Ethics | Page 3

knowledge and the thinking which brings it about are subsidiary to a
practical end. The knowledge aimed at is of what is best for man and of the conditions of
its realisation. Such knowledge is that which in its consumate form we find in great
statesmen, enabling them to organise and administer their states and regulate by law the
life of the citizens to their advantage and happiness, but it is the same kind of knowledge
which on a smaller scale secures success in the management of the family or of private
life.
It is characteristic of such knowledge that it should be deficient in "exactness," in
precision of statement, and closeness of logical concatenation. We must not look for a
mathematics of conduct. The subject-matter of Human Conduct is not governed by
necessary and uniform laws. But this does not mean that it is subject to no laws. There
are general principles at work in it, and these can be formulated in "rules," which rules
can be systematised or unified. It is all-important to remember that practical or moral
rules are only general and always admit of exceptions, and that they arise not from the
mere complexity of the facts, but from the liability of the facts to a certain unpredictable
variation. At their very best, practical rules state probabilities, not certainties; a relative
constancy of connection is all that exists, but it is enough to serve as a guide in life.
Aristotle here holds the balance between a misleading hope of reducing the
subject-matter of conduct to a few simple rigorous abstract principles, with conclusions
necessarily issuing from them, and the view that it is the field of operation of inscrutable
forces acting without predictable regularity. He does not pretend to find in it absolute
uniformities, or to deduce the details from his principles. Hence, too, he insists on the
necessity of experience as the source or test of all that he has to say. Moral
experience--the actual possession and exercise of good character--is necessary truly to
understand moral principles and profitably to apply them. The mere intellectual
apprehension of them is not possible, or if possible, profitless.
The Ethics is addressed to students who are presumed both to have enough general
education to appreciate these points, and also to have a solid foundation of good habits.
More than that is not required for the profitable study of it.
If the discussion of the nature and formation of character be regarded as the central topic
of the Ethics, the contents of Book I., cc. iv.-xii. may be considered as still belonging to
the introduction and setting, but these chapters contain matter of profound importance
and have exercised an enormous influence upon subsequent thought. They lay down a

principle which governs all Greek thought about human life, viz. that it is only intelligible
when viewed as directed towards some end or good. This is the Greek way of expressing
that all human life involves an ideal element--something which it is not yet and which
under certain conditions it is to be. In that sense Greek Moral Philosophy is essentially
idealistic. Further it is always assumed that all human practical activity is directed or
"oriented" to a single end, and that that end is knowable or definable in advance of its
realisation. To know it is not merely a matter of speculative interest, it is of the highest
practical moment for only in the light of it can life be duly guided, and particularly only
so can the state be properly organised and administered. This explains the stress laid
throughout by Greek Moral Philosophy upon the necessity of knowledge as a condition
of the best life. This knowledge is not, though it includes knowledge of the nature of man
and his circumstances, it is knowledge of what is best--of man's supreme end or good.
But this end is not conceived as presented to him by a superior power nor even as
something which ought to be. The presentation of the Moral Ideal as Duty is almost
absent. From the outset it is identified with the object of desire, of what we not merely
judge desirable but actually do desire, or that which would, if realised, satisfy human
desire. In fact it is what we all, wise and simple, agree in naming "Happiness" (Welfare
or Well-being)
In what then does happiness consist? Aristotle summarily sets aside the more or less
popular identifications of it with abundance of physical pleasures, with political power
and honour, with the mere possession of such superior gifts or attainments as normally
entitle men to these, with wealth. None of these can constitute the end or good of man as
such. On the other hand, he rejects his master Plato's conception of a good which is the
end