[281] I am fully sensible of the peculiar interest and value of the ethical thought of ancient Greece. Indeed through a large part of the present work the influence of Plato and Aristotle on my treatment of this subject has been greater than that of any modern writer. But I am here only considering the value of the general principles for determining what ought to be done, which the ancient systems profess to supply.
[282] The following remarks apply less to later Stoicism—especially the Roman Stoicism which we know at first hand in the writings of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius; in which the relation of the individual man to Humanity generally is more prominent than it is in the earlier form of the system.
[283] It should be observed that in determining the particulars of external duty the Stoics to some extent used the notion ‘nature’ in a different way: they tried to derive guidance from the complex adaptation of means to ends exhibited in the organic world. But since in their view the whole course of the Universe was both perfect and completely predetermined, it was impossible for them to obtain from any observation of actual existence a clear and consistent principle for preferring and rejecting alternatives of conduct: and in fact their most characteristic practical precepts show a curious conflict between the tendency to accept what was customary as ‘natural,’ and the tendency to reject what seemed arbitrary as unreasonable.
[284] Cf. Analogy, Part ii. chap. i. and chap. viii.
[285] Cf. ante, note to p. [124].
[286] To avoid misapprehension I should state that in these propositions the consideration of the different degrees of certainty of Present and Future Good, Own and Others’ Good respectively, is supposed to have been fully taken into account before the future or alien Good is judged to be greater.
[287] It may, however, be thought that in exhibiting this aspect of the morality of Common Sense, psychogonical theory leads us to define in a particular way the general notion of ‘good’ or ‘well-being,’ regarded as a result which morality has a demonstrable natural tendency to produce. This point will be considered subsequently (chap. xiv. § [1] of this Book: and Book iv. chap. [iv.]).
[288] Cf. ante, Book i. chap. viii. Note, pp. [103], [104].
[289] In drawing attention to Clarke’s system, I ought perhaps to remark that his anxiety to exhibit the parallelism between ethical and mathematical truth (on which Locke before him had insisted) renders his general terminology inappropriate, and occasionally leads him into downright extravagances. E.g. it is patently absurd to say that “a man who wilfully acts contrary to Justice wills things to be what they are not and cannot be”: nor are “Relations and Proportions” or “fitnesses and unfitnesses of things” very suitable designations for the matter of moral intuition. But for the present purpose there is no reason to dwell on these defects.
[290] Clarke’s statement of the “Rule of Righteousness with respect to ourselves” I pass over, because it is, as he states it, a derivative and subordinate rule. It is that we should preserve our being, be temperate, industrious, etc., with a view to the performance of Duty: which of course supposes Duty (i.e. the ultimate and absolute rules of Duty) already determined. I may observe that the reasonableness of Prudence or Self-love is only recognised by Clarke indirectly; in a passage which I quoted before (p. [120]).