Furthermore, two positive theses have been established by the very forces which have been active in disintegrating the old status. If custom no longer suffices, then reason must set the standard; if society cannot prescribe the good to the individual, then the individual must find some method of defining and seeking it for himself unless he is to make shipwreck of his whole venture.
We may bring both aspects of the problem under the conception of "nature", as opposed to convention or institution. Convention is indeed outgrown, nature is the imperious authority. But granting that nature is rightful master, is "nature" to be sought in the primitive beginnings, or in the fullest development? in a life of isolation, or in a life of society? in the desires and passions, or in reason and a harmonious life?
Or, stating the same problem otherwise: granting that reason must fix the measure, and the individual must define and seek the good for himself, is the good to be found in isolation, or is it to be sought in human society with its bonds of family, friendship, and justice? Is the end to be pleasure, found in the gratification of desires, irrespective of their quality, and is it the business of reason merely to measure one gratification with another and get the most? or is wisdom itself a good, and is it better to satisfy certain impulses rather than others? i.e., shall reason form the standard as well as apply it?
These contrasting solutions of the problem of life may be stated then under the two pairs of antitheses: (1) The Individual versus the Social; (2) The Immediate Satisfaction versus an Ideal Standard, at once higher and more permanent.
Typical Solutions.—Poets, radicals, sensualists, individualists of no philosophic school, as well as the historic philosophic schools, contributed to the discussion and solution of these problems. All sought the "natural" life; but it is noteworthy that all the philosophic schools claimed Socrates as their master, and all sought to justify their answers by reason, all made the wise man the ideal. The Cynics and Cyrenaics, Stoics and Epicureans, Plato and Aristotle represent the various philosophic answers to these alternatives. Cynics and Cyrenaics both answer (1) by individualism, but diverge on (2), the Cynics placing emphasis on independence from wants, the Cyrenaics on gratification of wants. Stoics and Epicureans represent broader and more social development of the same principles, the Stoics seeking a cosmopolitan state, the Epicureans a community of friends; the Stoics emphasizing reason or wisdom as the only good; the Epicureans finding for wisdom a field in the selection of refined pleasures. Plato and Aristotle, with varying emphasis but essential agreement, insist (1) that the good of man is found in fulfilling completely his highest possible functions, which is possible only in society; (2) that wisdom is not merely to apply a standard but to form one; that while neither reason alone nor feeling alone is enough for life, yet that pleasure is rather for life than life for pleasure. Finally, Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, as well as the tragic poets, contribute successively to the formation of an ideal of responsible character.
Early Individualistic Theories.—Cynics and Cyrenaics were alike individualists. Society, they held, is artificial. Its so-called goods, on the one hand, and its restrictions on the other, are to be rejected unless they favor the individual's happiness. Independence was the mark of wisdom among the Cynics; Antisthenes, proud of the holes in his garment; Diogenes, dwelling in his tent or sleeping in the street, scoffing at the current "conventions" of decency, asking from Philip only that he would get out of his sunshine—are the characteristic figures. The "state of nature" was opposed to the State. Only the primitive wants were recognized as natural. "Art and science, family and native land, were indifferent. Wealth and refinement, fame and honor, seemed as superfluous as those enjoyments of the senses which went beyond the satisfaction of the natural wants of hunger and sex."
The Cyrenaics, or hedonists (hēdonē, pleasure), gave a different turn to wisdom. The good is pleasure, and wisdom is found in that prudence which selects the purest and most intense. Hence, if this is the good, why should a man trouble himself about social standards or social obligations? "The hedonists gladly shared the refinement of enjoyment which civilization brought with it; they found it convenient and permissible that the intelligent man should enjoy the honey which others prepared; but no feeling of duty or thankfulness bound them to the civilization whose fruits they enjoyed. Sacrifice for others, patriotism, and devotion to a general object, Theodorus declared to be a form of foolishness which it did not become the wise man to share."[69]
§ 5. THE DEEPER VIEW OF NATURE AND THE GOOD; OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE SOCIAL ORDER
Value of a State.—Plato and Aristotle take up boldly the challenge of individualism. It may indeed be granted that existing states are too often ruled by classes. There are oligarchies in which the soldier or the rich control for their own interests; there are tyrannies in which the despot is greed and force personified; there are democracies (Plato was an aristocrat) in which the mob bears rule, and those who flatter and feed its passions are in authority. But all these do but serve to bring out more clearly the conception of a true State, in which the rule is by the wisest and best and is not for the interest of a class, but for the welfare of all. Even as it was, the State of Athens in Plato's day—except when it condemned a Socrates—meant completeness and freedom of life. It represented not merely a police force to protect the individual, but stood for the complete organization of all the life which needs coöperation and mutual support. The State provided instruction for the mind and training for the body. It surrounded the citizen with an atmosphere of beauty and provided in the tragedy and comedy opportunities for every citizen to consider the larger significance of life or to join in the contagious sympathy of mirth. In festivals and solemn processions it brought the citizen into unity of religious feeling. To be an Athenian citizen meant to share in all the higher possibilities which life afforded. Interpreting this life, Aristotle proclaims that it is not in isolation, but in the State, that "the goal of full independence may be said to be first attained."
The Natural.—Aristotle goes directly to the heart of the problem as to what is natural by asserting that nature is not to be found in the crude beginning, but rather in the complete development. "The nature of anything, e.g., of a man, a horse, or a house, may be defined to be its condition when the process of production is complete." Hence the State "in which alone completeness of life is attained" is in the highest sense natural: