The Greek View of LifeDickinson, G. Lowes (Goldsworthy Lowes)
Religion
The Greek View of Life
Dickinson, G. Lowes (Goldsworthy Lowes)
Greece -- Civilization
The interest of this view for us lies in its assumption that it is not
passions or desires in themselves that must be regarded as bad, but only
their disproportional or misdirected indulgence. Let us take, for
example, the case of the pleasures of sense. The puritan's rule is to
abjure them altogether; to him they are absolutely wrong in themselves,
apart from all considerations of time and place. Aristotle, on the
contrary, enjoins not renunciation but temperance; and defines the
temperate man as one who "holds a mean position in respect of pleasures.
He takes no pleasure in the things in which the licentious man takes
most pleasure; he rather dislikes them; nor does he take pleasure at all
in wrong things, nor an excessive pleasure in anything that is pleasant,
nor is he pained at the absence of such things, nor does he desire them,
except perhaps in moderation, nor does he desire them more than is
right, or at the wrong time, and so on. But he will be eager in a
moderate and right spirit for all such things as are pleasant and at the
same time conducive to health or to a sound bodily condition, and for
all other pleasures, so long as they are not prejudicial to these or
inconsistent with noble conduct or extravagant beyond his means. For
unless a person limits himself in this way, he affects such pleasures
more than is right, whereas the temperate man follows the guidance of
right reason." [Footnote: Arist. Ethics. III. 14.--1119 a 11.--Translated
by Welldon.]
As another illustration of this point of view, we may take the case of
anger. The Christian rule is never to resent an injury, but rather, in
the New Testament phrase, to "turn the other cheek." Aristotle, while
blaming the man who is unduly passionate, blames equally the man who is
insensitive; the thing to aim at is to be angry "on the proper occasions
and with the proper people in the proper manner and for the proper
length of time." And in this and all other cases the definition of what
is proper must be left to the determination of "the sensible man."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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