Aristippus put forward strongly the impossibility of realizing all the Happiness that might seem within one’s reach; such were the attendant and deterring evils, that many pleasures had to be foregone by the wise man.  Sometimes even the foolish person attained more pleasure than the wise; such is the lottery of life; but, as a general rule, the fact would be otherwise.  The wisest could not escape the natural evils, pain and death; but envy, passionate love, and superstition, being the consequences of vain and mistaken opinion, might be conquered by a knowledge of the real nature of Good and Evil.

As a proper appendage to such a system, Aristippus sketched a Psychology of Pleasure and Pain, which was important as a beginning, and is believed to have brought the subject into prominence.  The soul comes under three conditions,—­a gentle, smooth, equable motion, corresponding to Pleasure; a rough, violent motion, which is Pain; and a calm, quiescent state, indifference or Unconsciousness.  More remarkable is the farther assertion that Pleasure is only present or realized consciousness; the memory of pleasures past, and the idea of pleasures to come, are not to be counted; the painful accompaniments of desire, hope, and fear, are sufficient to neutralize any enjoyment that may arise from ideal bliss, Consequently, the happiness of a life means the sum total of these moments of realized or present pleasure.  He recognized pleasures of the mind, as well as of the body; sympathy with the good fortunes of friends or country gives a thrill of genuine and lively joy.  Still, the pleasures and the pains of the body, and of one’s own self, are more intense; witness the bodily inflictions used in punishing offenders.

The Cyrenaics denied that there is anything just, or honourable, or base, by nature; all depended on the laws and customs.  These laws and customs the wise man obeys, to avoid punishment and discredit from the society where he lives; doubtless, also, from higher motives, if the political constitution, and his fellow citizens generally, can inspire him with respect.

Neither the Cynics nor the Cyrenaics made any profession of generous or disinterested impulses.

ARISTOTLE. [384-322 B.C.]

Three treatises on Ethics have come down associated with the name of Aristotle; one large work, the Nicomachean Ethics, referred to by general consent as the chief and important source of Aristotle’s views; and two smaller works, the Eudemian Ethics, and the Magna Moralia, attributed by later critics to his disciples.  Even of the large work, which consists of ten books, three books (V.  VI.  VII.), recurring in the Eudemian Ethics, are considered by Sir A. Grant, though not by other critics, to have been composed by Eudemus, the supposed author of this second treatise, and a leading disciple of Aristotle.

Like many other Aristotelian treatises, the Nicomachean Ethics is deficient in method and consistency on any view of its composition.  But the profound and sagacious remarks scattered throughout give it a permanent interest, as the work of a great mind.  There may be extracted from it certain leading doctrines, whose point of departure was Platonic, although greatly modified and improved by the genius and personality of Aristotle.