INTRODUCTION In order to assist the reader in grasping and arranging the somewhat compressed historical matter presented to him in this book, I have thought it desirable to prefix a brief conspectus of the three periods treated in Chapters II. III. and IV. respectively. I. GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS The first of the three great divisions of my subject—the history of Greek and Greco-Roman Ethics-is most naturally subdivided again into Pre-Socratic Ethics, Socratico-PlatonicAristotelian Ethics, and Post-Aristotelian Ethics. If we use these as definite chronological divisions, the first period may be taken to extend till somewhere about 430 B.C., when the new dialectic of Socrates began to impress the Athenian public: the second may be taken to end either with the death of Aristotle (322 B.C.), or with the approximately simultaneous appearance of Zeno and Epicurus as teachers at Athens, near the end of the 4th century; the third may be extended, if we like, to the suppression of the schools of philosophy at Athens by the orthodox zeal of Justinian, 529 A.D.; but I have not tried to carry the reader's interest, I. Pre- in this last stage, beyond the 3rd century A.D. In any case the three periods above distinguished are of very unequal importance. The leading characteristic of the first or Pre-Socratic period of Greek philosophy is, that philosophic inquiry is mainly concentrated on the explanation of the external world; the interest in human conduct occupies a secondary and subordinate place. It is in and through the teaching of Socrates that moral philosophy came to occupy in Greek thought the central position which it never afterwards lost: Socrates is the main starting-point from which all subsequent lines of Greek ethical thought diverge speculations on conduct before Socrates are, to our apprehension, merely a kind of prelude to the real performance. Further, the three thinkers of this period, to whom I have directed attention-Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and Democritus-are only known to us at second-hand, or through fragmentary passages quoted by other writers. On both grounds we cannot afford to spend much time in examining their doctrines. It is, however, interesting-and it may assist the student in fixing their chief characteristics in his mind to note the relations of affinity in which these three Pre-Socratic thinkers stand respectively to three important lines of post-Socratic thought: Pythagoras to Platonism, Heraclitus to Stoicism, and Democritus to Epicureanism. ズ The second period, though very much shorter in time 2. Socrates, Plato, and than the third, occupies, as the reader will see, a much larger Aristotle space in my chapter. This is partly because the actual works (430-322 of Plato and the most important part of the works of Aris- B.C.) totle have come down to us, whereas the books of the leading post-Aristotelian thinkers have almost entirely perished. But this is not the whole explanation: rather, this fact is itself an indication of the pre-eminent and permanent interest attaching to the writings of these earlier masters. For us, at any rate, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, taken together, hold a unique place in the history of moral philosophy and in order to understand the men and their work we should contemplate them as much as possible in relation to each other. Considered apart from Plato and Aristotle, Socrates would indeed be a most interesting historical figure; but the deepest significance of his dialectical method would inevitably be lost. Plato's work is, as he himself presents it, essentially the prosecution of an inquiry started by Socrates; and Aristotle's work, in ethics at least, is in the main a systematic restatement of the definite results gradually worked out by the untiring and continually renewed research of Plato, supplemented by further applications of what is essentially the method of Socrates formalised. A subordinate share of attention is due to the develop- Cynics and Cyrenaics. ment of the Cynic and Cyrenaic schools within this period: it is chiefly interesting as presenting to us in an earlier and cruder form that uncompromising opposition between Virtue and Pleasure, which afterwards, in the post-Aristotelian period, is continued between Stoicism and Epicureanism. Both Cynic and Cyrenaic schools linger for a time, after the founding of the later and more important schools of Zeno and Epicurus; but we cannot trace Cyrenaic doctrine beyond the middle of the 3rd century B.C.; and by the end of this century Cynicism, as an independent school, seems to become extinct, though it revives later as an offshoot or modification of Stoicism. The third and concluding period of Greek and GrecoRoman Ethics may be taken to extend, roughly speaking, over six centuries-half before and half after the Christian era. But the philosophic interest of the period is very unequally distributed over it. The most interesting point in it is the very beginning; since Zeno and Epicurus appear to have founded the Stoic and Epicurean schools respectively about the same time, just before the end of the 4th century B.C. No event at all equal in importance to this double origination of doctrine occurs in the history of moral philosophy for the subsequent six centuries,—at any rate until the founding of Neo-Platonism in the 3rd century A.D.; and even this is of less importance in the history of ethics than it is in the history of philosophy generally. Hence, in studying this period, it is convenient to divide it— if I may so say-longitudinally rather than transversely; first considering separately each of the four schools founded by Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, and Epicurus respectively, and then examining their mutual relations. Stoicism in this period takes the lead, and throughout claims the first and largest share of our attention until the close of the 2nd century A.D., when the interest is transferred to the later developments of Platonism. The antithetical relation of Stoicism to Epicureanism is simple, permanent, and easily apprehended; while the attitude of the Peripatetic or Aristotelian school, overlooking minor changes, may be briefly characterised as that of "moderate orthodoxy," endeavouring to maintain the paramount claims of Virtue adequately, yet so as to avoid the Stoic extravagances. The earlier history of Stoicism itself is an obscure subject, into which I have entered no further than just to note the importance of the work of Chrysippus, the "second founder" of Stoicism (circ. 280-206 B. C.); after this, the chief points to observe in its development are the tendency to Eclecticism or Syncretism towards the end of the 2nd century B.C., represented by Panatius, the influence of Stoicism on Roman thought as traced in Cicero's writings, and the characteristics of the later Roman Stoicism that we know from the writings of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. The variations in Plato's school are the most marked: speaking broadly, we may distinguish three principal transitions in its history; the first change is to a period of philosophic scepticism (circ. 250100 B. C.) in which its ethical teaching is dubious; then scepticism dies out during the 1st century B. C., and the predominant view of the school becomes broadly similar to the moderate orthodoxy of the Peripatetics—until, in the 2nd century A. D., a tendency to Mysticism appears, which reaches its fullest development in the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus in the 3rd century. II. CHRISTIANITY AND MEDIEVAL ETHICS When, at the close of the 3rd century A.D., we turn our attention from Neo-Platonism, we find Christianity already dominant in European thought: accordingly, I commence my second chapter with a brief characterisation of the distinctive features of Christian morality, and then proceed to a summary sketch of the development of ethical |