The Nicomachean Ethics — trans. F. H. Peters (1881)
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(2) demonstration (improperly so called, more properly calculation) that this ia the right thing to do ; e.g. this act is to be done because it is just : here the intuitive reason supplies the minor premise of the practical syllogism (this act is just), and also (in. directly) the major (whatever is just is good), i.e. it supplies the data — the several particular intuitions from which the general proposition is elicited : iv reus TrpcucriKoui, sc. dToSct'lecn (practical calculations), § 4; c/. rav aitoSfi^fwy, § 6, and oi avWoytafiol rSv ■vpaicrvv,
12, 10.
(3) deduction or demonstration (also improperly so called) of general truths in morals and politics : Kara ras aroSfi^tts, § 4 : here also the data from which deduction starts can only be apprehended by intuitive perception or reason : cf. I. 4, 7, 7, 20. The difference between (2) and (3) is plainly shown supra 8, 2, where »oAituc^ in the wider sense (= yonodeTiicfi) which deals with laws, is distinguished from iroXiTiieri in the narrower sense which has to do with decrees : cf. also I. 2, 7, and X. 9, 14.
202 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS OP ARISTOTLE. [Bk. VI.
We have said, then, what prudence is, and what 7 wisdom is, and what each deals with, and that each is the virtue of a different part of the soul. Of the uses 12. But here an obiection maybe raised: "What l of wisdom . ))• 1 11 andpru- is the use of them ? it may be asked. " Wisdom does dence. Ifow . "^ prudence is not considcr what tends to make man happy (for related to ^ _ ^ i rj \ cleverness. \i (Joes not ask how anything is brought about). Prudence indeed does this, but why do we need it ? Prudence is the faculty which deals with what is just and noble and good for man, i.e. with those things which it is the part of the good man to do ; but the knowledge of them no more makes us apter to do them, if (as has been said) the [moral] virtues are habits, than it does in the case of what is healthy and wholesome— healthy and wholesome, that is, not in the sense of conducing to, but in the sense of issuing from, a healthy habit; for a knowledge of medicine and gymnastics does not make us more able to do these things.
" But if it be meant that a man should be prudent, 2 not in order that he may do these acts, but in order that he may become able to do them, then prudence will be no use to those who are good, nor even to those who are not. For it will not matter whether they have prudence themselves, or take the advice of others who have it. It will be enough to do in these matters as we do in regard to health ; for if we wish to be in health, we do not go and learn medicine.
" Again, it seems to be a strange thing that i prudence, though inferior to wisdom, must yet govern it, since in every field the practical faculty bears sway and issues orders."
11, 7-12, 7.] THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES. 203
We must now discuss these points ; for hitherto we have been only stating objections.
First of all, then, we say that both prudence and \visdom must be desirable in themselves, since each is the virtue of one of the paiis of the soul, even if neither of them produces anything.
Next, they do produce something.
On the one hand, wisdom produces happiness, not in the sense in which medicine produces health, but in the sense in which health produces health ; * that is to say, wisdom being a part of complete virtue, its possession and exercise make a man happy.
On the other hand [in the sphere of action], man performs his function perfectly when he acts in accordance with both prudence and moral virtue ; for while the latter ensures the rightness of the end aimed at, the former ensures the rightness of the means thereto.
The fourth f part of the soul, the vegetative part, or the facult}' of nutrition, has no analogous excellence; for it has no power to act or not to act.
But as to the objection that prudence makes us no more apt to do what is noble and just, let us take the matter a little deeper, beginning thus : —
* i.e. in the sense in which a healthy state of the body (vyUia as a t^ts in Aristotle's language) produces healthy performance of the bodily functions {iryieia as an iyepyeta).