Instead of appealing, like Plato, to the individual consciousness, and trying to discover ultimate truth by bringing its data into harmony among themselves, Aristotle appeals to the historic consciousness, and endeavors to find truth by harmonizing and complementing its data through a further appeal to the outer world, in which these data are realized. He maintains that the truths reached by the dialectic process are merely formal, and therefore empty,—useless in practice, until they have been filled by experience from the storehouse of nature. In consequence of this changed attitude, he sets aside the dialectic process, and substitutes for it the Method of Induction, which he was the first man in the world to comprehend, expound, and apply, becoming thus the father of all true science. And he makes a more extensive use of induction than any other man since his time, applying it in a field in which even now it is hardly supposed to yield any results, the field of the common consciousness. Indeed, he everywhere begins his search for concrete truth by examining the historic consciousness, and, having, by a process of induction, discovered and generalized its contents, he turns with these to nature and, by a second induction, corrects, completes, and harmonizes them. We might express this in modern language, by saying that his whole endeavor is to correct and supplement the imperfect human consciousness by a continual appeal to the divine consciousness, as manifested in the world. It is the error of modern investigators that they employ only one-half of the inductive method, the objective, and either omit altogether the subjective, or else, like Plato, apply it only to the individual consciousness. Hence come the widely divergent results which still meet us in so many of the sciences, in Politics, Psychology, etc., hence the fact that a great deal of science, instead of correcting, widening, and harmonizing the common consciousness, stands altogether apart from it, or even in direct opposition to it. The man who writes a treatise on Psychology, or on the Soul, without troubling himself to discover what "Soul" means in the general consciousness of mankind, and perhaps setting out with an altogether individual notion of it, can hardly look for any other result. Aristotle, true to his method of induction, devotes one entire book of his Psychology to finding out what "Soul" means in the historic consciousness, unreflective as well as reflective. Then, with this meaning, he goes to nature, seeks by induction to discover what she has to say about it, and abides by her reply. Hence it is that his thought has laid hold upon the world, and influenced it in practical ways, as no other man's thought has ever done. Hence it is that, of all ancient men, he is the one before whom the modern scientist bows with respect.
If we now ask ourselves what was the underlying thought that shaped Aristotle's theory of induction, what was his Weltanschauung, we shall find it to be this: The divine intelligence reveals itself subjectively in an historic process in the human consciousness, and objectively[4] in a natural process in the outer world. Truth for man is the harmony of the two revelations. It follows directly from this that the scientist must take impartial account of both. So, for example, if he finds gods in the historical consciousness, and laws or forces in nature, he has no right, like the theologian, to merge the latter in the former, or, like the physicist, to replace the former by the latter. He must retain both till he can bring them into harmony. Only then does he know either.
Such a philosophy as this, instead of drawing men away from the world of nature and history, and confining them to the narrow circle of their own consciousness, of necessity sent them back to that world, as the only means by which any human well-being could be reached. It is for this reason that it has so powerfully affected both social life and science. Nevertheless, we should err greatly, if we supposed that, in Aristotle's view, the divine is nothing more than an immanent idea, working as a force-form in nature, and as a thought-form in mind. He does, indeed, believe that the divine is all this, but not that this is all the divine there is. Over and above the divine which is determined in nature and in man, there is the transcendent Mind, or God, determining himself through himself, and bearing the same relation to the divine that the sun bears to light, the human mind to human thought, the general to the order of his army. Here we are far away from Pantheism, and, though we have not yet risen to a clear conception of personality, we have at the "helm of the universe" a conscious being, the source of law and order. And man, rising above the thought whereby he knows himself through nature, and nature through himself, may enter into the consciousness of God and become a partaker in that life which is "sweetest and best." These are the features of Aristotle's thought which in the thirteenth century made it acceptable to the Christian Church in her struggle against Pantheism, and which paved the way for that higher mysticism of which Thomas Aquinas is the most distinguished exponent—a mysticism which does not, like that of the Neoplatonists and Buddhists, dispense with thought to lose itself in vacancy, but which, rising upon a broad basis of knowledge, pierces the clouds of sense, to find itself in the presence of the most concrete Reality, the inexhaustible source of all thought and all things.
CHAPTER III
ARISTOTLE'S THEORY OF THE STATE
First, then, let us try to enumerate whatever worthy utterances have proceeded from men of the past upon any aspect of the subject, and then, referring to our collections of Constitutional Histories, let us seek to arrive at a theory as to what sorts of things preserve and destroy each particular form of government, and see for what reasons some are well, some ill, managed. Succeeding in this, we may, perhaps, the better learn both what is the best form of government, and what arrangements, laws, and customs are best suited to each form.—Aristotle.
Man is a political animal.—Id.
The State is prior to the individual.—Id.
Without friends no one would choose to live, although he possessed all other blessings.—Id.
If happiness be self-determination in accordance with worth, we must conclude that it will be in accordance with the supreme worth, which will be the worth of the noblest part of us. This part, whatever it may be, whether intellect (νοῦς) or something else, that which by nature evidently rules and guides us and has insight into things beautiful and divine, whether it be itself divine, or the divinest part of us, is that whose self-determination, in accordance with its proper worth, will be the perfect happiness. That this consists in the vision of divine things has already been said.... This, indeed, is the supreme self-determination, for the reason that intellect is the highest part of us, and that with which it deals is the highest of the knowable.... But a life of this sort would be something higher than the human; for he who lived it would not be living as man, but as the subject of something divine.... If, then, intellect is something divine in relation to man, the life lived according to it must be divine in relation to human life. Instead, then, of following those who advise us, as being human, to set our thoughts upon human things, and, as being mortals, to set them on mortal things, it is our duty, as far as may be, to act as immortal beings, and do all we can to live in accordance with the supreme part of us.—Aristotle.
Man alone, among all beings, occupies a middle place between things corruptible and things incorruptible.... Two ends, therefore, Ineffable Providence has ordained for man: Blessedness in this life, which consists in the exercise of native faculty, and is figured by the Earthly Paradise, and blessedness in the eternal life, which consists in the enjoyment of the vision of God, a thing not to be achieved by any native faculty, unless aided by divine light, and which is to be understood by the Heavenly Paradise.... These ends and means would be disregarded by human passion, if men were not restrained in their course by bit and bridle.... For this reason man required a double directive, corresponding to this double end. He required the Supreme Pontiff to guide the human race to life eternal, and the Emperor to guide the human race to temporal felicity, in accordance with the teachings of philosophy.... The truth with regard to the question whether the authority of the Emperor is derived directly from God or from another, must not be taken so strictly as to mean that the Roman Prince is not, in some respects, subject to the Roman Pontiff, the fact being that this mortal felicity of ours is, in some sense, ordained with a view to immortal felicity. Let Cæsar, therefore, display that reverence for Peter which the first-born son ought to display for his father, so that, being illuminated by his father's grace, he may with greater virtue enlighten the world, which he has been called to govern by Him who is governor of all things, spiritual and temporal.—Dante.
O Grace abounding, whence I did presume
To fix my gaze upon the eternal light
So far that I consumed my sight therein!
Within its deeps I saw internalized
Into one volume, bound with love,
That which is outered in the universe;—
Substance and accident, and all their modes,
As 'twere, together merged in such a sort
That what I mean is but a simple light.
The universal form of this same knot
I think I saw, because, when thus I speak,
I feel that I rejoice with larger joy.—Id.
Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.—Westminster Shorter Catechism.