[173] Plato, Republic, v. p. 460 C. τὰ δὲ τῶν χειρόνων (τέκνα), καὶ ἐάν τι τῶν ἑτέρων ἀνάπηρον γίγνηται, ἐν ἀποῤῥήτῳ τε καὶ ἀδήλῳ κατακρύψουσιν ὡς πρέπει. Aristot. ut suprâ, ἔστω νόμος, μηδὲν πεπηρωμένον τρέφειν, &c.
[174] Plutarch, Lykurgus, c. 16.
Such regulations disapproved and forbidden by modern sentiment — Variability of ethical sentiment as to objects approved or disapproved.
We here find both these philosophers not merely permitting, but enjoining — and the Spartan legislation, more admired than any in Greece, systematically realising — practices which modern sentiment repudiates and punishes. Nothing can more strikingly illustrate — what Plato and Aristotle have themselves repeatedly observed[175] — how variable and indeterminate is the matter of ethical sentiment, in different ages and communities, while the form of ethical sentiment is the same universally: how all men agree subjectively, in that which they feel — disapprobation and hatred of wrong and vice, approbation and esteem of right and virtue — yet how much they differ objectively, as to the acts or persons which they designate by these names and towards which their feelings are directed. It is with these emotions as with the other emotions of human nature: all men are moved in the same manner, though in different degree, by love and hatred — hope and fear — desire and aversion — sympathy and antipathy — the emotions of the beautiful, the sublime, the ludicrous: but when we compare the objects, acts, or persons, which so move them, we find only a very partial agreement, amidst wide discrepancy and occasionally strong opposition.[176] The present case is one of the strongest opposition. Practices now abhorred as wrong, are here directly commanded by Plato and Aristotle, the two greatest authorities of the Hellenic world: men differing on many points from each other, but agreeing in this: men not only of lofty personal character, but also of first-rate intellectual force, in whom the ideas of virtue and vice had been as much developed by reflection as they ever have been in any mind: lastly, men who are extolled by the commentators as the champions of religion and sound morality, against what are styled the unprincipled cavils of the Sophists.
[175] Aristotel. Politic. viii. 2, p. 1337, b. 2. Περί τε τῶν πρὸς ἀρετήν, οὐθέν ἐστιν ὁμολογούμενον· καὶ γὰρ τὴν ἀρετὴν οὐ τὴν αὐτὴν εὐθὺς πάντες τιμῶσιν· ὥστ’ εὐλόγως διαφέρονται καὶ πρὸς τὴν ἄσκησιν αὐτῆς.
Ethica Nikomach. i. 3, p. 1094, b. 15. Τὰ δὲ καλὰ καὶ τὰ δίκαια, περὶ ὧν ἡ πολιτικὴ σκοπεῖται, τοσαύτην ἔχει διαφορὰν καὶ πλάνην, ὥστε δοκεῖν νόμῳ μόνον εἶναι, φύσει δὲ μή.
[176] The extraordinary variety and discrepancy of approved and consecrated customs prevalent in different portions of the ancient world, is instructively set forth in the treatise of the Syrian Christian Bardisanes, in the time of the Antonines. A long extract from this treatise is given in Eusebius, Præparat. Evang., vi. 10; it has been also published by Orelli, annexed to his edition (Zurich, 1824) of the argument of Alexander of Aphrodisias, De Fato, p. 202. Compare Euseb. Hist. Eccles. iv. 30.
Bardisanes is replying to the arguments of astrologers and calculators of nativities, who asserted the uniform and uncontrollable influence of the heavenly bodies, in given positions, over human conduct. As a proof that mankind are not subject to any such necessity, but have a large sphere of freewill (αὐτεξούσιον), he cites these numerous instances of diverse and contradictory institutions among different societies. Several of the most conspicuous among these differences relate to the institutions concerning sex and family, the conduct and occupations held obligatory in men and women, &c.
Compare Sextus Empiric., Pyrrhon. Hypotyp. iii. s. 198 seqq.
Plato and Aristotle required subordination of impulse to reason and duty — they applied this to the procreative impulse, as to others.