"If it can't be decided in the affirmative, it will never be decided in the negative. You know that that is the peculiarity of your heart, and all its suffering is due to it. But thank the Creator who has given you a lofty heart capable of such suffering; of thinking and seeking higher things, for our dwelling is in the heavens. God grant that your heart will attain the answer on earth, and may God bless your path."
On the whole, there is probably no treatise so masterly as Aristotle's _Ethics_, and containing so much close and valid thought, that yet leaves on the reader's mind so strong an impression of dispersive and incomplete work. It is only by dwelling on these defects that we can understand the small amount of influence that his system exercised during the five centuries after his death, as compared with the effect which it has had, directly or indirectly, in shaping the thought of modern Europe. Partly, no doubt, the limited influence of his disciples, the Peripatetics (q.v.), is to be attributed to that exaltation of the purely speculative life which distinguished the Aristotelian ethics from other later systems, and which was too alien from the common moral consciousness to find much acceptance in an age in which the ethical aims of philosophy had again become paramount. Partly, again, the analytical distinctness of Aristotle's manner brings into special prominence the difficulties that attend the Socratic effort to reconcile the ideal aspirations of men with the principles on which their practical reasonings are commonly conducted. The conflict between these two elements of Common Sense was too profound to be compromised; and the moral consciousness of mankind demanded a more trenchant partisanship than Aristotle's. Its demands were met by the Stoic school which separated the moral from the worldly view of life, with an absoluteness and definiteness that caught the imagination; which regarded practical goodness as the highest manifestation of its ideal of wisdom; and which bound the common notions of duty into an apparently coherent system, by a formula that comprehended the whole of human life, and exhibited its relation to the ordered process of the universe. The intellectual descent of its ethical doctrines is principally to be traced to Socrates through the Cynics, though an important element in them seems attributable to the school that inherited the "Academy" of Plato. Both Stoic and Cynic maintained, in its sharpest form, the fundamental tenet that the practical knowledge which is virtue, with the condition of soul that is inseparable from it, is alone to be accounted good. He who exercises this wisdom or knowledge has complete well-being; all else is indifferent to him. It is true that the Cynics were more concerned to emphasize the negative side of the sage's well-being, while the Stoics brought into more prominence its positive side. This difference, however, did not amount to disagreement. The Stoics, in fact, seem generally to have regarded the eccentricities of Cynicism as an emphatic manner of expressing the essential antithesis between philosophy and the world; a manner which, though not necessary or even normal, might yet be advantageously adopted by the sage under certain circumstances.[7] Entry: A
Very exaggerated statements have been made as to the employment of the catacombs as dwelling-places by the Christians in times of persecution. We have, however, sufficient evidence that they were used as places of refuge from the fury of the heathen, in which the believers--especially the bishops and clergy, who would naturally be the first objects of attack--might secrete themselves until the storm had blown over. This was a purpose for which they were admirably adapted both by the intricacy of their labyrinthine passages, in which any one not possessing the clue would be inevitably lost, and the numerous small chambers and hiding-places at different levels which might be passed unperceived in the dark by the pursuers. As a rule also the catacombs had more than one entrance, and frequently communicated with an _arenaria_ or sand-quarry; so that while one entrance was carefully watched, the pursued might escape in a totally different direction by another. But, to quote J.H. Parker, "the catacombs were never intended, nor fit for, dwelling-places, and the stories of persons living in them for months are probably fabulous. According to modern physicians it is impossible to live many days in the caves of _pozzolana_ in which many of the catacombs are excavated." Equally exaggerated are the statements as to the linear and lateral extent of the catacombs, and their intercommunication with one another. Without resorting to this exaggeration, Mommsen can speak with perfect truth of the "enormous space occupied by the burial vaults of Christian Rome, not surpassed even by the _cloacae_ or sewers of Republican Rome," but the data are too vague to warrant any attempt to define their dimensions. Marchi has estimated the united length of the galleries at from 800 to 900 m., and the number of interments at between 6,000,000 and 7,000,000; Martigny's estimate is 587 m.; and Northcote's, lower still, at "not less than 350 m." The idea of general intercommunication is negatived by the fact that the chief cemeteries are separated by low ground or valleys, where any subterranean galleries would be at once filled with water. Entry: A
There are three purposes for which dene-holes may have been originally excavated: (a) as hiding-places or dwellings, (b) draw-wells for the extraction of chalk for agricultural uses, and (c) storehouses for grain. For several reasons it is unlikely that they were used as habitations, although they may have been used occasionally as hiding-places. Other evidence has shown that it is equally improbable that they were used for the extraction of chalk. The chief reasons against this theory are that chalk could have been obtained outcropping close by, and that every trace of loose chalk has been removed from the vicinity of the holes, while known examples of chalk draw-wells do not descend to so great a depth. The discovery of a shallow dene-hole, about 14 ft. below the surface, at Stone negatives this theory still further. The last of the three possible uses for which these prehistoric excavations were designed is usually accepted as the most probable. Silos, or underground storehouses, are well known in the south of Europe and Morocco. It is supposed that the grain was stored in the ear and carefully protected from damp by straw. A curious smoothness of the roof of one of the chambers of the Gravesend twin-chamber dene-hole has been put forward as additional evidence in support of this theory. One other theory has been advanced, viz. that the excavations were made in order to get flints for implements, but this is quite impossible, as a careful examination of a few examples will show. Entry: DENE