ABSTRACT
In speaking of Shaftesbury’s philosophy, one must recognize at the start that there is no coherent or comprehensive system in his writings. Though the inspiration of Shaftesbury’s philosophy was Greek thought, its main purpose was practical and related to contemporary needs. Shaftesbury’s endeavour was to rescue the philosophical tradition of the Cambridge Platonists from the dull and pedantic folio volumes in which it had been presented and to make it available to the man of culture and sensibility. Shaftesbury’s philosophy is an optimistic one which denies the ultimate and independent existence of evil. Shaftesbury’s picture of the virtuous personality, as one in which all the elements are balanced and harmonized, inevitably suggests an analogy with a work of art. Shaftesbury’s optimistic theory also implies degrees of beauty as well as of goodness.
