The Life of Greece

by Will Durant

  He considers the ape an intermediate form between man and other viviparous animals.175 He rejects Empedocles’ notion of the natural selection of accidental mutations; there is no fortuity in evolution; the lines of development are determined by the inherent urge of each form, species, and genus to develop itself to the fullest realization of its nature. There is design, but it is less a guidance from without than an inner drive or “entelechy”* by which each thing is drawn to its natural fulfillment.

  Intermingled with these brilliant suggestions there are (as might be expected from the hindsight of twenty-three centuries) errors so numerous, and some so gross, that we are warranted in suspecting that the zoological works of Aristotle have suffered some admixture of his own notes with those of his students.176 The History of Animals is a mine of mistakes. We learn there that mice die if they drink in summer; that elephants suffer from only two diseases—catarrh and flatulence; that all animals but man develop rabies when bitten by a mad dog; that eels are generated spontaneously; that only men have palpitation of the heart; that the yolk of several eggs shaken together collects into the middle; that eggs float in strong brine.177 Aristotle knows the internal organs of animals better than those of men, for neither he nor Hippocrates seems to have overridden religious taboos and practiced human dissection.178 He thinks that man has only eight ribs, that women have fewer teeth than men,179 that the heart lies higher than the lungs, that the heart and not the brain is the seat of sensation,*180 that the function of the brain is (literally) to cool the blood.181 Finally he (or some ponderous proxy) carries the theory of design to depths that make the judicious smile. “It is evident that plants are created for the sake of animals, and animals for the sake of men.” “Nature has made the buttocks for repose, since quadrupeds can stand without fatigue, but man needs a seat.”182 And yet even this last passage reveals the scientist: the author takes it for granted that man is an animal, and seeks natural causes for the anatomical differences between beasts and men. All in all, the History of Animals is Aristotle’s supreme work, and the greatest scientific product of fourth-century Greece. Biology waited twenty centuries for its equal.

  3. The Philosopher

  Whether through a sincere piety, or through a cautious respect for the opinions of mankind, Aristotle becomes less of a scientist and more of a metaphysician as he turns to the study of man. He defines the soul (psyche), or vital principle as “the primary entelechy of an organism”—i.e., the organism’s inherent and destined form, its urge and directon of growth. The soul is not something added to, or residing in, the body, it is coextensive with the body; it is the body itself in its “powers of self-nourishment, self-growth, and selfdecay”; it is the sum of the functions of the organism; it is to the body as vision is to the eye.183 Nevertheless, this functional aspect is basic; it is the functions that make the structures, the desires that mold the organs, the soul that forms the body: “All natural bodies are organs of the soul.”†184

  The soul has three grades—nutritive, sensitive, and rational. Plants share with animals and men the nutritive soul—the capacity for self-nourishment and internal growth; animals and men have in addition the sensitive soul—the capacity for sensation; the higher animals as well as men have the “passive rational” soul—the capacity for the simpler forms of intelligence; man alone has the “active rational” soul—the capacity to generalize and originate. This last is a part or emanation of that creative and rational power of the universe which is God; and as such it cannot die.187 But this immortality is impersonal; what survives is the power, not the personality; the individual is a unique and mortal compound of nutritive, sensitive, and rational faculties; he achieves immortality only relatively, through reproduction, and only impersonally, through death.*

  Just as the soul is the “form” of the body, so God is the “form” or “entelechy” of the world—its inherent nature, functions, and purposes.† All causes‡ at last go back to the First Cause Uncaused, all motions to the Prime Mover Unmoved; we must assume some origin or beginning for the motion and power in the world, and this source is God. As God is the sum and source of all motion, so he is the sum and goal of all purposes in nature; he is the Final, as well as the First, Cause. Everywhere we see things moving to specific ends; the front teeth grow sharp to cut food, the molars grow flat to grind it; the eyelid winks to protect the eye, the pupil expands in the dark to let in more light; the tree sends its roots into the earth, its shoots toward the sun.189 As the tree is drawn by its inherent nature, power, and purposes toward the light, so the world is drawn by its inherent nature, power, and purposes, which are God. God is not the creator of the material world, but its energizing form; he moves it not from behind, but as an inner direction or goal, as something beloved moves the lover.190 Finally, says Aristotle, God is pure thought, rational soul, contemplating itself in the eternal forms that constitute at once the essence of the world, and God.

  The purpose of art, like that of metaphysics, is to capture the essential form of things. It is an imitation or representation of life,191 but no mechanical copy; that which it imitates is the soul of the matter, not the body or matter itself; and through this intuition and mirroring of essence even the representation of an ugly object may be beautiful. Beauty is unity, the co-operation and symmetry of the parts in a whole. In drama this unity is primarily a unity of action; the plot must concern itself with one action chiefly, and may admit other actions only to advance or illuminate this central tale. If the work is to be of high excellence the action must be noble or heroic. “Tragedy,” says Aristotle’s celebrated definition, “is a representation of an action that is heroic and complete and of a certain magnitude, by means of language enriched with all kinds of ornament . . . it represents men in action, and does not use narrative; and through pity and fear it brings relief to these and similar emotions.”192 By arousing our profoundest feelings, and then quieting them through a subsiding denouement, the tragic drama offers us a harmless and yet soul-deepening expression of emotions that might otherwise accumulate to neurosis or violence; it shows us pains and sorrows more awful than our own, and sends us home discharged and cleansed. In general there is a pleasure in contemplating any work of true art; and it is the mark of a civilization to provide the soul with works worthy of such contemplation. For “nature requires not only that we should be properly employed, but that we should be able to enjoy our leisure in an honorable way.”193

  What, then, is the good life? Aristotle answers, with frank simplicity, that it is the happy life; and he proposes to consider, in his Ethics,* not (like Plato) how to make men good, but how to make them happy. All other things than happiness, he thinks, are sought with some other end in view; happiness alone is sought for its own sake.194 Certain things are necessary to lasting happiness: good birth, good health, good looks, good luck, good reputation, good friends, good money, and goodness.195 “No man can be happy who is absolutely ugly.”196 “As for those who say that he who is being tortured on the wheel, or falls into great misfortunes, is happy provided only he be good, they talk nonsense.”197 Aristotle quotes, with a candor rare in philosophers, the answer of Simonides to Hieron’s wife, who had asked whether it was better to be wise or to be rich: “Rich, for we see the wise spending their time at the doors of the rich.”198 But wealth is merely means; it does not of itself satisfy anyone but the miser; and since it is relative, it seldom satisfies a man long. The secret of happiness is action, the exercise of energy in a way suited to a man’s nature and circumstances. Virtue is a practical wisdom, an intelligent appraisal of one’s own good.199 Usually it is a golden mean between two extremes; intelligence is needed to find the mean, and self-control (enkrateia, inner strength) to practice it. “He who is angry at what and with whom he ought,” says a typically Aristotelian sentence, “and further, in right manner and time, and for a proper length of time, is praised.”200 Virtue is not an act but a habit of doing the right thing. At first it has to be enforced by discipline, sin
ce the young cannot judge wisely in these matters; in time that which was the result of compulsion becomes a habit, “a second nature,” and almost as pleasant as desire.

  Aristotle concludes, quite contrary to his initial placing of happiness in action, that the best life is the life of thought. For thought is the mark or special excellence of man, and “the proper work of man is a working of the soul in accordance with reason.”201 “The most fortunate of men is he who combines a measure of prosperity with scholarship, research, or contemplation; such a man comes closest to the life of the gods.”202 “Those who wish for an independent pleasure should seek it in philosophy, for all other pleasures need the assistance of men.”203

  4. The Statesman

  As ethics is the science of individual happiness, so politics is the science of collective happiness. The function of the state is to organize a society for the greatest happiness of the greatest number. “A state is a collective body of citizens sufficient in themselves for all the purposes of life.”204 It is a natural product, for “man is by nature a political animal”205—i.e., his instincts lead him to association. “The state is by nature prior to the family and the individual”: man as we know him is born into an already organized society, which molds him in its image.

  Having collected and studied, with his students, 158 Greek constitutions,* Aristotle divided them into three types: monarchy, aristocracy, and timocracy—government respectively by power, by birth, and by excellence. Any one of these forms may be good according to time, place, and circumstance. “Though one form of government may be better than others,” reads a sentence which every American should memorize, “yet there is no reason to prevent another from being preferable to it under particular conditions.”208 Each form of government is good when the ruling power seeks the good of all rather than its own profit; in the contrary case each is bad. Each type, therefore, has a degenerate analogue when it becomes government for the governors instead of for the governed; then monarchy lapses into despotism, aristocracy into oligarchy, timocracy into democracy in the sense of rule by the common man.207 When the single ruler is good and able, monarchy is the best form of government; when he is a selfish autocrat we have tyranny, which is the worst form of government. An aristocratic government may be beneficial for a time, but aristocracies tend to deteriorate. “Noble character is now seldom found among those of noble birth, most of whom are good for nothing. . . . Highly gifted families often degenerate into maniacs, as, for example, the descendants of Alcibiades and the elder Dionysius; those that are stable often degenerate into fools and dullards, like the descendants of Cimon, Pericles, and Socrates.”206 When aristocracy decays it is usually replaced by a plutocratic oligarchy, which is government by wealth. This is better than the despotism of a king or a mob; but it gives power to men whose souls have been cramped by the petty calculations of trade, or the villainous taking of interest,209 and issues, as like as not, in the conscienceless exploitation of the poor.210

  Democracy—which here means government by the demos, by the common citizen—is just as dangerous as oligarchy, for it is based upon the passing victory of the poor over the rich in the struggle for power, and leads to a suicidal chaos. Democracy is at its best when it is dominated by peasant proprietors; it is at its worst when ruled by the urban rabble of mechanics and tradesmen.211 It is true that the “multitude judge of many things better than any one person, and that from their numbers they are less liable to corruption, as water is from its quantity.”212 But government requires special ability and knowledge; and “it is impossible for one who lives the life of a mechanic or hired servant to acquire excellence”213—i.e., good character, training, and judgment. All men are created unequal; “equality is just, but only between equals”;214 and the upper classes will as readily make seditions if an unnatural equality is enforced, as the lower classes will rebel when inequality is unnaturally extreme.*215 When a democracy is dominated by the lower classes the rich are taxed to provide funds for the poor. “The poor receive it and again want the same supply, while the giving it is like pouring water into a sieve.”217 And yet a wise conservative will not let people starve. “The true patriot in a democracy ought to take care that the majority are not too poor . . . he should endeavor that they may enjoy perpetual plenty; and as this is also advantageous to the rich, what can be saved out of the public money should be divided among the poor in such quantity as may enable each of them to buy a little field.”218

  Having thus given back almost as much as he took away, Aristotle offers some modest recommendations, not for a utopia but for a moderately better society.

  We proceed to inquire what form of government and manner of life is best for communities in general, not adapting it to that superior virtue which is above the reach of the common people, or that education which only every advantage of nature and fortune can furnish, nor to those imaginary plans which may be formed at pleasure; but to that mode of life which the greater part of mankind can attain to, and that government which most cities may establish.219 . . . Whoever would establish a government upon community of goods ought to consult the experience of many years, which would plainly enough inform him whether such a scheme is useful; for almost all things have already been found out.220 . . . What is common to many is taken least care of; for all men have greater regard for what is their own than for what they possess in common with others.221 . . . It is necessary to begin by assuming a principle of general application, viz., that the part of the state which desires the continuance of the new constitution ought to be stronger than that which does not.222 . . . It is plain, then, that those states are best instituted wherein the middle classes are a larger and more formidable part than either the rich or the poor. . . . Whenever the number of those in the middle state has been too small, those who were the more numerous, whether the rich or the poor, always overpowered them, and assumed to themselves the administration of public affairs. . . . When either the rich get the better of the poor, or the poor of the rich, neither of them will establish a free state.223

  To avoid these illiberal dictatorships from above or below, Aristotle proposes a “mixed constitution” or “timocracy”—a combination of aristocracy and democracy, in which the suffrage will be restricted to landowners, and a strong middle class will be the balance wheel and pivot of power. “The land ought to be divided into two parts, one of which should belong to the community in general, the other to the individuals separately.”224 All the citizens will own land; they “are to eat at public tables in certain companies”; and only they shall vote or bear arms. They will constitute a small minority—ten thousand at most—of the population. “None of them should be permitted to exercise any mechanic employment or live by trade, for these are ignoble, and destroy excellence.”225 But “neither should they be husbandmen; . . . the husbandmen should be a separate order of people”—presumably slaves. The citizens will elect the public officials, and hold each to account at the end of his term,. “Laws, properly enacted, should define the issue of all cases as far as possible, and leave as little as possible to the discretion of the judges. . . .”226 “It is better that law should rule than any individual. . . . He who entrusts any man with the supreme power gives it to a wild beast, for such his appetites sometimes make him; passion influences those who are in power, even the very best of men; but law is reason without desire.”227 The state so constructed shall regulate property, industry, marriage, the family, education, morals, music, literature, and art. “It is even more necessary to take care that the increase of the people should not exceed a certain number . . . to neglect this is to bring certain poverty upon the citizens.”228 “Nothing imperfect or maimed shall be brought up.”229 Out of these sound foundations will grow the flowers of civilization and tranquillity. “Since the highest virtue is intelligence, the pre-eminent duty of the state is not to train the citizens to military excellence, but to educate them for the right use of peace.”230

  It is unnecessary to sit in judgment up
on Aristotle’s work. Never before, so far as we know, had anyone reared so impressive an edifice of thought. When a man covers a vast field many errors may be forgiven him if the result adds to our comprehension of life. Aristotle’s faults—or those of the volumes that we perhaps wrongly count as the considered product of his pen—are too obvious to need retailing. He is a logician, but is quite capable of bad reasoning; he lays down the laws of rhetoric and poetry, but his books are a jungle of disorder, and no breath of imagination stirs their dusty leaves. And yet, if we penetrate this verbiage we find a wealth of wisdom, and an intellectual industry that opened many paths in the country of the mind. He did not quite found biology, or constitutional history, or literary criticism—there are no beginnings—but he did more for them than any other ancient whom we know. To him science and philosophy owe a multitude of terms that in their Latin forms have facilitated learned communication and thought—principle, maxim, faculty, mean, category, energy, motive, habit, end. . . . He was, as Pater called him, “the first of the Schoolmen”;231 and his long ascendancy over philosophical method and speculation suggests the fertility of his ideas and the depth of his insight. His treatises on ethics and politics stand above every rival in fame and influence. When all deductions have been made he still remains “the master of those who know,” an encouraging testimony to the elastic range of the human intellect, and a comforting inspiration to those who labor to bring man’s scattered knowledge together into perspective and understanding.