A Handbook of Ethical Theory. George Stuart Fullerton

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">       Justice

       Ambition

       Courage

       Gentleness

       Temperance

       Friendliness

       Liberality

       Truthfulness

       Magnificence

       Decorous Wit

      and it is suggested that, although scarcely a virtue, a sense of shame is becoming in youth.

      We find the Christian teachers especially recommending: [Footnote: See SIDGWICK'S sympathetic account of the Churchman's view of the virtues, loc. cit., chapter iii.]

      Obedience

       Patience

       Benevolence

       Purity

       Humility

       Alienation from the "World"

       Alienation from the "Flesh"

      and their lists of the "deadly sins" they select from the following:

      Pride

       Arrogance

       Anger

       Gluttony

       Unchastity

       Envy

       Vain-Glory

       Gloominess

       Languid Indifference.

      Could there be a more striking contrast than that between the mediaeval code and those of the great Greek thinkers? Plato recommended as virtues certain general characteristics of character much admired by the Greek of his day. Aristotle accepted them and added to them. He has painted much more in detail the gifts and graces of a well-born and well-situated Greek gentleman as he conceived him. The personage would cut a sorry figure in the role of a mediaeval saint; the mediaeval saint would wear a tarnished halo if endowed with the Aristotelian virtues.

      The one ideal, the Greek, breathes an air of self-assertion; the other one of self-abnegation. Benevolence, Purity, Humility and Unworldliness are not to be found in the former; Justice, Courage and Veracity appear to be missing in the latter. Wisdom, insight, has given place to the Obedience appropriate to a man clearly conscious of a Law, not man-made, to which man feels himself to be subject.

      Indeed, the discrepancy between the ideals is such that Aristotle's virtuously high-minded man would have been conceived by the mediaeval churchman to be living in deadly sin, as the very embodiment of pride and arrogance. We find him portrayed as neither seeking nor avoiding danger, for there are few things about which he cares; as ashamed to accept favors, since that implies inferiority; as sluggish and indifferent except when stimulated by some great honor to be gained or some great work to be performed; as frank, for this is characteristic of the man who despises others; as admiring little, for nothing is great to him. His pride prevents him from harboring resentment, from seeking praise, and from praising others. This Nietzschean hero would attract attention upon any stage: "The step of the high-minded man is slow, his voice deep, and his language stately, for he who feels anxiety about few things is not apt to be in a hurry; and he who thinks highly of nothing is not vehement." [Footnote: Ethics, Book IV, chapter in, 19, translation by R. W. BROWNE, London, 1865.]

      To be sure, virtues not on a given list may be found in, or read into, some of the writings of the man who presents it. It would be absurd to maintain that the mediaeval churchman had no regard for justice, courage and veracity, as he would define them, or that Plato and Aristotle were wholly deaf to the claims of benevolence. Nevertheless, the variations in the emphasis laid on this virtue or on that, or in the conception of what constitutes this virtue or that, may yield ideals of character and of conduct which bear but a slight family resemblance. Imagine St. Francis of Assisi lowering his voice, slowing his step, and cultivating "high- mindedness," or striving to make himself a pattern of decorous wit.

      10. LATER LISTS OF THE VIRTUES.—The codes proposed by the moralists of a later time are numerous and widely scattering. It is impossible to do justice to them in any brief compass. A very few instances, selected from among those most familiar to English readers, must suffice to indicate the diversity of their nature.

      Hobbes [Footnote: Leviathan, chapter xv.], deeply concerned to discover some modus vivendi which should put a check upon strife between man and his fellow-man, and save us from a life "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short," recommends among other virtues:

      Justice

       Equity

       Requital of benefits

       Sociability

       A moderate degree of forgiveness

       The avoidance of pride and arrogance.

      Locke [Footnote: Essay, Book IV, chapter iii, Sec. 18; Of Civil Government, Book II, chapter ii.], who believes that moral principles must be intuitively evident to one who contemplates the nature of God and the relations of men to Him and to each other, thinks it worth while to set down such random maxims as:

      No government allows absolute liberty.

       Where there is no property there is no injustice.

       All men are originally equal.

       Men ought not to harm one another.

       Parents have a right to control their children.

      Hume, [Footnote: An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Sec 6, Part I] whose two classes of virtues comprise the qualities immediately agreeable or useful to ourselves and those immediately agreeable or useful to others, offers us an extended list. He puts into the first class:

      Discretion

       Caution

       Enterprise

       Industry

       Frugality

       Economy

       Good Sense, etc.

       Temperance

       Sobriety

       Patience

       Perseverance

       Considerateness

       Secrecy

       Order, etc.

      In the second class he includes:

      Benevolence

       Justice

       Veracity

       Fidelity

       Politeness

       Wit

       Modesty

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