[Sidenote:1140a] Let thus much be accepted as a definition
of Knowledge. Matter which may exist otherwise
than it actually does in any given case (commonly
called Contingent) is of two kinds, that which is the
object of Making, and that which is the object of
Doing; now Making and Doing are two different things
(as we show in the exoteric treatise), and so that
state of mind, conjoined with Reason, which is apt
to Do, is distinct from that also conjoined with Reason,
which is apt to Make: and for this reason they
are not included one by the other, that is, Doing
is not Making, nor Making Doing. Now as Architecture
is an Art, and is the same as “a certain state
of mind, conjoined with Reason, which is apt to Make,”
and as there is no Art which is not such a state, nor
any such state which is not an Art, Art, in its strict
and proper sense, must be “a state of mind,
conjoined with true Reason, apt to Make.”
Now all Art has to do with production, and contrivance,
and seeing how any of those things may be produced
which may either be or not be, and the origination
of which rests with the maker and not with the thing
made.
And, so neither things which exist or come into being
necessarily, nor things in the way of nature, come
under the province of Art, because these are self-originating.
And since Making and Doing are distinct, Art must
be concerned with the former and not the latter.
And in a certain sense Art and Fortune are concerned
with the same things, as, Agathon says by the way,
“Art Fortune loves, and is of her
beloved.”
So Art, as has been stated, is “a certain state
of mind, apt to Make, conjoined with true Reason;”
its absence, on the contrary, is the same state conjoined
with false Reason, and both are employed upon Contingent
matter.
V
As for Practical Wisdom, we shall ascertain its nature
by examining to what kind of persons we in common
language ascribe it.
[Sidenote: 1140b] It is thought then to be the
property of the Practically Wise man to be able to
deliberate well respecting what is good and expedient
for himself, not in any definite line, as what is
conducive to health or strength, but what to living
well. A proof of this is that we call men Wise
in this or that, when they calculate well with a view
to some good end in a case where there is no definite
rule. And so, in a general way of speaking, the
man who is good at deliberation will be Practically
Wise. Now no man deliberates respecting things
which cannot be otherwise than they are, nor such as
lie not within the range of his own action: and
so, since Knowledge requires strict demonstrative
reasoning, of which Contingent matter does not admit
(I say Contingent matter, because all matters of deliberation
must be Contingent and deliberation cannot take place
with respect to things which are Necessarily), Practical
Wisdom cannot be Knowledge nor Art; nor the former,
because what falls under the province of Doing must
be Contingent; not the latter, because Doing and Making
are different in kind.
