CHAPTER II

THE VIRTUES

The treatment of the special virtues, though containing much that is too trite to need recording again, adds a few points that are necessary to complete our view of the Ethics.

The word ‘virtue’ is not to be taken to denote manliness, as its derivation might suggest, or a specific function, such as is meant in phrases like ‘virtus equi.’ By virtue is meant a habit of the mind by which we are rightly disposed toward our affections. It would have been more accurate to have said organism instead of mind, and it is clearly necessary to take animus here in a sense that includes reference to the bodily conditions. A habit or condition must not be confounded either with a faculty or an affection, says Gassendi, with obvious reference to Aristotle.

The animus has two parts, and each has its virtue. A right disposition of the intellectual part enables it to attain truth when affected by the objects that appeal to the senses: similarly a right disposition of the non-intellectual part enables it to attain truth in action, or goodness when affected by anything that appeals to the passions. It is possible to regard this second part abstractly and divorce it from the intellect. We then have such habits and possibilities of right action as are shared by the brutes, but not completely moral action. To constitute virtue a right habit must be so based on a right mental state as to be constant and intentional. This doctrine therefore recognises that goodness is possible where there is only a low degree of intellect or none at all. At the same time the degree of morality must be judged relatively to the degree of intellectual power possessed by the agent. As Gassendi does not discuss the question of merit it is not easy to determine the significance of this point. The statement that virtue requires knowledge may have either of two meanings: it may imply that the agent must be conscious of the end aimed at, that is consciously adopt a course as good for him: it may also imply that the agent must know how the end he adopts is related to other ends, and ultimately to the universe of ends. It is in the second sense that Gassendi seems to use the phrase, but only with the intention of dividing the ethical from natural virtues or the ‘nativam in Appetitu aptitudinem ad virtutem.’ Consciousness of the end adopted is naturally connected with the subject of merit, because it is not infrequently assumed that goodness is proportionate to the difficulty of choice, or briefly, the greater the struggle the better the man. We are therefore left in twofold darkness when neither merit nor the need of conscious choice is fully treated. Some further light may be got from the following discussion of the mean. The Stoics considered the mean was a pollution of virtue, a compromise between extremes of vice, and in itself nothing. Gassendi replying in support of the doctrine, emphasises the distinction between qualitative and quantitative means. In Ethics we have to deal with qualitative distinctions, and our mean is in se quid, not a vanishing point between extremes but an extreme itself. This decision enables our author to deal very sensibly with another question. As the extreme states are due to excess of passion, ethical theory had tended to associate with the mean state the absence of all passion. The Stoics, considering that the passions were in the rational part of the soul, saw no way short of complete eradication. Epicurus, on the other hand, declared the principal part of the soul to be free from passion. This puts the passions in the position of matter, upon which the moral agent may work and makes possible their permanent retention. The wise man of the Stoics was to be devoid of passion: the ideal of Epicurus found room for pity and anger, tears and sighs. There is however nothing which could lead us to suppose that Gassendi or his teachers attained to the idea of passions as natural forces which could be employed for good: they are by nature bad, without reference to the objects concerned: consequently the only choice is between extermination and limitation. The former leaves us with a purely intellectual state, and if this is not satisfactory we must take the second, admitting that an immoral affection is moral if sufficiently limited. But this is exactly what Gassendi repudiates as a Stoic heresy when put in the form ‘virtue is a mean between vices,’ or a mean vice. He points out that a curve ) passing into ( is not a curve at all at the mean point [)|(]; and so with our vices, of which however he gives no example. The fallacy of the position seems to lie in the failure to distinguish the passion from its object, and so, for example, make room for righteous indignation beside bad temper, or the sorrow of the afflicted beside the self-abandonment of suicide.

One satisfaction remains: our ethic will at least deal with human nature and leave us our natural material. More than that, it will assert the unity of virtues, on the very sound principle that if we deny the unity we make virtuous acts and not virtuous natures the ground of our judgment. What has been said already on the necessity of virtue being a habit helps us out here. We are not good for the sake of being good: the pure love of virtue is nonsense: we are good to be happy. As all virtue tends to happiness the virtues satisfy the scholastic condition and are one both in origin and end, arising from Prudence and ending in happiness. The sceptic sneers at the suggestion that virtue always makes for happiness, and it can hardly be reckoned among the propositions proved by Gassendi. There is none the less much truth in the corollary that the good man finds happiness in virtue: if he does not, the virtue must somehow be foreign to his nature: fear of the law must be coercing him or even a guilty fear of God; and this is not that state of tranquillity which is the crown of the man whose good actions flow from the right disposition of his soul and body.

The special virtues are divided into four classes—Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude, and Justice. In addition to these main heads there are other subdivisions which are differently enumerated by different writers. Aristotle himself speaks of several virtues not named in this first general division. The scholastics desired to elaborate such general heads as would include all the nameable virtues, and finally produced the following scheme. First, there are the three parts called Subjectae, seu species: ‘deinde Integrantes, seu quas instar partium totum integrum componentium, necesse est concurrere ad actum perfectum cuiuspiam virtutis: denique Potentialeis seu quae potentiarum ipsius animae instar sunt virtutes quasi adjunctae.’ These divisions may be exemplified by quoting the actual subdivisions of our main classes. ‘Sic parteis Prudentiae Subjectas distinguunt Privatam Oeconomicam Politicam Militarem Regiam: integranteis Memoriam Intellegentiam Docilitatem Solertiam Rationem Providentiam Circumspectionem Cautionem: Potentialeis ... Eubuliam, Synesin, Gnomen.’

The other virtues can be similarly divided, and the result is a list which the scholastics at least thought exhaustive of all the known virtues.

The first and greatest of the virtues is Prudence. This, as we have seen, is of five kinds—privata, oeconomica, politica, regia, and militaria. Gassendi deals with it under these heads. He begins with this virtue because it is, as Epicurus said, ‘caput ac fontem, sic quasi Reginam atque Principem caeterarum virtutum.’ We deal here with Prudence ‘quatenus est moralis virtus, quae omnes vitae actiones recte moderatur,’ and enables us to rightly distinguish good and evil: it has been well defined by Cicero as ‘rerum expetendarum scientiam’: it is a habit of mind ‘non certus (not, that is to say, concerned with necessary and immutable truths) sed conjecturalis’: it is finally ‘ars vitae,’ and the essential quality of the practical man who does not concern himself with the end, but accepting the end without question devotes his energies to the elaboration of means. The three great functions of Prudence are bene consultare, intelligere, and finally imperare. The mental qualities required are sollertia, sagacitas, and all that makes for clear and prompt judgments on affairs.

We need hardly follow Gassendi through all the ramifications of the subject: in justice to him be it said that he seems to have omitted nothing that the good moralist and the conscientious preacher ought to say. He conducts through all the aspects of life, including the choice of a profession, the choice of a wife, the duties of man as father, landowner, master of servants, and, in the wider sphere of the State, controller of war and peace. It has been said that in these pages Gassendi shows himself as judicious in his Ethics as he is profound in his metaphysics; and this we need not deny, though the subject is less abstruse, in fact somewhat commonplace, and the treatment even more laborious, with very little that cannot be culled or deduced from Aristotle.

An interesting discussion arises on the meaning to be attributed to the phrase, ‘follow nature.’ Epicurus had advocated this course. Gassendi takes it to mean ‘study your aptitudes’: choose the course of life that is most suited to your tastes. Whether the doctrine of motion is the implicit ground for this doctrine or not I cannot say, as Gassendi gives us no hint; but it would be very natural for a philosopher imbued with ideas of force and motion to adopt the idea of ‘the line of least resistance.’ That this is the actual point of view cannot be doubted. Every man has particular aptitudes: what then is more natural or better than that he should choose that mode of life which is calculated to employ and improve those aptitudes rather than limit or destroy them? If we attempt tasks for which nature has not designed us we make life an uphill struggle, and labour perpetually ‘Sisyphi instar nixandi.’ This seems a sensible point of view, but Lactantius did not agree with it, and made it a subject for censure. Epicurus, he said, aimed at popularity, and made base concessions to the frailty of human nature. As he states the opposite argument very fully the passage may be quoted at length: ‘Propterea ut ad se multitudinem contrahat (Epicurus), apposita singulis quibusque moribus loquitur. Desidiosum vetat litteras discere: avarum populari largitione liberat: ignavum prohibet accedere ad rempublicam, pigrum exerceri, timidum militare. Irreligiosus audit deos nihil curare, inhumanus et suis commodis serviens jubetur nihil cuiquam tribuere: omnia enim sui causa facere sapientem.’ In these and other respects Lactantius thinks that vice is encouraged: if you hate your wife it follows you should leave her: if children dislike their parents it is right to rebel against them: in short, life should be made easy, and private inclinations indulged at any cost. Gassendi’s answer to this is that it is an extreme and unfair interpretation. It was probably very typical of the treatment which Epicurean philosophy received at the hands of extreme churchmen. To take one point in illustration. According to Lactantius, Epicurus says if a man is lazy he need not take exercise: according to Gassendi the doctrine is, if nature has not intended you to be an athlete do not try to become one. In other words, while every one may know something about everything, we must each of us choose some one thing in which we aim to excel, and the economy of the universe demands that the occupation chosen should be in harmony with our nature. In this argument Gassendi was on the winning side.

The second virtue is Courage, sometimes rather unnecessarily labelled Fortitude, which is ‘quandam animi fortitudinem,’ a fixed mental state rather than brute force (in ipso robore et viribus corporis). It differs from Temeritas and Feritas (illa vocata Aristoteli) in being a fixed disposition of mind, and requiring for its highest realisation a clear knowledge of the danger which is faced. In reality the virtue is not primarily concerned with dangers in the ordinary sense of the term: its permanent function is the maintenance of a conviction once it has been accepted, and the persistence which endures and overcomes all difficulties in attaining an ideal. It combines therefore in itself Constantia et Perseverantia, and its end may be expressed generally as the maintenance of Justice: it is the spirit which neither does nor suffers wrong. As a fixed habit it enables us to endure all evils: these may be public or private: the greatest is exile, but there are many others, such as infamy, imprisonment, and the loss of friends or wealth.[102]

Temperance, the third virtue, is to be taken in the Greek sense. It includes as partes subjectae abstinentia et sobrietas (illam respectu cibi, hanc respectu potus, says Gassendi, without telling us why abstinence as such should differ for food and for drink!): as castitas et pudicitia: as integrantes, verecundia et honestas: as Potentialeis, clementia, humilitas, modestia itemque mansuetudo, misericordia, moderatio, decus, studiositas, eutrapelia seu festivitas, urbanitas. This list certainly does not seem to fail in respect of comprehensiveness.

Justice, the third virtue, is not subjected to analysis under these standard heads. After remarks based on Aristotle’s discussion of this subject, we come to the question of the origin of laws. Epicurus had found the origin of laws in utility (Epicurus omnem juris et aequi originem ab utilitate repetiit), and had consequently been attacked by the supporters of the opposite theory that laws are of natural origin. Gassendi thinks the two theories should be combined if we are to attain the truth. Man may be regarded either absolutely as ‘solitarius’ or in his relations as ‘sociabilis.’ Man as ‘solitarius’ finds himself in a world filled with the gifts of nature, and his instincts lead him to appropriate them. In addition to these instincts he has the faculty of self-preservation, with the implied right to retain all that is necessary for this preservation: here then is the root of the ‘jus naturale’ (facultas ista est in qua videtur dici posse consistere jus naturae primarium). But the things so appropriated were originally given by nature, and therefore the question arises why should one man have them more than another and ‘inde enascantur rixae, rapinae, odia, vulnera, caedes’? These somewhat violent relations bring us to the second stage: quamobrem spectandus iam homo posteriore modo, sive quatenus sociabilis est, ac in naturae quasi modificatae statu: man recognises the need of mutual help, and a condition of harmony is brought about by the aid of laws. Thus nature and utility as principles are reconciled: Gassendi further recognises that the view of man as solitarius is not only abstract, but also a pseudo-historical process of accounting for the evolution of laws which has little probability: so far as we can say, society is as old as man, and that too not in the sense in which we speak of brutes as sociable, but in the full sense of a community of intelligent human beings.[103]

The root then of all law is the natural impulse which drives men to form societies: for as soon as we get beyond the individual as ‘solitarius,’ we find that life is impossible without mutual agreement or ‘pactiones.’ These first charters are between man and man, not contracts by which they surrender their liberty to one ruler, but formal definitions of mutual relations. Gassendi is not concerned to construct a theory in support of the rights of kings, so that his ‘pactiones’ must be taken to be agreements between all the individuals in any one society without as yet any question of a ruler. The law is in fact the true ruler, so that there is no need to deal with the existence of personal rulers except in so far as their authority has a natural origin in the necessity of delegating the task of making the laws of a community to those who are its wisest and best. The head of the society then is he who has been chosen to make, explain, and administer the laws: his claim to the position is contained entirely in his personal character and ability: he rules as the embodiment of law, not arbitrarily, but acting as the mouthpiece of laws which are higher and greater than he, rooted in the earth and reaching to the heavens, the object which all men worship, and in the cult of which he is ordained high priest.

The jus to which we have been hitherto referring is that known as jus civile, the recognition of the rights possessed by the member of a civitas or society as such. This we have seen was based on utility, but always on a utility which is itself natural: in other words, it supplies wants which are rooted in the nature of man. There are however other kinds of jus, such as the jus gentium and jus naturale. As a rule, the jus gentium was regarded as e natura, even by those who thought the jus civile owed its origin to utilitas. Gassendi declares that the difference between the two is purely a question of numbers (discrimen ad magis et minus): in nature the two are identical, and both are grounded in utility.

Now that we have expanded our view to include all the kinds of Jus, we must discuss their relative characters. The least comprehensive term is jus civile, which has already been interpreted to mean the rights constituted by citizenship. The term jus gentium raises us to the higher level and a wider outlook. It denotes the rights which men have without reference to the particular society or state to which they belong, the rights which they have simply as men. Gassendi here becomes conscious of a difficulty. The original significance of the phrase jus gentium has been lost, now that humanity can no longer be divided into Roman and non-Roman. Consequently, jus gentium approaches very closely to jus naturale, inasmuch as it indicates rights which men may have apart from any definite citizenship or special code. To avoid the confusion which threatens us, we must go further into the question of the scope of the jus naturale and the limits of jus gentium.[104]

Jus is a term which covers both the facultas and the lex, says Gassendi: we may therefore look at it from either point of view. Man possesses a jus naturale in so far as he is an animal and has faculties such as the faculty of feeling.[104] But the term naturale implies a jus grounded in a natura and nothing more: since then the plants have a nature and faculties (such as the facultas sugendi), they must have a jus naturale. To exactly define what is usually included under jus naturale, we really require a term ‘jus animale’—or better still, ‘jus humanum.’

I find it difficult to determine the exact meaning which Gassendi attaches to the phrase, ‘jus is either facultas or lex.’ It seems most probable that he thought of rights as primarily powers, the possession of which constituted the individual’s ‘right’ to the advantages derived from their free exercise. These rights become more extensive as we rise in the scale of being: the plant has the least, the savage man has more, the civilised man most. We therefore rise from jus naturale to jus civile: at the same time the lower species are most comprehensive, and therefore the jus naturale appears more fundamental in proportion as it is more universal. This however is only in appearance: the jus naturale, though applied over a wider area, is in itself more limited than the jus civile: it is man as bare man that comes under its categories: as citizen man enjoys laws which, if they are more limiting, are also refined to far greater exactness. The facultas which constitutes jus must be taken to be a natural or social endowment which fits a being for certain acts, and as it implies that nature intended him to fulfil those functions for which he is thus equipped, it also confers upon him a right to the free use of those powers in the interests of the universe at large. The plant has the power of absorbing water, and so has a right to a supply of water: the animal has a power of feeling and motion entitling him to humane treatment and freedom. Man as man has the distinctively human faculties, and with them the privileges of the jus humanum, while the citizen has the quality of civitas, which is his claim to the highest privileges of life. Thus we see that rights are grounded in natures, and the nature of the subject determines the character and limits of the rights. The nature of a being is therefore best realised under laws that establish these rights. At first the law seems a limitation of the nature, but a little reflection shows a different side to the question: if my desire to harm you is restrained, your freedom is enlarged: if I am not allowed to take away your wife, at least I may expect to possess my own in safety. So while the established law hedges me round about, it also provides a barrier against hostile irruptions.

We now see that the jus gentium can be defined by reference to its content. If we look for specifically human activities we find them in the faculties of speech, writing, reasoning, forming societies, and the like. These as common to all men, but not shared by man with the brutes, must constitute the sphere of the jus gentium.

The term lex, as opposed to jus, implies a definite contract and an executive power to enforce obedience. There is therefore no lex gentium nor lex naturale in the proper sense. There may be such universal laws as the lex spontanea[105] or law of instinctive action: there may also be a law of rational action; but this is law in a different sense, the hypothetical precept which dictates the means for fulfilling some particular purpose. Though these are not laws in the full sense of the term, they stand very close to law in the highest and noblest use of the word. Man has reason: he can therefore see and understand the laws of his nature in a way that animals cannot: he can identify himself with this law so that the law of nature becomes _his_ law, the law of his reason, and finally one with his reason.

Now, taking lex naturalis as the law of human nature and analysing it, we get the elements of law in its ethical aspect, the elements that is to say of the laws which are embedded in human nature. In order to ensure our attaining the original simple laws we must aim at two qualities, universality and freedom from prejudice; in other words, we must collect our evidence from a sufficiently wide area and at the same time not allow any pre-conceived ideas to bias our choice: we then get the following rules of conduct:

1. The first law instructs us to aim always at the good, which is to be interpreted as our own good or advantage (primo itaque communissimum, innatumque adeo est omnibus hominibus, ut quod bonum, quod commodum, quod gratum fuerit, prosequantur: quod vero malum, incommodum, ingratumque refugiant). The collateral use of the terms denoting goodness and pleasantness should be noticed: we shall have occasion to refer to them later. It follows from this law that we are to love our benefactors and hate our enemies: from this is derived love of our children, our friends, and God, as the greatest of benefactors. Gassendi apparently assumes that all men will regard God as a benefactor: the necessity of worshipping him rests really on the attitude adopted by the individual, but Gassendi does not face the problem of those who prefer to ‘curse God and die.’

2. The second law is simple, ‘ut quisque se amet, plusquam ceteros, seu ut sibi bene quam alteri malit.’ Some writers whom Gassendi contemptuously calls ‘popular’ have denied this law, but it is regarded by our author as indisputably natural and original. Thus Egoism is the point from which we must start: we love ourselves best and with ourselves all that is peculiarly ours: we benefit our own families before those of others, and, as the proverb rightly says, begin our charity at home! From this egoism, if so simple and sensible a doctrine can be called by that highly technical term, a mild and inoffensive altruism is naturally derived: in brief, Gassendi says that if you have time and opportunity there is no harm in doing good to another, provided it entails no loss to yourself. For example, it is only nice and kind to put the lost traveller on the right road, if otherwise convenient; and from this comes profit, for the deed has its reward in that most inestimable sense of self-satisfaction (conscientia benefacti inestimabilis).

3. The third law is love of life, from which comes the impulse to marry, beget children, and rear them with all the advantages, such as education, which one desires for oneself.

4. The fourth law is the love of society which has its root and beginning in the union of the sexes. It is not unnatural for a man to love the common good, for he considers that his own is bound up in it. The concluding remarks are of particular interest, and to ensure their correct understanding I shall quote the essential passages. As Gassendi does not divorce the state and the individual, he does not raise the question as to how an individual, intent on his own good, ever gets to the point of considering the good of others. From the first the concrete individual is sociable, and therefore thinks of the public good as only another aspect of his own, as that in which his own is contained (quo intelligit contineri suum). The end of society is not realised unless the individuals enter into it in this whole-hearted way and take it up into their very natures. They must realise the reciprocity which society implies and which has been expressed in the fundamental law ‘quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris.’ (I do not know if Gassendi preferred the negative form for any particular reason.)[106] In addition to this the citizen must not only abide by the law but also be a law-abiding creature, he must not only _do_ good but also _be_ good, as Leslie Stephen has put it. The ideal condition is reached when no laws are required but all are just by nature.

On these concluding remarks made by Gassendi, Thomas[107] comments thus: ‘Gassendi va même plus loin et ici sa doctrine s’écarte de plus en plus de celle d’Epicure: Ajoutons-nous, dit-il, que les saints Écritures ont excellemment dit que ce n’est pas au juste que la loi est imposée: parce que celui qui est veritablement juste ne l’observe pas par la crainte des peines que les lois ordonnent, mais pour l’amour même de la justice et pour la vénération qu’il a pour elle, de façon que quand il n’y aurait ni lois, ni magistrats, il l’observerait toujours de même.’ ‘On s’explique mal en lisant ces textes les accusations sévères qu’on a si souvent portées contre la morale de Gassendi.’ He adds in a note, ‘Cette règle de Gassendi ne nous fait-elle pas songer à celle de Kant et aux commentaires qui l’accompagnent? “Agis toujours,” nous dit Kant, “de telle sort que la maxim de ton action puisse être érigée en loi universelle.”’

On these comments I wish to make a few remarks in order to further elucidate the view I take of Gassendi’s position and show why I cannot agree with the suggestion that this is Kantian. Nothing is easier than to lay hold of the suggestive phrases so often found in Gassendi and make them appear to anticipate some later doctrines. I do not mean to suggest that this is a vice to which Thomas is addicted: on the contrary, he often appears to me to have stinted rather than amplified his author’s meaning; but this is exactly the sort of point in which two readers of the same book arrive at different conclusions through holding different opinions on the way the subject should be studied: it is thus an excellent opportunity of showing how and why I venture to differ from my predecessor in the task of expounding Gassendi.

The scope of Gassendi’s ethic is defined by the phrase an ethic of prudence: however far Gassendi travels from that simple statement he never pretends to rise above the sphere thus indicated. The very laws given in detail show how Gassendi’s good man is far more concerned with a concrete immediate welfare than is Kant’s.

I have not avoided speaking of hypothetical and categorical phases of the law; but the transition from one to the other can be expressed thus: the hypothetical law of reason says, ‘if you will to attain this, you must act thus’: the categorical says, ‘if you are what you are, you must act thus’; but the former half of the sentence is meaningless and can be omitted, leaving the simple law, ‘act thus.’ But the being-what-you-are means being a social creature and implies no transcendental Self, nor even that semi-transcendental ‘dignity of man’ by which Mill so nearly arrived at Kant’s position. On the contrary, it is pure common-sense, as though one should say ‘being man and not angel, you must walk to get there’: for the ‘must’ refers to the means and not the end which is given to all, namely Pleasure.

Again, Gassendi’s law is formed by abstracting all special conditions: it is in that sense a universal law belonging to universal man; but it is empirical and objective, a solution of the problem of co-existence, not transcendental or subjective, or one that must be obeyed ‘though the heavens fall.’ It is true Gassendi says, ‘put yourself in his place’ and ‘do not do unto others what you will not have done to yourself,’ but that much is in the Bible, and one sentence does not make a theory. Hobbes had got as far as this without feeling the necessity of going any further; and as this element in ethics has a very patent origin I prefer to judge it from the point of view of its antecedents rather than speculate on its relations to later theories. The point to which I would draw special attention is the nature of the universality implied in Gassendi’s words. Kant tells us the supreme principle of jurisprudence is, ‘act so that the free use of thy elective will may not interfere with the freedom of any man so far as it agrees with universal law,’ and this is surely what Thomas should have quoted if anything was to be quoted out of Kant. This I consider is exactly Gassendi’s meaning, and therefore, so far from attaining the point of view which Kant would call ethical, he stops at that which Kant expressly distinguishes as legal and external.

This question of the distinction of legal and ethical principles is all the more interesting in view of what I consider the real root of Gassendi’s opinions. If we say that according to Gassendi ethics is a matter of relations between individuals and therefore always external, the question is at once asked, ‘What of the clause about the pure love of justice?’ In my opinion this must be explained by reference to what the will to be good meant to the lawyer[108]? The influence of philosophy, especially the Stoic, on Roman law, was to make the emphasis fall on voluntas. ‘The desire to subordinate form to substance, the word spoken to the will it was meant to manifest, the abstract rule to the individual case to which it was prepared to apply it’ was, we are told, strong in Cicero’s time.[109] Seeing that the pages of Gassendi are full to overflowing with quotations from Cicero, and the terms used not only follow a distinctly legal argument, but are themselves legal, we seem justified in thinking that this juridical development is the source of Gassendi’s inspiration, and he means no more than that it is better to understand and acquiesce in the natural laws of society than be one of the victims of the good men, _i.e._ those who have learned the secret of successful living. Gassendi may well say ‘be good’ as well as ‘do good,’ since that course will bring most pleasure: the idea of virtue for its own sake he has already dismissed. It would also be well if that phrase were discarded by some other writers: it has the appearance of making its advocate look more like a saint than his fellow-men: in reality it means nothing, being a stupid abstraction, as though virtue could be cut off from life, and the good, the beautiful, and the comfortable were not ideas that reacted on each other.

But if we do not consider that Gassendi has reached the heights of Kant, if he has most certainly retained much that is ‘pathological’ in his ultimate, he certainly has, in the words of Lecky, ‘abundantly proved the possibility of uniting Epicureanism with a high code of morals.’ The tone throughout is that of the Prudens, the man of even balance and shrewd foresight, not given to useless asceticism or wasting extravagances, but withal full-blooded in his righteousness, and rejoicing in a godliness that is profitable unto all things. If there is nothing of the self-sacrificing strenuousness that makes Kant’s ethics so exacting and tense, there is a lofty humanism which strikes the golden mean between the brute that does not aspire and the god that does not struggle.