And here we must notice the peculiar way in which the idea of “virtue” is introduced into the ‘Ethics.’ Instead of at once recognising the law of moral obligation as the deepest thing in man, Aristotle, as we have seen above, introduces the idea of virtue and morality in a dry logical way, saying that the chief good for man must consist in the realisation of his powers “according to their own proper law of excellence.” Having in this colourless and neutral way brought in the term “excellence” or virtue, Aristotle divides it, in relation to man, into moral and intellectual. Of the former he proceeded immediately to treat at length; of the latter he promised to give an account, but only an imperfect realisation of that promise, furnished by the “Eudemian” paraphrase, has come down to us.
Both by the way in which it is introduced, and the terms in which it is finally dismissed (‘Eth.’ X. viii. 1), the moral nature of man is made to hold a subsidiary place in Aristotle’s ‘Ethics.’ Yet still we find that almost all the treatise is taken up with discussions directly or indirectly concerning the practical and moral nature. And thus Aristotle, groping his way in a science which had as yet no distinct landmarks, contributed much towards the subsequent deeper conception of ethical questions. One service which he performed was to distinguish will from reason. Socrates and Plato had been content to describe virtue as knowledge, or an enlightened state of the reason; but Aristotle, like Kant in modern times, defined it as a state of the will. Secondly, he analysed the forma-
