understand that the relation of 'nature,' rather than that of 'art,' to the Good, will be present in Aristotle's mind throughout the treatise. Human life at its best is no mere device or means adopted by man for the sake of something beyond itself, or better. The 'happy man' lives, and there is nothing better than his life. His nature is a 'proportion' or organism, 'right' balanced in all its parts and containing, like the nature of a tree, its own 'principle' and 'end' within itself-freely initiating functions, in the performance of which it treats itself 'always as an end, and never merely as a means.'

With regard to moral goodness, the present passage indicates two points in which the "analogy of the arts is misleading."

(1) In the case of art, the work itself, the "effect," is the important matter: "Hermes is dug up at Olympia, and we find him beautiful as soon as we see him" (Stewart); the character of the artist, or the state of his mind in the execution of it, is quite secondary, and does not enter into our ordinary æsthetic judgments at all. In the case of conduct, on the contrary, goodness or badness depends, as we have seen, on the character or habit of will of which it is the expression. However good an action appears from the point of view of its results, unless the attitude of will in the doer of it be right, nothing is right. On the other hand, however ineffective the action appears to be, if only the will be good, all is well. We say "appears," for we have already seen with respect to consequences apparently * Op. cit. ii. p. 4,

good that a deeper insight into the true nature of the consequences would probably show that imperfection of character is faithfully reflected in the imperfection of the results. Extending the same principle to the failure to produce a desired effect, here also it is probably true that, given the good will (and by good will we mean not only "good intentions," but readiness to spare no trouble to discover and secure the proper means to secure our ends), failure to produce the desired effect is only apparent. From this point of view, we can conceive an Intelligence to which it would be sufficient that actions should have a certain quality of their own, and the distinction in this respect between art and morality would have disappeared. But this does not alter the truth of Aristotle's remark so far as our limited human judgments are concerned. To us it is true that the material with which the artist works responds to his conceptions of beauty with a directness which we look for in vain in the responses of so complicated a material as the circumstances of social life. The consequence is, that while the result comes home to us immediately in the former case as good or bad, our judgments on the latter are given with hesitation and reserve.

(2) Secondly, art differs from conduct in that while "knowledge" is an essential condition of good work in the former, for the latter "knowledge is of comparatively little importance." It may be well to notice, in view of the doctrine which we have already to some extent anticipated, and which is subsequently more fully developed, in what sense Aristotle intends us to take

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 at 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