This is why we say that some even of the lower
animals have practical wisdom, viz. those which are found to have a
power of foresight with regard to their own life. It is evident also
that philosophic wisdom and the art of politics cannot be the same;
for if the state of mind concerned with a man's own interests is to be
called philosophic wisdom, there will be many philosophic wisdoms;
there will not be one concerned with the good of all animals (any more
than there is one art of medicine for all existing things), but a
different philosophic wisdom about the good of each species.
But if the argument be that man is the best of the animals, this
makes no difference; for there are other things much more divine in
their nature even than man, e.g., most conspicuously, the bodies of
which the heavens are framed. From what has been said it is plain,
then, that philosophic wisdom is scientific knowledge, combined with
intuitive reason, of the things that are highest by nature. This is
why we say Anaxagoras, Thales, and men like them have philosophic
but not practical wisdom, when we see them ignorant of what is to
their own advantage, and why we say that they know things that are
remarkable, admirable, difficult, and divine, but useless; viz.
because it is not human goods that they seek.
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