________________
૩૪૯
જ્ઞાન અને નીતિ
"
moralist is practical, as well as theoretical. Wisdom has its natural outflow in goodness, as proverbial morality has always declared; the head guides the hand, the intellect the will. This inseparable connection of theory and practice was profoundly understood by the Greek philosophers, with whom Socrates' maxim that "virtue is knowledge" was always a guiding idea, as well as by the Hebrews, for whom wisdom and goodness, folly and sin, were synonymous terms. It is also familiar to use from the teaching of Christianity, whose Founder claims to be at once the Truth and the Life, and preaches that life eternal' is 'to know' the Father and the Son. A large and deeper concep- __ tion of the meaning of life inevitably brings with it a larger and deeper life. Intellectual superficiality is a main source of moral evil; folly and vice are largely synonymous. Accordingly the first step towards moral reformation is to rouse reflection in a man or people; to give them a new insight into the significance of moral alternative. The claims of morality will not be satisfied until the rigour of these claims is understood. All moral awakening is primarily an intellectual awakening, a repentance or change of mind (metavola). Moral insight is the necessary condition of moral life, and the philosophy which deepens such insight is at once theoretical and practical in its interest and its value. By fixing our attention upon the ideal, ethics tends to raise the level of the actual. The very intellectual effort is itself morally elevating; such a turn of the attention is full of meaning of character. A moral truth does not remain a merely intellectual apprehension; it rouses the emotion, and demands expression, through them, in action or in life".
Ethical Principles by Prof. James Seth.
તાત્પર્ય કે સાક્રેટિસ વગેરે ગ્રીક તત્ત્વજ્ઞાનીઓના, તેમજ પ્રાચીન યાહુદીઓના અને કિશ્ચયનાના પણ, એ જ સિદ્ધાન્ત છે, અને તે ખરાખર છે કે—જ્ઞાન એ જ જીવન છે, નીતિ છે, અને અજ્ઞાન એ જ પાપ છે.
*(St. John's central conception of Light' similarly emphasises the unity of the intellectual and the moral life)
