(Hence intuitive reason is both beginning and end; for
demonstrations are from these and about these.) Therefore we ought
to attend to the undemonstrated sayings and opinions of experienced
and older people or of people of practical wisdom not less than to
demonstrations; for because experience has given them an eye they
see aright.
We have stated, then, what practical and philosophic wisdom are, and
with what each of them is concerned, and we have said that each is the
virtue of a different part of the soul.
12
Difficulties might be raised as to the utility of these qualities of
mind. For (1) philosophic wisdom will contemplate none of the things
that will make a man happy (for it is not concerned with any coming
into being), and though practical wisdom has this merit, for what
purpose do we need it? Practical wisdom is the quality of mind
concerned with things just and noble and good for man, but these are
the things which it is the mark of a good man to do, and we are none
the more able to act for knowing them if the virtues are states of
character, just as we are none the better able to act for knowing
the things that are healthy and sound, in the sense not of producing
but of issuing from the state of health; for we are none the more able
to act for having the art of medicine or of gymnastics.
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