But there is a widely different view, also present in Aristotle, and
truer to the essence of his thought. It is a view instinct with that
reverence for all existence of which I spoke at first, and it holds that
all the different natural types, high or low, could all be united in one
harmony, like an ordered army, as Aristotle himself would say, in which
the divine spirit was present even as the spirit of a general is present
in his men. The greatest thing in man, Aristotle thinks, is the godlike
power of apprehending the different characters of all the things around
him, and this of itself suggests the belief that all these characters
have a value of their own, unique and indispensable, each aiming at a
distinct aspect of the Divine, each, if it fulfilled its inner nature,
finding, as Plato might have said, the place where it was best for it to
be. Again, it is clear from Aristotle's whole treatment of the State,
that when he wrote his famous phrase, 'Man is by nature a political
animal', he meant that man, as we should say, is essentially social. It
is part of man's goal to live with others; it is not merely a means to
the goal. His highest happiness lies in the contemplation of the good,
and the good, Aristotle says, can be contemplated far better in others
than in ourselves. This is a profound saying, and from this thought
springs the deep significance of friendship in Aristotle's system. The
crown of the civic life he takes to be the community of friends who
recognize the good in each other, and enjoy each other through this. The
wider this community, then, we must surely say, the better.
For Aristotle then, man's perfection ought to mean the perfection of
every individual, and progress, so far as he conceives it, involve
progress towards this end. This should lead on to belief in the supreme
importance of the individual soul, and to Kant's great principle that we
should always treat each man as an end in himself.
Thus, if we concentrate on the hopeful elements in Plato and Aristotle,
we may fairly say, I think, that we can see outlined in their
philosophies something like the following belief: every natural thing in
this world, and every natural creature, so far as it is good,--and all
are more or less good,--tends to express some distinct aspect of a
perfect harmony: we human beings are the first on earth to be definitely
conscious of such a tendency, the first to be able definitely to direct
it to its true goal, and our business in life is therefore threefold: to
make actual our own function in this harmony, to help other creatures to
actualize theirs, and to contemplate every such manifestation, in men or
in things, with reverence and rejoicing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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