The Press.
London, England, 1858-12-11 00:00:00

THE PRESS, DECEMBER 11,1§58.

" thought, they suggest a systematic inquiry back-
" wards into the history and progress of the Gre-
" ciao mind, and forwards they suggest a mani-
" fold comparison and contrast with the ideas of
" modern times. Again, independently of their
" historical position, they have much to teach
" about human life and the nature of man. But
" they must not be studied in a medieval !spirit.
" It has been my object to ascertain as far as
" possible, and to make clear, the meanin,67 of
" these Ethics from the point of view of their
" writer."

The above paragraph expresses a modification
of the opinion with which our latest Aristotelian
critic concluded his volume of essays upon Aris-
totle, which we observe with pleasure. He there
observed of the Ethics that "its main interest
"is historical." He here seems to confess that,
in so expressing himself, he has run the risk of
being misunderstood, and to have intended the
sentences we have quoted as a sort of amende
honorable for the unintentional slight so passed
on the philosopher.
The importation of the idea of "duty" into mo•
dern ethical systems is what, in Sir Alexander
Grant's opinion, gives even the worst of them a
superiority over Aristotle for all practical pur-
poses; and, no doubt, it would not be practicable
to acquire from a moral teacher, who concerned
himself only with this world, the idea of excel-
lence which is based on our belief in another.
The Greek's "end in itself" was here. He was
perfectly able to estimate the value of that re-
ward which his master promised to the virtuous.
He understood distinctly the reason why he was
to practise certain acts of self-restraint. He saw
the object clearly in view; and when he acted,
he acted from inclination, and not from a sense
of what we denominate duty. This at least is
the formal distinction. But the word duty is a
very difficult word to define. In the present
instance it is almost interchangeable with faith,
because, as soon as we distinctly understand the
good to be gained from any action, we inevitably
incline to do it ; when we do not, we perform it
from faith in some good to follow which lies
beyond our present ken. Thus it would appear
to he the conception of a future state of rewards
and punishments as a substantial certainty, rather
than the conception of duty, which underlies the
distinction between ancient and modern ethics.
'This conception has g►ven a tone to the thought
of Christendom which has remained even when
the conception itself has faded, and is at the bot-
tom of all those forms of self-sacrifice in which
Christian virtue is generally supposed to consist.
We are, perhaps, not going very wide of the
mark in saying that the usefulness of Aristotle as
a moral teacher depends very much upon the es-
timation in which dogmatic theology is held at the
same time. Aristotle, for instance, would be of
very little use in an age or a country when or
where orthodoxy was supposed to redeem immo-
rality; though even under these circumstances
the well proportioned and humane theory of ex-
cellence propunded in the Ethics is no mean
auxiliary against the forces of asceticism or en-
thusiasm. But in a sceptical age, such as it would
be useless to deny is the present, when the
humanity of men occupies a more dignified
position, and the doctrine of human corruption
is reluctantly accepted by so numerous a class of
thinkers, we should be especially unwise to
neglect the assistance of Aristotle, not more for
the sake of what he does than for the sake of
what he leaves undone. On the one hand he
certainly may be allowed to supply us with a pro-
visional standard of goodness ; on the other he
teaches us the want of something more than
himself to call into play those qualities of human
nature which we are conscious are among its
noblest elements, but which the life and know-
ledge of the heathen world were inadequate to
develop. While to the positive advantages of
Aristotelian study may be added the powerful
antidote which it contains to all morbid mental
or moral tendencies, and the clear and healthy,
if contracted, view of our duties which the philo-
sopher himself exhibits.

The educational value of Aristotle, as we
pointed out in our review of Sir Alexander's first
volume, is quite distinct from the question of his
position in philosophy ; and it is to the extension
of his utility in the former direction that his
present editor seems to have principally devoted
his efforts. The notes are full, but almost wholly
devoted to the elucidation of the text, and the

• - •
introductory analyses prefixed to each book,
the plan of those in the Bibliatheca Classico
are°
11
extremely serviceable. At the same time' we
cannot help wishing that in some cases Sir Alex-
ander had ventured to give us a little more
ori-
ginal matter than he has done. Satisfied with stating
his author's argument, he almost always leaves
us to find the conclusion for ourselves,--a practice
to which as a rule we do not object, but it will be
occasionally provoking to those who take up the
work, not as a matter of discipline, but to ascer-
tain given points. In the fifth chapter of the
third book, for instance (17-20), he gives us an
analysis of an interesting argument of Aristotle
on the doctrine of necessity, of which the point is
that if our virtuous actions are free so are our
vicious ones. But then who grants the first?
Here, then, is a point in which editorial explana-
tions might have been given with advantage.
So, too, on the subject of iw,fixtm in the fifth
book, and in one or two other places, Sir Alex-
ander is silent on points where all Aristotelians
will look for some expression of opinion. These,
however, are very trifling defects. The volume
on the whole is executed with remarkable skill
and judgment. And the notes display that per-
fect familiarity with all Aristotle's works which
enables the editor at once to pour all the light
that it is perhaps possible to pour on doubtful
words, phrases, or arguments.
Our readers have already seen from our review
of the first volume of this edition what is our
general opinion of Sir Alexander Grant as an
editor of Aristotle. We shall reserve any further
remarks till the publication of his concluding
volume, which, we see, will embrace topics more
suitable for newspaper criticism than the present
one. Enough, however, has been done to show
us that this is likely to be a standard book, and
that the editor has hit that happy medium
between a too rigidly scientific and a too loosely
popular mode of treatment which only a man of
sense could have aimed at, and only a man of
thoroughness could have satisfactorily achieved.

Greece: Pictorial, Descriptive, and Historical.

By Christopher Wordsworth, D.D., Canon of
Westminster. A New Edition. With nume-

rous Engravings ; and a History of the Cha-
racteristics of Greek Art by George Scharf,
F.S.A. London : Murray.
THE geographical treatment of history has a
charm peculiar to itself. To pass in review, as
we set our foot on each successive spot, the trans-
actions of which it has been the scene in ages
long past ; to retrace the shadows of the forms
that once moved within walls now laid in ruins;
to recall the stirring events, the mighty deeds,
which have for ever consecrated in the memory
of mankind localities now deserted and neglected
except by the solitary wanderer whom love for
the associations connected with them impels to
seek them out ; to revive the echoes of sounds
which have long died away, sounds instinct with
life and thought and the heart's deepest feelings,
in the presence of those mute witnesses, the shat-
tered works of human art, and the imperishable
works of nature, which have survived the utter-
ance of the poet and the orator, but not their
fame—is among intellectual feasts one of the
richest and most recondite. And if there is one
country more than another, on the face of this
earth, which furnishes to the traveller versed in
historic lore ample materials for such a treatment
of its topography, that country is ancient Greece.
Every mountain and valley, every lake and bay,
every river and brook., of that favoured land.
teems with re\niniscences of what is most beauti-
ful in art, most rich in fancy, most noble in
achievement.
Such a theme, handled by such a pen as Dr.
Wordsworth's. could not fail to prove more than
ordinarily attractive ; and we are not, therefore,
surprised at the reappearance of a work of wh
hrichee,
since its first publication twenty years
en ago,
large editions have successively exhausted,
and the value of which is further attested by its
translation into the languages of France and
t
Italy. Its subject, though belonging to a bygone
world, will never be out of date : as long as there
are minds capable of appreciating the thougini.
and sympathizing with the emotions, vrinch
animated the sons of ancient Hellas, so long 14 an
author who with the most extensive historical
knowledge combines a .deep sense of the poetrY