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

THB ETHICS OP SOCRATES AND PLATO 6l
postulates, as we shall see below, a similar law, similarly
revealed.
Thirdly, it is only when the third or appetitive part of
the soul stands in this right relationship of subservience to
the reasoning part that it succeeds in achieving the best
life for itself and realizing all that it has it in it to be.
This last proposition raises a new point which, because
of its importance both in Plato's thought and in later
ethical theory, must be further developed.
Self-Development in Theory. Throughout the history
of ethical theory there appears, at different times and in
different forms, the view that the good life consists in the
unrestricted indulgence of the appetites and the passions.
The view begins as a doctrine of self-development. We
should give free play to every side of our nature, free
play, that is to say, to all our faculties, to instinct no less
than to reason, to desire no less than to the conscience
which admonishes, and the will which seeks to control
desire. This philosophy of all-round development is often
regarded as a typically Greek view. Aldous Huxley has
stated it with his usual clarity and conciseness: "The art
of life," he tells us, "consisted for them [the Greeks] in
giving every god his due. Thus, Apollo's due was very
different from the debt a man owed to Dionysus . . .
but every one was owed and, in its proper time and season,
must be acknowledged. No god must be cheated and none
overpaid." A man's duty, then, is to acknowledge all the
gods, and to neglect none. Doing our duty, we "make the
best of the world and its loveliness while we can at any
rate during the years of youth and strength." As a theory
of morals there is much to be said for all-round development.
Unfortunately, however, it is very difficult to
maintain in practice. Its essence consists in balance, but
in practice the balance insists on inclining, and inclining
nearly always in the same direction, for, since of all the
sides of our nature, what Plato calls the appetitive "part"
grows most by what it feeds on, the doctrine of free play