BOOK VI

1

Since we have previously said that one ought to choose that which
is intermediate, not the excess nor the defect, and that the intermediate
is determined by the dictates of the right rule, let us discuss the
nature of these dictates. In all the states of character we have mentioned,
as in all other matters, there is a mark to which the man who has
the rule looks, and heightens or relaxes his activity accordingly,
and there is a standard which determines the mean states which we
say are intermediate between excess and defect, being in accordance
with the right rule. But such a statement, though true, is by no means
clear; for not only here but in all other pursuits which are objects
of knowledge it is indeed true to say that we must not exert ourselves
nor relax our efforts too much nor too little, but to an intermediate
extent and as the right rule dictates; but if a man had only this
knowledge he would be none the wiser e.g. we should not know what
sort of medicines to apply to our body if some one were to say ‘all
those which the medical art prescribes, and which agree with the practice
of one who possesses the art’. Hence it is necessary with regard to
the states of the soul also not only that this true statement should
be made, but also that it should be determined what is the right rule
and what is the standard that fixes it.

We divided the virtues of the soul and a said that some are virtues
of character and others of intellect. Now we have discussed in detail
the moral virtues; with regard to the others let us express our view
as follows, beginning with some remarks about the soul. We said before
that there are two parts of the soul-that which grasps a rule or rational
principle, and the irrational; let us now draw a similar distinction
within the part which grasps a rational principle. And let it be assumed
that there are two parts which grasp a rational principle-one by which
we contemplate the kind of things whose originative causes are invariable,
and one by which we contemplate variable things; for where objects
differ in kind the part of the soul answering to each of the two is
different in kind, since it is in virtue of a certain likeness and
kinship with their objects that they have the knowledge they have.
Let one of these parts be called the scientific and the other the
calculative; for to deliberate and to calculate are the same thing,
but no one deliberates about the invariable. Therefore the calculative
is one part of the faculty which grasps a rational principle. We must,
then, learn what is the best state of each of these two parts; for
this is the virtue of each.

2

The virtue of a thing is relative to its proper work. Now there are
three things in the soul which control action and truth-sensation,
reason, desire.

Of these sensation originates no action; this is plain from the fact
that the lower animals have sensation but no share in action.

What affirmation and negation are in thinking, pursuit and avoidance
are in desire; so that since moral virtue is a state of character
concerned with choice, and choice is deliberate desire, therefore
both the reasoning must be true and the desire right, if the choice
is to be good, and the latter must pursue just what the former asserts.
Now this kind of intellect and of truth is practical; of the intellect
which is contemplative, not practical nor productive, the good and
the bad state are truth and falsity respectively (for this is the
work of everything intellectual); while of the part which is practical
and intellectual the good state is truth in agreement with right desire.

The origin of action-its efficient, not its final cause-is choice,
and that of choice is desire and reasoning with a view to an end.
This is why choice cannot exist either without reason and intellect
or without a moral state; for good action and its opposite cannot
exist without a combination of intellect and character. Intellect
itself, however, moves nothing, but only the intellect which aims
at an end and is practical; for this rules the productive intellect,
as well, since every one who makes makes for an end, and that which
is made is not an end in the unqualified sense (but only an end in
a particular relation, and the end of a particular operation)-only
that which is done is that; for good action is an end, and desire
aims at this. Hence choice is either desiderative reason or ratiocinative
desire, and such an origin of action is a man. (It is to be noted
that nothing that is past is an object of choice, e.g. no one chooses
to have sacked Troy; for no one deliberates about the past, but about
what is future and capable of being otherwise, while what is past
is not capable of not having taken place; hence Agathon is right in
saying

For this alone is lacking even to God,
To make undone things thathave once been done.)

The work of both the intellectual parts, then, is truth. Therefore
the states that are most strictly those in respect of which each of
these parts will reach truth are the virtues of the two parts.

3

Let us begin, then, from the beginning, and discuss these states once
more. Let it be assumed that the states by virtue of which the soul
possesses truth by way of affirmation or denial are five in number,
i.e. art, scientific knowledge, practical wisdom, philosophic wisdom,
intuitive reason; we do not include judgement and opinion because
in these we may be mistaken.

Now what scientific knowledge is, if we are to speak exactly and not
follow mere similarities, is plain from what follows. We all suppose
that what we know is not even capable of being otherwise; of things
capable of being otherwise we do not know, when they have passed outside
our observation, whether they exist or not. Therefore the object of
scientific knowledge is of necessity. Therefore it is eternal; for
things that are of necessity in the unqualified sense are all eternal;
and things that are eternal are ungenerated and imperishable. Again,
every science is thought to be capable of being taught, and its object
of being learned. And all teaching starts from what is already known,
as we maintain in the Analytics also; for it proceeds sometimes through
induction and sometimes by syllogism. Now induction is the starting-point
which knowledge even of the universal presupposes, while syllogism
proceeds from universals. There are therefore starting-points from
which syllogism proceeds, which are not reached by syllogism; it is
therefore by induction that they are acquired. Scientific knowledge
is, then, a state of capacity to demonstrate, and has the other limiting
characteristics which we specify in the Analytics, for it is when
a man believes in a certain way and the starting-points are known
to him that he has scientific knowledge, since if they are not better
known to him than the conclusion, he will have his knowledge only
incidentally.

Let this, then, be taken as our account of scientific knowledge.

4

In the variable are included both things made and things done; making
and acting are different (for their nature we treat even the discussions
outside our school as reliable); so that the reasoned state of capacity
to act is different from the reasoned state of capacity to make. Hence
too they are not included one in the other; for neither is acting
making nor is making acting. Now since architecture is an art and
is essentially a reasoned state of capacity to make, and there is
neither any art that is not such a state nor any such state that is
not an art, art is identical with a state of capacity to make, involving
a true course of reasoning. All art is concerned with coming into
being, i.e. with contriving and considering how something may come
into being which is capable of either being or not being, and whose
origin is in the maker and not in the thing made; for art is concerned
neither with things that are, or come into being, by necessity, nor
with things that do so in accordance with nature (since these have
their origin in themselves). Making and acting being different, art
must be a matter of making, not of acting. And in a sense chance and
art are concerned with the same objects; as Agathon says, ‘art loves
chance and chance loves art’. Art, then, as has been is a state concerned
with making, involving a true course of reasoning, and lack of art
on the contrary is a state concerned with making, involving a false
course of reasoning; both are concerned with the variable.

5

Regarding practical wisdom we shall get at the truth by considering
who are the persons we credit with it. Now it is thought to be the
mark of a man of practical wisdom to be able to deliberate well about
what is good and expedient for himself, not in some particular respect,
e.g. about what sorts of thing conduce to health or to strength, but
about what sorts of thing conduce to the good life in general. This
is shown by the fact that we credit men with practical wisdom in some
particular respect when they have calculated well with a view to some
good end which is one of those that are not the object of any art.
It follows that in the general sense also the man who is capable of
deliberating has practical wisdom. Now no one deliberates about things
that are invariable, nor about things that it is impossible for him
to do. Therefore, since scientific knowledge involves demonstration,
but there is no demonstration of things whose first principles are
variable (for all such things might actually be otherwise), and since
it is impossible to deliberate about things that are of necessity,
practical wisdom cannot be scientific knowledge nor art; not science
because that which can be done is capable of being otherwise, not
art because action and making are different kinds of thing. The remaining
alternative, then, is that it is a true and reasoned state of capacity
to act with regard to the things that are good or bad for man. For
while making has an end other than itself, action cannot; for good
action itself is its end. It is for this reason that we think Pericles
and men like him have practical wisdom, viz. because they can see
what is good for themselves and what is good for men in general; we
consider that those can do this who are good at managing households
or states. (This is why we call temperance (sophrosune) by this name;
we imply that it preserves one’s practical wisdom (sozousa tan phronsin).
Now what it preserves is a judgement of the kind we have described.
For it is not any and every judgement that pleasant and painful objects
destroy and pervert, e.g. the judgement that the triangle has or has
not its angles equal to two right angles, but only judgements about
what is to be done. For the originating causes of the things that
are done consist in the end at which they are aimed; but the man who
has been ruined by pleasure or pain forthwith fails to see any such
originating cause-to see that for the sake of this or because of this
he ought to choose and do whatever he chooses and does; for vice is
destructive of the originating cause of action.) Practical wisdom,
then, must be a reasoned and true state of capacity to act with regard
to human goods. But further, while there is such a thing as excellence
in art, there is no such thing as excellence in practical wisdom;
and in art he who errs willingly is preferable, but in practical wisdom,
as in the virtues, he is the reverse. Plainly, then, practical wisdom
is a virtue and not an art. There being two parts of the soul that
can follow a course of reasoning, it must be the virtue of one of
the two, i.e. of that part which forms opinions; for opinion is about
the variable and so is practical wisdom. But yet it is not only a
reasoned state; this is shown by the fact that a state of that sort
may forgotten but practical wisdom cannot.

6

Scientific knowledge is judgement about things that are universal
and necessary, and the conclusions of demonstration, and all scientific
knowledge, follow from first principles (for scientific knowledge
involves apprehension of a rational ground). This being so, the first
principle from which what is scientifically known follows cannot be
an object of scientific knowledge, of art, or of practical wisdom;
for that which can be scientifically known can be demonstrated, and
art and practical wisdom deal with things that are variable. Nor are
these first principles the objects of philosophic wisdom, for it is
a mark of the philosopher to have demonstration about some things.
If, then, the states of mind by which we have truth and are never
deceived about things invariable or even variable are scientific knowlededge,
practical wisdom, philosophic wisdom, and intuitive reason, and it
cannot be any of the three (i.e. practical wisdom, scientific knowledge,
or philosophic wisdom), the remaining alternative is that it is intuitive
reason that grasps the first principles.

7

Wisdom (1) in the arts we ascribe to their most finished exponents,
e.g. to Phidias as a sculptor and to Polyclitus as a maker of portrait-statues,
and here we mean nothing by wisdom except excellence in art; but (2)
we think that some people are wise in general, not in some particular
field or in any other limited respect, as Homer says in the Margites,

Him did the gods make neither a digger nor yet a ploughman

Nor wise in anything else. Therefore wisdom must plainly be the most
finished of the forms of knowledge. It follows that the wise man must
not only know what follows from the first principles, but must also
possess truth about the first principles. Therefore wisdom must be
intuitive reason combined with scientific knowledge-scientific knowledge
of the highest objects which has received as it were its proper completion.

Of the highest objects, we say; for it would be strange to think that
the art of politics, or practical wisdom, is the best knowledge, since
man is not the best thing in the world. Now if what is healthy or
good is different for men and for fishes, but what is white or straight
is always the same, any one would say that what is wise is the same
but what is practically wise is different; for it is to that which
observes well the various matters concerning itself that one ascribes
practical wisdom, and it is to this that one will entrust such matters.
This is why we say that some even of the lower animals have practical
wisdom, viz. those which are found to have a power of foresight with
regard to their own life. It is evident also that philosophic wisdom
and the art of politics cannot be the same; for if the state of mind
concerned with a man’s own interests is to be called philosophic wisdom,
there will be many philosophic wisdoms; there will not be one concerned
with the good of all animals (any more than there is one art of medicine
for all existing things), but a different philosophic wisdom about
the good of each species.

But if the argument be that man is the best of the animals, this makes
no difference; for there are other things much more divine in their
nature even than man, e.g., most conspicuously, the bodies of which
the heavens are framed. From what has been said it is plain, then,
that philosophic wisdom is scientific knowledge, combined with intuitive
reason, of the things that are highest by nature. This is why we say
Anaxagoras, Thales, and men like them have philosophic but not practical
wisdom, when we see them ignorant of what is to their own advantage,
and why we say that they know things that are remarkable, admirable,
difficult, and divine, but useless; viz. because it is not human goods
that they seek.

Practical wisdom on the other hand is concerned with things human
and things about which it is possible to deliberate; for we say this
is above all the work of the man of practical wisdom, to deliberate
well, but no one deliberates about things invariable, nor about things
which have not an end, and that a good that can be brought about by
action. The man who is without qualification good at deliberating
is the man who is capable of aiming in accordance with calculation
at the best for man of things attainable by action. Nor is practical
wisdom concerned with universals only-it must also recognize the particulars;
for it is practical, and practice is concerned with particulars. This
is why some who do not know, and especially those who have experience,
are more practical than others who know; for if a man knew that light
meats are digestible and wholesome, but did not know which sorts of
meat are light, he would not produce health, but the man who knows
that chicken is wholesome is more likely to produce health.

Now practical wisdom is concerned with action; therefore one should
have both forms of it, or the latter in preference to the former.
But of practical as of philosophic wisdom there must be a controlling
kind.

8

Political wisdom and practical wisdom are the same state of mind,
but their essence is not the same. Of the wisdom concerned with the
city, the practical wisdom which plays a controlling part is legislative
wisdom, while that which is related to this as particulars to their
universal is known by the general name ‘political wisdom’; this has
to do with action and deliberation, for a decree is a thing to be
carried out in the form of an individual act. This is why the exponents
of this art are alone said to ‘take part in politics’; for these alone
‘do things’ as manual labourers ‘do things’.

Practical wisdom also is identified especially with that form of it
which is concerned with a man himself-with the individual; and this
is known by the general name ‘practical wisdom’; of the other kinds
one is called household management, another legislation, the third
politics, and of the latter one part is called deliberative and the
other judicial. Now knowing what is good for oneself will be one kind
of knowledge, but it is very different from the other kinds; and the
man who knows and concerns himself with his own interests is thought
to have practical wisdom, while politicians are thought to be busybodies;
hence the word of Euripides,

But how could I be wise, who might at ease,
Numbered among the army’s multitude,
Have had an equal share?
For those who aim too high and do too much. Those who think thus seek
their own good, and consider that one ought to do so. From this opinion,
then, has come the view that such men have practical wisdom; yet perhaps
one’s own good cannot exist without household management, nor without
a form of government. Further, how one should order one’s own affairs
is not clear and needs inquiry.

What has been said is confirmed by the fact that while young men become
geometricians and mathematicians and wise in matters like these, it
is thought that a young man of practical wisdom cannot be found. The
cause is that such wisdom is concerned not only with universals but
with particulars, which become familiar from experience, but a young
man has no experience, for it is length of time that gives experience;
indeed one might ask this question too, why a boy may become a mathematician,
but not a philosopher or a physicist. It is because the objects of
mathematics exist by abstraction, while the first principles of these
other subjects come from experience, and because young men have no
conviction about the latter but merely use the proper language, while
the essence of mathematical objects is plain enough to them?

Further, error in deliberation may be either about the universal or
about the particular; we may fall to know either that all water that
weighs heavy is bad, or that this particular water weighs heavy.

That practical wisdom is not scientific knowledge is evident; for
it is, as has been said, concerned with the ultimate particular fact,
since the thing to be done is of this nature. It is opposed, then,
to intuitive reason; for intuitive reason is of the limiting premisses,
for which no reason can be given, while practical wisdom is concerned
with the ultimate particular, which is the object not of scientific
knowledge but of perception-not the perception of qualities peculiar
to one sense but a perception akin to that by which we perceive that
the particular figure before us is a triangle; for in that direction
as well as in that of the major premiss there will be a limit. But
this is rather perception than practical wisdom, though it is another
kind of perception than that of the qualities peculiar to each sense.

9

There is a difference between inquiry and deliberation; for deliberation
is inquiry into a particular kind of thing. We must grasp the nature
of excellence in deliberation as well whether it is a form of scientific
knowledge, or opinion, or skill in conjecture, or some other kind
of thing. Scientific knowledge it is not; for men do not inquire about
the things they know about, but good deliberation is a kind of deliberation,
and he who deliberates inquires and calculates. Nor is it skill in
conjecture; for this both involves no reasoning and is something that
is quick in its operation, while men deliberate a long time, and they
say that one should carry out quickly the conclusions of one’s deliberation,
but should deliberate slowly. Again, readiness of mind is different
from excellence in deliberation; it is a sort of skill in conjecture.
Nor again is excellence in deliberation opinion of any sort. But since
the man who deliberates badly makes a mistake, while he who deliberates
well does so correctly, excellence in deliberation is clearly a kind
of correctness, but neither of knowledge nor of opinion; for there
is no such thing as correctness of knowledge (since there is no such
thing as error of knowledge), and correctness of opinion is truth;
and at the same time everything that is an object of opinion is already
determined. But again excellence in deliberation involves reasoning.
The remaining alternative, then, is that it is correctness of thinking;
for this is not yet assertion, since, while even opinion is not inquiry
but has reached the stage of assertion, the man who is deliberating,
whether he does so well or ill, is searching for something and calculating.

But excellence in deliberation is a certain correctness of deliberation;
hence we must first inquire what deliberation is and what it is about.
And, there being more than one kind of correctness, plainly excellence
in deliberation is not any and every kind; for (1) the incontinent
man and the bad man, if he is clever, will reach as a result of his
calculation what he sets before himself, so that he will have deliberated
correctly, but he will have got for himself a great evil. Now to have
deliberated well is thought to be a good thing; for it is this kind
of correctness of deliberation that is excellence in deliberation,
viz. that which tends to attain what is good. But (2) it is possible
to attain even good by a false syllogism, and to attain what one ought
to do but not by the right means, the middle term being false; so
that this too is not yet excellence in deliberation this state in
virtue of which one attains what one ought but not by the right means.
Again (3) it is possible to attain it by long deliberation while another
man attains it quickly. Therefore in the former case we have not yet
got excellence in deliberation, which is rightness with regard to
the expedient-rightness in respect both of the end, the manner, and
the time. (4) Further it is possible to have deliberated well either
in the unqualified sense or with reference to a particular end. Excellence
in deliberation in the unqualified sense, then, is that which succeeds
with reference to what is the end in the unqualified sense, and excellence
in deliberation in a particular sense is that which succeeds relatively
to a particular end. If, then, it is characteristic of men of practical
wisdom to have deliberated well, excellence in deliberation will be
correctness with regard to what conduces to the end of which practical
wisdom is the true apprehension.

10

Understanding, also, and goodness of understanding, in virtue of which
men are said to be men of understanding or of good understanding,
are neither entirely the same as opinion or scientific knowledge (for
at that rate all men would have been men of understanding), nor are
they one of the particular sciences, such as medicine, the science
of things connected with health, or geometry, the science of spatial
magnitudes. For understanding is neither about things that are always
and are unchangeable, nor about any and every one of the things that
come into being, but about things which may become subjects of questioning
and deliberation. Hence it is about the same objects as practical
wisdom; but understanding and practical wisdom are not the same. For
practical wisdom issues commands, since its end is what ought to be
done or not to be done; but understanding only judges. (Understanding
is identical with goodness of understanding, men of understanding
with men of good understanding.) Now understanding is neither the
having nor the acquiring of practical wisdom; but as learning is called
understanding when it means the exercise of the faculty of knowledge,
so ‘understanding’ is applicable to the exercise of the faculty of
opinion for the purpose of judging of what some one else says about
matters with which practical wisdom is concerned-and of judging soundly;
for ‘well’ and ‘soundly’ are the same thing. And from this has come
the use of the name ‘understanding’ in virtue of which men are said
to be ‘of good understanding’, viz. from the application of the word
to the grasping of scientific truth; for we often call such grasping
understanding.

11

What is called judgement, in virtue of which men are said to ‘be sympathetic
judges’ and to ‘have judgement’, is the right discrimination of the
equitable. This is shown by the fact that we say the equitable man
is above all others a man of sympathetic judgement, and identify equity
with sympathetic judgement about certain facts. And sympathetic judgement
is judgement which discriminates what is equitable and does so correctly;
and correct judgement is that which judges what is true.

Now all the states we have considered converge, as might be expected,
to the same point; for when we speak of judgement and understanding
and practical wisdom and intuitive reason we credit the same people
with possessing judgement and having reached years of reason and with
having practical wisdom and understanding. For all these faculties
deal with ultimates, i.e. with particulars; and being a man of understanding
and of good or sympathetic judgement consists in being able judge
about the things with which practical wisdom is concerned; for the
equities are common to all good men in relation to other men. Now
all things which have to be done are included among particulars or
ultimates; for not only must the man of practical wisdom know particular
facts, but understanding and judgement are also concerned with things
to be done, and these are ultimates. And intuitive reason is concerned
with the ultimates in both directions; for both the first terms and
the last are objects of intuitive reason and not of argument, and
the intuitive reason which is presupposed by demonstrations grasps
the unchangeable and first terms, while the intuitive reason involved
in practical reasonings grasps the last and variable fact, i.e. the
minor premiss. For these variable facts are the starting-points for
the apprehension of the end, since the universals are reached from
the particulars; of these therefore we must have perception, and this
perception is intuitive reason.

This is why these states are thought to be natural endowments-why,
while no one is thought to be a philosopher by nature, people are
thought to have by nature judgement, understanding, and intuitive
reason. This is shown by the fact that we think our powers correspond
to our time of life, and that a particular age brings with it intuitive
reason and judgement; this implies that nature is the cause. (Hence
intuitive reason is both beginning and end; for demonstrations are
from these and about these.) Therefore we ought to attend to the undemonstrated
sayings and opinions of experienced and older people or of people
of practical wisdom not less than to demonstrations; for because experience
has given them an eye they see aright.

We have stated, then, what practical and philosophic wisdom are, and
with what each of them is concerned, and we have said that each is
the virtue of a different part of the soul.

12

Difficulties might be raised as to the utility of these qualities
of mind. For (1) philosophic wisdom will contemplate none of the things
that will make a man happy (for it is not concerned with any coming
into being), and though practical wisdom has this merit, for what
purpose do we need it? Practical wisdom is the quality of mind concerned
with things just and noble and good for man, but these are the things
which it is the mark of a good man to do, and we are none the more
able to act for knowing them if the virtues are states of character,
just as we are none the better able to act for knowing the things
that are healthy and sound, in the sense not of producing but of issuing
from the state of health; for we are none the more able to act for
having the art of medicine or of gymnastics. But (2) if we are to
say that a man should have practical wisdom not for the sake of knowing
moral truths but for the sake of becoming good, practical wisdom will
be of no use to those who are good; again it is of no use to those
who have not virtue; for it will make no difference whether they have
practical wisdom themselves or obey others who have it, and it would
be enough for us to do what we do in the case of health; though we
wish to become healthy, yet we do not learn the art of medicine. (3)
Besides this, it would be thought strange if practical wisdom, being
inferior to philosophic wisdom, is to be put in authority over it,
as seems to be implied by the fact that the art which produces anything
rules and issues commands about that thing.

These, then, are the questions we must discuss; so far we have only
stated the difficulties.

(1) Now first let us say that in themselves these states must be worthy
of choice because they are the virtues of the two parts of the soul
respectively, even if neither of them produce anything.

(2) Secondly, they do produce something, not as the art of medicine
produces health, however, but as health produces health; so does philosophic
wisdom produce happiness; for, being a part of virtue entire, by being
possessed and by actualizing itself it makes a man happy.

(3) Again, the work of man is achieved only in accordance with practical
wisdom as well as with moral virtue; for virtue makes us aim at the
right mark, and practical wisdom makes us take the right means. (Of
the fourth part of the soul-the nutritive-there is no such virtue;
for there is nothing which it is in its power to do or not to do., 4) With regard to our being none the more able to do because of our
practical wisdom what is noble and just, let us begin a little further
back, starting with the following principle. As we say that some people
who do just acts are not necessarily just, i.e. those who do the acts
ordained by the laws either unwillingly or owing to ignorance or for
some other reason and not for the sake of the acts themselves (though,
to be sure, they do what they should and all the things that the good
man ought), so is it, it seems, that in order to be good one must
be in a certain state when one does the several acts, i.e. one must
do them as a result of choice and for the sake of the acts themselves.
Now virtue makes the choice right, but the question of the things
which should naturally be done to carry out our choice belongs not
to virtue but to another faculty. We must devote our attention to
these matters and give a clearer statement about them. There is a
faculty which is called cleverness; and this is such as to be able
to do the things that tend towards the mark we have set before ourselves,
and to hit it. Now if the mark be noble, the cleverness is laudable,
but if the mark be bad, the cleverness is mere smartness; hence we
call even men of practical wisdom clever or smart. Practical wisdom
is not the faculty, but it does not exist without this faculty. And
this eye of the soul acquires its formed state not without the aid
of virtue, as has been said and is plain; for the syllogisms which
deal with acts to be done are things which involve a starting-point,
viz. ‘since the end, i.e. what is best, is of such and such a nature’,
whatever it may be (let it for the sake of argument be what we please);
and this is not evident except to the good man; for wickedness perverts
us and causes us to be deceived about the starting-points of action.
Therefore it is evident that it is impossible to be practically wise
without being good.

13

We must therefore consider virtue also once more; for virtue too is
similarly related; as practical wisdom is to cleverness-not the same,
but like it-so is natural virtue to virtue in the strict sense. For
all men think that each type of character belongs to its possessors
in some sense by nature; for from the very moment of birth we are
just or fitted for selfcontrol or brave or have the other moral qualities;
but yet we seek something else as that which is good in the strict
sense-we seek for the presence of such qualities in another way. For
both children and brutes have the natural dispositions to these qualities,
but without reason these are evidently hurtful. Only we seem to see
this much, that, while one may be led astray by them, as a strong
body which moves without sight may stumble badly because of its lack
of sight, still, if a man once acquires reason, that makes a difference
in action; and his state, while still like what it was, will then
be virtue in the strict sense. Therefore, as in the part of us which
forms opinions there are two types, cleverness and practical wisdom,
so too in the moral part there are two types, natural virtue and virtue
in the strict sense, and of these the latter involves practical wisdom.
This is why some say that all the virtues are forms of practical wisdom,
and why Socrates in one respect was on the right track while in another
he went astray; in thinking that all the virtues were forms of practical
wisdom he was wrong, but in saying they implied practical wisdom he
was right. This is confirmed by the fact that even now all men, when
they define virtue, after naming the state of character and its objects
add ‘that (state) which is in accordance with the right rule’; now
the right rule is that which is in accordance with practical wisdom.
All men, then, seem somehow to divine that this kind of state is virtue,
viz. that which is in accordance with practical wisdom. But we must
go a little further. For it is not merely the state in accordance
with the right rule, but the state that implies the presence of the
right rule, that is virtue; and practical wisdom is a right rule about
such matters. Socrates, then, thought the virtues were rules or rational
principles (for he thought they were, all of them, forms of scientific
knowledge), while we think they involve a rational principle.

It is clear, then, from what has been said, that it is not possible
to be good in the strict sense without practical wisdom, nor practically
wise without moral virtue. But in this way we may also refute the
dialectical argument whereby it might be contended that the virtues
exist in separation from each other; the same man, it might be said,
is not best equipped by nature for all the virtues, so that he will
have already acquired one when he has not yet acquired another. This
is possible in respect of the natural virtues, but not in respect
of those in respect of which a man is called without qualification
good; for with the presence of the one quality, practical wisdom,
will be given all the virtues. And it is plain that, even if it were
of no practical value, we should have needed it because it is the
virtue of the part of us in question; plain too that the choice will
not be right without practical wisdom any more than without virtue;
for the one deter, mines the end and the other makes us do the things
that lead to the end.

But again it is not supreme over philosophic wisdom, i.e. over the
superior part of us, any more than the art of medicine is over health;
for it does not use it but provides for its coming into being; it
issues orders, then, for its sake, but not to it. Further, to maintain
its supremacy would be like saying that the art of politics rules
the gods because it issues orders about all the affairs of the state.

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