THREE:But, if this be so, it follows that Mr. Edwin Wallaces appeal to Aristotle as an authority worth consulting on our present social difficulties cannot be upheld. Take the question quoted by Mr. Wallace himself: Whether the State is a mere combination for the preservation of goods and property, or a moral organism developing the idea of right? Aristotle certainly held very strong opinions in favour of State interference with education and private morality, if that is what the second alternative implies; but does it follow that he would agree with those who advocate a similar supervision at the present day? By no means; because experience has shown that in enormous industrial societies like ours, protection is attended with difficulties and dangers which he could no more foresee than he could foresee the discoveries on which our physical science is based. Or, returning for a moment to ethics, let us take another of Mr. Wallaces problems: Whether intellectual also involves moral progress? What possible light can be thrown on it by Aristotles exposure of the powerlessness of right knowledge to make an individual virtuous, when writers like Buckle have transferred the whole question from a particular to a general ground; from the conduct of individuals to the conduct of men acting in large masses, and over vast periods of time? Or, finally, take the question which forms a point of junction between Aristotles ethics and his politics: Whether the highest life is a life of thought or a life of action? Of what importance is his299 decision to us, who attend far more to the social than to the individual consequences of actions; who have learned to take into account the emotional element of happiness, which Aristotle neglected; who are uninfluenced by his appeal to the blissful theorising of gods in whom we do not believe; for whom, finally, experience has altogether broken down the antithesis between knowledge and practice, by showing that speculative ideas may revolutionise the whole of life? Aristotle is an interesting historical study; but we are as far beyond him in social as in physical science.Yet, while the Stoics were far from anticipating the methods of modern Utilitarianism, they were, in a certain sense, strict Utilitariansthat is to say, they measured the goodness or badness of actions by their consequences; in other words, by39 their bearing on the supposed interest of the individual or of the community. They did not, it is true, identify interest with pleasure or the absence of pain; but although, in our time, Hedonism and Utilitarianism are, for convenience, treated as interchangeable terms, they need not necessarily be so. If any one choose to regard bodily strength, health, wealth, beauty, intellect, knowledge, or even simple existence, as the highest good and the end conduciveness to which determines the morality of actions, he is a Utilitarian; and, even if it could be shown that a maximum of happiness would be ensured by the attainment of his end, he would not on that account become a Hedonist. Now it is certain that the early Stoics, at least, regarded the preservation of the human race as an end which rightfully took precedence of every other consideration; and, like Charles Austin, they sometimes pushed their principles to paradoxical or offensive extremes, apparently for no other purpose than that of affronting the common feelings of mankind,84 without remembering that such feelings were likely to represent embodied experiences of utility. Thusapart from their communistic theoriesthey were fond of specifying the circumstances in which incest would become legitimate; and they are said not only to have sanctioned cannibalism in cases of extreme necessity, but even to have recommended its introduction as a substitute for burial or cremation; although this, we may hope, was rather a grim illustration of what they meant by moral indifference than a serious practical suggestion.85
He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections
