* *

The Aristotelian doctrines are generally summed up in such points as
these:--The theory of Good; Pleasure; the theory of Virtue; the
doctrine of the Will, distinguishing voluntary from involuntary; Virtue
a Habit; the doctrine of the MEAN; the distinction between the Moral
Virtues and the Intellectual Virtues; Justice, distributive, and
commutative; Friendship; the Contemplative Life.

The following are the indications of his views, according to the six
leading subjects of Ethics.

I. and II.--It is characteristic of Aristotle (as is fully stated in
Appendix B.) to make the judgment of the wisest and most cultivated
minds, the standard of appeal in moral questions. He lays down certain
general principles, such as the doctrine of the Mean, but in the
application of these (which is everything), he trusts to the most
experienced and skilled advisers that the community can furnish.

III.--On the theory of Happiness, or the Summum Bonum, it is needless
to repeat the abstract of the tenth book.

IV.--In laying down the Moral Code, he was encumbered with the too wide
view of Virtue; but made an advance in distinguishing virtue proper
from excellence in general.

V.--He made Society tutelary to the individual in an excessive degree.
He had no clear conception of the province of authority or law; and did
not separate the morality of obligation from the morality of reward and
nobleness.

VI.--His exclusion of Theology from morality was total.

THE STOICS.

The Stoics were one of the four sects of philosophy, recognized and
conspicuous at Athens during the three centuries preceding the
Christian era, and during the century or more following. Among these
four sects, the most marked antithesis of ethical dogma was between the
Stoics and the Epicureans. The Stoical system dates from about 300
B.C.; it was derived from the system of the Cynics.

The founder of the system was ZENO, from Citium in Cyprus (he lived
from 340--260 B.C.), who derived his first impulse from Krates the
Cynic. He opened his school in a building or porch, called the _Stoa
Poecile_ ('Painted Portico') at Athens, whence the origin of the name
of the sect. Zeno had for his disciple CLEANTHES, from Assos in the
Troad (300--220 B.C.), whose _Hymn to Jupiter_ is the only fragment of
any length that has come down to us from the early Stoics, and is a
remarkable production, setting forth the unity of God, his omnipotence,
and his moral governmen