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).

this faculty is when we conceive ourselves to have been wronged. The man of good sense is here the man who can put himself in the place of the wrong-doer, and "makes every allowance" for him. This "allowance" is what the Greeks called ovyyvwun, usually translated "forgiveness," but really "sympathy" or "common sense."

It seems hardly necessary to call attention to the educational bearings of these sections. If the good life is the purposeful life, and the relation of means to purpose follows the lines of the practical syllogism -if, further, the good life is the consistent life, and implies the faculty of applying a general principle in detail, the ordinary distinction between intellectual and moral training is seen to be illusory.

Similarly, if the good life is the "equitable" life, we have in the remarks upon "sense" some suggestions that may be useful for the proper understanding of the current educational theory of the relation of imagination and sympathy to practice. It has become a commonplace to emphasize the training of imagination and sympathy as factors in conduct. The Aristotelian doctrine, however, goes beyond this, and indicates the precise kind of sympathy that is here required. Thus it is important to note that it is not merely the power of feeling with others in the sense of responding to their feelings, but the power of feeling for them, that is here meant. The infection of feeling -the vague "sensibility" which was the fashion in the earlier part of the century-is one thing; the power of putting one's self in the place of another and

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sharing his ends is quite another. But, secondly, it is the power of sympathizing with the moral element in another's ends. It is possible to sympathize with bad ends as well as with good ones, and be all the worse for such a power of sympathy. Our feelings for "others" have therefore to be checked and regulated by a feeling for the common good-our sensibility" by common sense.

§ 4. Prudence and Moral Virtue.

[VI. cc. xii. and xiii.]

The relation between Prudence and Moral Virtue is arrived at in the course of the reply which Aristotle gives to the question what is the use of insight. The first part of the discussion refers to both forms of intellectual virtue; the second part is confined to Prudence. The reply in the former consists in showing that utility is here a false standard. What is useful is desired for the sake of something else— that which it is useful for. Prudence and Wisdom cannot be useful in this sense, for they are elements in that from which everything else derives utility, viz. happiness or perfection. There is indeed a sense in which we may say that they are useful. We may distinguish between the possession and the exercise of these qualities, and looking to the former may hold it to be useful. But we must be careful in this case to remember that by useful we here mean not something which is used for something else, being itself different from it, as e.g. medicine is useful for health, but something which already is

potentially that which it is useful for, as good condition is useful for the enjoyment of good health.

to

Aristotle, however, seems to feel that in this reply he does not really come to close grips with the problem of the true relation between Prudence and Moral Virtue, and, making a new start, proposes carry the question a step further back" by inquiring what precisely is implied in the latter. Our previous discussion has shown that there are two sides or elements in every good act. In the first place, it is what ought to be done, what "may be expected of a good man;" and, secondly, it is the conscious adaptation of means to a good end. But the power of adapting means to end is what we call natural ability, which stands to Prudence as natural virtue in general stands to virtue proper. This gives us the required clue. For just as the natural virtues require to be moulded and regulated by social habits in order that they may become sources of usefulness to society, so "this eye of the soul" requires the transforming influence of good training in order that it may become a useful social quality.† After illustrating the view of the nature of true moral virtue, to which he is thus led, by a criticism of the Socratic doctrine on the one hand and common opinion on the other (which he treats as exaggerations of opposite sides of the truth), Aristotle sums up his reply to the main problem in the words: "It is impossible to be good in the proper sense without prudence, or prudent without goodness" (xiii. § 6).