Ethics.— The ethics of Aristotle consists mainly in a theory of the final end of conduct or the summum bonum and an account of the individual virtues. The chief good is happi ness (well-being), which is defined as "activity of the reason m accordance with virtue in a complete life.' This conception of happiness as consisting in theoretic activity is based on the peculiar function of man. Reason being the differential mark of man, his peculiar good should be discoverable in the activity of rea son. Further, the good consists in the realiza tion of the rational self in an ethical life that is complete and not of fragmentary duration, for cone swallow does not make spring.* The virtues of an individual are divided into ethi cal and dianoetic. The ethical virtues are lib erality, emperance, justice, courage, friendship, high-mindedness, gentleness, veracity. The dianoetic virtues are wisdom, art, insight, clev erness and such excellencies as attach to the theoretic activity, while the moral virtues are reasonableness expressed in action. Virtue is the power or persistent quality in an individual which enables him to perform his function well. Aristotle otherwise defines it as a "moral habit based on a life of deliberation, and expressed in the observance of a rational mean.* The connecting link between ethics and politics is found in the social virtue of friendship.
Politics.—Aristotle gave to politics the posi tion of an independent science, which he based on the study of over 150 actual constitutions. Politics, as the architectonic science, considers the complete good of man, for it is only in the state that man's full realization is attained, and man is by nature a apolitical animal.° Ethics is, therefore, a branch of politics. Although the state is notionally prior to the household and village, it is preceded by them in the order of development. The state is such an aggrega tion of households and villages as to be self sufficing. While it comes into being primarily for the sake of life, its growth is determined by the interests of a good and complete life. The individual is not self-sufficient. The end of the state is not power, or the protection of life, property or industry, but the promotion of noble life in its citizens and the happi ness that springs from such life. The function of the state is educational and moral. One has to keep in mind that the Aristotelian state is a city-state and not an empire. The various forms of good constitutions are: royalty(rule of one), aristocracy (rule of few), polity (rule of the entire people). The corresponding cor rupt forms are tyranny, oligarchy and democ racy. The best constitution under most actual conditions is the polity, a constitutional democ racy, which more than any form of govern ment embodies the principle of the mean and on the average best meets the demands of the greatest number. Under completely ideal con ditions monarchy is the best form of govern ment.
Art.— Art has for its function partly the supplementing of nature and partly the imita tion of nature. Nature has left man naked and defenseless, but provided him with the °tool of tools,' a hand. The useful arts serve the in terests of life; imitative and decorative arts serve the ends of noble pleasure and relaxa tion. The Aristotelian exposition of the philos ophy of art is confined almost entirely to the extant fragment of the in which scarcely more than the theory of tragedy has survived. The function of tragedy is de scribed as catharsis. The conclusion of a tragic representation that is true to the principles of art has the cathartic effect on the spectator of purifying his emotions by the instruments of pity and fear.
History of Aristotelianism—Aristotelian ism was continued in the peripatetic school (the name "peripatetic" came from Aristotle's method of giving instruction while walking, or from the walks — irephixroi — in the Lyceum's down to 529 A.D., when the Emperor tinian closed all the Athenian schools. Dur ing the early Middle Ages it was kept alive by the works of Boethius and the of Porphyry. Later by its fusion with the theol ogy of Thomas Aquinas it became practically the official philosophy of Roman Catholicism, which it still continues to be. The Arabs in Spain were the bearers of Aristotelianism to medieval Europe, and by 1220 almost all of Aristotle's works had been translated from the Arabic into Latin. A little later, by the efforts of Thomas Aquinas, they were translated from Greek originals, and Aristotle's authority in sci ence became well-nigh absolute. With the rise of Humanism Aristotelianism began to wane, and with the development of modern science and the Cartesian philosophy his influence out side the Catholic Church was to a large extent nullified. Within the Church, however, during th• last quarter of the 19th century, through the efforts of Leo XIII, the influence of Thomism and Aristotelianism increased.
Bibliography.— B onitz, 'Metaphysics> (1848) ; Butcher, (London 1902) ; Bywater, (Oxford 1909) ; id., ics> (1890) ; Jowett, (1885) ; Ham mond, (1902) ; Navarre, stir la rhetorique grecque avant (Paris 1900); Newman, (1887) ; Sandys (Constitution of Athens) (London 1893) ; id., (Cambridge 1877) ; Ram saner, 'Nicomachean Ethics) (1878) ; Spengel, (Rhetoric) (1867) ; Wallace, of the Philosophy of Aristotle> (Oxford 1883); Wil amowitz, 'Constitution of Athens' (Berlin 1891); Stahr, 'Aristotelia) (2 vols., 1830. 32); Grote, 'Aristotle' (2 vols., 2d ed., 1880); Grant, 'Aristotle' (1874); Lewes, 'Aristotle, a chapter from the History of Sci ence' (1864); Siebeck, 'Aristoteles> (1899); Prantl, 'Geschichte der Logik im Abendlande' (4 vols., 1855-70) ; Zeller, 'Aristotle and the Earlier Peripatetics> (2 vols., 1897).