virtues plainly _include_ such actions: that an action, in order to exhibit virtue, must be done τοῦ καλοῦ ἕνεκα is a qualification which he allows often to drop out of sight. And, on the other hand, he seems certainly to regard the exercise of _all_ virtues as an end in itself. His treatment of Ethics is indeed, in the most important points, highly unsystematic and confused, owing to his attempt to base it on the naturalistic fallacy; for strictly we should be obliged by his words to regard θεωρία as the _only_ thing good in itself, in which case the goodness which he attributes to the practical virtues cannot be intrinsic value; while on the other hand he does not seem to regard it merely as utility, since he makes no attempt to shew that they are means to θεωρία. But there seems no doubt that on the whole he regards the exercise of the practical virtues as a good of the same kind as (_i.e._ having intrinsic value), only in a less degree than, θεωρία; so that he cannot avoid the charge that he recommends as having intrinsic value, such instances of the exercise of virtue as we are at present discussing--instances of a disposition to perform actions which, in the modern phrase, have merely an ‘external rightness.’ That he is right in applying the word ‘virtue’ to such a disposition cannot be doubted. But the protest against the view that ‘external rightness’ is sufficient to constitute either ‘duty’ or ‘virtue’--a protest which is commonly, and with some justice, attributed as a merit to Christian morals--seems, in the main, to be a mistaken way of pointing out an important truth: namely, that where there is only ‘external rightness’ there is certainly no intrinsic value. It is commonly assumed (though wrongly) that to call a thing a virtue means that it has intrinsic value: and on this assumption the view that virtue does not consist in a mere disposition to do externally right actions does really constitute an advance in ethical truth beyond the Ethics of Aristotle. The inference that, if virtue includes in its meaning ‘good in itself,’ then Aristotle’s definition of virtue is not adequate and expresses a false ethical judgment, is perfectly correct: only the premiss that virtue does include this in its meaning is mistaken.