The ethics of the Greek philosophers
(Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle)
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| The ethics of the Greek philosophers |
The present lecture of Prof. Hyslop on The Ethics of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle has been thought of sufficient individual importance and interest to form a little volume by itself which is now issued as one of the first of the series. And we think that a glance through this little book will justify our estimate and show that Prof. Hyslop is a great student and able expositor of the teachings of that great trinity of Grecian intellect who have probably left more effect on the thought and belief of our European races and civilizations than any other men in History.
Prof. Hyslop has thus given us in this little treatise a very comprehensive view of the general character and special influence of each great thinker and with keen and clear analysis and easy presentation has so distinguished and epitomized their distinctive teachings that at one sitting we can get a fairly good and general view of the three most influential philosophers of the past, putting in a popular, easily assimilable form what is generally regarded as a rather abstruse subject.
To better illustrate the points in the lecture and more clearly show the exact character of the ancient thought, we have, with the assistance of Prof. Hyslop, selected and arranged a series of quotations from the best translations of the works of the philosophers, which we have included in the appendix, and which will demonstrate the beauty, clearness and force of the actual thought of these giants of the ancient intellectual world and prove to us how much we are really their heirs and debtors along so many lines of thought and influence.
On the subjects of The Nature and Constitution of the Universe, on Matter and Spirit, Soul, Deity, Ethics and Immortality, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle have proba bly left on us a greater impression than all other men and will be found to have furnished most of the philosophical arguments which have been echoed and re-echoed, more or less consciously or unconsciously, by others ever since that distant age when these great original thinkers or expounders first expressed or recorded them, and with little real advance over these old thinkers.
We, therefore, regard it of the greatest interest and importance that men of the modern age should pay more attention to the study of ancient thought and appreciate far more than they do the great work done by the old thinkers, as only in this way can we get a correct view of our own age and understand what progress we have really made ourselves, and in many cases, it will be a good check to our conceit, and a great help to modest and truthful views to find that we have not made as many or as great or as original contributions to our " progress" as we may have imagined.
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