ONE:On the other hand, this substitution of the social for the personal integer involves a corresponding change in the398 valuation of individual happiness. What the passions had been to later Greek philosophy, that the individual soul became to Hobbes, something essentially infinite and insatiable, whose desires grow as they are gratified, whose happiness, if such it can be called, is not a condition of stable repose but of perpetual movement and unrest.556 Here, again, the analogy between physics and ethics obtains. In both, there was an original opposition between the idea of a limit and the idea of infinite expansion. Just as, among the earlier Greek thinkers, there was a physical philosophy of the infinite or, as its impugners called it, the indefinite, so also there was, corresponding to it, a philosophy of the infinite or indefinite in ethics, represented, not indeed by professional moralists, but by rhetoricians and men of the world. Their ideal was not the contented man, but the popular orator or the despot who revels in the consciousness of powerthe ability to satisfy his desires, whatever they may be. And the extreme consequence of this principle is drawn by Platos Callicles when he declares that true happiness consists in nursing ones desires up to the highest point at which they can be freely indulged; while his ideal of character is the superior individual who sets at naught whatever restraints have been devised by a weak and timid majority to protect themselves against him."Then you be after her as soon as possible," Prout groaned. "We're done, Smithers. That smart lady's-maid was Countess Lalage!"
ONE:Yet Realism concealed a danger to orthodoxy which was not long in making itself felt. Just as the substantiality of individuals disappeared in that of their containing species, so also did every subordinate species tend to vanish in the summum genus of absolute Being. Now such a conclusion was nothing less than full-blown pantheism; and pantheism was, in fact, the system of the first great Schoolman, John Scotus Erigena; while other Realists were only prevented from reaching the same goal by the restraint either of Christian faith or of ecclesiastical authority. But if they failed to draw the logical consequences of their premises, it was drawn for them by others; and Ablard did not fail to twit his opponents with the formidable heresy implied in their realistic prin367ciples.534 As yet, however, the weight of authority inclined towards Platos side; and the persecution suffered by Ablard himself, as compared with the very mild treatment accorded to his contemporary, Gilbert de la Porre, when each was arraigned on a charge of heresy, shows that while the Nominalism of the one was an aggravation, the Realism of the other was an extenuation of his offence.535
ONE:Lawrence looked at his friend with a twinkle.Meanwhile Balmayne had crept in downstairs. He crossed over and helped himself liberally to brandy. He took a second glass, and a third. But there came none of the glow of courage to his heart.
