It remains then that it must be “a state of
mind true, conjoined with Reason, and apt to Do, having
for its object those things which are good or bad
for Man:” because of Making something beyond
itself is always the object, but cannot be of Doing
because the very well-doing is in itself an End.
For this reason we think Pericles and men of that
stamp to be Practically Wise, because they can see
what is good for themselves and for men in general,
and we also think those to be such who are skilled
in domestic management or civil government. In
fact, this is the reason why we call the habit of
perfected self-mastery by the name which in Greek
it bears, etymologically signifying “that which
preserves the Practical Wisdom:” for what
it does preserve is the Notion I have mentioned, i.e.
of one’s own true interest, For it is not every
kind of Notion which the pleasant and the painful
corrupt and pervert, as, for instance, that “the
three angles of every rectilineal triangle are equal
to two right angles,” but only those bearing
on moral action.
For the Principles of the matters of moral action
are the final cause of them: now to the man who
has been corrupted by reason of pleasure or pain the
Principle immediately becomes obscured, nor does he
see that it is his duty to choose and act in each
instance with a view to this final cause and by reason
of it: for viciousness has a tendency to destroy
the moral Principle: and so Practical Wisdom
must be “a state conjoined with reason, true,
having human good for its object, and apt to do.”
Then again Art admits of degrees of excellence, but
Practical Wisdom does not: and in Art he who
goes wrong purposely is preferable to him who does
so unwittingly, but not so in respect of Practical
Wisdom or the other Virtues. It plainly is then
an Excellence of a certain kind, and not an Art.
Now as there are two parts of the Soul which have
Reason, it must be the Excellence of the Opinionative
[which we called before calculative or deliberative],
because both Opinion and Practical Wisdom are exercised
upon Contingent matter. And further, it is not
simply a state conjoined with Reason, as is proved
by the fact that such a state may be forgotten and
so lost while Practical Wisdom cannot.
VI
Now Knowledge is a conception concerning universals
and Necessary matter, and there are of course certain
First Principles in all trains of demonstrative reasoning
(that is of all Knowledge because this is connected
with reasoning): that faculty, then, which takes
in the first principles of that which comes under
the range of Knowledge, cannot be either Knowledge,
or Art, or Practical Wisdom: not Knowledge, because
what is the object of Knowledge must be derived from
demonstrative reasoning; not either of the other two,
because they are exercised upon Contingent matter
only. [Sidenote: 1141a] Nor can it be Science
which takes in these, because the Scientific Man must
in some cases depend on demonstrative Reasoning.
