168 ESSAYS SCIENTIFIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL. 



Confucius was born in 551 B.C., a hundred years 

 earlier than Socrates. His character and the main 

 facts of his life and doctrine are as matter-of-fact 

 as his system. There is nothing ascetic or spiritual 

 in his teaching. He never, so far as we know, 

 dealt with higher and deeper questions, such as 

 the existence of God, the soul, immortality. He 

 was content to ask, How shall I do my duty to 

 my neighbour ? How shall I live as a good 

 citizen ? This is exactly the problem in Aristotle's 

 Ethics ; and, if we remember that, whatever may 

 have been Aristotle's theological or metaphysical 

 basis, he steadily keeps it apart from his moral 

 philosophy proper, we shall feel that he is at 

 least so far on common ground with Confucianism. 



Now, the Aristotelian answer to the moral ques- 

 tion is, as every one knows, summed up in the 

 doctrine of the Mean, a doctrine which we can 

 trace growing up in Socrates and taking definite 

 shape in Plato. The virtuous life is the rational 

 life, that is the harmonious life, the life of balance 

 and equipoise. The virtuous man is at peace with 

 himself; the vicious man's soul is in a state of 

 GTCHTIQ. There is a one-sidedness (juovoKwXia) in 

 which culture is neglected in the interests of bodily 

 training, and a one-sidedness in which bodily 

 training is forgotten through exclusive devotion 

 to culture. The metal (to use another metaphor 

 from Plato's " Republic ") may be brittle from 



