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have in view.

unity and reality to be assigned to the objects of the scientific and calculative reason, but rather on the scope of their respective exercise and the aim they While the "object" of philosophy is "all time and all reality," the object of prudence is primarily that particular form of reality which we call the practical good of man. Secondly, while the aim of philosophy is primarily to understand the nature of this good and its relation to other forms of reality, eg. truth and beauty, the aim of prudence is to realize it in practice. While, however, they are thus distinguished, we must not forget that they stand in organic connexion with each other, inasmuch as principle and practice, theory and conduct, can never be wholly separated. Fully to realize the meaning of life is an essential condition of complete practical success in it. On the other hand, the true meaning of life-the "unalterable principles " which underlie it-only becomes luminous and convincing in an atmosphere of moral practice. Seeing that the whole of the sixth book aims, as we shall see, at making this fundamental unity of the intellectual virtues clear, it is the more curious that Aristotle should have started in this analysis with a distinction that seems at variance with it.

§ 3. The Intellectual Elements in Moral Virtue.

[VI. cc. ix.-xi.]

The discussion of the relation between Prudence and Moral Virtue falls into two parts, the first of

which (cc. ix.-xi.) is really an analysis of the intellectual element in morality, the second (cc. xii. and xiii.) approaches the subject more directly by inquiring what is the use of Prudence, carrying us to a more careful statement of the relation between intellectual ability and moral excellence. Taking the former first, we have here an enumeration of the chief qualities which "tend to centre in the same type of character."

(a) The first of these is good counsel. That good counsel is a necessary element in all good conduct follows from what has already been said of conduct as concerned with means and end, and still more definitely from the analysis of the judgment or "syllogism" involved in all volition with which the last chapter made us familiar. The precise connexion between the two conceptions (end of action and syllogistic conclusion) is not at first obvious to us. It will become clearer if we recollect that in Aristotle's view the accomplishment of an end involves a train of reasoning the conclusion of which, i.e. the last step in the argument, gives us our means or the first step in action, and similarly the first step in logic, represented by the end to be accomplished in human life, is the last step in practice, viz. the realization of the end. As right reasoning, then, implies a true conclusion from true premises, so good conduct implies good counsel as to means and end alike. As the reasoning may be wrong, either on account of the falsity of the major premise which gives the universal principle, or of the minor and the conclusion which

*

follows on it, so counsel may fail, either because the end is wrong or the means are mistaken. In the former case we have the man who is cunning but vicious; in the latter, the man who is well-meaning but stupid. Finally, as all human ends are accomplished in time, we must add as a final condition under this head the intellectual agility which enables a man to perceive the right means within the period that the circumstances permit him for deliberation.

(b) Another of the qualities which "tend to centre in the same character" is intelligence, or good intelligence. In its ordinary use the Greek word means the faculty of understanding and appreciating the good suggestion of another. The intelligent man (ovvεTÓC) is a "good judge of an argument." This differentiates it from Prudence, or Morality in the highest sense, which, as Aristotle points out, is originative, initiating "policies and schemes of conduct," never repeating itself or taking the word of another for what ought to be done. Yet to dwell upon this difference would be misleading, and tend to obscure the very point of the analysis. Intelligence, as the name (ouverts) implies, is the power of putting two and two together, of "applying what one knows" to new cases. The origination which is the mark of the truly good man may be something more than * Grant gives as an example of the latter : Preservation of health is good;

Abstinence from intellectual labour is preservation of health— explaining that the result of this syllogism will be the preservation of ʼ health but the sacrifice of mental culture.

† See Stewart in loco.

this, but, at any rate, it involves this: before he can originate he must be able to apply. Moreover, there is a kind of originality, which just consists in the power of applying in new and unexpected ways principles already acknowledged. The political or social reformer, for instance, is an originator, yet when we analyze the changes which he advocates, we usually find them to be merely the application to new cases of principles which society has already admitted. Slave emancipation was merely the application to the negro of principles already recognized among white men ; factory legislation only extended to the workshop principles of health and decency already acknowledged at home and in the school. Even private morality consists, to a great extent, in the successful application of general principles to particular cases. Perhaps it is not going too far to say that half the moral obliquity in the world consists in failing to apply on Monday what one has admitted upon Sunday, the other half in failing to see that what applies to A applies also to B.

(c) The last of the qualities mentioned in these sections is yvwun, which Grant translates "considerateness," Peters, less happily, "judgment." To understand the relation of this quality, so hastily described in the text, to morality in general, we must recall some of the conclusions already reached. All morality, we have seen, is social. The common distinction between self-regarding and other-regarding virtues is misleading. As a matter of fact, all conduct operates in a social medium, and necessarily affects others as well

as one's self. Rightness and wrongness in conduct, therefore, does not depend on its being either selfregarding or other-regarding, but upon its bearing on the life of the whole community, on its being wholeregarding "wholesome." This involves a power of detachment from particular interests, whether our own or others', and of assuming the attitude which Adam Smith describes as that of the "impartial spectator." It is this power that Aristotle has in view in his remarks on yvwun. I have translated it by "sense," but we should not be far wrong if we translated it straight away "common sense." It is the power of instinctively perceiving what is required in the interests of the community. This general description is illustrated by the examples which Aristotle himself gives of its exercise. One of the most striking occasions for this impartiality is when an adjustment of social claims requires to be made. contrary to the letter of the law, i.e. where there is a conflict between law and justice, and appeal is made to equity. Equity is the "correction of the law,' "* and it has its basis in nothing more recondite than the kind of sense we are speaking of. "Sense," says Aristotle, is "the faculty of coming to a right decision on matters of equity," and equity itself is elsewhere defined as merely the application of good sense to practice.† Another of the typical occasions on which there is call for the exercise of * See Ethics, V. i. 3. Cp. Rhet. I. xiii. (Note F), which ought to be read in connexion with the present passage.

"The man of sense forms his own judgment; the equitable man acts on the judgment thus formed" (M. M. ii. 2).

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