between philosophy and practical wisdom, Aristotle further contributes a logical analysis of the practical judgment that underlies all voluntary action. Two elements are here distinguishable, corresponding to the major and minor premises of a syllogism. (1) There is the general principle or maxim, e.g. "what is harmful must be avoided;" (2) there is the "particular" (and Aristotle never allows us to forget that "conduct is concerned with particulars "), "this is harmful." In the light of this distinction combined with those already drawn, we obtain a closer view of the mental state of the man who is said to know what is right and do what is wrong. From the side of the content we see that the knowledge in question consists, like other knowledge, in a particular subsumed under a universal, and issuing in a judgment or conclusion. But these universals are, from the very nature of the case, of different kinds; especially our attention is called to the fundamental difference between what is pleasant (and therefore desirable) and what is right, as that which concerns us in the present discussion. The case of the incontinent man is the case in which the universal "it is pleasant" enters into effective competition with the imperfectly established universal "it is right." The latter, however, while never altogether absent from the mind, may be present with different degrees of effectiveness. (1) It may be wholly in the background, and merely produce a vague feeling of discomfort. A man has it, but he does not use it (c. iii. § 5). (2) It may be present as an actual suggestion, like the words a

man repeats when he is drunk or asleep. He has the knowledge, but he does not realize it (c. x. § 3; cf. iii. §§ 7 and 13). If we ask, finally, what it is that gives the wrong principle the advantage, we have to look for it in the reinforcement which the minor "this is pleasant" receives from unregulated appetite (c. iii. § 10). In this connexion there is fine insight in the remark that a main factor here is the muscular accompaniments of appetite. These alone when unchecked are sufficient to give the victory to the delusions of sense.

In these sections we are thus brought back to the point from which we started.* Courage and temperance result from the hold which practice gives of a true opinion as to the proper objects of fear and

desire; in other words, as to the true value of things. The education of the courageous and temperate man has been such as to secure that in the moment of fear or desire the right view of life will remain in undisturbed possession dominating the delusions of sense, and rendering the will proof against the seductions of pain and pleasure. But the Platonic distinction between the different senses in which a man may be said to know has brought into prominence a further point. So long as the ideas that dominate the temperate and courageous man are merely opinions, they can never obtain the hold on the will that gives it full security against passion. So long they remain, after all, outside the man, and fail to obtain the

*Chapter vii. p. 103.

complete allegiance of his mind and will. That they may become a part of the man himself, they must be transformed from mere opinion into true knowledge, "by the addition of rational explanation." In other words, to invest them with full efficiency, the judgments of good and bad involved in habitual morality must be made clearly explicit, and we must know not only what it is right to do, but why it is right to do it. In maintaining that, in order to be complete, virtue must be penetrated by conscious intelligence or "knowledge of the end," Aristotle merely reproduces this doctrine. How he works it out in detail we shall see more fully hereafter.

Meantime, it is sufficient to have realized the educational value of the theory common to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, that Virtue is Knowledge. Moral education aims at something more than conformity, however habitual and spontaneous, to moral requirements, viz. at investing the idea of a certain type of character, and the forms of social organization-family, school, city, business, etc.—which are its counterpart, with such power over the mind as shall make it proof against the inroad of other ideas which, however flattering to our sensuous nature, are incompatible with these wider objects.

CHAPTER X.

THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES: PRUDENCE.

66

'If you see well, you're king of what you see:

Eyesight is having."

"There's a truth of settled laws,

That down the past looms like a great watch-fire."

§ 1. The Intellectual Virtues.

Prima facie, Book VI. is an enumeration of intellectual virtues, wisdom and prudence being only two out of many. Closer inspection, however, shows that all the others in reality group themselves round these two, and more particularly that the qualities described in chaps. ix.-xii.-good counsel, intelligence, good sense, cleverness-are rather to be taken as elements in the supreme virtue of prudence than independent forms of excellence. Wisdom and prudence-the Greek oopía and ppóvnois-are not therefore two among other forms, but the two types, of intellectual virtue. The difficulty which besets the translator of these words is that of finding terms which will distinguish between them, and at the same time indicate the relation in which they stand to each other as only higher and lower forms of the same excellence. Assuming this ultimate relation, we may express their essential

unity by the English word "wisdom." Raised to its highest power, "wisdom" implies that attitude to life which results from the clear apprehension of those ultimate principles of reality which Plato called the Good. At a lower level it indicates practical sagacity in the conduct of affairs, whether those of the individual or the community. To mark, however, the distinction. between these two levels, words are necessary which shall suggest respectively the intellectual and the practical side of wisdom, as so defined. No single English words are adequate to express the required shades of meaning. The nearest approach to the lower virtue is probably given by the traditional translation-" Prudence," in the sense of that practical control over the affairs of life which comes of moral insight. It is more difficult to find an equivalent for the higher. Perhaps the "Divine Wisdom" of the mediæval mystics would best give the sense. If we adopt the more usual translation, "Wisdom," we must understand that the emphasis falls upon the contemplative or philosophical attitude of mind which is the condition of the higher forms of intellectual insight, and with them of happiness.

In accordance with the above definitions we have now to ask-first, how are we to conceive of the distinction between these two "virtues"? secondly, confining ourselves meantime to ppóvnois, or prudence, how is it related to what we have hitherto described as moral virtue? thirdly, what preliminary conclusions can we draw as to the relation of the higher virtue of wisdom to the lower?