The Nicomachean Ethics — trans. F. H. Peters (1881)

Must be 1. We said above that what we should choose is iwause neither too much nor too little, but " the mean," and prelcHb'Js that " the mean " is what " right reason " prescribes.

t?ie mean, —,. . i i i •

(b) they are i his wc now have to explain.

human Each of the virtues we have discussed implies (as

The intellect evcrj mcutal habit implies) some aim which the tific, (2j cai- rational man keeps in view when he is regulating his culative: we , , want the efforts : in other words, there must be some standard virtue of each. for determining the several modes of moderation, which we say lie between excess and deficiency, and are in accordance with " right reason." But though this is quite true, it is not sufficiently precise. In any kind of occupation which can be reduced to rational principles, it is quite true to say that we must brace ourselves up and relax ourselves neither too much nor too little, but " in moderation," " as right reason orders ; " but this alone would not tell one much ; e.g. a man would hardly learn how to treat a case by being told to treat it as the art of medicine •prescribes, and as one versed in that art would treat it.

So in the case of mental habits or types of character also it is not enough that the rule we have1, 1-6.] THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES. 181 laid down is correct ; we need further to know precisely what this right reason is, and what is the standard which it affords.

* The virtues or excellences of the mind or soid, it will be remembered, we divided f into two classes, and called the one moral and the other intellectual. The moral excellences or virtues we have already discussed in detail ; let us now examine the other class, the intellectual excellences, after some preliminary remarks about the soul.

We said before that the soul consists of two parts, the rational and the irrational part. We will now make a similar division of the former, and will assume that there are two rational faculties : (1) that by which we know those things that depend on invariable principles, (2) that by which we know those things that are variable. For to genericaUy different objects must correspond generically different faculties, if, as we hold, it is in virtue of some kind of likeness or kinship with their objects that our faculties are able to know them.

Let us call the former the scientific or demonstra-

* This really forma quite a fresh opening, independent of §§ 1-3 ; and it is one among many signs of the incomplete state in which this part of the treatise was left, that these two openings of Book VI. were never fused together. The scheme of the treatise, as nnfolded in Book I. (c/. especially I. 7, 13; 13, 20), gives the intellectoal virtues an independent place alongside of, or rather above, the moral virtues ; now that the latter have been disposed of it naturally remains to consider the former : this is the natural transition which we have in § 4. But besides this the dependence of the moral virtues upon the intellectual virtues makes an examination of the latter absolutely necessary to the completion of the theory of the former; thus we get the transition of §§ 1-3.

t Supra, I. 13, 20.

182 NICOMAOHEAN ETHICS OF AKISTOTLE. [Bk. VL tive, the latter the ealculative or deliberative faculty; for to deliberate is the same as to calculate, and no one deliberates about things that are invariable. So that one division of the rational faculty may be fairly called the ealculative faculty.

Our problem, then, is to find what each of these 7 faculties becomes in its full development, or in its best state ; for that will be its excellence or virtue.

But its excellence will bear direct reference to its proper function. The function 2. Now, the facultics which guide us in action and l led, both in in the apprchcnsion of truth are three : sense, reason,* practice and . ., speculation, and dcsirc.