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

56 ETHICS AND POLITICS: THE GREEKS
will. It possesses, as modern psychologists would say, its
own particular dynamism. It is only cm the basis of this
conception that we are justified in speaking of a predominantly
reasonable man or a predominantly reason*
able mode of life. For, if the reason of Plato's reasoning
part of the soul were to be conceived as a purely intellectual
faculty, that by means of which we are enabled
to understand abstract truth or to follow a chain of
reasoning, or as a purely practical faculty, the instrument
by means of which we achieve the ends of the desiring
part of the soul, then there would be no such thing as
a characteristically reasonable life.
Levels of Mental Activity. The point assumes importance
in connection with later ethical theory, when the
question will have to be considered, can reason by
itself prompt any activity, or determine any mode of life? 1
Now it is, I think, obvious that it cannot, if it is to be
conceived, as many psychologists have conceived it, as a
separate faculty whose function on the theoretical side is
purely speculative, and on the practical side is limited to
realizing the ends which the appetitive part of our natures
prescribes to it. For reason uninfused by any amative
drive cannot, it is obvious, effect anything or motivate
anything. Most modern psychologists are, however, agreed
that so to conceive of reason, treating it as an isolated
instrument of desire, or as an isolated faculty of abstract
ratiocination, is to do violence to the facts of experience,
dividing up into separate faculties what is a unified activity
of life. It is difficult, when speaking of the human personality,
to invoke any metaphor which does not mislead;
but this much at least seems to be true, that human con-
'
sciousness is more like a flowing river than a bundle of
sticks. It is not desire plus reason plus emotion plus will
plus instinct: it is a whole or unity, which expresses itself
sometimes in a predominantly rational, at other times in
a predominantly appetitive or instinctive way.
M See Chapter VII, pp. 267-271.