48 INTELLIGENCE AND MORALS 



evitable limitations of the Greek city-state were in 

 evitably wrought into the texture of moral theory. 



The business of thought was to furnish a sub 

 stitute for customs which were then relaxing from 

 the pressure of contact and intercourse without 

 and the friction of strife within. Reason was to 

 take the place of custom as a guide of life ; but it 

 was to furnish rules as final, as unalterable as those 

 of custom. In short, the thinkers were fascinated 

 by the afterglow of custom. They took for their 

 own ideal the distillation from custom of its essence 

 ends and laws which should be rigid and invari 

 able. Thus Morals was set upon the track which 

 it dared not leave for nigh twenty-five hundred 

 years : search for the final good, and for the single 

 moral force. 



Aristotle s assertions that the state exists by na 

 ture, and that in the state alone does the individual 

 achieve independence and completeness of life, are 

 indeed pregnant sayings. But as uttered by Aris 

 totle they meant that, in an isolated state, the 

 Greek city-state, set a garlanded island in the 

 waste sea fr of barbaroi, a community indifferent 

 when not hostile to all other social groupings, in 

 dividuals attain their full end. In a social unity 

 which signified social contraction, contempt, and 

 antagonism, in a social order which despised inter 

 course and glorified war, is realized the life of 

 excellence ! 



