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The terms Just and Justice were not of course merely synonyms for order and measure. They had likewise the social significance coming from the courts and the assembly. They stood for the control side of life, as Good stood for its aspect of valuation and desire. But as compared with the Hebrew conception of righteousness, they meant much less a conformity to a law divine or human which had been already set up as standard, and much more, an ordering, a regulating, a harmonizing. The rational element of measure or order was more prominent than the personal note of authority. Hence we shall find Plato passing easily back and forth between justice or order in the individual and justice or order in the State. On the other hand, the radicals of the day could seize upon the legal usage and declare that Justice or the Law was purely a matter of self-interest or class interest.

? 2. INTELLECTUAL FORCES OF INDIVIDUALISM

In a concrete form, this rational character had already found expression in the quality of Greek art. Reference has already been made to the formal side of Greek art, with its embodiment of rhythm and measure; the subject-matter shows the same element. The Greek world, as contrasted with the barbarian world, was conceived by the Greek as the realm of light contrasted with darkness; the national God, Apollo, embodied this ideal of light and reason, and his fitting symbol was the sun. The great Pan-Athenaic procession, as reproduced in the Parthenon frieze, celebrated the triumph of Greek light and intelligence over barbarian darkness. Athena, goddess of wisdom, was a fitting guardian of the most Greek of all Greek cities. Greek tragedy, beginning in hymns of worship, soon passed over into a portrayal of the all-controlling laws of life, as these are brought into stronger relief by a tragic collision with human agents.

"When they sing the praises of family and say that some one is a gentleman because he has had seven generations of wealthy ancestors, he thinks that their sentiments only betray the dullness and narrowness of vision of those who utter them, and who are not educated enough to look at the whole, nor to consider that every man has had thousands and thousands of progenitors, and among them have been rich and poor, kings and slaves, Hellenes and barbarians, many times over. And when some one boasts of a catalogue of twenty-five ancestors, and goes back to Heracles, the son of Amphitryon, he cannot understand his poverty of ideas. Why is he unable to calculate that Amphitryon had a twenty-fifth ancestor, who might have been anybody, and was such as fortune made him, and he had a fiftieth, and so on? He is amused at the notion that he cannot do a sum, and thinks that a little arithmetic would have got rid of his senseless vanity."

The type of life that is really noble or fine and good is to be found in the seeker for true beauty and goodness. External beauty of form and appearance has its value in kindling the desire for the higher forms of beauty,--beauty of mind, of institutions and laws, of science,--until finally the conception of the true beauty is reached. This true beauty, as distinct from the particular beauties, and true good, as distinct from seeming or partial good, are discovered only by the "philosopher," the seeker for wisdom.

? 3. COMMERCIAL AND POLITICAL INDIVIDUALISM

Let us first hear the plea for inequality:

"Custom and nature are generally at variance with one another; ... for by the rule of nature, that only is the more disgraceful which is the greater evil; as, for example, to suffer injustice; but by the rule of custom, to do evil is the more disgraceful. For this suffering of injustice is not the part of a man, but of a slave, who indeed had better die than live; for when he is wronged and trampled upon, he is unable to help himself or any other about whom he cares. The reason, as I conceive, is that the makers of laws are the many weak; and they make laws and distribute praises and censures with a view to themselves and their own interests; and they terrify the mightier sort of men, and those who are able to get the better of them, in order that they may not get the better of them; and they say that dishonesty is shameful and unjust; meanwhile, when they speak of injustice, they desire to have more than their neighbors, for knowing their own inferiority, they are only too glad of equality. And therefore, this seeking to have more than the many is conventionally said to be shameful and unjust, and is called injustice, whereas nature herself intimates that it is just for the better to have more than the worse, the more powerful than the weaker; and in many ways she shows, among men as well as among animals, and indeed among whole cities and races, that justice consists in the superior ruling over and having more than the inferior. For on what principle of justice did Xerxes invade Hellas, or his father the Scythians? . They, I conceive, act according to nature; yes, and according to the law of nature; not perhaps, according to that artificial law which we frame and fashion, taking the best and strongest of us from their youth upwards, and taming them like young lions, and charming them with the sound of the voice, saying to them that with equality they must be content, and that this is the honorable and the just. But if there were a man who had sufficient force, he would shake off and break through and escape from all this; he would trample under foot all our formulas and spells and charms, and all our laws, sinning against nature; the slave would rise in rebellion and be lord over us, and the light of natural justice would shine forth. And this I take to be the lesson of Pindar, in the poem in which he says that

"'Law is the King of all, mortals as well as immortals!'

This, as he says:

"I do not remember the exact words, but the meaning is, that he carried off the oxen of Geryon without buying them, and without their being given to him by Geryon, according to the law of natural right, and that the oxen and other possessions of the weaker and inferior properly belong to the stronger and superior."

The essence of this view is, therefore, that might is right, and that no legislation or conventional code ought to stand in the way of the free assertion of genius and power. It is similar to the teaching of Nietzsche in recent times.

But the other side had its complaint also. The laws are made by the "shepherds" of the people, as Homer called them. But who is now so simple as to suppose that the "shepherds" fatten or tend the sheep with a view to the good of the sheep, and not to their own good? All laws and governments really exist for the interest of the ruling class. They rest upon convention or "institution," not upon "nature."

"Can I by justice, or by crooked ways of deceit, ascend a loftier tower which may be a fortress to me all my days?"

And if I decide that the crooked way is the easier, why shall I not follow it? My party, or my "union", or my lawyer will stand by and see me through:

"But I hear some one exclaiming that the concealment of wickedness is often difficult; to which I answer, Nothing great is easy. Nevertheless, the argument indicates this, if we would be happy, to be the path along which we should proceed. With a view to concealment we will establish secret brotherhoods and political clubs. And there are professors of rhetoric who teach the art of persuading courts and assemblies; and so, partly by persuasion and partly by force, I shall make unlawful gains and not be punished. Still I hear a voice saying that the gods cannot be deceived, neither can they be compelled. But what if there are no gods? or, suppose them to have no care of human things, why in either case should we mind about concealment?"

Besides, the greatest prizes, not only in material goods, but even in the line of reputation, seemed to fall to the individualist if he could only act on a sufficiently large scale. He could then be both prosperous and "respectable." If he could steal the government, or, in modern phrase, bribe a legislature to elect him to Congress, pass special legislation, or grant a franchise, he could not merely escape punishment, but be honored by his fellows.

"I am speaking of injustice on a large scale, in which the advantage of the unjust is most apparent, and my meaning will be most clearly seen in that highest form of injustice, the perpetrator of which is the happiest of men, as the sufferers of these who refuse to do injustice are the most miserable--I mean tyranny which by fraud and force takes away the property of others, not retail but wholesale; comprehending in one things sacred as well as profane, private and public, for any one of which acts of wrong, if he were detected perpetrating them singly, he would be punished and incur great dishonor; for they who are guilty of any of these crimes in single instances are called robbers of temples and man-stealers and burglars and swindlers and thieves. But when a man has taken away the money of the citizens and made slaves of them, then instead of these dishonorable names, he is called happy and blessed, not only by the citizens but by all who hear of his having achieved the consummation of injustice. For injustice is censured because the censurers are afraid of suffering, and not from any fear which they have of doing injustice. And thus, as I have shown, Socrates, injustice, when on a sufficient scale, has more strength and freedom and mastery than justice; and, as I said at first, justice is the interest of the stronger, whereas injustice is a man's own profit and interest."

? 4. INDIVIDUALISM AND ETHICAL THEORY

Furthermore, two positive theses have been established by the very forces which have been active in disintegrating the old status. If custom no longer suffices, then reason must set the standard; if society cannot prescribe the good to the individual, then the individual must find some method of defining and seeking it for himself unless he is to make shipwreck of his whole venture.

We may bring both aspects of the problem under the conception of "nature", as opposed to convention or institution. Convention is indeed outgrown, nature is the imperious authority. But granting that nature is rightful master, is "nature" to be sought in the primitive beginnings, or in the fullest development? in a life of isolation, or in a life of society? in the desires and passions, or in reason and a harmonious life?

Or, stating the same problem otherwise: granting that reason must fix the measure, and the individual must define and seek the good for himself, is the good to be found in isolation, or is it to be sought in human society with its bonds of family, friendship, and justice? Is the end to be pleasure, found in the gratification of desires, irrespective of their quality, and is it the business of reason merely to measure one gratification with another and get the most? or is wisdom itself a good, and is it better to satisfy certain impulses rather than others? i.e., shall reason form the standard as well as apply it?

The Cyrenaics, or hedonists , gave a different turn to wisdom. The good is pleasure, and wisdom is found in that prudence which selects the purest and most intense. Hence, if this is the good, why should a man trouble himself about social standards or social obligations? "The hedonists gladly shared the refinement of enjoyment which civilization brought with it; they found it convenient and permissible that the intelligent man should enjoy the honey which others prepared; but no feeling of duty or thankfulness bound them to the civilization whose fruits they enjoyed. Sacrifice for others, patriotism, and devotion to a general object, Theodorus declared to be a form of foolishness which it did not become the wise man to share."

? 5. THE DEEPER VIEW OF NATURE AND THE GOOD; OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE SOCIAL ORDER

"The object proposed or the complete development of a thing is its highest good; but independence which is first attained in the State is a complete development or the highest good and is therefore natural." "For as the State was formed to make life possible, so it exists to make life good."

"Thus we see that the State is a natural institution, that man is naturally a political animal and that one who is not a citizen of any State, if the cause of his isolation be natural and not accidental, is either a superhuman being or low in the scale of human civilization, as he stands alone like a 'blot' on the backgammon board. The 'clanless, lawless, hearthless man,' so bitterly described by Homer, is a case in point, for he is naturally a citizen of no state and a lover of war."

Nor does Aristotle stop here. With a profound insight into the relation of man to society, and the dependence of the individual upon the social body, a relation which modern social psychology has worked out in greater detail, Aristotle asserts that the State is not merely the goal of the individual's development, but the source of his life.

"Again, in the order of nature the State is prior to the household or individual. For the whole must needs be prior to its part. For instance, if you take away the body which is the whole, there will not remain any such thing as a hand or foot, unless we use the same word in a different sense, as when we speak of a stone hand as a hand. For a hand separated from the body will be a disabled hand; whereas it is the faculty or function of a thing which makes it what it is, and therefore when things lose their function or faculty, it is not correct to call them the same things, but rather homonymous, i.e., different things having the same name. We see, then, the State is a natural institution, and also that it is prior to the individual. For if the individual as a separate unit is not independent, he must be a part and must bear the same relation to the State as the other parts to their wholes; and one who is incapable of association with others or is independent and has no need of such association, is no member of a State; in other words, he is either a brute or a God."

And, moreover, when we look into the nature of the individual, we do not find him a being devoid of the sympathies and qualities which find their natural expression not only in the State, but in various social and friendly relations. There is "an impulse toward the life in common" which expresses itself in friendship, but which is also so essential to that recognition of others called justice that we may say "it is the most just of all just things." There is also a unity of disposition and purpose which may be called "political friendship."

"Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils,--no, nor the human race, as I believe,--and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day."

And yet the question of the actual existence of a perfect State is not the question of supreme importance. For Plato has grasped the thought that man is controlled not only by what he sees, but by what he images as desirable. And if a man has once formed the image of an ideal State or city of this kind, in which justice prevails, and life reaches fuller and higher possibilities than it has yet attained, this is the main thing:

"In heaven, there is laid up a pattern of it, methinks, which he who desires may behold, and beholding, may set his own house in order. But whether such an one exists, or ever will exist in fact, is no matter: for he will live after the manner of that city, having nothing to do with any other."

"I plainly assert that he who would truly live ought to allow his desires to wax to the uttermost, and not to chastise them; but when they have grown to their greatest, he should have courage and intelligence to minister to them and to satisfy all his longings. And this I affirm to be natural justice and nobility." The temperate man is a fool. It is only in hungering and eating, in thirsting and drinking, in having all his desires about him, and gratifying every possible desire, that man lives happily.

But even Callicles himself admits that there are certain men, the creatures of degraded desire, whose lives are not ideal, and hence that there must be some choice of pleasure. And carrying out in the individual life the thought above suggested by the State, Plato raises the question as to whether man, a complex being, with both noble and ignoble impulses, and with the capacity of controlling reason, can be said to make a wise choice if he lets the passions run riot and choke out wholly his rational nature:

"Is not the noble that which subjects the beast to the man, or rather to the god in man; and the ignoble that which subjects the man to the beast? He can hardly avoid admitting this,--can he now? Not if he has any regard for my opinion. But, if he admits this, we may ask him another question: How would a man profit if he received gold and silver on the condition that he was to enslave the noblest part of him to the worst? Who can imagine that a man who sold his son or daughter into slavery for money, especially if he sold them into the hands of fierce and evil men, would be the gainer, however large might be the sum which he received? And will any one say that he is not a miserable caitiff who sells his own divine being to that which is most atheistical and detestable and has no pity? Eriphyle took the necklace as the price of her husband's life, but he is taking a bribe in order to compass a worse ruin."

"Then we may assume that there are three classes of men,--lovers of wisdom, lovers of ambition, lovers of gain? Exactly. And there are three kinds of pleasure, which are their several objects? Very true. Now, if you examine the three classes and ask of them in turn which of their lives is pleasantest, each of them will be found praising his own and deprecating that of others; the money-maker will contrast the vanity of honor or of learning with the solid advantages of gold and silver? True, he said. And the lover of honor,--what will be his opinion? Will he not think that the pleasure of riches is vulgar, while the pleasure of learning, which has no need of honor, he regards as all smoke and nonsense? True, he said. But may we not suppose, I said, that philosophy estimates other pleasures as nothing in comparison with knowing the truth, and in that abiding, ever learning, in the pursuit of truth, not far indeed from the heaven of pleasure? The other pleasures the philosopher disparages by calling them necessary, meaning that if there were no necessity for them, he would not have them. There ought to be no doubt about that, he replied. Since, then, the pleasure of each class and the life of each is in dispute, and the question is not which life is most honorable, or better or worse, but which is the more pleasant or painless,--how shall we know? I cannot tell, he said. Well, but what ought to be the criterion? Is any better than experience and wisdom and reason? There cannot be a better, he said. If wealth and gain were the criterion, then what the lover of gain praised and blamed would surely be the truest? Assuredly. Of if honor or victory or courage, in that case the ambitions or contentments would decide best? Clearly. But since experience and wisdom and reason are the judges, the inference of course is, that the truest pleasures are those which are approved by the lover of wisdom and reason."

So the "Nature" which Greek life was seeking gets its deepest significance and reinterprets the old religious demand for unity of the life of man with the forces of the unseen. And the Stoic later, in his maxim "Follow Nature," gives more explicit recognition to the return of the circle. For the great work of Greek science had brought out into complete clearness the idea of Nature as a system of law. The universe is a rational universe, a cosmos, and man, as above all else a rational being, finds thus his kinship to the universe. To follow Nature, therefore, means to know the all-pervading law of Nature and submit to it in calm acceptance or resignation.

"All is harmonious to me that is harmonious to thee, O universe; all is fruit to me which thy seasons bring."

? 6. THE CONCEPTION OF THE IDEAL

"Nevertheless, instead of listening to those who advise us as men and mortals not to lift our thoughts above what is human and mortal, we ought rather, as far as possible, to put off our mortality and make every effort to live in the exercise of the highest of our faculties; for though it be but a small part of us, yet in power and value it far surpasses all the rest."

? 7. THE CONCEPTION OF THE SELF; OF CHARACTER AND RESPONSIBILITY

"All things are noisome when a man deserts His own true self and does what is not meet."

and Philoctetes replies,

"Have mercy on me, boy, by all the gods, And do not shame thyself by tricking me."

"I know I please the souls I ought to please."

"They do not know the penalty of injustice, which above all things they ought to know,--not stripes and death, as they suppose, which evil doers often escape, but a penalty which cannot be escaped.

THEOD. What is that?

SOC. There are two patterns set before them in nature; the one blessed and divine, the other godless and wretched; and they do not see, in their utter folly and infatuation, that they are growing like the one and unlike the other, by reason of their evil deeds; and the penalty is that they lead a life answering to the pattern which they resemble."

LITERATURE

Besides the writings of Plato , Xenophon , Aristotle , Cicero , Epictetus, Seneca, M. Aurelius, Plutarch, and the fragments of various Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics, the tragedies of AEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and the comedies of Aristophanes afford valuable material.

All the histories of philosophy treat the theoretical side; among them may be mentioned Gomp?rz , Zeller , Windelband, Benn .

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