A SUMMARY OF ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. 151 



Aristotle is immensely behind Stoicism, which he 

 criticizes by anticipation, or rather his conception 

 of evSat/uiovia has dragged him down to a lower 

 view of TO dyaObv. The Stoic sage was happy 

 on the rack ; the slave Epictetus might vie with 

 Marcus Aurelius. A life made happy by suffering 

 was impossible for Aristotle and a paradox to us ; 

 but a life " perfected by suffering " is a familiar 

 Christian idea. 



But the real destroyer of man's well-being was 

 not bodily weakness or the servile condition ; the 

 TrcTr^wjuevot 7r/oo apTi]v were, after all, rare. The 

 real destroyer of happiness was that which intro- 

 duced aTaais into the o-uorrj^a, the insubordination 

 of that lower nature which might be permeated 

 by reason, but often struggled against it. It was 

 this which set man against man in the political 

 Koiwvia, and the man against himself. The in- 

 ordinateness of the passions was the first problem 

 for Aristotle. No man can be in a state of well- 

 being unless he is at peace with himself, and in 

 charity with, or at least in relations of justice with, 

 his neighbour. 



The moral apcrat occupy the major part of 

 Aristotle's Ethics ; but first we must get clear the 

 conception of moral virtue, before discussing them 

 in detail. A virtuous life is life according to law 

 or right reason, Kara TOV bpOov Aoyov. This bpObz 

 is known to us first as an external standard, 



