famous thesis:--'Virtue is knowledge;' which is not so much an error or
paradox as a half truth, seen first in the twilight of ethical philosophy,
but also the half of the truth which is especially needed in the present
age. For as the world has grown older men have been too apt to imagine a
right and wrong apart from consequences; while a few, on the other hand,
have sought to resolve them wholly into their consequences. But Socrates,
or Plato for him, neither divides nor identifies them; though the time has
not yet arrived either for utilitarian or transcendental systems of moral
philosophy, he recognizes the two elements which seem to lie at the basis
of morality. (Compare the following: 'Now, and for us, it is a time to
Hellenize and to praise knowing; for we have Hebraized too much and have
overvalued doing. But the habits and discipline received from Hebraism
remain for our race an eternal possession. And as humanity is constituted,
one must never assign the second rank to-day without being ready to restore
them to the first to-morrow.' Sir William W. Hunter, Preface to Orissa.)

Fourth Thesis:--

To be and not to seem is the end of life.

The Greek in the age of Plato admitted praise to be one of the chief
incentives to moral virtue, and to most men the opinion of their fellows is
a leading principle of action. Hence a certain element of seeming enters
into all things; all or almost all desire to appear better than they are,
that they may win the esteem or admiration of others. A man of ability can
easily feign the language of piety or virtue; and there is an unconscious
as well as a conscious hypocrisy which, according to Socrates, is the worst
of the two. Again, there is the sophistry of classes and professions.
There are the different opinions about themselves and one another which
prevail in different ranks of society. There is the bias given to the mind