of all citizens towards each other is inconceivable; the wider the circle the more "watery" is the feeling. His way is accordingly a via media. He has no notion of modern individualism; the individualism of his own day taught by the Cynics and Cyrenaics implied the hostility of the individual to Society, whereas modern individualism is distinctly a phase of social life. Aristotle sees that there is no salvation, physical or moral, for the individual outside of the State. Man is not only a social but a political animal; the expression in Greek implies on the whole far more of the latter than of the former. Man is born for the life of a citizen in a State, straitly regulated in all departments of his life by its laws and by the customs of his people, while at the same time he is allowed a family life of his own, property of his own, and free choice of a career in life. To have all things in common would mean to have nothing well cared for. So far the personal motives must have free course in regard to material wealth. Even if we suppressed them because they are often intemperate and therefore mischievous to the commonweal, we should not eradicate evil so long as the desires of pleasure and of worldly distinction remained.2 In his criticism of current socialistic theories, Aristotle no doubt uses what are sometimes considered strictly economical arguments; he would, for instance, demand. from the socialists of his day that if they made all wealth common they should restrict population. But he lays far more stress on his own positive argument that, if you direct men to their proper chief end, you secure the good of socialism without the evil; you equalize not the possessions but the desires of men; you make the possession private but the use public. The modern notion of property as held in trust for the public good is foreshadowed. The chief end of man, however, is not allowed to be the chief end of one large body of men, the slaves, who are mere "living tools." The slave is one who is "born to be dependent on another."5 Nature has made some men 3 Pol., II. 4, in relation to Phaleas of Chalcedon. 5 Compare Rhet., I. 9, 27, ἐλευθέρον τὸ μὴ πρὸς ἄλλον ζῆν. 4 II. 2. to be slaves as it has made others to rule. As long as we have this notion that men as well as things can be mere instruments, we cannot have the notion of economics as now understood, in which the world of men stands over against the world of things as a world of ends to a world of means. Perhaps the most remarkable feature in Aristotle's conception of the chief end of man, is that it is not directly social at all. The highest good is contemplation of truth, the next best is development of the virtues. The first involves seclusion from politics, and is the lot of a few highly gifted minds; it is the second that is open to the ordinary citizen. Aristotle was perhaps conscious that the Greek State was no longer to be the Alpha and Omega of civilized life. The history of his own country was making this painfully clear. When the State and Civil Society could no longer furnish a rule of life, some other guides must be sought; and they were sought in the individual rather than in the social nature of man. CHAPTER III. STOICS AND EPICUREANS. IN Plato and Aristotle we have seen that wealth does no more than furnish foothold and room for the practice of virtue and the perfect exercise of human faculties. A certain measure of material resources is no doubt held indispensable, but it is viewed as a fixed factor. The progressive increase of wealth in a people is regarded as an evil rather than a good. Anything beyond the necessaries of life is thought to tend to evil; and the necessaries of life are not conceived as expanding with spiritual needs, but (especially in Plato) as rather diminishing than increasing with the growth of extraordinary powers and gifts. This had probably been the teaching of Socrates himself, who practised plain living and high thinking, though on occasion he could share the pleasures of gay society. He thought that to have few wants was godlike and therefore best for man. 2 This independence, which was in the case of Socrates himself the independence of a citizen of a free State, was interpreted by some of his contemporaries and followers in an anti-political if not anti-social sense. Aristippus, the founder of the Cyrenaic Philosophy, which regarded the pleasure of the moment as the chief happiness and end of man, was by his own account a citizen of no State, but "a stranger everywhere." His independence consisted in making the best of the world as it stood, and getting the utmost enjoyment out of the good things of this life, without any regard even to scientific acquirements. It was the philosophical expression of the characteristically Greek joy of living. But this adapting of wants to circumstances was really a departure from the teachings of Socrates. Antisthenes and the Cynics were more truly 1 Plato, Sympos.; cf. Xen. Mem., I. III. 5., VI. 1, etc., etc. Socratic, pursuing independence by subduing the feelings to the intellect and seeking after virtue rather than enjoyment; but the Cynics were unlike Socrates in trying to be independent of all other men and even of the Family and State; they were like the Cyrenaics, citizens of no State in particular but of the world in general. Their philosophy was the caricature, or reductio ad absurdum, of asceticism. If all men had tried to become "independent" by creating a "sad vacuity," there would be an end first to civilization and then to the race itself. When new life was given to philosophical individualism by the extinction of the political independence of the Greek States, first under Philip (Chaeronea, 338 B.C.), then finally by the Romans (Corinth, 146 B.C.), the Cynic and Cyrenaic doctrines assumed a new phase; their extravagances were corrected ; and a more plausible and rational expression was given to the same aspirations by Stoicism and Epicureanism. The general doctrines of Epicurus concern us less than those of the Stoics,' at least in regard to their views of wealth and social relations. The chief end is conceived by Epicurus to be pleasure, not (as with the Cyrenaics) gentle motion" and positive enjoyment, but absence of pain and disturbance; or (positively) it is peace of mind, which Epicurus himself thought to be better secured by virtue and wisdom, plain living and high thinking, than by anything 'external or bodily, Real wealth is only gained by limitation of wants; and he who is not satisfied with little will not be satisfied at all. But even by Epicurus opulence and comfort, though not held indispensable, are not forbidden; if there was not a doctrine. of self-indulgence, there was at least no doctrine of asceticism, and though the ordinary forms of political and social life were ignored, the relation between man and man in friendship is highly valued. This is an unconscious testimony to the binding nature of the social union, disparaged in the case of the Family and the State. Aristotle had preceded Epicurus in the praise of friendship; 3 1 Professor Hashach has dwelt on the influence exerted by Epicureanism through Gassendi on modern philosophy and economics. Allgemeine Philosophische Grundlagen d. polit. Oekon. (1890), 7 seq. and 36 seq. 2 Zeller, Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics (transl.), p. 459. 3 Eth., VIII., IX. 3 but with him friendship is always subordinated to citizenship. Zeller has noticed that, when current philosophy became again individualistic in the 18th century, the praises of friendship were again heard.1 Similarly, too, Epicureanism and the later individualism both attributed the origin of the State to a deliberate convention made for natural protection and security. "Nec facile est placidam ac pacatam degere vitam, Qui violat factis communia foedera pacis."2 The resolution of society as well as the general system of things into "atoms that swerve" brings us in thought nearer to certain modern ideas on which a political and economical system has been founded. In its ancient form the theory left at least as many difficulties as it seemed to solve. Epicureanism can hardly give materials for an economic theory, whatever be true of modern Utilitarianism. It is otherwise with Stoicism. The opposition between nature and convention was, as we have seen, not new; but the interpretation of "nature" by the Stoics. and their use of the maxim, "live according to nature," threw a new light on the matter.3 Ethics, connected by Aristotle with politics, is connected by the Stoics with metaphysics. Even more than the Epicureans, they led the way to a clearer view of the relation of individuals to society, and showed how much there was in the individual that could not be explained by the State or made to depend wholly on institutions. They viewed men in their relation not to Civil Society or the State but to the whole human family, and they rose superior to the distinctions of race, property, and even of sex. Any human being who follows his reason and consciously acquiesces in the laws by which the world is governed becomes thereby wise, free, noble, and rich. No doubt men are "mostly fools"; but it is open to any one to be wise if he chooses, whether he be Jew or Greek, barbarian or Scythian, bond or free. The first result of the acceptance of Stoicism was no doubt to provide for its chosen spirits a retreat from the 1 Stoics, Ep., and Scept., 468 n. 2 Lucretius, De rerum nat., V. 1154-5. 3 Bishop Butler's second Sermon on Human Nature is an exposition of this maxim. E |