D.C.L. OXFORD, AND LL.D. CAMBRIDGE;
LATE VICE-CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON;
PRESIDENT OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON;
AND FOREIGN MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE.
PROFESSOR OF LOGIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN,
AND
PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY OF MIND AND LOGIC IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON.
The right of Translation is reserved.
This Edition is an exact reprint of the First Edition, with the addition of two important Essays on the Ethics and Politics of Aristotle, whichwere found among the author’s posthumous papers. They were originallypublished in 1876, in ‘Fragments on Ethical Subjects, by the late George Grote,’ but would have been included in the First Edition of this Work, had they been discovered in time. These Essays are the fruit of longand laborious study, and, so far as they extend, embody the writer’smatured views upon the Ethics and the Politics: the two treatises whoseomission from his published exposition of the Aristotelian philosophyhas been most regretted.
The Essay on ‘The Ethics of Aristotle’ falls naturally into twodivisions; the first treats of Happiness; the second of what, accordingto Aristotle, is the chief ingredient of Happiness, namely. Virtue. OnAristotle’s own conception of Happiness, Mr. Grote dwells very minutely; turning it over on all sides, and looking at it from every point ofview. While fully acknowledging its merits, he gives also the fullmeasure of its defects. His criticisms on this head are in the author’s ivbest style and are no less important as regards Ethical discussion than as a commentary on Aristotle.
His handling of Aristotle’s doctrine of Virtue is equally subtle and instructive. Particularly striking are the remarks on the Voluntary and the Involuntary, and on προαίρεσις, or deliberate preference.
The treatment of the Virtues in detail is, unhappily, more fragmentary;but what he does say regarding Justice and Equity has a permanentinterest.
The Essay on ‘The Politics of Aristotle’ must be studied in connectionwith the preceding. Although but a brief sketch, it is remarkable forthe insight which it affords us into the most consummate political ideal of the ancient world.
The Historian of Greece, when closing his great narrative in the year1856, promised to follow out in a separate work that speculativemovement of the fourth century B.C. whichupheld the supremacy of the Hellenic intellect long after the decline of Hellenic liberty. He had traced the beginnings of the movement in thefamous chapter on Sokrates, but to do justice to its chief heroes —Plato and Aristotle — proved to be impossible within the limits of theHistory. When, however, the promised work appeared, after nine laborious years, it was found to compass only Plato and the other immediatecompanions of Sokrates, leaving