The Stoic maintained that the virtue was
the whole summum bonum, and happiness only the consciousness of
possessing it, as making part of the state of the subject. The
Epicurean maintained that happiness was the whole summum bonum, and
virtue only the form of the maxim for its pursuit; viz., the
rational use of the means for attaining it.
Now it is clear from the Analytic that the maxims of virtue and
those of private happiness are quite heterogeneous as to their supreme
practical principle, and, although they belong to one summum bonum
which together they make possible, yet they are so far from coinciding
that they restrict and check one another very much in the same
subject. Thus the question: "How is the summum bonum practically
possible?" still remains an unsolved problem, notwithstanding all
the attempts at coalition that have hitherto been made. The Analytic
has, however, shown what it is that makes the problem difficult to
solve; namely, that happiness and morality are two specifically
distinct elements of the summum bonum and, therefore, their
combination cannot be analytically cognised (as if the man that
seeks his own happiness should find by mere analysis of his conception
that in so acting he is virtuous, or as if the man that follows virtue
should in the consciousness of such conduct find that he is already
happy ipso facto), but must be a synthesis of concepts.
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