Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/386

VII. THE DOCTRINE OF THE SUMMUM BONUM : A CRITICISM. BY HENRY STURT. 1. The least observant student of the moral philosophy predominant in England just now must have noticed that its teachings are very much at variance with those of the preacher and practical moralist. The tone and phraseology of the one are quite different from those of the other. By the moral philosopher we are told that virtue is the intelligent pursuit of the highest good ; while the preacher speaks to us of reverence, of charity, of single-hearted devotion, of self- sacrifice. Nor does the difference of phrase cover an identity of thought. We cannot translate one set of precepts into the language of the other, try as we will. The two parties do differ substantially in their interpretation of the main facts of the moral life. 2. One answer to this reflexion is obvious. " If the philosophers and the preachers disagree, so much the worse for the preachers. On a question of the theory of virtue the expert is to be believed." In ordinary cases this would be a sound answer. On points of theory the theoretic expert is usually to be believed. But here I venture to think it is otherwise. The facts are complicated, and we have inherited a mass of misleading theory. The instinct and experience of the practical man have been truer guides than the teaching of the schools. He has never accepted that unfortunate doctrine of the Surmnum Bonum which is the subject of the present paper. 3. The classical statement of the doctrine is given by Aristotle at the opening of the Ethics : " Every art and every kind of inquiry, and likewise every act and purpose, seems to aim at some good. ... If then in what we do there be some end which we wish for on its own account, choosing all the others as a means to this. . . . this evidently will be the good or the best of all things." Thus human conduct according to Aristotle has a master-end, which is the Sum- mum Bonum. After much discussion he identifies this