unity, multitude, totality, and mental applause. Of this mental applause Rosmini says, "Approval or applause is, therefore, a natural affection excited in the intelligent subject at the sight of the identity discovered to exist between two terms, which the mind compares and which seem most different: these are the theme or idea, and the work actually executed or accomplished" (Theosophy, vol. ii. § 1135). "The beautiful most proper to human nature is that which is found realized in the world, because man himself is made up of an animated body and an intellective soul, and the latter, by nature, intuites only the idea of being, which is the universal theme, the most virtual of all and not yet beauty. The works executed in accordance with this theme man must gather from his own modifications, that is, from the finite terms of feeling. The only real accessible to man being the finite, he must draw from it the real and effectual spur of his actions, as well as his determinate ideas, and, therefore, also the archetype of that beauty upon which he can spend his admiration. . . But he demands the divine real" (Ibid. § 1139). When beauty goes beyond the measure of human imagination, it becomes sublimity, and the action it then arouses in the human soul is no longer applause, but enthusiasm. It is interesting to compare these views with those of Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and Plutarch. See Plato, Phaidros, pp. 245 sqq., 250 sqq.; Aristotle, Poetics, cap. iv. 1448 b, 15 sqq.; Rhetoric, i. 11; 1371 b, 5 sqq.; Plotinus, Enneads, i. 6; Plutarch, Πῶς δεῖ τὸν νέον ποιημάτων ἀκούειν cap. iii. pp. 17, 18. Rosmini's whole doctrine of beauty very closely resembles that of Plotinus, down even to the view that the subject or principle of beauty is determined by its object: “ Τὸ γὰρ ὁρῶν πρὸς τὸ ὁρώμενον συγγενὲς καὶ ὅμοιον ποιησάμενον δεῖ ἐπιβάλλειν τῇ θέᾳ. Οὐ γὰρ ἂν πώποτε εἶδεν ὀφθαλμὸς ἥλιον ἡλιοειδής μὴ γεγενημένος, οὐδὲ τὸ καλὸν ἂν ἴδοι ψυχὴ μὴ καλὴ γενομένη. γενέσθω δὴ πρῶτον θεοειδὴς πᾶς, εἰ μέλλει θεάσασθαι θεόν τε καὶ καλόν” (Enneads, i. 6, 9). Goethe's paraphrase of this passage will occur to every one: "War' nicht das Auge sonnenhaft, Lebt' nicht in uns der Gottheit eig'ne Kraft, Rosmini so thoroughly believed in the power of the object to form the subject that, in his earlier life, he surrounded himself with numerous objects of art. In his palace at Rovereto there are still some twenty thousand engravings, many of which he collected. Rosmini's theory of the beautiful is worked out at length in the second volume of his Theosophy, book iii. § 4, cap. 10. It is practically summed up in the beautiful lines of Michael Angelo : "Amore è un concetto di bellezza Immaginata, cui sta dentro al core, Cf. Dante's "Amor e cor gentil sono una cosa" (Vita 2II. Deonto We will not stop here to classify all the special Human deontological sciences, but will limit our discourse logy. to Human Deontology, i.e. the science of human perfection. 212. trine of ception contains Man is a being real, intellectual and moral, The docand, therefore, shares in the perfection proper to moral perthe three modes of being. Since, however, moral implicitly perfection completes the other two, and alone is the whole personal perfection, for that reason the doctrine of human of moral perfection implicitly contains the whole perfection. doctrine of human perfection. doctrine Doctrine of human perfection embraces three parts -arche type, actions, means. (a) Teletics. (8) Ethics. (7) Ascetics. (8) Education. (e) Economy. (5)Politics. ($) Cosmopolitics. 213. The doctrine of human perfection presents to the mind those same three parts into which we have said that general deontology is divided: (1) the doctrine of the human archetype, to which every man must seek to approximate; (2) the doctrine of those actions whereby man approximates and conforms to that archetype; and (3) the doctrine of the means and aids by which man is stimulated and strengthened to these actions. The first of these doctrines may be called Teletics, the second Ethics, and the third, that is, the doctrine of means, is divided into several sciences. A man may acquire these means and apply them to himself: the science of this may be called Ascetics. Or he may apply them to his fellowmen, encouraging and aiding them to acquire human perfection: the science which teaches the manner of this application is called Education or Pædagogics. The science which teaches how to apply them to the family, so that it, being rendered good, may exert itself to render good the individuals that compose it, may be called Economy ; that which teaches how to apply it to civil society, so that it, being rendered good, may improve its members, is termed Politics; and, finally, that which teaches how to apply them to the theocratic community of the human race may be called Cosmopolitics. The science which describes the perfect arche- (a) Tele tics. The of man, natural super The natural orders, is Christ. typal man has not been written or even attempted, archetype and it cannot be worked out until all the sciences both in the relating to man are fully developed. And even and then the science would not be complete. truth is, that man is at present fallen, and that he Jesus was never left in a state of mere nature. Nor was it fitting that he should be so left. Hence his nature has always been mixed up with the divine and supernatural, and what man may become in the double order of the natural and supernatural is a problem that surpasses and eludes human thought, and, therefore, can never be completely solved by human philosophy. But, instead of having this archetype described in words and consigned to the dead letter of a book, we have the living archetype presented to us by God Himself in Jesus Christ, the Head and Lord of the human race. 215. Man must be good and not evil. The good- (B) Ethics. ness of man consists in the goodness of his will, since it is clear that he who has a will perfectly good is a good man. Now, the goodness of man, and not the goodness of his belongings, is called moral goodness, and that quality of the human will whereby a man is good is called moral goodness or virtue. This good forms the subject of Ethics, which is therefore the science of virtue. This is exactly Aristotle's doctrine: "Пlávraç iπaivõõμev καὶ ψέγομεν εἰς τὴν προαίρεσιν βλέποντες μᾶλλον ἢ εἰς τὰ pya" (Eth. Eud., ii. 11; 1228 a, 12 sqq.). Ethics includes three parts corre sponding to its three offices. (a) General Ethics. (b) Special Ethics. (c) Eudæmonology. 216. The moral philosopher does three things: (1) he analyzes the concept of virtue, distinguishing its elements, and then gathers them all up into a scientific definition; (2) he tries to ascertain in what mode, that is, by what voluntary and free acts, and by what habits, a man may attain to virtue, and, on the contrary, in what mode and by what actions he loses it and becomes wicked; and (3) he endeavours to estimate the excellence and preciousness of virtue, without which all other goods are valueless to man. Hence Ethics has three parts: the first treats of the nature of virtue, and is denominated General Ethics, because it does not descend to any of those special habits or acts into which virtue enters, but deals with that condition which all habits and acts must possess in order to be virtuous; the second treats of the modes of virtue, and is called Special Ethics, because it considers the special habits and acts which contain virtue; the third treats of the excellence of virtue, and is called Ethical Eudamonology, because we discover the excellence of virtue only by seeing how it renders the intelligent and volitional nature perfect and happy. |