and in different times and places. That mean which is sufficient for one
individual is insufficient for another. The virtue of a man, of a slave,
and of a child, is respectively different. There are as many virtues as
there are circumstances in life; and as men are ever entering into new
relations, in which it is difficult to determine the correct method of
action, the separate virtues can not be limited to any definite number.

Imperfect as the ethical system of Aristotle may appear to us who live
in Christian times, it must be admitted that his writings abound with
just and pure sentiments. His science of Ethics is a _discipline of
human character in order to human happiness_. And whilst it must be
admitted that it is directed solely to the improvement of man in the
present life, he aims to build that improvement on pure and noble
principles, and seeks to elevate man to the highest perfection of which
he could conceive. "And no greater praise can be given to a work of
heathen morality than to say, as may be said of the ethical writings of
Aristotle, that they contain nothing which a Christian may dispense
with, no precept of life which is not an element of Christian character;
and that they only fail in elevating the heart and the mind to objects
which it needed Divine Wisdom to reveal."[762]

[Footnote 762: Encyclopaedia Britannica, article "Aristotle."]

CHAPTER XIII.

THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS _(continued)_

POST-SOCRATIC SCHOOL.

EPICURUS AND ZENO.

Philosophy, after the time of Aristotle, takes a new direction. In the
pre-Socratic schools, we have seen it was mainly a philosophy of nature;
in the Socratic school it was characterized as a philosophy of mind; and
now in the post-Socratic schools it becomes a philosophy of life--a
moral philosophy. Instead of aiming at the knowledge of real Being--of
the permanent, unchangeable, eternal principles which underlie all
phenomena, it was now content to aim, chiefly, at individual happiness.
The primary question now discussed, as of the most vital importance, is,
What is the ultimate standard by which, amid all the diversities of
human conduct and opinion, we may determine what is right and good in
individual and social life?

This remarkable change in the course of philosophic inquiry was mainly
due--

1st. _To the altered circumstances of the times_. An age of civil
disturbance and political intrigue succeeded the Alexandrian period. The
different s