Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

TPIE GREEK PHILOSOPHY.475Stoic as before us all. He admitted that the vastmajority of men were bad, and his wise man was anideal never reached.But he had no answer what-*ever to the question, why, if vice is so evil in the-e of our reason, it so clings to our nature; why,so contrary to the good of the mass, it dwellswithin every individual.60The human city or community of men is thehighest point which this moral philosophy contemplates.Each particular commonwealth shouldbe herein the image of the one universal commonwealthwhich their thought had constructed. Butwhat, / then, / is the relation of the individual manto the whole of which he is a part ? This nature,which is the standard to the whole ideal commonwealth,is, as we have seen so often, in fact a lawof the strictest necessity. If virtuous, man followsit willingly ; if vicious, he must follow itagainst his will. There was no real freedom forthe individual in the system as philosophy. Whatwas disguised under the name of law, reason, andGod, was a relentless necessity before which everyonewas to bow. But transfer this philosophyto any political community, and consider in whatposition it placed the individual with regard to thecivil government. Human society is consideredas supreme : but his own state represents to himthat society, "/ ' and « as all things O end with this life, 'no part of man remains withdrawn from that des-60 Champagny, les Cesars, iii. 333.