The World's Greatest Books - Volume 13 Part 35

Each virtue stands in opposition to each of the extremes, and each of these to the other extreme, though in some cases the virtue may be more antagonistic to one extreme than to the other, as courage to cowardice more than to rashness. In individual cases, it is difficult to avoid being deflected towards one or other of the extremes.

Before proceeding with this a.n.a.lysis, we must examine the question of choice. To be praiseworthy, an act must be voluntary. An act is not voluntary if it is the outcome of external compulsion. Where there is a margin of choice, an act must still, on the whole, be regarded as voluntary, though done "against our will." Of properly involuntary acts, we must distinguish between the unintentional and the unwilling, meaning by the latter, in effect, what the agent would not have done if he had known.

Choice is not the same thing as a voluntary act; nor is it desire, or emotion, or exactly "wish," since we may wish for, but cannot make choice of, the unattainable. Nor is it Deliberation--rather, it is the act of decision following deliberation. If man has the power to say yes, he has equally the power to say no, and is master of his own action. If we make a wrong choice through ignorance for which we are ourselves responsible, the ignorance itself is culpable, and cannot excuse the wrong choice; and so, when the choice is the outcome of a judgment disordered by bad habits, men cannot escape by saying they were made so--they made themselves so. To say they "could not help" doing wrong things is only an evasion.

_II.--THE MORAL VIRTUES EXAMINED_

Virtues, then, are habits, issuing in acts corresponding to those by which the habit was established, directed by Right Reason, every such act being voluntary, and the whole process a voluntary process.

We may now turn to the a.n.a.lysis of the several virtues.

Courage has to do with fear. Not all kinds; for there are some things we ought to fear, such as dishonour and pauperism, the fear of which is compatible with dauntless courage, while the coward may not fear them.

Fearlessness of what is in our control, and endurance of what is not, for the sake of true honour, const.i.tute the courageous habit. Its excess is rashness or foolhardiness, the deficiency cowardice. Akin to it, but still spurious, is the courage of which the motive is not Honour but honours or reputation. Spurious also is the courage which arises from the knowledge that the danger is infinitesimal; so is that which is born of blind anger, or of elated self-confidence, or of mere unconsciousness of danger. True Courage lies in resisting a temptation to pleasure or to escaping pain, and, above all, death, for Honour's sake. The exercise of a virtue may be very far from pleasant, except, of course, in so far as the end for which it was exercised is achieved.

Temperance is concerned with pleasures of the senses; mainly of touch, in a much less degree of taste; but not of sight, hearing, or smell, except indirectly. Of carnal pleasures, some are common to all, some have an individual application. Temperance lies in being content to do without them, and desiring them only so far as they conduce to health and comfort. The characteristic of intemperance is that it has to do with pleasures only, not with pains. Hence, it is more purely voluntary than cowardice, as being less influenced by perturbing outward circ.u.mstances as concerns the particular case, though not the habit.

Liberality is concerned with money matters, and lies between extravagance and meanness. Really it means the right treatment of money, both in spending and receiving it--the former rather than the latter. A man is not really liberal who lavishes money for baser purposes, or takes it whence he should not, or fails to take due care of his property. The liberal man tends to err in the direction of lavishness.

Extravagance is curable, but is frequently accompanied by carelessness as to the objects on which the money is spent and the sources from which it is obtained. The habit of meanness is apt to be ineradicable, and is displayed both in the acquisition and in the h.o.a.rding of money.

Munificence is a virtue concerned only with expenditure on a large scale, and it implies liberality. It lies between vulgar ostentation and n.i.g.g.ardliness. It is possible only for the wealthy, and is concerned mainly with public works, but also with private occasions of ceremony.

The error of vulgar ostentation is misdirection of expenditure, not excess. n.i.g.g.ardliness abstains from a proper expenditure.

Magnanimity is the virtue of the aristocrat; its excess is self-glorification, its deficiency self-depreciation. The magnanimous man will bate nothing of his claim to honour, power and wealth, not as caring greatly for them, but as demanding what he knows to be his due.

This character involves the possession of the virtues; the man must act in the grand manner and on the grand scale. He knows his own superiority, does not conceal it, and acts up to it. Self-glorification overrates its own capacities; self-depreciation underrates them and shuns its responsibilities, being the more reprehensible of the two.

There is a nameless virtue which stands to magnanimity in the same relation as that of liberality to munificence; these being concerned with honours, as those with money. The excess is ambition, the deficiency is the lack of it; but here terminology fails us.

Good temper is a mean between ill-temper--whether of the irascible, the sulky, or the cantankerous kind--and something for which we have no name (poor-spiritedness). Friendliness comes between the excessive desire to please and boorishness. It is a social virtue which might be defined as goodwill _plus_ tact. Sincerity [there is no English term quite corresponding to the Greek] is the quality opposed on the one side to boastfulness, and on the other to mock-modesty; it is displayed by the man who acknowledges, but who never exaggerates his own merits. In the social display of wit and humour, there is a marked mean between the buffoon and the dullard or prig. Shame is a term implying a feeling rather than a habit; like fear, it has a physical effect, producing blushes, and seems, in fact, to be fear of disrepute. To the young, it is a safeguard against vice; the virtuous man need never feel it; to be unable to feel it implies the habit of vice. Continence is not properly in the category of moral virtues.

_III.--JUSTICE_

We come now to Justice. A specific habit differs from a specific faculty or science, as each of the latter covers opposites, _e.g._, the science of health is also the science of sickness; whereas the habit of Justice does not cover but is opposed to the habit of Injustice. Justice itself is a term used in various senses; and the senses in which injustice is used vary correspondingly. Confusion is apt to arise from these varying senses not being distinguished. Injustice includes law-breaking, grasping and unfairness. Grasping is taking too much of what is good only; unfairness is concerned with both what is good and what is injurious. But in the legal sense, whatever law lays down is a.s.sumed to be just. Law, however, covers the whole field of virtuous action as it affects our neighbours, so that in this general sense justice is an inclusive term equivalent to righteousness. We, however, must confine ourselves to the specific sense of the terms.

Grasping is, in fact, included in unfairness, which is the real opposite of specific justice; it includes law-breaking only so far as the law is broken for the sake of gain. The justice with which we are concerned has two branches: Distributive, of honours and the like among citizens by the State, and of private property by contract and agreement; and Corrective, the remedying of unfair distribution. There are always two parties, and justice is the mean between the unfairness which favours A and the unfairness which favours B. Distributive justice takes into consideration the merits of the parties; corrective justice is concerned only with restoring a balance which has been disturbed. The distribution is a question not of equality, but of right proportion; and this applies to retribution, which is recognised as one of its aspects, _e.g._, the retribution for an officer striking a private and for a private striking an officer. Proportional requital is the economic basis of society, arrived at by the existence of a comparatively unfluctuating currency which provides a criterion.

In the State, as such, justice is obtained from the law and its administrators; justice is the virtue of the magistrate. Since he has nothing to gain or lose himself, it has been supposed that justice is "another's good," not our own. In the family, justice does not come in, the whole household being, in a sense, parts of the _pater familias_; and as you cannot be unjust to yourself, you cannot be unjust to your household. In the State, what is just is fixed partly by the nature of things, partly by law or convention.

As to individual acts, injury may arise from a miscalculation, or from an incalculable accident; it becomes a wrong when it was intentional but not premeditated, an injustice when premeditated. An act _prima facie_ unjust is not so if done with the free consent of the person injured. It is the agent of distribution, not the recipient, who is unjust (when they are different persons); and similarly, the agent, not the instrument. And even the agent of unjust distribution is not really unjust unless he was really actuated by motives of personal gain.

The performance of a particular act is easy. To perform it rightly as the outcome of a right habit, is not; nor is it easy to be confident as to what is right in the particular case. The man who is just, having the habit, does not find it easy to act unjustly.

What we must call equity may be opposed to justice, but only in the legal sense of that term. It is justice freed from the errors incidental to the particular case, for which the law cannot provide. Injustice, again, is found in self-injury or suicide; which the law penalises, not because the individual thereby treats himself unjustly, but because he does an injustice to the community. It is only by metaphor that a man may be called unjust to himself, an expression which means that the relation between one part of him and another part of him is a.n.a.logous to the unjust relation between persons.

_IV.--WISDOM, PRUDENCE AND CONTINENCE_

The ensuing discussion of intellectual virtue requires some remarks on the soul. We distinguish in the rational part, that which knows, concerned, with the unchanging; and that which reasons, concerned with the changing. Our intellects and our propensions--not our sense-perceptions, which are shared with animals--guide our actions and our apprehension of truth. Attraction and repulsion, in correspondence with affirmation and denial, combine to form right choice; the practical--as opposed to the pure--reason having an external object, and being a motive power.

There are five modes of attaining truth: (1) Concerning things unalterable, defined as demonstrative science; (2) concerning the making of things changeable, art; (3) concerning the doing--not making--of things changeable, prudence; (4) intuitive reason, the basis of demonstrative science; (5) wisdom, the union of intuitive reason and science.

Wisdom and prudence are the two virtues of the intellect. Wisdom implies intuitive reason, which grasps undemonstrable first principles; it is concerned with the interests not of the moment, the individual, or the locality. Whereas prudence is concerned precisely with these; it is essentially practical. Wisdom cannot be identified with statesmans.h.i.+p; which, again, is not the same as prudence--which applies to the self, and to the family, as well as to the State; it differs from wisdom as requiring experience.

Wisdom, knowledge of the ultimate bases, is equally without practical bearing for those who have acquired a right habit and for those who have not; just as a knowledge of medical theory is of no use to the average man. But being an activity of the soul, _ipso facto_, it conduces to happiness. The general conclusion is that what we have called "prudence"

shows the means to the end which the moral virtues aim at. It is not a moral virtue, but the moral virtues accord with it. Both are necessary to the achievement of goodness.

We come now to a second group of qualities, concerned with conduct. We have dealt with the virtues and their opposing vices. We pa.s.s by the infra-human and the supra-human b.e.s.t.i.a.lity and holiness; but have still to deal with Continence and its contrasted qualities, which are concerned with the pa.s.sions.

In the popular view, continence, self-control, is adherence to our formed judgment. Incontinence is yielding to pa.s.sion where we know it to be wrong, and may be indulged in the pursuit of vengeance, honour, or gain. A number of _prima facie_ contradictions are started out of the popular views. We find that a man does not act against complete knowledge or knowledge of which he is fully conscious. The knowledge may, so to speak, be there, but is in abeyance, a condition which is palpably exemplified in a drunken man. Now, incontinence is concerned with pleasures, which are necessary--as for sustenance of life--and unnecessary but, _per se_, desirable, as honour. Incontinence is a term applied only by a.n.a.logy in the case of the latter; its proper concern--as with the moral vice, which we call intemperance--is with the former. It implies, however, violent desire, which intemperance does not. We have examples of such desires in a morbid or diseased form, species of mania; but here again the term incontinence is only applied by a.n.a.logy. Its legitimate application, in short, is restricted to the normal.

Incontinence in respect of anger is not so bad as in respect of desire.

It is often const.i.tutional, it is in itself painful, and it is not wanton, being in all three points unlike the other. What we spoke of as b.e.s.t.i.a.lity is more horrible than vice or incontinence, as being inhuman; but it does less harm. Incontinence means transgressing the ordinary standards in respect of pleasure and pain. Such transgression, when of set purpose, and not followed by repentance--consequently, incurable--is the moral vice of intemperance; which, being characterised by the absence of violent desire, is worse than incontinence. The latter is open, and is curable. The confusion between the two is due to their issuing in like acts; the pa.s.sionate impulse is temporary; it is not a formed habit of wrong choice.

Continence is acting on conviction in resistance to pa.s.sion; not merely sticking to any and every opinion, which is really rather more like incontinence. The other extreme, of actual apathy, is rare. Continence differs from temperance, as implying resistance to strong desires; whereas temperance implies that such desires are not active.

Prudence--but not the acuteness which is sometimes confused with prudence--is incompatible with incontinence, which is least curable when the outcome of weakness.

Here it becomes necessary to make some inquiry as to Pleasure and Pain.

Some maintain that pleasure is never good, some that it is partly good and partly not; some that it is good, but not the best But it cannot be bad _per se_, since it may be defined as the unimpeded activity of a formed faculty. Pleasure, as such, is not a hindrance to any activity, but its fulfilment; _e.g.,_ the pleasure of speculative inquiry does not hinder it. As a matter of fact, everyone does pursue pleasure; the denial that it is good results from thinking of it as meaning only bodily pleasures. And even they are not evil, but only the excessive pursuit of them. As to pleasure being fleeting, that is only because circ.u.mstances vary. The pleasure of the unchanging would be permanent.

_V.--FRIENDs.h.i.+P_

A quality rendered as "Friends.h.i.+p"--though the Greek and English terms are not identical in content--now comes under examination. It is a relation to some other person or persons without which life is hardly worth living. Some account for it on the principle of "like to like,"

others on the opposite theory. Now, lovableness comes of goodness, or pleasantness, or usefulness. Love is not bestowed on the inanimate, and it must be mutual; it is to be distinguished from goodwill or devotion, which need not be reciprocated.

Genuine friends.h.i.+p must be based on goodness; what rests on pleasantness (as with the young), or on utility (as with the old), is only to be recognised conventionally as friends.h.i.+p. In perfection it cannot subsist without perfect mutual knowledge, and only between the good; hence it is not possible for anyone to have many real friends. Of the conventional forms, that which is born of intellectual sympathy is more enduring than what springs from s.e.xual attraction; while what comes of utility is quite accidental. The former may develop into genuine friends.h.i.+p if there be virtue in both parties. Companions.h.i.+p is a necessary condition, in any case.

Variants of friends.h.i.+p, however, may subsist between unequals, as between parents and children, princes and subjects, men and women, where there is a difference in the character of the affection of the two parties. A certain degree of inequality--though we cannot lay down the limitation--makes "friends.h.i.+p" a misnomer. One would not desire the actual apotheosis of a friend, because that would take him out of reach; it would end friends.h.i.+p. Friends.h.i.+p lies rather in the active loving than in being loved, though most people are more anxious to be loved than to love.

Every form of social community--typified in the State--involves relations.h.i.+ps into which friends.h.i.+p enters. The relations.h.i.+ps in the family correspond to those in states; monarch to subjects as father to children, tyrant to subjects as master to slaves; autocratic rule to that of the husband, oligarchic rule to that of the wife; what we call Timocracy to the fraternal relation, and Democracy to the entirely unregulated household. In some kinds of a.s.sociation, friends.h.i.+p takes the form of _esprit de corps_. It may be seen that quarrels arise most readily in those friends.h.i.+ps between equals which are based upon interest, and in friends.h.i.+ps between unequals.

Friends.h.i.+p is a kind of exchange--equal between equals, and proportional between unequals; a repayment. This suggests various questions as to priority of claim--_e.g.,_ between paying your father's ransom and repaying a loan, both being in a sort the repayment of a debt. No fixed law can be laid down--_i.e.,_ it cannot be said that one obligation at all times and in all circ.u.mstances overrides all others.

The dissolution of friends.h.i.+p is warranted when one party has become depraved, since he has changed from being the person who was the object of friends.h.i.+p. But he should not be given up while there is hope of restoring his character. Again, if one develops a great superiority, friends.h.i.+p proper cannot persist--at least, in its first form. Our relations with a friend are much like those with our own selves; the true friend is a sort of _alter ego_. Friends.h.i.+p is not to be identified with goodwill, though the latter is a condition precedent; we may feel goodwill, but not friends.h.i.+p, towards a person we have never seen or spoken to. Unanimity of feeling--not as to facts, but as to ends and means--is a sort of equivalent to friends.h.i.+p in the body politic. The reason why conferring a benefit creates more affection than receiving it seems to be that the benefactor feels himself the maker of the other; we all incline to love what we produced--as parents their children, or the artist his own creations.

Self-love is wrong in a sense--the usual sense in which the term is used, of giving priority to oneself in the acquisition of material pleasures. But the seeking of the n.o.blest things for oneself is really self-love, and may involve giving others, especially friends, the priority in respect of desirable things--even to resigning to another the opportunity of doing a n.o.ble deed. In this higher sense, self-love is praiseworthy.

The good man is self-sufficing, but friends are desirable, if not actually necessary to him, as giving scope for the exercise of beneficent activities, not as conferring benefits upon him. Besides, man's highest activities must be exercised not in isolation, but as a member of society, and such life lacks completeness if without friends.

Finally, friends.h.i.+p attains its completest realisation where comrades.h.i.+p is complete; that is to say, in a common life.

_VI.--CONCLUSION_