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

* For it implies a determination of the will which is more permanent in its nature than a merely intellectual habit. And farther, when once acquired it must be constantly strengthened by exercise as occasions for action can never be wanting.

t Art, which is one of the five enumerated above, is here omitted, either in sheer carelessness, or perhaps because it is subordinate to prudence : c/. supra 5, 7.

190 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS OF AEISTOTLE. [Bk. VI.

which apprehends these principles, the only possible conclusion is that they are apprehended by reason. (5) Of 7. The term <To0m (wisdom*) is sometimes applied tu union of in tlic domain of the arts to those who are consumscience and ~ , . . . t i intuitive mate masters of their art : e.g. it is applied to Phidias reason.

prudence.

Comparison as a mastcr of sculpture, and to Polyclitus for his of the two . , -^ "^ inteiuctuai skill in portrait-statues ; and in this application it virtues, *■ ■■• '■

^"^ T^ means nothing else than excellence of art or perfect development of the artistic faculty.

But there are also men who are considered wise, 2 not in part nor in any particular thing (as Homer says in the Margites —

" Him the gods gave no skill with spade or plough,
Nor made him wise in aught"),

but generally wise. In this general sense, then, wisdom plainly will be the most perfect of the sciences.

The wise man, then, must not only know what 3 follows from the principles of knowledge, but also know the truth about those principles. Wisdom, therefore, will be the union of [intuitive] reason with [demonstrative] scientific knowledge, or scientific knowledge of the noblest objects with its crowning perfection, so to speak, added to it. For it would be absurd to suppose that the political faculty or prudence is the highest of our faculties, unless indeed man is the best of all things in the universe.

Now, as the terms wholesome and good mean one 4 thing in the case of men and another in the case of fishes, while white and straight always have the same meaning, we must all allow that wise means

* Of course we do not use " wisdom " in this sense.

p. 191

one thing always, while prudent means different things ; for we should all say that those who are clear-sighted in their own affairs are prudent, and deem them fit to be entrusted with those affairs. (And for this reason we sometimes apply the teim prudent even to animals, when they show a faculty of foresight in what concerns their own life.)

Moreover, it is plain that wisdom cannot be the same as statesmanship. If we apply the term wisdom to knowledge of what is advantageous to ourselves, there will be many kinds of wisdom ; for the knowledge of what is good will not be one and the same for all animals, but different for each species. It can no more be one than the art of healing can be one and the same for all kinds of livinor thino^s.

Man may be superior to all other animals, but that will not make any difference here ; for there are other things of a far diviner nature than man, as — to take the most obvious instance — the heavenly bodies.

It is plain, then, after what we have said, that wisdom is the union of scientific [or demonstrative] knowledge and [intuitive] reason about objects of the noblest nature.

And on this account people call Anaxagoras and Thales and men of that sort wise, but not prudent, seeing them to be ignorant of their own advantage ; and say that their knowledge is something out of the common, wonderful, hard of attainment, nay superhuman, but useless, since it is no human good that they seek.

Prudence, on the other hand, deals with human

192 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS OF ARISTOTLE. [Bk. YI.