may, with less offence to truth and sobriety, receive much of what they deliver about the image of good. As for the nature of positive and simple good, they have certainly drawn it beautifully and according to the life, in several pieces exactly representing the form of virtue and duty, their order, kinds, relations, parts, subjects, provinces, actions, and dispensations. And all this they have recommended and insinuated to the mind with great vivacity and subtilty of argument, as well as sweetness of persuasion, at the same time faithfully guarding, as much as was possible by words, against depraved and popular errors and insults. And in deducing the nature of comparative good they have not been wanting, but appointed three orders thereof,-they have compared contemplative and active life together;i distinguished between virtue with reluctance, and virtue secured and confirmed; represented the conflict betwixt honour and advantage; balanced the virtues, to show which overweighed, and the like, so that this part of the image of good is already nobly executed; and herein the ancients have shown wonderful abilities. Yet the pious and strenuous diligence of the divines, exercised in weighing and determining studies, moral virtues, cases of conscience, and fixing the bounds of sin, have greatly exceeded them. But if the philosophers, before they descended to the popular and received notions of virtue and vice, pain and pleasure, &c., had dwelt longer upon discovering the roots and fibres of good and evil, they would, doubtless, have thus gained great light to their subsequent inquiries, especially if they had consulted the nature of things, as well as moral axioms, they would have shortened their doctrines and laid them deeper. But as they have entirely omitted this or confusedly touched it, we will here briefly touch it over again, and endeavour to open and cleanse the springs of morality, before we come to the georgics of the mind, which we set down as deficient.

All things are endued with an appetite to two kinds of good, the one as the thing is a whole in itself, the other as it is a part of some greater whole; and this latter is more worthy and more powerful than the other, as it tends to the conservation of a more ample form. The first may be called

1 See Arist. Eth. Nic. i. 3, sq.

individual or self-good, and the latter, good of communion. Iron by a particular property moves to the loadstone, but if the iron be heavy, it drops its affection to the loadstone and tends to the earth, which is the proper region of such ponderous bodies. Again, though dense and heavy bodies tend to the earth, yet rather than nature will suffer a separation in the continuity of things, and leave a vacuum, as they speak, these heavy bodies will be carried upwards, and forego their affection to the earth, to perform their office to the world. And thus it generally happens, that the conservation of the more general form regulates the lesser appetites. But this prerogative of the good of communion is more particularly impressed upon man, if he be not degenerate, according to that remarkable saying of Pompey, who, being governor of the city purveyance at a time of famine in Rome, and entreated by his friends not to venture to sea whilst a violent storm was impending, answered, "My going is necessary, but not my life;"k so that the desire of life, which is greatest in the individual, did not with him outweigh his affection and fidelity to the state. But no philosophy, sect, religion, law, or discipline, in any age, has so highly exalted the good of communion, and so far depressed the good of individuals, as the Christian faith; whence it may clearly appear that one and the same God gave those laws of nature to the creatures and the Christian law to men. And hence we read that some of the elect and holy men, in an ecstasy of charity and impatient desire of the good of communion, rather wished their names blotted out of the book of life than that their brethren should miss of salvation.1

This being once laid down and firmly established, will put an end to some of the soberest controversies in moral philosophy. And first, it determines that question about the preference of a contemplative to an active life, against the opinion of Aristotle; as all the reasons he produces for a contemplative life regard only private good, and the pleasure or dignity of an individual person, in which respects the contemplative life is doubtless best, and like the comparison made by Pythagoras, to assert the honour and reputation

Plut. Life Pomp.

m Jamblycus's life, in the Tus. Quæst. v. 3. tius, prince of the Phoenicians, for Hieron.

St. Paul, Rom. ix.
Cicero substitutes Leon-

of philosophy, when being asked by Hiero who he was, he answered, "I am a looker-on; for as at the Olympic games some come to try for the prize, others to sell, others to meet their friends and be merry, but others again come merely as spectators, I am one of the latter." But men ought to know that in the theatre of human life it is only for God and angels to be spectators. Nor could any doubt about this matter have arisen in the Church, if a monastic life had been merely contemplative and unexercised in ecclesiastical duties, -as continual prayer, the sacrifice of vows, oblations to God, and the writing of theological books, for propagating the Divine law-as Moses retired in the solitude of the mount, and Enoch, the seventh from Adam, who, though the Scripture says he walked with God, intimating he was the first founder of the spiritual life, yet enriched the Church with a book of prophecies cited by St. Jude. But for a mere contemplative life, which terminates in itself, and sends out no rays either of heat or light into human society, theology knows it not.

It also determines the question that has been so vehemently controverted between the schools of Zeno and Socrates on the one side, who placed felicity in virtue, simple or adorned, and many other sects and schools on the other, -as particularly the schools of the Cyrenaics and Epicureans, who placed felicity in pleasure;" thus making virtue a mere handmaid, without which pleasure could not be well served. Of the same side is also that other school of Epicurus, as on the reformed establishment, which declared felicity to be nothing but tranquillity and serenity of mind. With these also joined the exploded school of Pyrrho and Herillus, who placed felicity in an absolute exemption from scruples, and the allowing no fixed and constant nature of good and evil, but accounting all actions virtuous or vicious, as they proceed from the mind by a pure and undisturbed motion, or with aversion and reluctance. But it is plain that all things of this kind relate to private tranquillity and complacency of mind, and by no means to the good of communion.

n For an account of these sects, consult Ritter's "Geschichte der Philosophie alter Zeit."

• This opinion has been revived in the Anabaptist heresy, who measure everything by the humours and instincts of the spirit and constancy or vacillation of faith.

Ed.

Again, upon the foundation above laid we may confute the philosophy of Epictetus, which rests upon supposing felicity placed in things within our power, lest we should otherwise be exposed to fortune and contingence, as if it were not much happier to fail of success in just and honourable designs, when that failure makes for the public good, than to secure an uninterrupted enjoyment of those things which make only for our private fortune. Thus Gonsalvo at the head of his army, pointing to Naples, nobly protested he had much rather, by advancing a step, meet certain death, than by retiring a step prolong his life. And to this agrees the wise king, who pronounces "a good conscience to be a continual feast;" thereby signifying that the consciousness of good intentions, however unsuccessful, affords a joy more real, pure, and agreeable to nature, than all the other means that can be furnished, either for obtaining one's desires or quieting the mind.

г

It likewise censures that abuse which prevailed about the time of Epictetus, when philosophy was turned into a certain art or profession of life, as if its design were not to compose and quiet troubles, but to avoid and remove the causes and occasions thereof, whence a particular regimen was to be entered into for obtaining this end, by introducing such a kind of health into the mind as was that of Herodicus in the body, mentioned by Aristotle, whilst he did nothing all his life long but take care of his health, and therefore abstained from numberless things, which almost deprived him of the use of his body; whereas, if men were determined to perform the duties of society, that kind of bodily health is most desirable which is able to suffer and support all sorts of attacks and alterations. In the same manner, that mind is truly sound and strong which is able to break through numerous and great temptations and disorders; whence Diogenes seems to have justly commended the habit which did not warily abstain, but courageously sustain,—which could check the sallies of the soul on the steepest precipice, and make it, like a well-broken horse, stop and turn at the shortest warning.

Lastly, it reproves that delicacy and unsociable temper Rhet. i. 5, 10.

Enchir. Arrian. i.

9 Prov. xv. 15.

1ávéxov áπéxov. Summa Stoic. Philos.

observed in some of the most ancient philosophers of great repute, who too effeminately withdrew from civil affairs, in order to prevent indignities and trouble to themselves, and live the more free and unspotted in their own opinions; as to which point the resolution of a true moralist should be such as Gonsalvo required of a soldier,-viz., "Not to weave his honour so fine, as for everything to catch and rend it.”

CHAPTER II.

Division of Individual Good into Active and Passive. That of Passive Good into Conservative and Perfective. Good of the Commonwealth divided into General and Respective.

WE divide individual or self-good into active and passive. This difference of good is also found impressed upon the nature of all things, but principally shows itself in two appetites of the creatures; viz.,-1. That of self-preservation and defence; and, 2. That of multiplying and propagating. The latter, which is active, seems stronger and more worthy than the former, which is passive; for throughout the universe the celestial nature is the principal agent, and the terrestrial the patient; and in the pleasures of animals that of generation is greater than that of feeding; and the Scripture says, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."a And even in common life, no man is so soft and effeminate, as not to prefer the performing and perfecting of anything he had set his mind upon before sensual pleasures. The pre-eminence of active good is also highly exalted from the consideration of the state of mankind, which is mortal and subject to fortune; for if perpetuity and certainty could be had in human pleasures, this would greatly enhance them; but as the case now stands, when we count it a happiness to die late, when we cannot boast of to-morrow, when we know not what a day may bring forth, no wonder if we earnestly endeavour after such things as elude the injuries of time: and these can be no other than our works. Accordingly it is said, "Their works follow them." "b

Another considerable pre-eminence of active good is given b Apoc. xiv. 13.

• Acts Ap. xx. 35.