The defect of Plato lies in the external arrangements by which he proposed to secure the right relation of parts to the whole. His measures for securing this subordination were partly material and physical, partly visionary and unnatural, where ours must be natural, social, intellectual, and spiritual. But he did lay down for all time the great principle that the due subordination of the parts to the whole, of the members to the organism, of the classes to society, of individuals to the state is the essence of righteousness in a state, and an indispensable condition of political well-being.
III
THE CARDINAL VIRTUES
Righteousness in a state then consists in each class minding its own business, and performing its specific function for the good of the state as a whole. Righteousness in the individual is precisely the same thing. There are three grand departments of each man's life: his appetites, his spirit, and his reason. Neither of these is good or bad in itself. Neither of them should be permitted to set up housekeeping on its own account. Any one of them is bad if it acts for itself alone, regardless of the interests of the self as a whole. Let us take up these departments in order, and see wherein the vice and the virtue of each consists. First the appetites, which in the individual correspond to the working class in the state.
Let us take eating as a specimen, remembering, however, that everything we say about the appetite for food is equally true of all the other elementary appetites, such as those that deal with drink, sex, dress, property, amusement, and the like. The Epicurean said they are all good if they do not clash and contradict each other. The Stoic implied that they are all, if not positively bad, at least so low and unimportant that the wise man will not pay much attention to them. Plato says they are all good in their place, and that they are all bad out of their place. What, then, is their place? It is one of subordination and service to the self as a whole. Which is the better breakfast: a half pound of beefsteak, with fried potatoes, an omelette, some griddle cakes and maple syrup, with a doughnut or two, and a generous piece of mince pie? or a little fruit and a cereal, a roll, and a couple of eggs?
Intrinsically the first breakfast is, if anything, better than the second. There is more of it. It offers greater variety. It takes longer to eat it. It will stay by you longer. If you are at a hotel conducted on the American plan, you are getting more for your money.
Righteousness, however, is concerned with none of these considerations. What makes one breakfast better than the other is the way it fits into one's life as a whole. Which breakfast will enable you to do the best forenoon's work? Which one will give you acute headache and chronic dyspepsia? Immediate appetite cannot answer these questions. Reason is the only one of our three departments that can tell us what is good for the self as a whole. Now for most people in ordinary circumstances, reason prescribes the second breakfast, or something like it. The second breakfast fits into one's permanent plan of life. The work to be done in the forenoon, the feelings one will have in the afternoon, the general efficiency which we desire to maintain from day to day and year to year, all point to the second breakfast as the more adapted to promote the welfare of the self as a whole throughout the entire life history. If we eat the first breakfast, appetite rules and reason is thrust into subjection. The lower has conquered the higher; the part has domineered the whole. To eat such a breakfast, for ninety-nine men out of every hundred, would be gluttony. Yet, though eating it is vicious, the fault is not in the breakfast, not in the hunger for it; but in the fact that the appetite had its own way, regardless of the permanent interests of the self as a whole; and that so far forth reason was dethroned, and appetite set up as ruler in its place. Indeed there are circumstances in which the first breakfast would be the right one to choose. If one were on the borders of civilisation, setting out for a long tramp through the wilderness, where every ounce of food must be carried on his back, and no more fresh meat and home cooking could be expected for several days, even reason herself might prescribe the first breakfast as more beneficial to the whole man than the second. Precisely the same breakfast which is good in one set of circumstances becomes bad in another. The raw appetite of hunger is obviously neither good nor bad. The rule of appetite over reason and the whole self, however, is bad always, everywhere, and for everybody. It is in this rising up of the lower part of the self against the higher, and its sacrifice of the self as a whole to a particular gratification that all vice consists.
On the other hand, the rule of reason over appetite, the gratification or the restraint of appetite according as the interests of the total self require, is always and everywhere and for everybody good. This is the essence of virtue; and the particular form of virtue that results from this control of the appetites by reason in the interest of the permanent and total self is temperance—the first and most fundamental of Plato's cardinal virtues.
The second element of human nature, spirit, must be dealt with in the same way. By spirit Plato means the fighting element in us, that which prompts us to defend ourselves, the faculty of indignation, anger, and vengeance. To make it concrete, let us take a case. Suppose the cook in our kitchen has times of being careless, cross, saucy, wilful, and disobedient. The spirit within prompts us to upbraid her, quarrel with her, and when she grows in turn more insolent and impertinent, to discharge her. Is such an exercise of spirit a virtuous act? It may be virtuous, or it may be vicious. In this element, considered in itself, there is no more virtue or vice than in appetite considered in itself. It is again a question of how this particular act of this particular side of our nature stands related to the self as a whole. What does reason say?
If I send this cook away, shall I be a long while without any; and after much vexation probably put up with another not half so good? Will my household be thrown into confusion? Will hospitality be made impossible? Will the working power of the members of my household be impaired by lack of well-prepared, promptly served food? In the present state of this servant problem, all these things and worse are quite likely to happen. Consequently reason declares in unmistakable terms that the interests of the self as a whole demand the retention of the cook. But it galls and frets our spirit to keep this impertinent, disobedient servant, and hear her irritating words, and see her aggravating behaviour. Never mind, reason says to the spirited element in us. The spirit is not put into us in order that it may have a good time all by itself on its own account. It is put into us to protect and promote the interests of the self as a whole. You must bear patiently with the incidental failings of your cook, and return soft answers to her harsh words; because in that way you will best serve that whole self which your spirit is given you to defend. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred a quarrel with a cook, on such grounds, in present conditions, would be prejudicial to the interests of the self as a whole. It is the sacrifice of the whole to the part; which as we saw in the case of appetite is the essence of all vice. Only in this case the vice would be, not intemperance, but cowardice, inability to bear a transient, trifling pain patiently and bravely for the sake of the self as a whole.
Still, there might be aggravated cases in which the sharp reproof, the quarrel, and the prompt discharge might be the brave and right thing to do. If one felt it a contribution one was required to make to the whole servant problem, and after considering all the inconvenience it would cost, still felt that life as a whole was worth more with this particular servant out of the house than in it, then precisely the same act, which ordinarily would be wrong, in this exceptional case would be right. It is not what you do, but how you do it, that determines whether an outburst of anger is virtuous or vicious. If the whole self is in it, if all interests have been fully weighed by the reason, if, in short, you are all there when you do it, then the act is a virtuous act, and the special name of this virtue of the spirit is courage or fortitude. Anger and indignation going off on its own account is always vicious. Anger and indignation properly controlled by reason in the interest of the total self is always good. Precisely the same outward act done by one man in one set of circumstances is bad, and shows the man to be vicious, cowardly, and weak; while, if done by another man in other circumstances, it shows him to be strong, brave, and manly. Virtue and vice are questions of the subordination or insubordination of the lower to the higher elements of our nature; of the parts of our selves to the whole. The subordination of appetite to reason has given us the first of the four virtues. The subordination of spirit to reason has given us fortitude, the second.