be, for the sake of the whole with which through reason he is enabled to identify himself. With Plato and Aristotle the perfection of the individual himself is commended, that the universe may abound in perfection. The good man is the ideal man-the expression of the type. And how dif ferent the quality of a morality in keeping with this principle! The virtues which Plato enumerates-temperance, courage, wisdom, and justice-compose a consummate human nature.

He

is thinking not of the necessities but of the possibilities of life. Knowledge of the truth will indeed be the best of human living, but knowledge is not prized because it can reconcile man to his limitations; it is the very overflowing of his cup of life. The youth are to

"dwell in the land of health, amid fair sights and sounds; and beauty, the effluence of fair works, will visit the eye and ear, like a healthful breeze from a purer region, and insensibly draw the soul even in childhood into harmony with the beauty of reason. "14

Aristotle's account of human perfection is more circumstantial and more prosaic. "The function of man is an activity of soul in accordance with reason," and his happiness or well-being will con

4 Plato: Op. cit., 401.

sist in the fulness of rational living. But a fulness requires a sphere of life that will call for and exercise the highest human capacities. A totle frankly pronounces "external goods" to: indispensable, and happiness to be therefore gift of the gods." The rational man will acqu a certain exquisiteness or finesse of action, "mean" of conduct; and this virtue will be dive sified through the various relations into which must enter, and the different situations which h must meet. He will be not merely brave, temper ate, and just, as Plato would have him, but liberal magnificent, gentle, truthful, witty, friendly, and in all self-respecting or high-minded. In add tion to these strictly moral virtues, he will possess the intellectual virtues of prudence and wisdom, the resources of art and science; and will finally possess the gift of insight, or intuitive reason. Speculation will be his highest activity, and the mark of his kinship with the gods who dwell in the perpetual contemplation of the truth.

The Religion of Fulfilment, and the Religion of Renunciation.

§ 170. Aristotle's ethics expresses the buoyancy of the ancient world, when the individual does not feel himself oppressed by the eternal reality, but rejoices in it. He is not too conscious of his sufferings to be

isinterested in his admiration and wonder. It Is this which distinguishes the religion of Plato and Aristotle from that of the Stoics and Spinoza. With both alike, religion consists not in making the world, but in contemplating it; not in coöperating with God, but in worshipping him. Plato and Aristotle, however, do not find any antagonism between the ways of God and the natural interests of men. God does not differ from men save in his exalted perfection. The contemplation and worship of him comes as the final and highest stage of a life which is organic and continuous throughout. The love of God is the natural love when it has found its true object.

"For he who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beautyand this, Socrates, is that final cause of all our former toils, which in the first place is everlasting-not growing and decaying, or waxing and waning; in the next place not fair in one point of view and foul in another,

or in the likeness of a face or hands or any other part of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech or knowledge, nor existing in any other being; but beauty only, absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which without diminution and without increase, or any change, is imparted to the ever-growing and perishing beauties of all other things.'

15

15 Plato: Symposium, 210-211. Translation by Jowett.

The religion of Spinoza is the religion of who has renounced the favor of the univers: He was deprived early in life of every benefit! fortune, and set out to find the good which requir no special dispensation but only the common ! and the common human endowment. He for that good to consist in the conviction of the nee sity, made acceptable through the supremacy the understanding. The like faith of the Stois makes of no account the difference of fortur between Marcus the emperor and Epictetus thị slave.

"For two reasons, then, it is right to be content with that which happens to thee; the one because it was dore for thee and prescribed for thee, and in a manner had reference to thee, originally from the most ancient causes spun with thy destiny; and the other because even that which comes severally to every man is to the power which administers the universe a cause of felicity and perfection, nay even of its very continuance. For the integrity of the whole is mutilated, if thou cuttest of anything whatever from the conjunction and the continuity either of the parts or of the causes. And thou dost cut off, as far as it is in thy power, when thou art dissatisfied, and in a manner triest to put anything out of the way."

16

16 Marcus Aurelius Antoninus: Thoughts. Translation by Long, p. 141.

CHAPTER XI

ABSOLUTE IDEALISM

$171. ABSOLUTE idealism is the most elaborately constructive of all the historical types of

General
Constructive

philosophy. Though it may have over

Character of looked elementary truths, and have

Absolute

Idealism.

sought to combine irreconcilable principles, it cannot be charged with lack of sophistication or subtlety. Its great virtue is its recognition of problems-its exceeding circumspection; while its great promise is due to its comprehensiveness— its generous provision for all interests and points of view. But its very breadth and complexity render this philosophy peculiarly liable to the equivocal use of conceptions. This may be readily understood from the nature of the central doctrine of absolute idealism. According to this doctrine it is proposed to define the universe as an abso

1 By Absolute Idealism is meant that system of philosophy which defines the universe as the absolute spirit, which is the human moral, cognitive, or appreciative consciousness universalized; or as the absolute, transcendental mind, whose state of complete knowledge is implied in all finite thinking.