[Intellect and Will are thus connected,] what in the Intellectual
operation is Affirmation and Negation that in the Will is Pursuit and
Avoidance, And so, since Moral Virtue is a State apt to exercise Moral
Choice and Moral Choice is Will consequent on deliberation, the Reason
must be true and the Will right, to constitute good Moral Choice, and
what the Reason affirms the Will must pursue.[6]
Now this Intellectual operation and this Truth is what bears upon Moral
Action; of course truth and falsehood must be the good and the bad of
that Intellectual Operation which is purely Speculative, and concerned
neither with action nor production, because this is manifestly the work
of every Intellectual faculty, while of the faculty which is of a mixed
Practical and Intellectual nature, the work is that Truth which, as I
have described above, corresponds to the right movement of the Will.
Now the starting-point of moral action is Moral Choice, (I mean, what
actually sets it in motion, not the final cause,)[7] and of Moral
Choice, Appetition, and Reason directed to a certain result: and thus
Moral Choice is neither independent of intellect, i. e. intellectual
operation, nor of a certain moral state: for right or wrong action
cannot be, independently of operation of the Intellect, and moral
character.
But operation of the Intellect by itself moves nothing, only when
directed to a certain result, i. e. exercised in Moral Action: (I say
nothing of its being exercised in production, because this function is
originated by the former: for every one who makes makes with a view to
somewhat further; and that which is or may be made, is not an End in
itself, but only relatively to somewhat else, and belonging to some
one:[8] whereas that which is or may be done is an End in itself,
because acting well is an End in itself, and this is the object of the
Will,) and so Moral Choice is either[9] Intellect put in a position of
Will-ing, or Appetition subjected to an Intellectual Process. And such
a Cause is Man.
But nothing which is done and past can be the object of Moral Choice;
for instance, no man chooses to have sacked Troy; because, in fact, no
one ever deliberates about what is past, but only about that which is
future, and which may therefore be influenced, whereas what has been
cannot not have been: and so Agathon is right in saying
“Of this alone is Deity bereft,
To make undone whatever hath been done.”
Thus then Truth is the work of both the Intellectual Parts of the Soul;
those states therefore are the Excellences of each in which each will
best attain truth.
Chapter III.
Commencing then from the point stated above we will now speak of these
Excellences again. Let those faculties whereby the Soul attains truth
in Affirmation or Negation, be assumed to be in number five:[10] viz.
Art, Knowledge, Practical Wisdom, Science, Intuition: (Supposition and
Opinion I do not include, because by these one may go wrong.)