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

And from this use of the term with regard to learning comes its employment to denote that faculty which we imply when we call a man intelligent ; for we often speak of the intelligence of a learner.

11. Judgment, yvwfirj (what we mean when we cfjudgmenu ^peak of a man of good judgment, or say a man has inhM^ '^ judgment), is a correct discernment of that which o«tt<6«i« is equitable. A proof of this is that the equitahle practical man is thought to be especially ready to forgive {(TvyyvwfxoviKog), and that to forgive some things is considered equitable. But forgiveness {<nrfyvbjfiri) is judgment (yvw/ujj) which correctly discerns that which is equitable — correctly meaning truly.

Now, all these four formed faculties which we have enumerated not unnaturally tend in the same direction. We apply all these terms — judgment, intelligence, prudence, and reason — to the same persons, and talk of people as having, at a certain age, already acquired judgment and reason, and as being prudent and intelligent. For all these four faculties deal with ultimate and particular* facts, and it is in virtue of a power of discrimination in the matters with which prudence deals that we call a person intelligent, or a man of sound judgment {tvyvwpioiv), or a forgiving man {avyyvbyjuov) ; for equitable is a common term that is applicable to all that is good in our dealings with others.

I

* All particular facts (ri Koff (kouttov) are oltimate (?<rxaTa),».e. tindemonstrable ; but not all ultimate facts (lirxaTa) are particular facts — as presently appears.

200 NTCOMACHEAN ETHICS OF AKISTOTLE. [Bk. VI.

But that which is to be done is always some particular thing, something ultimate. As we have seen, it is the business of the prudent man to know it, and intelligence and judgment also have to do with that which is to be done, which is something ultimate.

And the intuitive reason [the last of the four faculties above enumerated] also deals with "ultimate " truths, in both senses of the word ; * for both primary principles and ultimate facts [in the narrower sense of the word ultimate = particular] are apprehended by the intuitive reason, and not by demonstration : on the one hand, in connection with deductions [of general truths in morals and politics],! reason apprehends the unalterable first principles ; on the other hand, in connection with practical calculations, reason apprehends the ultimate [particular] alterable fact which forms the minor premise [in the " practical syllogism "]. These particular judgments, we may say, are given by reason, as they are the source of our conception of the final cause or end of man ; the universal principle is elicited from the particular facts : these particular facts, therefore, must be apprehended by a sense or intuitive perception; and this is reason. |

(And so it is thought that these faculties are natural, and that while nature never makes a man wise, she does endow men with judgment and intelligence and reason. This is shown by the fact that

* Lit. in both directions, i.e. not the last only, but the first also.

t Cf. supra, 8, 1, 2.

X This aia-dyjais may be called i/ovs because the universal (the geneTiil conception of human good) is elicited from these particular judgments.

11, 3-6.] THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES. 201

lese powers are believed to accompany certam periods of life, and that a certain age is said to bring reason and judgment, implying that they come by nature.)

The intuitive reason, then, is both beginning and end ; for demonstration both starts from and terminates in these ultimate truths [which reason supplies]. And on this account we ought to pay the same respect to the undemonstrated assertions and opinions of men of age and experience and prudence as to their demonstrations. For experience has given 'hem a faculty of vision which enables them to see rrectly.* intellect alone. He has already stated in cap. 6 that the intuitive ison ia the basis of the speculative intellect ; here he says that it

* Thronghont this chapter we are concerned with the practical

^ also the basis of the practical intellect. We have to disting^sh here three different employments of the practical faculty :

(1) (if we invert the order), undemonstrated assertion, viz. that under the circumstances this is the right thing to do : here the judgment is altogether intuitive {§ 6).