2. Chinese teaching, too, was theological. The theology was essentially monotheistic, but overgrown with superstitions and idolatrous practices. It taught that man is the creature of God, and was endowed by heaven with a nature for the practice of good, a nature that, if followed properly—i. e. in the "golden mean"—invariably leads men aright. The path indicated by nature is the will of God concerning duty. "What heaven has conferred is called the nature; an accordance with this nature is called the path of duty; the regulation of this path is called instruction."[40] The chief contribution to the Chinese teaching by the sage Confucius (B. C. 551–478) was his proclamation of the principle of "reciprocity," i. e. doing as we would have others do to us. Though the elements of the moral problem were thus included fairly well for ordinary conduct, they were not framed into a distinct philosophy of the ground of right.
Views in India.
3. India's sacred books abound in moral maxims and counsels. Brahmanism is substantially a philosophy of life rather than a religion. But its pantheism and doctrine of the pre-existence and transmigration of souls have distorted and misdirected the moral idea. Its pantheism confounds the human with the divine, both in its origin and destination. Its belief in transmigration, with its perpetual succession of rebirths into conditions of woeful individual life unless the soul's unhappy agitations and unrest should be composed by virtue, shapes the moral task mainly, not only into restraint of the appetites and passions, but into such austerity and stern self-abnegation as may prepare the soul, on the death of the body, to attain the perfect repose of Nirvana the complete extinction of human passions, or, as Buddhism represents, annihilation of conscious individuality in reabsorption into the absolute existence. In this system the aim of morality is not "the right," but the desired good of tranquil happiness, or the final goal of merging self-conscious personality back again into the Great All from which it arose. The ground of the moral striving—it can hardly be called obligation—is the adaptedness of it to secure this result.[41]
Persian Teaching.
4. Zoroastrianism (Mazdæism), from about B. C. 1500–1000, confessedly presents an ethical teaching that, among oriental views, is second only to that of the Hebrews. Its theological dualism, which seems to have encroached upon an earlier purer monotheism, of two eternal principles or powers, Ormuzed (Ahura Mazda) the good power, and Ahriman (Angra Mainyou) the evil power, manifestly arose from the effort to solve the dread problem of evil in the world. Zoroastrian teaching represents Ormuzed as the all-knowing and the holy creator of the world. He cannot create evil. He is the source of all purity, order and righteousness. Wrong and misery have come into the world from Ahriman, the opposite contending power in the universe. Zoroastrianism thus gives the world-system a moral foundation and law of order. The moral life is a holy conflict with the forces of evil within human nature and assailing it. The supreme end of life is to increase the ascendency of righteousness and establish its everlasting reign of truth and goodness. The goal of it comes in a future life of blessedness. The ground of righteousness is thus placed in the nature and will of the eternal creator, to whom obedience is due, against the influences of the malign power of evil.[42]
Greek Theories.
5. Among the Greeks ethical philosophy began with Socrates. Their earlier writers dealt with the subject of duty but little in a speculative way. When the philosophy of it came to be sought the theories mainly connected it closely with "the good" or "the highest good," the summum bonum of life. This designation was ambiguous. "The good" (τὸ ἀγαθόν, τὰ ἀγαθά [Greek: to agathon], [Greek: ta agatha]) might be conceived of as either intellectual or sensuous good, as consisting in one's intrinsic state or in outward condition, as either happiness or personal well-being. And because this method failed to distinguish clearly and fully between this indefinite "good"—having at best no more authority than "the beautiful"—and "the right" which forms the true essence of the ethical principle, their explanations failed to become clear, and stopped short of being actual explanations of the ground of right. Hence their theories, though not always consistently exhibited, and variously interpreted by expounders of them, were substantially eudæmonistic[43] and utilitarian. Specifically:
(1) Socrates made all virtue consist in knowledge, especially self knowledge or wisdom, leading men to proper self-regulation and happiness. He put emphasis upon man's rational nature as essentially good, and to this rational nature belonged the office of self-mastery and control of all appetites, dispositions, and passions. The life in knowledge became the good and happy life. Though this great sage maintained that the world is governed by a supreme intelligence, he failed to connect clearly and closely the moral law with this high source, and rested the moral life simply subjectively.
(2) Plato developed his view substantially on the basis of that of Socrates. He identified the highest good with the intellect rather than the sensibility, and looked upon all virtues as united in knowledge, not only as guiding the soul in acting out its proper destination, but, according to some statements, even as in itself all-sufficing. Though Plato's speculative view of the universe contains the elements for the construction of a sublime immutable ethical standard, and he even suggests God-likeness as the goal of man's moral life,[44] the implications of his view are not consistently carried out; and when he comes to apply his ideas to life in his ideal Republic he lapses into what seems a caricature of his better thought, and is content to rest morality simply on the authority and laws of the state.[45]
(3) Aristotle, in whom Plato's theistic view of the world receded into the background, made the "chief good" consist in happiness or felt well-being, which depends on man's living according to his rational nature. Such living includes both the activities of the mind and habitual conduct. The reason must not only develop its own energies, but rule the lower powers and passions. On this double requirement he founded two kinds of virtue, the intellectual (dianoetic) and the practical. The one consists in "knowledge" or "wisdom," the other in formed "habits" or "character." The moral life, therefore, consists in the true use, without abuse, of our rational nature. The rule for it, as taught by Aristotle, is to avoid extremes and pursue the golden mean. The theory thus rests morality wholly on subjective good and identifies it with the calculations of prudence. It is simply secularistic, without religious element or appeal.[46]