§ [167]. The answers which these philosophies give to the question of the relation between the state of knowledge and its object, divide them into two groups. Among the ancients reason is regarded as the means of emancipation from the limitations of the private mind. "The sleeping turn aside each into a world of his own," but "the waking"—the wise men—"have one and the same world." What the individual knows belongs to himself only in so far as it is inadequate. Hence for Plato the ideas are not the attributes of a mind, but that self-subsistent truth to which, in its moments of insight, a mind may have access. Opinion is "my own," the truth is being. The position of Aristotle is equally clear. "Actual knowledge," he maintains, "is identical with its object."
Spinoza and Leibniz belong to another age. Modern philosophy began with a new emphasis upon self-consciousness. In his celebrated argument—"I think, hence I am" (cogito ergo sum)—Descartes established the independent and substantial reality of the thinking activity. The "I think" is recognized as in itself a fundamental being, known intuitively to the thinker himself. Now although Spinoza and Leibniz are finally determined by the same motives that obtain in the cases of Plato and Aristotle, they must reckon with this new distinction between the thinker and his object. The result in the case of Spinoza is the doctrine of "parallelism," in which mind is defined as an "infinite attribute" of substance, an aspect or phase coextensive with the whole of being. The result in the case of Leibniz is his doctrine of "representation" and "preëstablished harmony," whereby each monadic substance is in itself an active spiritual entity, and belongs to the universe through its knowledge of a specific stage of the development of the universe. But both Spinoza and Leibniz subordinate such conceptions as these to the fundamental identity that pervades the whole. With Spinoza the attributes belong to the same absolute substance, and with Leibniz the monads represent the one universe. And with both, finally, the perfection of knowledge, or the knowledge of God, is indistinguishable from its object, God himself. The epistemological subtleties peculiar to these philosophers are not stable doctrines, but render inevitable either a return to the simpler and bolder realism of the Greeks, or a passing over into the more radical and systematic doctrine of absolute idealism.
The Stoic and Spinozistic Ethics of Necessity.
§ [168]. We have met with two general motives, both of which are subordinated to the doctrine of an absolute being postulated and sought by philosophy. The one of these motives leads to the conception of the absolutely necessary and immutable substance, the other to the conception of a consummate perfection. There is an interpretation of life appropriate to each of these conceptions. Both agree in regarding life seriously, in defining reason or philosophy as the highest human activity, and in emphasizing the identity of the individual's good with the good of the universe. But there are striking differences of tone and spirit.
Although the metaphysics of the Stoics have various affiliations, the Stoic code of morality is the true practical sequel to the Eleatic-Spinozistic view of the world. The Stoic is one who has set his affections on the eternal being. He asks nothing of it for himself, but identifies himself with it. The saving grace is a sense of reality. The virtuous man is not one who remakes the world, or draws upon it for his private uses; even less one who rails against it, or complains that it has used him ill. He is rather one who recognizes that there is but one really valid claim, that of the universe itself. But he not only submits to this claim on account of its superiority; he makes it his own. The discipline of Stoicism is the regulation of the individual will to the end that it may coincide with the universal will. There is a part of man by virtue of which he is satisfied with what things are, whatever they be. That part, designated by the Stoics as "the ruling part," is the reason. In so far as man seeks to understand the laws and natures which actually prevail, he cannot be discontented with anything whatsoever that may be known to him.
"For, in so far as we are intelligent beings, we cannot desire anything save that which is necessary, nor yield absolute acquiescence to anything, save to that which is true: wherefore, in so far as we have a right understanding of these things, the endeavor of the better part of ourselves is in harmony with the order of nature as a whole."[344:13]
In agreement with this teaching of Spinoza's is the famous Stoic formula to the effect that "nothing can happen contrary to the will of the wise man," who is free through his very acquiescence. If reason be the proper "ruling part," the first step in the moral life is the subordination of the appetitive nature and the enthronement of reason. One who is himself rational will then recognize the fellowship of all rational beings, and the unitary and beneficent rationality of the entire universe. The highest morality is thus already upon the plane of religion.
The Platonic Ethics of Perfection.
§ [169]. With Spinoza and the Stoics, the perfection of the individual is reduced to what the universe requires of him. The good man is willing to be whatever he must be, for the sake of the whole with which through reason he is enabled to identify himself. With Plato and Aristotle the perfection of the individual himself is commended, that the universe may abound in perfection. The good man is the ideal man—the expression of the type. And how different the quality of a morality in keeping with this principle! The virtues which Plato enumerates—temperance, courage, wisdom, and justice—compose a consummate human nature. He is thinking not of the necessities but of the possibilities of life. Knowledge of the truth will indeed be the best of human living, but knowledge is not prized because it can reconcile man to his limitations; it is the very overflowing of his cup of life. The youth are to
"dwell in the land of health, amid fair sights and sounds; and beauty, the effluence of fair works, will visit the eye and ear, like a healthful breeze from a purer region, and insensibly draw the soul even in childhood into harmony with the beauty of reason."[345:14]