action of the soul conformably to perfect virtue, it is necessary to examine what human virtue 521is: and this is the most essential mark to which the true politician will direct his attention (i. 13).
There are two parts of the soul — the rational and the irrational. Whether these two are divisible in fact, like the parts of the body, or whether they are inseparable in fact, and merely susceptible of being separately dealt with in reasoning, like the concavity and convexity of a circle, is a matter not necessary to be examined in the present treatise. Aristotle speaks as if he considered this as really a doubtful point.
Of the irrational soul, one branch is, the nutritive and vegetative faculty, common to man with animals and plants. The virtue of this faculty is not special to man, but common to the vegetable and animal world: it is in fact most energetic during sleep, at the period when all virtue special to man is for the time dormant (i. 13).
But the irrational soul has also another branch, the appetites, desires, and passions: which are quite distinct from reason, but may either resist reason, or obey it, as the case may happen. It may thus in a certain sense be said to partake of reason, which the vegetative and nutritive faculty does not in any way. The virtue of this department of the soul consists in its due obedience to reason, as to the voice of a parent (i. 13).
Human virtue, then, distributes itself into two grand divisions — 1. The virtue of the rational soul, or Intellectual Virtue. 2. The virtue of the semi-rational soul, or Ethical Virtue.
Perhaps the word Excellence more exactly corresponds to ἀρετὴ, than Virtue.
Intellectual excellence is both generated and augmented by teaching and experience. Ethical excellence by practical training. The excellence is not natural to us: but we are susceptible of being trained, and the training creates it. By training, according as it is either good or bad, all excellence is either created or destroyed: just as a man becomes a good or a bad musician, according as he has been subjected to a good or a bad mode of practice.
It is by doing the same thing many times that we acquire at last the habit of doing it — “For what things we have to learn to do, these we learn by doing” (ii. 1): according as the things we are trained to do are good or bad, we acquire good habits or bad habits. By building we become builders, by playing on the harp we become harpers — good or indifferent, according to the way in which we have practised. All legislators wish and attempt to make their citizens good, by means of certain habits: some succeed in the attempt, others fail: and this is the 522difference between a good and a bad government. It is by being trained to do acts of justice and courage that we become at last just and courageous — “In one word, habits are generated by (a succession of) like operations: for this reason it is the character of the operations performed which we ought chiefly to attend to: for according to the difference of these will be the habits which ensue. It is therefore not a matter of slight difference whether immediately from our earliest years we are ethised in one way or in another — it makes a prodigious difference — or rather, it makes the whole difference” (ii. 1).
Uniform perseverance in action, then, creates a habit: but of what nature is the required action to be? In every department of our nature, where any good result is to be produced, we may be disappointed of our result by two sorts of error: either an excess or on the side of defect. To work or eat too much, or too little, prevents the good effects of training upon the health and strength: so with regard to temperance, courage and the other virtues — the man who is trained to fear everything and the man who is trained to fear nothing, will alike fail in acquiring the genuine habit of courage. The acquisition of the habit makes the performance of the action easy: by a course of abstinent acts, we acquire the habit of temperance: and having acquired this habit, we can with the greater ease perform the act of abstinence (ii. 2).
The symptom which indicates that the habit has been perfectly acquired, is the facility or satisfaction with which the act comes to be performed (ii. 3). The man who abstains from bodily pleasures, and who performs this contentedly (αὐτῷ τούτῳ χαίρων), is the temperate man: the man who does the same thing but reluctantly and with vexation (ἀχθόνιμος) is intemperate: the like with courage. Ethical excellence, or ethical badness, has reference to our pleasures and pains: whenever we do any thing mean, or shrink from any thing honourable, it is some pleasure or some pain which determines our conduct: for which reason Plato rightly prescribes that the young shall be educated even from the earliest moment so as to give a proper direction to their pleasures and pains (ii. 3). By often pursuing pleasure and pain under circumstances in which we ought not to do so, we contract bad habits, by a law similar to that which under a good education would have imparted to us good habits. Ethical virtue then consists in such a disposition of our pleasures and pains as leads to performance of the best actions. Some persons have defined it to consist in apathy and imperturbability of mind: but this definition is erroneous: the mind ought to be 523affected under proper circumstances (ii. 3). (This seems to be the same doctrine which was afterwards preached by the Stoic school.)
There are three ingredients which determine our choice, the honourable — the expedient — the agreeable: and as many which occasion our rejection — the base — the inexpedient — the painful or vexatious. In respect to all these three the good man judges rightly, the wicked man wrongly, and especially in regard to the latter. Pleasure and pain are familiar to us from our earliest childhood, and are ineffaceable from human nature: all men measure and classify actions (κανονίζομεν τὰς πράξεις) by pleasure and pain: some men to a greater degree, others to a less degree.
All ethical excellence, and all the political science, turns upon pleasure and pain (ii. 3).
A man becomes just and temperate by doing just and temperate actions, thus by degrees acquiring the habit. But how (it is asked) can this be true? for if a man performs just and temperate actions, he must already start by being just and temperate.
The objection is not well founded. A man may do just and temperate actions, and yet not be just and temperate. If he does them, knowing what he does, intending what he does, and intending to do the acts for their own sake, then indeed he is just and temperate, but not otherwise. The productions of art carry their own merit along with them: a work of art is excellent or defective, whatever be the state of mind of the person who has executed it. But the acts of a man cannot be said to be justly or temperately done, unless there be a certain state of mind accompanying their performance by the doer: they may indeed be called just and temperate acts, meaning thereby that they are such as a just and temperate man would do, but the man who does them does not necessarily deserve these epithets. It is only by frequent doing of acts of this class that a man can acquire the habit of performing them intentionally and for themselves, in which consists the just and temperate character. To know what such acts are, is little or nothing: you must obey the precepts, just as you follow the prescriptions of a physician. Many men think erroneously that philosophy will teach them to be virtuous, without any course of action adopted by themselves (ii. 4).
Aristotle classifies the phenomena of the soul (the non-rational soul) into three — Passions — Capacities or Faculties — States. The first are the occasional affections — anger, fear, envy, joy, aversion — “in short, everything that is accompanied by pleasure 524or pain” (ii. 5). The second are, the capacities of being moved by such affections — the affective faculties, if one may so call them (ib. So Eth. Eudem. ii. 2). The third are, those habits according to which we are said to be well or ill disposed towards this or that particular affection: to be disposed to violent anger or violent fear, is a bad habit. Virtues and vices are neither affections, nor faculties, but habits, either good or bad. This is the genus to which the virtues belong (τῷ γένει — Eth. Nic. ii. 5). Virtue is that habit from the possession of which a man is called good, and by which he performs well his appropriate function (ii. 6). It consists in a certain medium between two extremes, the one of excess, the other of defect — a medium not positive and absolute, but variable and having reference to each particular person and each particular case — neither exceeding nor falling short of what is proper (ii. 6). All ethical virtue aims at the attainment of this middle point in respect to our affections and actions — to exhibit each on the proper occasions, in the proper degree, towards the proper persons, &c. This middle point is but one, but errors on both sides of it are numberless: it must be determined by reason and by the judgment of the prudent man (ii. 6).
Virtue therefore, according to its essence and generic definition (κατὰ μὲν τὴν οὐσίαν, καὶ τὸν λόγον τὸν τί ἠν εἶναι λέγοντα), is a certain mediocrity.
But there are some actions and some affections which do not admit of mediocrity, and which imply at once in their names evil and culpability (ii. 6) — such as impudence, envy, theft, &c. Each of these names implies in its meaning a certain excess and defect, and does not admit of mediocrity: just as temperance and courage imply in their meaning the idea of mediocrity, and exclude both excess and defect.
Aristotle then proceeds to apply his general doctrine — that virtue or excellence consists in a medium between two extremes, both defects — to various different virtues. He again insists upon the extreme difficulty of determining where this requisite medium is, in each individual instance: either excess or defect is the easy and natural course. In finding and adhering to the middle point consists the well, the rare, the praiseworthy, the honourable (ii. 9). The extremes, though both wrong, are not always equally wrong: that which is the most wrong ought at any rate to be avoided: and we ought to be specially on our guard against the seductions of pleasure (ib.), since our natural inclinations carry us in that direction.
Aristotle so often speaks of the propriety of following nature, 525and produces nature so constantly as an authority and an arbiter, that it seems surprising to find him saying — “We must be on our guard with reference to the things whereto we ourselves are prone. For some of us are by nature disposed towards some things, others towards others.” — “But we must drag ourselves away in the opposite direction” (ii. 9).
There is a singular passage in the same chapter with respect to our moral judgments. After having forcibly insisted on the extreme difficulty of hitting the proper medium point of virtue, he says that a man who commits only small errors on one side or on the other side of this point, is not censured, but only he who greatly deviates from it — he then proceeds — “But it is not easy to define in general language at what point a man becomes deserving of censure: nor indeed is it easy to do this with regard to any other matter of perception. Questions of this sort depend upon the circumstances of the particular case, and the judgment upon each resides in our perception” (ii. 9).
The first five chapters, of the third Book of the Ethics, are devoted to an examination of various notions involved in our ideas of virtue and vice — Voluntary and Involuntary — ἑκούσιον καὶ ἀκούσιον — Ignorance — ἄγνοια — Choice or resolution, consequent upon previous deliberation — προαίρεσις.
Those actions are involuntary, which are done either by compulsion, or through ignorance. An action is done by compulsion when the proximate cause of it (or beginning — ἀρχὴ) is something foreign to the will of the agent — the agent himself neither concurring nor contributing. Actions done from the fear of greater evils are of a mixed character, as where a navigator in a storm throws his goods overboard to preserve the ship. Such actions as this, taken as a class, and apart from particular circumstances, are what no one would do voluntarily: but in the particular circumstances of the supposed case, the action is done voluntarily. Every action is voluntary, wherein the beginning of organic motion is, the will of the agent (iii. 1).
Men are praised if under such painful circumstances they make a right choice — if they voluntarily undergo what is painful or dishonourable for the purpose of accomplishing some great and glorious result (ib.): they are censured, if they shrink from this course, or if they submit to the evil without some sufficient end. If a man is induced to do what is unbecoming by the threat of evils surpassing human endurance, he is spoken of with forbearance: though there are some crimes of such magnitude as cannot be excused even by the greatest possible apprehension of evil, such as death and torture. In such trying 526circumstances, it is difficult to make a right choice, and still more difficult to adhere to the choice when it is made.
What is done through ignorance, can never be said to be done voluntarily: if the agent shall be afterwards grieved and repentant for what he has done, it is involuntary. If he be not repentant, though he cannot be said to have done the deed voluntarily, yet neither ought it to be called involuntary.
A distinction however is to be taken in regard to ignorance, considered as a ground for calling the action involuntary, and for excusing the agent. A man drunk or in a violent passion, misbehaves, ignorantly but not through ignorance: that is, ignorance is not the cause of his misbehaviour, but drunkenness or rage. In like manner, every depraved person may be ignorant of his true interest, or the rule which he ought to follow, but this sort of ignorance does not render his behaviour involuntary, nor entitle him to any indulgence. It must be ignorance with regard to some particular circumstance connected with the special action which he is committing — ignorance of the person with whom, or the instrument with which, or the subject matter in regard to which he is dealing. Ignorance of this special kind, if it be accompanied with subsequent sorrow and repentance, constitutes an action involuntary, and forms a reasonable ground for indulgence (iii. 1).
A voluntary action, then, is that of which the beginning is in the agent — he knowing the particular circumstances under which he is acting. Some persons have treated actions, performed through passion or through desire, as involuntary; but this is an error. If this were true, neither children nor animals would be capable of voluntary action. Besides, it is proper, on some occasions, to follow the dictates both of anger and of desire: and we cannot be said to act involuntarily in these cases when we do exactly what we ought to do. Moreover sins from passions and sins from bad reasoning are alike voluntary or alike involuntary: both of them ought to be avoided: and the nonrational affections are just as much a part of human nature as reason is (iii. 1).
Having explained the proper meaning of voluntary and involuntary as applied to actions, Aristotle proceeds to define προαίρεσις (deliberate choice); which is most intimately connected with excellence, and which indeed affords a better test of disposition than actions themselves can do (iii. 2).
All premeditated choice is voluntary, but all voluntary action is not preconcerted. Children and animals are capable of voluntary action, but not of preconcerted action: sudden deeds, 527too, are voluntary, but not preconcerted. Premeditated choice is different from desire — from passion — from wishing — and from opinion. Desire and passion are common to animals, who are nevertheless incapable of deliberate preference. The incontinent man acts from desire, but not from deliberate preference: the continent man acts from deliberate preference, but not from desire. Nor is premeditated choice the same as wishing: for we often wish for what is notoriously impracticable or unattainable, but we do not deliberately prefer any such thing: moreover we wish for the end, but we deliberately choose the means conducting to the end. We wish to be happy: but it cannot with propriety be said that we deliberately choose to be happy. Deliberate choice has reference to what it is or seems in our own power to achieve.
Again, deliberate choice is not to be regarded as a simple modification of opinion. Opinions extend to everything: deliberate choice belongs exclusively to matters within our grasp. Opinion is either true or false: deliberate choice is either good or evil. We are good or bad, according to the turn which our deliberate choice takes: not according to our opinions. We deliberately choose to seek something or to avoid something, and our choice is praised when it falls upon what is proper: the points upon which we form an opinion are, what such or such a thing is, whom it will benefit, and how: and our opinion is praised when it happens to be true. It often occurs, too, that men who form the truest opinions are not the best in their deliberate preferences. Opinion may precede or accompany every deliberate choice, but still the latter is something distinct in itself. It is in fact a determination of the will, preceded by deliberate counsel, and thus including or presupposing the employment of reason (iii. 2). It is an appetency, determined by previous counsel, of some matter within our means, either really or seemingly, to accomplish — βουλευτικὴ ὅρεξις τῶν ἐφ’ ἡμῖν (iii. 3).
It seems from the language of Aristotle that the various explanations of Προαίρεσις which he has canvassed and shown to be inadmissible, had all been advanced by various contemporary philosophers.
Προαίρεσις, or deliberate preference, includes the idea of deliberation. A reasonable man does not deliberate upon all matters — he does not deliberate respecting mathematical or physical truths, or respecting natural events altogether out of his reach, or respecting matters of pure accident, or even respecting matters of human design carried on by distant foreign 528nations. He only deliberates respecting matters which are more or less within his own agency and control: respecting matters which are not certain, but of doubtful issue. He does not deliberate about the end, but about the means towards the end: the end itself is commonly assumed, just as the physician assumes the necessity of establishing good health and the orator that of persuading his hearers. If there be more than one way of accomplishing the end, he deliberates by which out of these several means he can achieve it best and most easily: proceeding from the end itself first to the proximate cause of that end, then to the cause immediately preceding that cause, and so backwards until he arrives at the primary cause, which is either an action of his own, within his own means, or something requiring implements and assistance beyond his power to procure. This is a process of analysis, similar to that which is pursued by geometricians in seeking the way of solving a problem: they assume the figure with the required conditions to be constructed: they then take it to pieces, following back the consequences of each separate condition which it has been assumed to possess. If by this way of proceeding they arrive at some known truth, their problem is solved; if they arrive at some known untruth, the problem is insoluble. That step which is last arrived at in the analysis, is the first in the order of production (iii. 3). When a man in carrying back mentally this deliberative analysis arrives at something manifestly impracticable, he desists from farther deliberation: if he arrives at something within his power to perform, he begins action accordingly. The subject of deliberation, and the subject of deliberate preference, are the same, but the latter represents the process as accomplished and the result of deliberation decided.
We take counsel and deliberation (as has been said), not about the end, but about the means or the best means towards the end assumed. We wish for the end (ἡ βούλησις τοῦ τέλους ἔστι — iii. 4). Our wish is for good, real or apparent: whether for the one or the other, is a disputed question. Speaking generally, and without reference to peculiar idiosyncrasies, the real good or the good is the object of human wishes: speaking with reference to any particular individual, it is his own supposed or apparent good. On this matter, the virtuous man is the proper judge and standard of reference: that which is really good appears good to him. Each particular disposition has its own peculiar sentiment both of what is honourable and of what is agreeable (iii. 4): the principal excellence of the virtuous man is, that he in every variety of circumstances perceives what is truly and genuinely 529good; whereas to most men, pleasure proves a deception, and appears to be good, not being so in reality.
Both virtue and vice consists in deliberate preference, of one or of another course of action. Both therefore are voluntary and in our own power: both equally so. It is not possible to refer virtuous conduct or vicious conduct to any other beginning except to ourselves: the man is the cause of his own actions, as he is the father of his own children. It is upon this assumption that all legal reward and punishment is founded: it is intended for purposes of encouragement and prevention, but it would be absurd to think either of encouraging or preventing what is involuntary, such as the appetite of hunger and thirst. A man is punished for ignorance, when he is himself the cause of his own ignorance, or when by reasonable pains he might have acquired the requisite knowledge. Every man above the limit of absolute fatuity (κομιδῇ ἀναισθήτου) must know that any constant repetition of acts tends to form a habit: if then by repetition of acts he allows himself to form a bad habit, it is his own fault. When once the bad habit is formed, it is true that he cannot at once get rid of it: but the formation of such a habit originally was not the less imputable to himself (iii. 5). Defects of body also which we bring upon ourselves by our own negligence or intemperance, bring upon us censure: if they are constitutional and unavoidable, we are pitied for them. Some persons seem to have contended at that time, that no man could justly be made responsible for his bad conduct: because (they said) the end which he proposed to himself was good or bad according to his natural disposition, not according to any selection of his own. Aristotle seems to be somewhat perplexed by this argument: nevertheless he maintains, that whatever influence we may allow to original and uncontrollable nature, still the formation of our habits is more or less under our own concurrent control; and therefore the end which we propose to ourselves being dependent upon those habits, is also in part at least dependent upon ourselves (iii. 5) — our virtues and our vices are both voluntary.
The first five chapters of the third Book (in which Aristotle examines the nature of τὸ ἑκούσιον, τὸ ἀκούσιον, προαίρεσις, βούλησις, &c.) ought perhaps to constitute a Book by themselves. They are among the most valuable parts of the Ethics. He has now established certain points with regard to our virtues generally.
1. They are mediocrities (μεσότητες).
2. They are habits, generated by particular actions often repeated.
5303. When generated, they have a specific influence of their own in facilitating the performance of actions of the same class.
4. They are in our own power originally, and voluntary.
5. They are under the direction of right reason.
It is to be observed that our actions are voluntary from the beginning to the end — the last of a number of repeated actions is no less voluntary than the first. But our habits are voluntary only at the beginning — they cease to be voluntary after a certain time — but the permanent effect left by each separate repetition of the action is inappreciable (iii. 5).
Aristotle then proceeds to an analysis of the separate virtues — Courage, Temperance, Liberality, Magnificence, Magnanimity, Gentleness, Frankness, Simplicity, Elegant playfulness, Justice, Equity, &c. He endeavours to show that each of these is a certain mediocrity — excess lying on one side of it, defect on the other.
There are various passages of Aristotle which appear almost identical with the moral doctrine subsequently maintained by the Stoic school: for example — iii. 6 — “In like manner he ought not to fear penury, nor sickness, nor in any way such things as arise not from moral baseness nor are dependent on himself.”
The courageous man is afraid of things such as it befits a man to fear, but of no others: and even these he will make head against on proper occasions, when reason commands and for the sake of honour, which is the end of virtue (iii. 7). To fear nothing, or too little, is rashness or insanity: to fear too much, is timidity: the courageous man is the mean between the two, who fears what he ought, when he ought, as he ought, and with the right views and purposes (ib.). The μοιχὸς (adulterer) exposes himself often to great dangers for the purpose of gratifying his passion: but Aristotle does not hold this to be courage. Neither does he thus denominate men who affront danger from passion, or from the thirst of revenge, or from a sanguine temperament — there must be deliberate preference and a proper motive, to constitute courage — the motive of honour (iii. 8).
The end of courage (says Aristotle) is in itself pleasant, but it is put out of sight by the circumstances around it: just as the prize for which the pugilist contends is in itself pleasurable, but being of small moment and encompassed with painful accessories, it appears to carry with it no pleasure whatever. Fatigue, and wounds and death are painful to the courageous man — death is indeed more painful to him, inasmuch as his life is of more value: but still he voluntarily and knowingly affronts these pains for the sake of honour.
531This is painful: “but pleasure is not to be anticipated in the exercise of all the different virtues, except in so far as the attainment of the end is concerned” (iii. 9).
(This is perfectly true: but it contradicts decidedly the remark which Aristotle had made before in his first Book (i. 8) respecting the inherent pleasure of virtuous agency.)
Courage and Temperance are the virtues of the instincts (τῶν ἀλόγων μερῶν — iii. 10). Temperance is the observance of a rational medium with respect to the pleasures of eating, drinking, and sex. Aristotle seems to be inconsistent when he makes it to belong to those pleasures in which animals generally partake (iii. 10); for other animals do not relish intoxicating liquors: unless indeed these are considered as ranking under drink generally. The temperate man desires these pleasures as he ought, when he ought, within the limits of what is honourable, and having a proper reference to the amount of his own pecuniary means: just as right reason prescribes (iii. 11). To pursue them more, is excess: to pursue them less, is defect. There is however, in estimating excess and defect, a certain tacit reference to the average dispositions of the many.
“Wherefore the desires of the temperate man ought to harmonize with reason; for the aim of both is the honourable. And the temperate man desires what he ought, and as he ought, and when: and this too is the order of reason” (iii. 12).
All virtuous acts are to be on account of the honourable — thus Aristotle says that the donations of the ἄσωτος (prodigal) are not to be called liberal — “Neither are their gifts liberal, for they are not honourable, nor on account of this, nor as they ought to be” (iv. 1). Again about the μεγαλοπρεπὴς or magnificent man — “Now the magnificent man will expend such things on account of the honourable; for this is a condition shared in by all the virtues: and still he will do so pleasantly and lavishly” (iv. 2). On the contrary, the βάναυσος or vulgar man, who differs from the magnificent man in the way of ὑπερβολὴ or excess, is said to spend — “Not for the sake of the honourable, but for the purpose of making a display of his wealth” (iv. 2).
With respect to those epithets which imply praise or blame, there is always a tacit comparison with some assumed standard. Thus with regard to the φιλότιμος (lover of honour), Aristotle observes — “It is evident that, as the term ‘lover of such and such things’ is used in various senses, we do not always apply ‘lover of honour’ to express the same thing; but when we praise, we praise that ambition which is more than most men’s, and blame that which is greater than it ought to be” (iv. 4).
532In the fifth Book, Aristotle proceeds to explain wherein consist Justice and Injustice.
These words are used in two senses — a larger sense and a narrower sense.
In the larger sense, just behaviour is equivalent to the observance of law, generally: unjust behaviour is equivalent to the violation of law generally. But the law either actually does command, or may be understood to command, that we should perform towards others the acts belonging to each separate head of virtue: it either actually prohibits, or may be understood to prohibit, us from performing towards others any of the acts belonging to each separate head of vice. In this larger sense, therefore, justice is synonymous generally with perfect virtue — injustice, with perfect wickedness: there is only this difference, that just or unjust are expressions applied to behaviour in so far as it affects other persons besides the agent: whereas virtuous or wicked are expressions applied simply to the agent without connoting any such ulterior reference to other persons. Just or unjust, is necessarily towards somebody else: and this reference is implied distinctly in the term. Virtuous and vicious do not in the force of the term connote any such relations, but are employed with reference to the agent simply — “This justice then is perfect virtue; yet not absolutely, but with reference to one’s neighbour. — In one sense we call those things just that are productive and preservative of happiness and its parts to the political communion” (v. 1).
Justice in this sense, is the very fulness of virtue, because it denotes the actual exercise of virtuous behaviour towards others: “there are many who behave virtuously in regard to their own personal affairs, but who are incapable of doing so in what regards others” (ib.). For this reason, justice has been called by some the good of another and not our own — justice alone of all the virtues, because it necessarily has reference to another: the just man does what is for the interest of some one else, either the magistrate, or the community (v. 1).
Justice in the narrower sense, is that mode of behaviour whereby a man, in his dealings with others, aims at taking to himself his fair share and no more of the common objects of desire: and willingly consents to endure his fair share of the common hardships. Injustice is the opposite — that by which a man tries to appropriate more than his fair share of the objects of desire, while he tries to escape his fair share of the objects of aversion. To aim at this unfair distribution of the benefits of the society, either in one’s own favour or in favour of any one else, is injustice in the narrow sense (v. 2).
533Justice in this narrower sense is divided into two branches — 1. Distributive Justice. 2. Corrective Justice.
Distributive Justice has reference to those occasions on which positive benefits are to be distributed among the members of the community, wealth and honours, &c. (v. 2). In this case, the share of each citizen is to be a share not absolutely of equality, but one proportional to his personal worth (ἀξίαν): and it is in the estimation of this personal worth that quarrels and dissension arise.
Corrective Justice has reference to the individual dealings, or individual behaviour, between man and man: either to the dealings implying mutual consent and contract, as purchase, sale, loan, hire, suretyship, deposit, &c.: or such as imply no such mutual consent, — such as are on the contrary proceedings either by fraud or by force — as theft, adultery, perjury, poisoning, assassination, robbery, beating, mutilation, murder, defamation, &c.
In regard to transactions of this nature, the citizens are considered as being all upon a par — no account is taken of the difference between them in point of individual worth. Each man is considered as entitled to an equal share of good and evil: and if in any dealings between man and man, one man shall attempt to increase his own share of good or to diminish his own share of evil at the expense of another man, corrective justice will interpose and re-establish the equality thus improperly disturbed. He who has been made to lose or to suffer unduly, must be compensated and replaced in his former position: he who has gained unduly, must be mulcted or made to suffer, so as to be thrown back to the point from which he started. The judge, who represents this corrective justice, is a kind of mediator, and the point which he seeks to attain in directing redress, is the middle point between gain and loss — so that neither shall the aggressive party be a gainer, nor the suffering party a loser — “So that justice is a mean between a sort of gain and loss in voluntary things, — it is the having the same after as before” (v. 4). Aristotle admits that the words gain and loss are not strictly applicable to many of the transactions which come within the scope of interference from corrective justice — that they properly belong to voluntary contracts, and are strained in order to apply them to acts of aggression, &c. (ib.).
The Pythagoreans held the doctrine that justice universally speaking consisted in simple retaliation — in rendering to another the precise dealing which that other had first given. This definition534 will not suit either for distributive justice or corrective justice: the treatment so prescribed would be sometimes more, sometimes less, than justice: not to mention that acts deserve to be treated differently according as they are intentional or unintentional. But the doctrine is to a certain extent true in regard to the dealings between man and man (ἐν ταῖς ἀλλακτικαῖς κοινωνίαις) — if it be applied in the way of general analogy and not with any regard to exact similarity — it is of importance that the man who has been well treated, and the man who has been illtreated, should each show his sense of the proceeding by returning the like usage: “for by proportionate requital the State is held together” (v. 5). The whole business of exchange and barter, of division of labour and occupation, — the co-existence of those distinct and heterogeneous ingredients which are requisite to constitute the political communion — the supply of the most essential wants of the citizens — is all founded upon the continuance and the expectation of this assured requital for acts done. Money is introduced as an indispensable instrument for facilitating this constant traffic: it affords a common measure for estimating the value of every service — “And thus if there were no possibility of retaliation, there would be no communion” (v. 5).
Justice is thus a mediocrity — or consists in a just medium — between two extremes, but not in the same way as the other virtues. The just man is one who awards both to himself and to every one else the proper and rightful share both of benefit and burthen. Injustice, on the contrary, consists in the excess or defect which lie on one side or the other of this medium point (v. 5).
Distributive justice is said by Aristotle to deal with individuals according to geometrical ratio; corrective justice, according to arithmetical proportion. Justice, strictly and properly so called, is political justice: that reciprocity of right and obligation which prevails between free and equal citizens in a community, or between citizens who, if not positively equal, yet stand in an assured and definite ratio one to the other (v. 6). This relation is defined and maintained by law, and by judges and magistrates to administer the law. Political justice implies a state of law — a community of persons qualified by nature to obey and sustain the law — and a definite arrangement between the citizens in respect to the alternation of command and obedience — “For this is, as we have said (ἦν), according to law, and among those who can naturally have law; those, namely, as we have said (ἦσαν), who have an equality of ruling and being ruled.” As the law arises 535out of the necessity of preventing injustice, or of hindering any individual from appropriating more than his fair share of good things, so it is felt that any person invested with sovereign authority may and will commit this injustice. Reason therefore is understood to hold the sovereign authority, and the archon acts only as the guardian of the reciprocal rights and obligations — of the constitutional equality — between the various citizens: undertaking a troublesome duty and paid for his trouble by honour and respect (v. 6).
The relation which subsists between master and slave, or father and son, is not properly speaking that of justice, though it is somewhat analogous. Both the slave, and the non-adult son, are as it were parts of the master and father: there can therefore be no injustice on his part towards them, since no one deliberately intends to hurt a part of himself. Between husband and wife there subsists a sort of justice — household justice (τὸ οἰκονομικὸν δίκαιον) — but this too is different from political justice (v. 6).
Political justice is in part natural — in part conventional. That which is natural is everywhere the same: that which is conventional is different in different countries, and takes its origin altogether from positive and special institution. Some persons think that all political justice is thus conventional, and none natural: because they see that rights and obligations (τὰ δίκαια) are everywhere changeable, and nowhere exhibit that permanence and invariability which mark the properties of natural objects. “This is true to a certain extent, but not wholly true: probably among the Gods it is not true at all: but with us that which is natural is in part variable, though not in every case: yet there is a real distinction between what is natural and what is not natural. Both natural justice and conventional justice, are thus alike contingent and variable: but there is a clear mode of distinguishing between the two, applicable not only to the case of justice but to other cases in which the like distinction is to be taken. For by nature the right hand is the stronger: but nevertheless it may happen that there are ambidextrous men. — And in like manner those rules of justice which are not natural, but of human establishment, are not the same everywhere: nor indeed does the same mode of government prevail everywhere, though there is but one mode of government which is everywhere agreeable to nature — the best of all” (v. 7).
(The commentary of Andronicus upon this passage is clearer and more instructive than the passage of Aristotle itself: and 536it is remarkable as a distinct announcement of the principle of utility. “Since both natural justice, and conventional justice, are changeable, in the way just stated, how are we to distinguish the one of these fluctuating institutions from the other? The distinction is plain. Each special precept of justice is to be examined on its own ground to ascertain whether it be for the advantage of all that it should be maintained unaltered, or whether the subversion of it would occasion mischief. If this be found to be the fact, the precept in question belongs to natural justice: if it be otherwise, to conventional justice” (Andronic. Rh. v. c. 10).
The just, and the unjust, being thus defined, a man who does, willingly and knowingly, either the one or the other, acts justly or unjustly: if he does it unwillingly or unknowingly, he neither acts justly nor unjustly, except by accident — that is, he does what is not essentially and in its own nature unjust, but is only so by accident (v. 8). Injustice will thus have been done, but no unjust act will have been committed, if the act be done involuntarily. The man who restores a deposit unwillingly and from fear of danger to himself, does not act justly, though he does what by accident is just: the man who, anxious to restore the deposit, is prevented by positive superior force from doing so, does not act unjustly, although he does what by accident is unjust. When a man does mischief, it is either done contrary to all reasonable expectation, in such manner that neither he nor any one else could have anticipated from his act the mischief which has actually ensued from it (παραλόγως), and in this case it is a pure misfortune (ἀτύχημα): or he does it without intention or foreknowledge, yet under circumstances in which mischief might have been foreseen, and ought to have been foreseen; in this case it is a fault (ἁμάρτημα): or he does it intentionally and with foreknowledge, yet without any previous deliberation, through anger, or some violent momentary impulse; in this case it is an unjust act (ἀδίκημα), but the agent is not necessarily an unjust or wicked man for having done it: or he does it with intention and deliberate choice, and in this case he is an unjust and wicked man.
The man who does a just thing, or an unjust thing, is not necessarily a just or an unjust man. Whether he be so or not, depends upon the state of his mind and intention at the time (v. 8).
Equity, τὸ ἐπιεικὲς, is not at variance with justice, but is an improvement upon justice. It is a correction and supplement to the inevitable imperfections in the definitions of legal 537justice. The law wishes to comprehend all cases, but fails in doing so: the words of its enactment do not fully and exactly express its real intentions, but either something more or something less. When the lawgiver speaks in general terms, a particular case may happen which falls within the rule as he lays it down, but which he would not have wished to comprehend if he had known how to avoid it. It is then becoming conduct in the individual to whose advantage the law in this special case turns, that he should refrain from profiting by his position, and that he should act as the legislator himself would wish, if consulted on the special case. The general rules laid down by the legislator are of necessity more or less defective: in fact, the only reason why everything is not determined by law, is, that there are some matters respecting which it is impossible to frame a law (v. 10). Such is the conduct of the equitable man — “the man who refrains from pushing his legal rights to the extreme, to the injury of others, but who foregoes the advantage of his position, although the law is in his favour” (ὁ μὴ ἀκριβοδίκαιος ἐπὶ χεῖρον, ἀλλ’ ἐλαττωτικὸς, καίπερ ἔχων τὸν νόμον βοηθόν).
A man may hurt himself, but he cannot act unjustly towards himself. No injustice can be done to a man except against his own consent. Suicide is by implication forbidden by the law: to commit suicide is wrong, because a man in so doing acts unjustly towards the city, not towards himself, which is impossible (v. 12).
To act unjustly — and to be the object of unjust dealing by others — are both bad: but which is the worst? It is the least of the two evils to be the object of unjust dealing by others. Both are bad, because in the one case a man gets more than his share, in the other less than his share: in both cases the just medium is departed from. To act unjustly is blameable, and implies wickedness: to be the object of unjust dealing by others is not blameable, and implies no wickedness: the latter is therefore in itself the least evil, although by accident it may perhaps turn out to be the greater evil of the two. In the same manner a pleurisy is in itself a greater evil than a trip and a stumble: but by accident it may turn out that the latter is the greater evil of the two, if it should occur at the moment when a man is running away from the enemy, so as to cause his being taken prisoner and slain.
The question here raised by Aristotle — which is the greater evil — to act unjustly or to be the object of unjust dealing — had been before raised by Plato in the Gorgias. Aristotle follows 538out his theory about virtue, whereby he makes it consist in the observance of a medium point. The man that acts unjustly sins on one side of this point, the object of unjust dealing misses it on the other side: the one is comparable to a man who eats or works too much for his health, the other to a man who eats or works too little. The question is one which could hardly arise, according to the view taken by modern ethical writers of the principles of moral science. The two things compared are not in point of fact commensurable. Looking at the question from the point of view of the moralist, the person injured has incurred no moral guilt, but has suffered more or less of misfortune: the unjust agent on the contrary has suffered no misfortune — perhaps he has reaped benefit — but at any rate he has incurred moral guilt. Society on the whole is a decided loser by the act: but the wrong done implies the suffering inflicted: the act is considered and called wrong because it does inflict suffering, and for no other reason. It seems an inadmissible question therefore, to ask which of the two is the greater evil — the suffering undergone by A — or the wrong by which B occasioned that suffering: at least so far as society is concerned.
But the ancient moralists, in instituting this comparison, seem to have looked, not at society, but at the two individuals — the wrong doer and the wrong sufferer — and to have looked at them too from a point of view of their own. If we take the feelings of these two parties themselves as the standard by which to judge, the sentence must be obviously contrary to the opinion delivered by Aristotle: the sufferer, according to his own feeling, is worse off than he was before: the doer is better off. And it is for this reason that the act forms a proper ground for judicial punishment or redress. But the moralist estimates the condition of the two men by a standard of his own, not by the feelings which they themselves entertain. He decides for himself that a virtuous frame of mind is the primary and essential ingredient of individual happiness — a wicked frame of mind the grand source of misery: and by this test he tries the comparative happiness of every man. The man who manifests evidence of a guilty frame of mind is decidedly worse off than he who has only suffered an unmerited misfortune.
[END OF CHAPTER XIII]
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