One other peculiar aim, the highest of all, is proposed to the soul in the Alexandrian philosophy.  It is peculiar, because to be understood only in connexion with the metaphysics and cosmology of the system.  In the theory of Emanation, the primordial One or Good emits the Nous wherein the Ideas are immanent; the Nous, in turn, sends forth the Soul, and the Soul, Matter or nature; the gradation applying to man as well as to the Universe.  Now, to each of these principles, there is a corresponding subjective state in the inner life of man.  The life of sense answers to nature or the material body; the virtue that is founded upon free-will and reason, to the soul; the contemplative life, as the result of complete purification from sense, to the Nous or Sphere of Ideas; finally, to the One or Good, supreme in the scale of existence, corresponds the state of Love, or, in its highest form, Ecstasy.  This peculiar elevation is something far above the highest intellectual contemplation, and is not reached by thought.  It is not even a mere intuition of, but a real union or contact with, the Good.  To attain it, there must be a complete withdrawal into self from the external world, and then the subject must wait quietly till perchance the state comes on.  It is one of ineffable bliss, but, from the nature of man, transitory and rare.

SCHOLASTIC ETHICS.

ABAELARD (1079-1142) has a special treatise on the subject of Ethics, entitled Scito te ipsum.  As the name implies, it lays chief stress upon the Subjective element in morality, and, in this aspect, is considered to supply the idea that underlies a very large portion of modern ethical speculation.  By nature a notoriously independent thinker, Abaelard claimed for philosophy the right of discussing ethical questions and fixing a natural moral law, though he allowed a corrective in the Christian scheme.  Having this position with reference to the church, he was also much less under the yoke of philosophical authority than his successors, from living at a time when Aristotle was not yet supreme.  Yet, with Aristotle, he assigns the attainment of the highest good as the aim of all human effort, Ethics showing the way; and, with the schoolmen generally, pronounces the highest good to be God.  If the highest good in itself is God, the highest human good is love to God.  This is attained by way of virtue, which is a good Will consolidated into a habit.  On the influence of habit on action his view is Aristotelian.  His own specialty lies in his judging actions solely with reference to the intention (intentio) of the agent, and this intention with reference to conscience (conscientia).  All actions, he says, are in themselves indifferent, and not to be called good or evil except from the intention of the doer. Peccatum, is properly only the action that is done with evil intent; and where this is present, where the mental consent (consensus) is clearly established, there is peccatum, though the action remains unexecuted.  When the consensus is absent, as in original sin, there is only vitium; hence, a life without peccata is not impossible to men in the exercise of their freedom, however difficult it may be.