this distinction. There is a sense in which it is neither true that knowledge is of supreme importance in art, nor that it is of comparatively little importance in morals. The artist knows well enough, and it is a truth that we are coming more and more clearly to recognize,* that technical knowledge of the principles of an art apart from the practice of actual production will carry him but a little way. On the other hand, just as the best results are obtained from the artist or artisan who not only possesses the dexterity that comes of practice but understands the principles that underlie the great traditions of his craft, so the best "effects" are obtained in conduct (as no one recognizes more fully than Aristotle himself) when a man rises to the consciousness of the meaning and purpose of the moral habits in which he has been trained. The point of view, however, from which Aristotle here looks at the subject, is not that of "goodness in the full sense of the word," as he afterwards calls it. He thinks of conduct in this section, as throughout the passage, in its beginnings, and from the side of education. From this point of view it is true not only that a theoretic acquaintance with the principles of right living alone can never "do the business for us"—any more than can a theoretic acquaintance with the principles of art-but that in so complicated a business as life the conscious recognition of the principles which underlie good actions is necessarily subsequent to careful training in the kind of conduct which current standards recognize as good.

*See Life of William Morris, by J. W. Mackail, passim.

A man may understand the principles of art production and make a tolerable art-critic, though he has no practical acquaintance with its material and methods. But unless he knows in his own experience, and as the result of a formed habit of will, the actual feel of a moral action, it is vain to try to make him understand the meaning of a moral principle. So interpreted, what Aristotle says in this section falls into line with all that has already been said of habit as the essential condition of moral growth.

CHAPTER VI.

THE SPECIFIC NATURE OF VIRTUE.

"Let us note that in every one of us there are two guiding and ruling principles which lead us whither they will; one is natural desire of pleasure, the other is an acquired opinion which is in search of the best; and these two are sometimes in harmony, and then again at war, and sometimes the one, sometimes the other, conquers. When opinion conquers, and by the help of reason leads us to the best, the conquering principle is called temperance; but when desire which is devoid of reason rules in us and drags us to pleasure, that power of misrule is called excess. But excess has many names, and many members, and many forms, and any of these forms when marked gives a name to the bearer of the name, neither honourable nor desirable."

§ 1. The Mean.

[II. c. vi. § 15.]

PLATO.

ARISTOTLE'S definition of Virtue is an illustration of progressive analysis, each of the terms adding something specific, and giving it further depth and precision. We may in the present chapter take each of the terms in succession, trying to suggest on the way the modern problems which rise in connexion with them.

The first part of the definition which identifies virtue with the mean has probably obtained a wider currency than any other philosophical formula. This makes

it all the more important to understand at the outset exactly what is meant. It is sometimes interpreted as though it meant moderation, and the doctrine identified with the world-wise philosophy of the Preacher, of Horace, and Talleyrand.* In this sense the definition in the Ethics has been compared with the statement in the Politics that the middle classes with moderate means are the happiest part of the community.†

Nothing, of course, could be further from Aristotle's meaning. Such an interpretation is in obvious contradiction with his own statement that the mean cannot be struck by a mere arithmetical process of averages, but that it is strictly relative to the individual, and still more obviously with the qualification in c. vi. §17, that virtue is itself an extreme. Leaving the latter in the mean time, it is sufficiently clear from the analogy of the arts which is here employed that the writer has in view the limitation imposed upon the passions and desires not by average opinion and practice, but by the ideal form of individual life. As the artist works at the parts with his eye upon the whole, so it is the form of his own life as a whole that the individual must have in view in fixing the limits within which particular impulses and desires may be satisfied.

* "Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself?"

"Auream quisquis mediocritatem
Diligit tutus."

"Above all, gentlemen, let us have no zeal."
† See Macleane's Horace, n. on Odes, II. 10.

So far is clear, but this may seem from our modern point of view only to raise another difficulty. By taking the "individual" as our standard instead of the general average, we escape the ethical Scylla of identifying morality with conventional opinion— but only to fall into the Charybdis of making it a mere matter of individual taste and enjoyment. On this view, a man's life is his own; his one duty is to himself, viz. to live beautifully or at least prudently.

§ 2. The Mean as determined by Reason.

The answer to this difficulty is to be found in the second part of the definition, the statement of the standard in terms of reason. It is true that this does not at first bring conviction to the modern reader, to whom the word "reason" is apt to have merely a subjective meaning, if not also to indicate merely the insight of the individual into the conditions of his own happiness. To the Greek, however, the word has the objective significance of law or order as well. It thus introduces the conception of a standard which is the same for all. If we ask where this standard is to be sought, the answer has already been given in the metaphor of the artist. It is the "whole" of human nature, to express which in the details of conduct is the ideal of the good man, in the same sense as it is the ideal of the artist to harmonize the details of his picture to the conception of the whole.

It will perhaps help us to realize more fully what Aristotle here means, if we compare his view with that of a modern philosopher with which it is