This is the question that MR. COLLIER proposed in support of the alteration of _checks_ into _ethics_, at p. 144. of his _Notes and Emendations_. He terms _checks_ "an absurd blunder," and in the preface he again introduces it, passing upon it the same unqualified sentence of excommunication, as upon "bosom multiplied," viz. "it can never be repeated." In this opinion he is backed by most of the public scribes of the day, especially by the critic of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for April, who declares "we should be very sorry to have to discover what the editors have understood by the _checks_ of Aristotle." Furthermore, this critic thinks that "it is extremely singular that the mistake should have remained so long uncorrected;" and he intimates that they who have found any meaning in _checks_, have done so only because, through ignorance, they could find no meaning in _ethics_. Hence it becomes necessary for those who do find a meaning in _checks_, to defend that meaning; and hence I undertake to answer MR. COLLIER'S question. Aristotle's _checks_ are those _moral adjustments_ that form the distinguishing feature of his philosophy. They are _the eyes of reason_, whereby he would teach man to avoid divergence from the straight path of happiness. They are his moderators, his mediocrities, his metriopathics. They are his philosophical steering-marks, his moral guiding-lines, whereby the passions are to be kept in the _via media_; as much removed from total abnegation on the one hand, as from immoderate indulgence on the other. Virtue, according to Aristotle, consists in checked or _adjusted_ propensities. Our passions are not in themselves evil, except when unchecked by reason. And inasmuch as we may overeat, or underfeed ourselves (the check being temperance), so may we suffer our other propensities to deviate from the _juste milieu_, either in the direction of indulgence or of privation. {497} The art of adjusting the passions requires an apprenticeship to virtue. The end to be attained is the establishment of good habits. These good habits, like any other skill, can only be attained by practice. Therefore the practice of virtue is the education of the passions. _Ethics_ is the doctrine of _habits_; but habits may be good or bad. When good, they constitute virtue; when bad, licentiousness. The doctrine of _checks_ is that branch of _ethics_ which teaches moral adjustment and restraint. Therefore _checks_ and _licentiousness_ are in better antithesis to each other, than _ethics_ can be to either, because ethics includes both. The Aristotelian idea of _adjustment_, rather than _denial_, of the passions, is well illustrated in the following passage from Plutarch's _Morall Vertue_, by Philemon Holland, a contemporary of Shakspeare: