GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

138 ETHICS AND POLITICS: THB GREEKS
the excellence of something other than himself, albeit of
something which, according to idealist theory, is immanent
in himself. 1 These modern conceptions would have seemed
impious to those who were animated by the spirit of
Christ's teaching, for the essential fact about the individual,
as Christ represented him, was that he was a soul to be
saved. To compass the salvation that Christ's sacrifice
had rendered possible for him, was from the Protestant
standpoint an end transcending in importance all other
ends which the State might set before him, or which he
might set before himself. His duty, in fact, was whole-
heartedly to do God's will, and God's will resides neither
in the laws of the State, nor in the edicts of a Church, but
in the hearts of men. To discover this will it is necessary to
listen to the inner voice of conscience.
In thus substituting an ideal realizable by individual
effort for one which could be achieved only by co-operation
with one's fellow-men in the civic life, Protestant
Christianity tended to leave the State outside its scheme
of things. The ethical theories which it inspired came,
therefore, to treat of conduct independently of politics, the
art of science or politics being left meanwhile to look after
itself.
Other Factors Assisting the Split. Left to look after
itself, the doctrine which it adopted was that of the Social
Contract. A pre-social state of nature was postulated which
was ended by a compact or contract to form society.
Social Contract theories, as we shall see in a later chapter,*
dominated the political thought of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, and essentially they re-affirmed the
attitude to society adopted by Glaucon and Adeimantus.*
The tendency to regard society as an artificial rather than
a natural growth is not only compatible with, it is encouraged
by, the Christian view of human nature and of the
appropriate end of human endeavour, indicated to above.
1
See Chapter XV, pp. 590, 591 and *
597, 598. See Chapter XIII.
1 See Chapter I, pp. 19-24.