Burnet, John_Law and Nature in Greek Ethics_IJoE, 7, 3_1897_328-333

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Law and Nature in Greek EthicsAuthor(s): John BurnetSource: International Journal of Ethics, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Apr., 1897), pp. 328-333Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2375525Accessed: 23-02-2015 19:55 UTC

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328

International

ournal of Ethics.

view to

the

wonder,

beauty, nd orderof the visible

universe,

by bringing

him

to

feel the potentialgreatness

and nobility

of man, and at the same time the limitations nd dependence

attendant

on

his

finitude,

he

religious school can lay the

foundation

f a true religious ife.

Surely the highestpowers

of the

human soul

meet in that

transcendentmood where

science

and ethics and

philosophy,

music, art, and poetry

fuse

to form

the

developed religious

consciousness.

And

this developed religious

consciousness, as I

have tried

to

show,

must

be

the main bulwark of humanity

against the

forces

hat threaten

he

disruption

f

society,for

he supreme

fact

of

the

religious

sense is

spiritual

unity. The practical

difficulties

n

the

way

of the

cultivation f

this

sense are

in-

disputably

great;

but

for

that

very reason it

behooves

us

steadfastly

o look

away

from

he

letter, teadfastly

o fix

our

attention

n

the

spirit.

ABRAHAM

FLEXNER.

LOUISVILLE,

KENTUCKY.

LAW

AND NATURE

IN GREEK ETHICS.

IN a well-known

passage of

the Ethics, Aristotlesays

that things fairand things ust are liable to such variation

and fluctuation

hat

they

are believed to exist

by

law

only and

not by

nature.

Although

much has

been

written,

nd well

written,

n this

distinction,

t

still seems possible to throwa

little

fresh

ightupon

it. It is easier now than t used to

be to

trace the thread

of historical ontinuityn Greek

thought, nd

to understand

what

the

doctrines f

Greekphilosophers

really

meantto the men whotaught hem and heard them. And we

can do

this

by

looking

at our

problem

in

the twofold ight

of

earlierspeculation

and

contemporary

ulture.

I.

To understandwhat

the

Greeks

of

the fifth

entury .C.

meant

by funs,-a

word

very inadequately

rendered

by

*

Eth.

Nic. A,

1oq4

b, s,

ra

&

Ka2a

Kat

a-

dtiKata

.

roXXv

Iet

6caoopav

Kal

7raivnv,

re

JoKceiv

6Z

u

t6vovlvat,

ioet

&

#yv7.







Law and Nature

in Greek

Ethics.

329

nature,

we must

cast a glancebackwards

upon those

cos-

mological

inquiries

which had

just reached

theirhighest

point

in theAtomicTheoryof Leukippos andDemokritos. I have

shown elsewhere

that

the

cosmologists from

the

Milesian

School

onwards

had given the

name saves

to that

primary

substance

which

they

were all

in

search

of. It meant

o them

the most

real thing,

hat

which

must underlie

the worldwith

all

its

manifold ppearances

and changes.

To put the

matter

simply,

cience began

with the

child's

question,

What

is

the

world

made

of?

The answers

that were givento

this

ques-

tion

covered the

whole

range

fromthe Water of Thales

to

the Seeds

ofAnaxagoras

or the

Atoms

of

Leukippos.

But

the

question

was

always

the same, and

every

answer to

it was

a

new accountof the funs

of

things,

r,

as we should

say,

of

the

elementor elements o

which

things

can

be

reduced and

of which

they

are

composed.

This primary

element was,

of course, corporeal

like

the

worlditself. The time had not yet come when the bond of

the

world could

be

sought

n an

ideal

unity.

Even the

Pytha-

gorean

numbers were

spatial,

and space

was not

clearly

distinguished

rom

ody

before he

rise

of

the Atomic

Theory.

Now

the fact

that

ultimate

reality

nd the

world of

common

experience

were both

retarded

as corporeal

had serious

con-

sequences.

Both were

of

the

same kind, and therefore

om-

parisonwas inevitable. In proportion s the dea ofsOmreas

more

thoroughly

worked

out,

it

naturally

ended to become

something

more and more

remote from

common

experience,

and thus

to make

that

experience

seem

by

comparison

more

and

more

unreal

and

illusory.

The

Water

of Thales

was,

indeed,

something

we

know,

and we

could see without

too

much

effort

ow

everything

lse

might

be solidified r

vapor-

ized water. But now Parmenideshas shownonce for ll that,

if we are

going

to take

the

reality

of

fv'otq

eriously,

we

are

bound

to

deny

of it all

motion,

hange,

and

variety.

It

is,

and

that

means

that it

always

was

and

always

will

be,-or

*

Early Greek

Philosophy,

pp.

IO

sqq.

I still hold firmlyhat

we have

no right

o ascribe

he

term

px7

tothe

cosmologists.

VOL.

VII.-No. 3

22







330 International

ournall

of Ethics.

rather hat time

s a

fiction,-that

t is absolutely continuous,

homogeneous,

and

motionless.

This

makes the breach

be-

tweentheworldwe seem, to know and the world as it is for

thought complete.

The real of Parmenides

is in

fact

n

extended

and

corporeal Thing

in

itself,

which not only fails

to

explain

the

every-dayworld,but

banishes t to the realmof

the

unreal.

The

Atomic Theory sought,

ndeed, to make the

real

yield

an explanation

of

the world

by multiplying

he

One

of

Parmenides

into innumerable

atoms,

but

this

only

served to bring out more clearlythan ever the disparity e-

tween

v'ie;

and our every-day xperience.

II.

This

explains

why

the

ethical

problem,

when

once it

was raised,

took

the form f

a search

for

4at;, for n under-

lying

and

permanent

reality,

n the vast mass

of traditional

morality

mbodied

in the

uses

and

observances

which varied

so

strangely

rom

ity

to

city,

o

say

nothingof thebewilder-

ingmaze of barbarian nstitutions.These presented prob-

lem precisely

nalogous

to the

problem

of

the manifold

world

around us,

with ts endless diversity

nd

its

never-ceasing

war

of

opposites.

And

so the

question

soon resolved tself

nto

a

search for

the

f6ete

or

underlying eality

f all the

complex

social

arrangements

nd institutions

we

know. Is there

ny-

thing

in human life that

corresponds

to

the One of the

Eleatics or to Atoms and the Void?

Now, just

as

cosmological speculation

had

been

forcedto

deny the reality

of the

every-day

world because

it

sought

for

ultimate

reality

n

something corporeal,

so

the

new

ethical

speculation

was

soon forced to deny

the

validity

of

ordinary

morality,

nd for

ust

the same

reason,

because the

under-

lying principle

t

sought

was

of one

kind with the facts

t was

meantto explain. Ifwe look for thicalreality n some code

of

rules

which

are

really binding,

nsteadof

seeking

it in

that

which

gives

binding

force to

the moral codes

which

already exist,

we

are

bound

to

regard

the latter s invalid and

arbitrary.

And

further,ust

in

proportion

as we

carry

out

the

search

logically,

the

poorer

will

be the

content

of

our

real

code

of

morals.

For

in

truth,

owever

much

we

may

disguise

the

fact,

uch

a

code is reached

by

abstraction.

Just







Law and Nature in Greek Ethics. 331

as nothingwas leftby the Eleatics and the Atomists

but ex-

tension and body, so nothing

s

left by the later sophists

but brute force nd the good pleasure ofthe individual. Mo-

rality, oo, becomes

an

affair f Atoms and the Void.

III.

The word which was used

to denote the existing code

of

morality

n

any given

state was

v'

,

a

word which

orig-

inally meant use, but

covers also

what

we call

law. When

the

oracle

of

Apollo

advised

men

to

worship

the

gods,Yiojt*

7ro',w,

it is as if it had said after he use of Sarum. Now

we findthat this word is used in a metaphoricalsense by

Demokritosto express

the unreal

character f our every-day

knowledge of the world, and nothing can show more clearly

the

close parallelism

between

the

ethical and

cosmological

speculation of the time.

In

making

his

famous distinction

between

true-born

nd

bastard

knowledge,*

Demokritos

used

these words,-

By use there s sweet and by use there is bitter; by use

there s

hot,by

use

there s

cold, by

use

there

s

colour.

But

in

sooth thereare

Atoms and

the

Void.

t

Why

should what

we call the

secondary ualities

of matter

be

assigned

to

the

province

f

Use

?

The

answerto this

ques-

tion will give

us

the key

to the

whole theory of Law and

Nature.

It is evident that the great outburst f legislative activity

which

marked

the

preceding ge

had

done

not a little o

foster

moral

scepticism. Just

as

the

beginnings

of

applied natural

science had brought

men

faceto facewiththeproblemof the

world,

o

did

practical legislation

raise the

problem

of

ethics.

It

had been possible

to

regard

the

customary

aws of

older

times as something fundamental,

r even

divine. Their au-

thoritywas questioned just as little as the realityof the

every-day

world.

The

kings might give

crooked

dooms

(axokcal

&c-req),

but the existence of the dooms themselves,

*

That

this

s

the

truemeaning

f

the

yvr7ca7i

nd

aicoTrbv6Jrn

as first ointed

out by

Natorp Archiv., .,

p. 355).

t

Sext. Math.

vii.,

135,

N61up

yXtKVi

cal

v6Oup

ryp&V

6yc

0&pju6v,

6,uq

ipvXp6v,

v6OuL

podp

E'frej

aii-oya

ica'

icev6v.







332

International

ournall

of

Ethics.

and the

fact

that they

came fromZeus,

was

not

doubted

for

a

moment.

All

the

old

taboos

and

all the

old rites

were

as

real and unquestionableas the succession of seed-time and

harvest

or

the

rise

of

Ram,

Bull,

or

Twins at

the

appointed

season.

Indeed,

the regularity

nd constancy

of

human

affairs

as

farmoreclearlyapprehended

han

the

even

course

of

nature.

Man

lived

in a charmedcircle

of

law and

custom,

but

the

world

around

him

still seemed

lawless.

So

much was

thisso, indeed,

that,

whenthe regular

course of

natural

phe-

nomenabegan to be observed,no betterword could be found

for

t

than

8c'x'q.

Anaximander

spoke

of

the

encroachment

f

one element

on another

as

injustice,

and, according

to

Herakleitos,

t is

the

Erinyes,

the avenging

handmaids of

Dike,

who keep

the

sun from overstepping

is

measures.*

But

a

code

of aws framed y

a known lawgiver,

Zaleukos

or

a

Charondas,

Lycurgus

or a Solon,

could

notbe

accepted

in this way as partof theeverlasting rderofthings. It was

clearly

made,

and, therefore,

rom

he

point

of view

of

funq,

artificial

nd arbitrary.

It

seemed

as

if it

might

ust

as

well

have

been

made otherwise,

r not made

at

all.

A

generation

which

had seen

laws

in the

making

could

hardlyhelp

asking

whether

ll morality

had not been

made

in the

same

way.

That

this

really

was

the

point

of view from which the

ethical problem was regarded is shown by the use of the

word

O8ans

in

much

he

same

sense

as

Y'tio,.

This

word

may

mean

either

the

giving

of laws

or the

adoption

of

laws so

given,t

nd

it

thus

contains

he

germ,

not

only

of

the

theory f

an

original

legislator,

but

also

of that known

as the

Social

Contract.

The

growing

knowledge

of

the

diversity

of customs and

institutionsn theworld,both Hellenic and barbarian,must

have

strengthened

men's

suspicion

of the arbitrariness f all

moral

udgments.

Herodotus

s full

fthis

feeling.

The

strong-

est

proof

he can

give

of the madness of

King

Cambyses

is

*

Early

Greek hilosophy,

p.

51, 73, I47.

j According

s

it

is referred

o theactive,

oflovc

6civat

or the middle,

v64#ovw

ORE'Oat.







Law

and Nature

in

Greek

Ethics.

333

that

he

laughed

at the rites

nd

customs

of other

nations s

if

those

of his

own

were a bit

less artificial.

If we

were to

set before all men a choice,and bid them pick out thebest

uses from ll

the uses there re,

each

people,

afterexamining

them all, would

choose

those of their

own nation.

So

it is

not

likely that any

one

but

a madman

would laugh

at such

things,

nd

Pindar

s

right

n

saying

that

use

is

king

of

all.

IV. We find, hen,

close parallelism

betweenthe

cosmo-

logical

and

the

ethicalproblemof the

fifth

entury .C.

The

world of every-day xperiencewas seen to be unreal n com-

parison

with

the ultimate

fans

of

things

however

thatmight

be explained,

and the

ordinary

codes of morals

were felt

o

be unreal

n

comparison

with

a

similar

bstract

deal of right.

In

both

cases the error,

r rather he inadequacy,

of

the

views

held

came

from

he

same source.

The underlying

reality

of

the

world and

that of

conduct were

sought

in

pari

material.

The

realityof the

corporeal

world was supposed

to

be a

still

morereal body,

and

the

reality

f conductwas

supposed

to be a

still

more

valid

rule

of

ife.

Such

is

the

real

meaning

nd

origin

of

an opposition

which was natural

and

inevitable

n

the be-

ginnings

of philosophy,

but which

is

surely

an

anachronism

now.

And yet

it still lives

on,

and

it

is the same

type

ot

mind

which

would reduce the

world

to the

interactionof

vibrations

nd

society

to a

compromise

of natural

rights.

JOHN

BURNET.

ST.

ANDREW'S UNIVERSITY,

SCOTLAND.





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