Chapter IV. Atticus the Platonist Against Aristotle, as at Variance With Moses and Plato; in the Discourse On the End

[ATTICUS] ‘FOR whereas by the common judgement of philosophers Philosophy as a whole makes promise of human happiness, and is divided into three parts according to the distribution which makes up the universe, the Peripatetic will be seen to be so far from teaching herein any of the doctrines of Plato, that, though there are many who differ from Plato, he will himself be shown to be his strongest opponent.

‘And in the first place he departed from Plato on the point of universal and chief importance by failing to keep the measure of happiness, and not admitting that for this virtue is sufficient; but having missed the power that is in virtue, he thought that it needed the goods of fortune, in order to gain happiness with their help; but if it were to be left by itself, he complained that it was a powerless thing incapable of attaining to happiness.

‘Now this is not the time for showing how ignoble and mistaken was his opinion both on this and on the other points: but I think it is manifest, that whereas the object aimed at and the happiness are not equal nor identical according to Plato and according to Aristotle, but the one is ever crying aloud and proclaiming that the most righteous is the most happy man, while the other does not admit that happiness is a consequence of virtue, unless it be fortunate also in birth and beauty and other things, and so

“To war he came, decked, like a girl, with gold,” [1]

according to the difference of the end the philosophy leading thereto must also be different.

‘For a man who walks only on one way which naturally leads to something that is petty and low, cannot reach to greater things that are set on high.

“See’st thou where yonder hill stands up aloft Rugged with overhanging cliffs? There sits The bird that lightly mocks thy feeble threat.” [2]

‘Up to this lofty hill that shrewd and crafty beast is not able to ascend: but in order that the fox may come close to the eagle’s brood, either they must meet with some ill luck and fall to the ground through the destruction of their own nest, or the fox herself must grow what it is not her nature to grow,

“and circle on light wings,”

and so soaring from the earth fly up to the lofty hill. But as long as each remains on his own level, there can be no communion between things of earth and the offspring of heaven.’

After other statements he adds:

‘Since then this is the case, and since Plato’s endeavour is to draw the souls of the youths upward to the divine, and in this manner he makes them the friends of virtue and of honour, and persuades them to despise all else, tell us, O Peripatetic, how wilt thou teach these things? How wilt thou guide the lovers of Plato to them? Where in thy sect is so lofty a height of argument as to acquire the spirit of the Aloadae and seek the path to heaven, which they thought might be made by piling up mountains, a thing which, as Plato says, is to be done by removing “the objects of human ambition.” [3]

‘What help then canst thou give the young men towards this end? And whence find any argument as an active ally of virtue? From what letters of Aristotle? From whom of his followers? Out of what writings? I give thee leave even to forge, if thou wilt, only let it be something spirited. But in fact thou hast neither anything to say, nor would any of the leaders of thy sect permit thee.

‘At all events the treatises of Aristotle on these subjects, entitled Eudemianand Nicomachianand the Great Ethics,have a petty, and low, and vulgar idea of virtue, and no better than an ordinary and uneducated man might have, or a lad, or a woman. For the diadem, so to speak, and the kingly sceptre, which virtue received from Zeus, and holds inalienable,

“For ne’er his promise shall deceive, or fail, Or be recalled, if with a nod confirmed,” [4]

this they dare to take away from her.

‘For they do not allow her to make men happy, but set her on a level with wealth, and glory, and birth, and health, and beauty, and all the other possessions which are common to vice. For as the presence of any whatsoever of these without virtue suffices not to render the possessor happy, so without these virtue, according to the same system, is not able to give happiness to its possessor.

‘Is not then the dignity of virtue dethroned and cast down? Certainly: yet they say virtue is far superior to all the other good things. Of what avail is this? For they say also that health is better than wealth: but it is a fault common to all, that apart each from other they suffice not for happiness.

‘If ever therefore any one, starting from these doctrines and this sect, should teach that he who seeks all that is good for man in the soul alone is happy, they say that he never mounts the wheel, nor could he who is oppressed by “misfortunes such as Priam’s” [5] possibly be happy and blessed.

‘But it is not unlikely that the possessor of virtue may fall into some such misfortunes. Hereupon it follows, that happiness neither results from every condition to the possessors of virtue, nor remains always with them if it does come.

“Of leaves one generation by the wind Is scattered on the earth; but others soon The teeming forest clothe. ... So with our race, these nourish, those decay.” [6]

Thy similitude, O poet, is still narrow and timid:

“The Spring-tide comes again.”

It is a long time that intervenes, and in which nothing grows. If thou would’st give an exact similitude of the mortality and decay of the human race, compare it with Aristotle’s happiness. This springs up and passes away more lightly than the leaves, not continuing through the circling year, nor within the year, nor within a month, but in the very day, the very hour, it both springs up and perishes.

‘And many are the causes which destroy it, and all of them results of chance: for there are the body’s “various dooms,” [7] and these are myriads, and there is poverty, and disgrace, and all things of this kind; and against none of these are dear virtue’s resources sufficient of themselves to give help; for she is without strength to ward off misery or to preserve happiness.

‘In what way then can any one who has been reared in these doctrines and delighted with them either himself assent to the teaching of Plato, or ever confirm others in it? For it is not possible that any one starting from these principles should accept those other Herculean and divine dogmas, that virtue is a strong and noble thing, and never fails to give happiness, nor is ever deprived of it: but though poverty and disease and infamy and tortures and pitch and the cross, yea, though all the disasters of tragedy come in together like a flood, still the righteous man is happy and blessed.[8]

‘In fact, as with the tongue of the most loud-voiced herald, he proclaims the most righteous man, just as some victorious athlete, saying that he is the happiest of all men, who reaps the fruit of happiness from righteousness itself. Distinguish then, if you will, and variously distribute good things in threefold, fourfold, or manifold order; for this is nothing to the point before us; you will never by them bring us near to Plato.

‘For what, if among good things, some, as you say, are worthy of honour, as the gods; and some worthy to be praised, as the virtues; and some are powers, as riches and strength; and others are beneficial, as the healing arts? Or what, if you distribute them with less division, and say that of good things some are ends, and some are not ends, and call those ends, for the sake of which the others are taken, and not ends those which are taken for the sake of others?

‘Or what, if one were taught, that some are absolutely good, and others not good for all? Or that some are goods of the soul, and others of the body, and others external? Or again, that of goods, some are powers, and others dispositions and habits, and others actions; and some ends, and some matter, and some instruments? And if one learn from thee to divide the good according to the ten categories, what are these lessons to the judgement of Plato?

‘For as long as you on the one hand, either equivocally or as you please, speak of the good things of virtue, and combine with it certain other things as essential to happiness, thus robbing virtue of its sufficiency, while Plato on the other hand gets from virtue itself what is complete for happiness and seeks for the other things only as a superfluity, there can be on this point nothing common between you. You want one set of arguments, Plato’s friends want others. ’For as

“Lions and men no safe alliance form, Nor wolves and lambs in friendly mind agree,” [9]

so between Plato and Aristotle there is no friendship in regard to the very chief and paramount doctrine of happiness. For if they have no evil thoughts one towards the other, yet it is evident that their statements concerning what is important on this point are diametrically opposite.’