Problems of Conduct: An Introductory Survey of EthicsDrake, Durant
Philosophy
Problems of Conduct: An Introductory Survey of Ethics
Drake, Durant
Ethics
in this summary of the factors which determine our estimate of the
worth of personal ideals, to the bearing of these ideals upon other
people's lives. Actually, of course, the social values of even primarily
personal ideals are impossible to overlook, and often bulk larger than
the merely personal values. This whole side of the matter will be left
for convenience, however, to the following chapter.
Epicureanism vs. Puritanism.
Personal ideals have swung historically between two magnets, richness
and purity, self-expression and self-repression, indulgence and
asceticism. The crux of the individual's problem is the question how
much repression is necessary; and man's answer has wavered somewhere
between these extremes, which we may designate by the names of their
best-known exemplars, Epicureanism and Puritanism. Many differences
in degree or detail there have been, of course, in the various historic
embodiments of these ideals; but for the sake of making clear the
fundamental contrast we may neglect these individual divergences and
group together those on the one hand who have called men to a fuller,
completer life and those who have summoned them to an austerer and
purer life, free from taint of sin and regret. We shall then put in
the first group such well-known seers and poets as Epicurus, Lucretius,
Horace, Goethe, Shelley, Byron, Walter Pater, Walt Whitman; we shall
think of the Greek gods, of the Renaissance artists, the English
cavaliers. We shall think of the motto, "Carpe diem," and "Gather ye
rosebuds while ye may"; and perhaps of Stevenson's
"The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all
be as happy as kings." [Footnote: An excellent brief plea for this
ideal of the life that shall be rich in experience can be found in
Walter Pater's Renaissance, the "Conclusion."] In contrast to these
followers are afraid of impulse, those who warn and rebuke and seek
to save life from its pitfalls. We shall think of Buddha, the Stoics,
the Hebrew prophets, the mediaeval saints, Dante and Savonarola, the
English and American Puritans, or, in modern times, of Tolstoy. The
ideal of such men is expressed not by the wholesomely happy and carefree
Greek gods, but by haloed saint, by the calm-eyed Buddha of Eastern
lands, by the figure of Christ on the cross. The answer to the
Epicurean's heedlessness is expressed in such lines as "What is this
world's delight? Lightning that mocks the night, Brief even as bright."
It is condensed in the familiar "Respice finem"; the peace of its self-
denial shines out in Christ's "Not my will but thine," and in Dante's
"In His will is our peace." Meager and cold and repellent as this ideal
in its extreme expressions often seems, it appeals to us as the softer
and irresponsible ideal of the Epicureans cannot. But obviously our
way lies between the extremes. And after all that has now been said,
our summary of the dangers inherent in each ideal may be very brief.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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