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REFERENCE TO ETHICS. 375
could only act according
quite justified in answering : We "
to our : being for actions arise from nature. If our actions
were bad, the fault lay in our nature : this is thine own
l
work ; punish And it is
thyself."
just the same with
the imperishableness of our true being in death ;
for this
cannot be seriously thought without the aseity of that
being, and can even hardly be conceived without a funda
mental separation of the will from the intellect. This last
point is peculiar to my philosophy ; but Aristotle had
already proved the first thoroughly, by showing at length
how that alone can be imperishable which has not arisen,
and that the two conceptions condition each other :
2 Tavra
CL\\{]\OLQ aKoXovdet, /cat TO re dyivr]Tov afyQapTOv,
KCLL TO
evriTor. . . . TO yap yf.vt}Tov KOI TO tyQapTov
d\\ri\oiQ. d yevrjTOV TI, tydapTov avayKij 3
(hcec
mutuo se sequuntur, atque ingenerabile est incorruptibile, et
incorruptibile ingenerabile. . . . generabile enim et corruptible
mutuo se sequuntur. si generabile est, et corruptibile esse
necesse est). All those among the ancient philosophers who
taught an immortality of the soul, understood it in this
way ;
nor did it enter into the head of any of them to assign
infinite permanence to a being having arisen in any way.
We have evidence of the embarrassment to which the con
trary assumption leads, in the ecclesiastical controversy
between the advocates of Pre-existence, Creation and Tra-
duction.
The Optimism moreover of all philosophical systems is
a point closely allied to Ethics which must never fail in
bound : for the world likes to hear
any of them, as in duty
that it is commendable and excellent, and philosophers like
1
Compare "Parerga," i. p. 115, et seqg. (p. 133 of 2nd ed.).
8
Aristot. "De
Ccelo,"
i. 12.
3 " These two go together, the uncreated is imperishable, and the
imperishable is uncreated. . . . For the created and the perishable go
together. . . . If a thing is created it is necessarily perishable." [Tr.]