[Footnote 8: Plato, _Philebus_, 14, D. The dialectical element in this
dialogue is evidently the basis of Mr. Russell's, as of Mr. Moore's,
ethics; but they have not adopted the other elements in it, I mean the
political and the theological. As to the political element, Plato
everywhere conceives the good as the eligible in life, and refers it
to human nature and to the pursuit of happiness--that happiness which
Mr. Russell, in a rash moment, says is but a name which some people
prefer to give to pleasure. Thus in the _Philebus_ (11, D) the good
looked for is declared to be "some state and disposition of the soul
which has the property of making all men happy"; and later (66, D) the
conclusion is that insight is better than pleasure "as an element in
human life." As to the theological element, Plato, in hypostasising
the good, does not hypostasise it as good, but as cause or power,
which is, it seems to me, the sole category that justifies hypostasis,
and logically involves it; for if things have a ground at all, that
ground must exist before them and beyond them. Hence the whole
Platonic and Christian scheme, in making the good independent of
private will and opinion, by no means makes it independent of the
direction of nature in general and of human nature in particular; for
all things have been created with an innate predisposition towards the
creative good, and are capable of finding happiness in nothing else.
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