Socrates heard continually admonishing him, the voice which he felt within his heart, but which the multitude, misjudging his playful irony, supposed to be the voice of some oracle or familiar spirit-was the same 'still small voice' by which the Holy Spirit imparts a yet holier inspiration to Christians. When Socrates taught that goodness is a science, a certain knowledge, and that all that we have to do is to recall the mind from delusions to these latent realities, to awaken this dormant sense, to make explicit what is as yet only present implicitly, he was testifying to the great truth, that there is in every man a moral sense, vague, dim, and torpid, till quickened by the touch of things outside itself, which seem to call it into existence; that the will of every man is in itself a will for good, even while it knows not its own true good, even while blinded by the fraud and malice of an unseen tempter. When Plato described a well regulated character by terms borrowed from the art of music, and pleasure as a delicate aroma, imperceptibly wafted across our senses, but not itself substantial, he was expressing, as well as words can express, the harmonious action of soul and body in a Christian's life, and the happiness which a Christian finds without seeking. When Aristotle laid down moderation as a rule, not indeed as the principle, but as the rule of right, he was anticipating the very words of the great Apostle, Be ye temperate in all things.'

6

Still much is wanting. Beautiful and sublime as this morality is in comparison with mere Paganism, it cannot shake off the burden of self, ever clogging its flight, and depressing its aspirations. Like a bird, beaten back by adverse gusts, while attempting to soar upwards, and weighed down by its own feebleness of wing, it strives in vain to raise itself far above the surface of the ground; or, if it makes a little progress upwards, it very soon sinks down again exhausted and weary. Like a wild creature struggling to be free, it cannot break the chain which circumscribes its movements within a narrow circle. Self is the centre of attraction always. Can we wonder that a morality always gravitating towards self fails to attain perfect purity, perfect charity? Aristotle and Plato alike, though in different ways, exalt the social and political life above the life of a solitary individual; but it is that each man may derive an advantage to himself, by using his fellows for his own convenience. They extol friendship; but it is mainly as a matter of mutual convenience, an arrangement which it would be very foolish not to avail oneself of. These things, it was argued, tend to promote happiness, they foster and develop a man's faculties and his excellencies; therefore he must not neglect them. Even Plato cannot define love as anything less unselfish

than a yearning for an immortality of being and of happiness. The Stoic inculcates a stern repression of bodily appetites. S. Paul seems to say the very same thing when he speaks of keeping under the body, and of bringing it into subjection. But the difference is great. The Stoic subjugates his body to his soul that he may be free to enjoy himself more fully, that he may not be trammelled and cumbered by bodily cares and wants, that he may rid himself of what, as he knows by experience, is attended with endless trouble and vexation. The Christian subdues and disciplines his body, not for his own but for his Master's sake, and for the sake of his fellow man; that he may be a less unprofitable servant to the one, a better neighbour, a more useful friend to the other. In the morality of a Stoic the body is an unmixed evil; and yet selfishness is not expelled, nay it grows stronger than ever, takes deeper root, wears a more insidious disguise. In the morality of the Gospel, self becomes a secondary motive; for body and soul alike are consecrated and devoted in all their powers to the highest service. Epicureanism and Christianity both promise happiness to their followers; the former proposes it as an end in itself; the latter proposes duty as the end of life, and happiness as a reward for those who do their duty for duty's sake, and not from selfish motives.

The want of any motive power other than self is the great defect of the ancient morality. The only authority to which conscience could appeal in justification of its suggestions was the example of good and wise men, of men generally allowed to be such. With nothing else to hold by, without the external support of authority from heaven, without the encouragement of an Example irresistibly attractive, unimpeachable in its holiness, conscience could only hope to hold its own amid the selfish turmoil which surged around it, by calling self to its aid. It feared to stand alone. Falteringly now and again, it seems, in the old philosophy, as if impelled by a conviction which will not be silenced, to assert its own prerogative. It repeats, as if hardly knowing the full meaning of the words, its formula of moral obligation, saying this ought to be, or ought not to be; it appears for the moment to look for sanction to something better than expediency. But, as a rule, it is driven to take refuge in public opinion. Aristotle himself cannot find any better way of defining what is right and what is wrong than by citing the teaching and conduct of those who are generally recognised as virtuous, who have had the opportunities of self-improvement. Aristotle himself, keensighted as he was, and fearless in his attempt to penetrate the secrets of the universe, seems baffled here, by the want of something more certain, less fluctuating, than the public opinion of his age and country.

The more closely we examine Greek philosophy, the more clear it becomes, that on many points, and these of greatest importance, this philosophy bears unconscious testimony to the fundamental truths of Christian ethics. Especially is this true of Aristotle, not because his moral philosophy is higher than that of his master, for it scarcely rises to the same level, but because his firmer grasp and steadier insight make his teaching more systematic. As we have seen already, faith and charity, whatever positivism may profess to the contrary, are simply impossible in the highest form of pure disinterestedness without the sense of loving obedience to a Personal Being superior to man. Still, we do well to be thankful for whatever is subsidiary to truth, wherever it can be found. Aristotle evidently felt a strong repugnance to the idea of a 'summum bonum. By a reaction of thought, most natural in his case, he suspected that the inquiry after any such thing would prove the pursuit of a chimera. He would not waste his time and trouble on anything so unpractical. His strength lay, and he knew it, in discriminating among the various circumstances of time, place, occasion, &c., which give its proper character to any particular action. The same action, he was well aware, may be worthy of praise or blame, according to the manner in which it was done, the causes and consequences which belong to it. Killing an invading foe in battle, for instance, and killing the friend who sits beside one at a feast, are the same action, and yet as contrary as light and darkness. Aristotle would not lend himself to what had proved a fruitless quest to Plato. Still he felt, as every one who thinks at all on the subject must feel, that there is at the bottom an unity of principle in all manifestations of goodness, happiness, beauty, and truth. The Apostle recognises this moral unity in using the same word for covetousness and lust. Christianity shows, by the life as well as by the teaching of its Divine Founder, that unselfishness, the sacrifice of self, is the vital principle of all virtues. Christianity shows that a wise unselfishness, rather than a wise self-love, is the long sought philosophers' stone, which transmutes all things into unalloyed happiness. Discouraging the fanaticism which takes a morbid delight in the mere mortification of self as an end in itself, the Gospel inculcates a self-denial, such as coincides in its final results with those of expediency and prudence, although its motive is no selfish one, but a sense of duty. A moral unity of this nature Aristotle could neither comprehend nor imagine; but he could see that there is a proportionateness, invariably, which determines the fitness of every action, and which, as it is observed or disregarded, characterises any habit as good or evil. His famous rule of always choosing the mean between two

extremes implies, indeed, that a man must know what are the opposite faults which he is to steer between, and where they lie, before he can know where the mean is; but it is an indication, so far as it goes, and-if taken in conjunction with his definition of justice, as what is due from man to man-is by no means an unintelligible one, of a common principle underlying not the four cardinal virtues only, but every virtue within the reach of humanity.

But the most momentous question of all, in regard to which Aristotle is an ally, and an energetic one, of truth against error, is the question of free will. He may write as a pantheist when discoursing of the motions of celestial bodies, but he writes as a Christian philosopher may write in treating of man's power to choose and reject the right course or the wrong, and to fashion his own habits, his own character, well or ill, by the daily indulgence of good or evil propensities. With the shrewdness and common sense which distinguish him, he saw more clearly than Plato, that to wish is not the same thing as to will, to intend as to resolve, to know as to act according to knowledge. The man who knows and admires what is best, and yet in practice prefers what is less worthy, is just the sort of person Aristotle anatomises with contempt rather than pity. The constant selfrestraint, without which it is impossible for a man's higher nature to triumph over his lower appetites, is just what Aristotle understands and portrays feelingly. He saw clearly how many and how varied are the processes to be gone through, before thought and desire culminate in action. He felt that when a thing has been wished for, planned, and purposed, there is still wanting the deliberate and conscious assent of the will, that is, of the man himself, to crown the whole, to make it complete and irrevocable. Aristotle may seem to extol unduly the contemplative life over the life of action. Considering how much there was in the world at that time from which a pure and serene philosophy must have recoiled in disgust, and how little there was to satisfy its longings, this is not wonderful. On the other hand, the emphasis with which, after analysing, with unrivalled skill, the complex elements of man's nature, he teaches that man himself is no mere machine, no abject victim of circumstances, but that he is lord and master of all his faculties, conscious of this lordship, and of the responsibilities which it entails, is enough to stamp his philosophy with a practical value in the truest sense of the word.

As was to be expected, the political philosophy of ancient Greece neither surpasses nor falls short of the ethical. Both Aristotle and his master exaggerate from causes already indicated, the importance of politics. As mutual convenience was the end

in view, rather than the training of souls for a future existence, the individual was nothing in comparison with the state. As conscience had no higher authority to appeal to, it was forced to create for itself a moral dictatorship in the powers that be.' The same wants, and the same remedy for them, distinguish the Mosaic economy from that of Christ. The standard of right and wrong which Greek philosophy proposes to itself and to its votaries is honour. The Apostle enjoins the Christians to practise things that are 'lovely' and 'of good report,' but it is in order that their Master may not be spoken against, and that their Father in Heaven may be glorified. With Plato or Aristotle honour is an end by itself. Whatever brings with it praise and renown, whatever enhances a man's reputation among his fellowcitizens is right; and the verdict admits of no reversal by a higher tribunal. Exile was ignominious beyond what we with our notions can understand, simply because to be expelled in disgrace by his neighbours branded a man as having forfeited. the good opinion which was the only criterion of virtue.

Plato's commonwealth, like his philosophy, is a glorious but impracticable confusion of things which the infirmities of human nature and the conditions of an earthly existence require imperatively to be kept distinct at present. His communism, his attempt to obliterate the essential differences between the vocations of man and woman, his misappropriation of authority to the class of persons least fitted for it practically, are not merely freaks of his imagination, but an abortive anticipation of a state of things such as, according to Christianity, if ever to be realized, is not to be realised in this life. It is a dream, such as poets fabled in their Isles of the Blest; it is a dazzling vision of a heavenly city, such as earth may never know. Similarly his doctrine of the transmigration of souls, or rather his assent to that Pythagorean doctrine, is a poetic adumbration of the gradual probation which the soul must pass through before it can be perfected. Aristotle, always averse to gratuitous theorising, was, besides, a practical politician, which Plato was not. His sense of proportion qualified him peculiarly for understanding that balance of contending interests, which is the equilibrium of a state, and without which one class or another gains undue preponderance. But even Aristotle, invaluable as are the political aphorisms which may be extracted from his pages, fails to delineate such a commonwealth as Christianity has rendered possible. Not to specify other deficiencies, a slave with Aristotle is only a living tool. Christianity may allow slavery, under certain modifications, as a temporary necessity, as a lesser evil than lawlessness and anarchy, as the only way to restrain brute force until the slave can be educated for citizenship; but