[19] V. Lucian, Timon, chap. 42 (Ausgewählte Schriften des Lucian, edit. Julius Sommerbrodt; Weidmann, Berlin, 1872, p. 75): ϕίλος δὲ ἣ ξένος ἣ ἑταῑρος ἣ Έλέον βωμός ὔθλος πολύς. V. also Apollodorus (edit. J. Bekker); 2, 8, 1. 3, 7, 1. Dem. (edit. Reisk.), 57. Scholiast on Soph. Œd. Col.,258.—(Translator.)
[20] A temple must not be despoiled of its altar, nor human nature of compassion. V. Joannis Stobaei Anthologium, edit. Curtius Wachsmuth et Otto Hense; Weidmann, Berlin, 1894; Vol. III., p. 20, Nr. 52.—(Translator.)
[21] The chief of virtues is said to be Compassion. The Paṅća-tantra is a well-known collection of moral stories and fables in five (paṅćan) books or chapters (tantra), from which the author of the Hitopadeśa drew a large portion of his materials. V. Monier Williams' Sanskrit Dictionary.—(Translator.)
[CHAPTER IX.]
ON THE ETHICAL DIFFERENCE OF CHARACTER.
There still remains a question to be resolved, before the basis which I have given to Ethics can be presented in all its completeness. It is this. On what does the great difference in the moral behaviour of men rest? If Compassion be the original incentive of all true, that is, disinterested justice and loving-kindness; how comes it that some are, while others are not, influenced thereby? Are we to suppose that Ethics, which discloses the moral stimulus, is also capable of setting it in motion? Can Ethics fashion the hard-hearted man anew, so that he becomes compassionate, and, as a consequence, just and humane? Certainly not. The difference of character is innate, and ineradicable. The wicked man is born with his wickedness as much as the serpent is with its poison-fangs and glands, nor can the former change his nature a whit more than the latter.[1] Velle non discitur (to use one's will is not a thing that can be taught) is a saying of Nero's tutor. In the Meno, Plato minutely investigates the nature of virtue, and inquires whether it can, or cannot, be taught. He quotes a passage from Theognis:
ἀλλὰ διδάσκων
Οὔποτε ποιήσεις τὸν κακὸν ἄνδρ' ἀγαθόν.
(But thou wilt ne'er,
By teaching make the bad man virtuous.)
and finally reaches this conclusion: ἀρετὴ ἃν εἴη oὔτε ϕύσει, oὔτε διδακτόν, ἀλλὰ θείᾳ μοίρᾳ παραγυγνομένη, ἄνευ νοῡ, οἷς ἄν παραγίγνηται.[2] Here the terms ϕύσει and θείᾳ μοίρᾳ, form a distinction, in my opinion, much the same as that between "physical" and "metaphysical." Socrates, the father of Ethics, if we may trust Aristotle, declared that oὐκ ἐϕ' ἡ μῑν γενέσθαι τὸ σπουδαίους εἶναι, ἢ ϕαύλους.[3] (Moralia Magna, i. 9.) Moreover, Aristotle himself expresses the same view; παςι γὰρ δοκεῑ ἕκαστα τῶν ἠθῶν ὑπάρχειν ϕύσει τως' καὶ γὰρ δίκαιοι, καὶ σωϕρονικοὶ, καὶ τἄλλa ἔχομεν εὐθyς ἐκ γενετῆς.[4] (Eth. Nicom. vi. 13.) We find also a similar conviction very decidedly expressed in the fragments attributed to the Pythagorean Archytas, and preserved by Stobaeus in the Florilegium (Chap. i. § 77).[5] If not authentic, they are certainly very old. Orelli gives them in his Opuscula Graecorum Sententiosa et Moralia. There (Vol. II., p. 240) we read in the Dorian dialect as follows:—Τὰς γὰρ λόγοις καὶ ἀποδείξεσιν ποτιχρωμένας ἀρετὰς δέον έπιστάμας ποταγορεύεν, ἀρετὰν δέ, τὰν ἠθικὰν καὶ βελτίσταν ἕξιν τῶ ἀλόγω μέρεος τᾱς ·ψυχᾱς, καθ' ἃν καὶ ποιοί τινες ἦμεν λεγόμεθα κατὰ τὸ ἦθος, οἷον ἐλευθέριοι, δίκαιοι καὶ σώϕρονες.[6] On examining the virtues and vices, as summarised by Aristotle in the De Virtutibus et Vitiis, it will be found that all of them, without exception, are not properly thinkable unless assumed to be inborn qualities, and that only as such can they be genuine. If, in consequence of reasoned reflection, we take them as voluntary, they are then seen to lose their reality, and pass into the region of empty forms; whence it immediately follows that their permanence and resistance under the storm and stress of circumstance could not be counted on. And the same is true of the virtue of loving-kindness, of which Aristotle, in common with all the ancients, knows nothing. Montaigne keeps, of course, his sceptical tone, but he practically agrees with the venerable authorities above quoted, when he says: Serait-il vrai, que pour être bon tout à fait, il nous le faille être par occulte, naturelle et universelle propriété, sans lot, sans raison, sans exemple?[7]—(Liv. II., chap. 11.) Lichtenberg hits the mark exactly in his Vermischte Schriften, (v. Moralische Bemerkungen). He writes: "All virtue arising from premeditation is not worth much. What is wanted is feeling or habit." Lastly, it should be noted that Christianity itself, in its original teaching, recognises, and bears witness to this inherent, immutable difference between character and character. In the Sermon on the Mount we find the allegory of the fruit which is determined by the nature of the tree that bears it (Luke vi. 43, 44; cf. Matthew vii. 16-18); and then in the following verse (Luke vi. 45), we read: ὁ ἀγαθὸς ἄνθρωπος ἐκ τοῡ ἀγαθοῡ θησαυροῡ τῆς καρδίας αὐτοῡ προϕέρει τὸ ἀγαθὸν καὶ ὁ πονμρὸς ἄνθρωπος ἐκ τοῡ πoνηροῡ θησαυροῡ τῆς καρδίας αὐτοῡ προϕέρει τὸπονηρόν.[8] (Cf. Matthew xii. 35.)