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

Error in deliberation, again, may lie either in the universal or in the particular judgment ; for instance, you may be wrong in judging that " all water that weighs heavy is unwholesome," or in judging that " this water weighs heavy." But prudence [in spite of its universal judgments] plainly is not science ;

* Here in the looser sense, below (§ 6) in the stricter sense, which is the technical meaning of the term in Aristotle : cf. supra, 7, 12.

t He does not mean that the principles of mathematics are not derived from experience, but only that they are derived from the primitive experience which every boy has, being in fact (as we should say) the framework on which the simplest knowledge of an external world is built.

8. 5-9, 2] THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES. 195

for, as we said,* it deals with the ultimate or particular fact [the last link in the chain], for anything that can be done must be of this nature.

And thus it is in a manner opposed to the intuitive reason also : the intuitive reason deals with the primary principles f which cannot be demonstrated, while prudence deals with ultimate [particular] facts which cannot be scientifically proved, but are perceived by sense — not one of the special senses, but a sense analogous to that by which we perceive in mathematics that this ultimate [particular] figure is a triangle ; J for here too our reasoning must come to a stand. But this faculty [by which we apprehend particular facts in the domain of practice] should, after aU, be called sense rather than prudence ; for prudence cannot be defined thus.§

9. Inquiry and deliberation are not the same; for qfaaofradeliberation is a particular kind of inquiry. But we must ascertain what good deliberation is — whether it is a kind of science or opinion, or happy guessing, or something quite difierent.

It is not science ; for we do not inquire about that

♦ Cf. supra, § -2.

t i.e. the prmciple3 of practice : cf. infra, 11, 4.

X The perception •' that the nltimate fact is a triangle " (which - the more obvious translation of these words), whether this means that three lines is the least niunber that will enclose a space," or " that the possibility of a triangle is a fact that cannot be demonstrated," is in either case not the perception of a particular fact ; bat it is the perception of a particular fact that is needed if the illnstration is to be in point.

p. 196

which we know : but good deliberation is a kind of deliberation, and when we deliberate we inquire and calculate.

§ The intuitive reason (yovs) is here opposed to prudence [(pp6trr}(ris) , bnt presently (cap. 11) is found to be included in it; reason (voOs) was similarly in cap. 6 opposed to wisdom (aixpia), but in cap. 7 found to be included in it.

Nor is it happy guessing; for we make happyguesses without calculating and in a moment, but we take time to deliberate, and it is a common saying that execution should be swift, but deliberation slow.

Good deliberation, again, is different from sagacity, 3 which is a kind of happy guessing.

Nor is it any kind of opinion.

But since in deliberating ill we go wrong, and in deliberating well we go right, it is plain that good deliberation is a kind of rightness, but a rightness or correctness neither of science nor opinion ; for science does not admit of correctness (since it does not admit of error), and correctness of opinion is simply truth ; and, further, that concerning which we have an opinion is always something already settled.

Good deliberation, however, is impossible without calculation.

We have no choice left, then, but to say that it is correctness of reasoning (Smvom) ; for reasoning is not yet assertion : and whereas opinion is not an inquiry, but already a definite assertion, when we are deliberating, whether well or ill, we are inquiring and calculating.