And, so neither things which exist or come into being necessarily, nor
things in the way of nature, come under the province of Art, because
these are self-originating. And since Making and Doing are distinct,
Art must be concerned with the former and not the latter. And in a
certain sense Art and Fortune are concerned with the same things, as,
Agathon says by the way,
“Art Fortune loves, and is of her beloved.”
So Art, as has been stated, is “a certain state of mind, apt to Make,
conjoined with true Reason;” its absence, on the contrary, is the same
state conjoined with false Reason, and both are employed upon
Contingent matter.
Chapter V.
As for Practical Wisdom, we shall ascertain its nature by examining to
what kind of persons we in common language ascribe it.[16]
It is thought then to be the property of the Practically Wise man to be
able to deliberate well respecting what is good and expedient for
himself, not in any definite line,[17] as what is conducive to health
or strength, but what to living well. A proof of this is that we call
men Wise in this or that, when they calculate well with a view to some
good end in a case where there is no definite rule. And so, in a
general way of speaking, the man who is good at deliberation will be
Practically Wise. Now no man deliberates respecting things which cannot
be otherwise than they are, nor such as lie not within the range of his
own action: and so, since Knowledge requires strict demonstrative
reasoning, of which Contingent matter does not admit (I say Contingent
matter, because all matters of deliberation must be Contingent and
deliberation cannot take place with respect to things which are
Necessarily), Practical Wisdom cannot be Knowledge nor Art; nor the
former, because what falls under the province of Doing must be
Contingent; not the latter, because Doing and Making are different in
kind.
It remains then that it must be “a state of mind true, conjoined with
Reason, and apt to Do, having for its object those things which are
good or bad for Man:” because of Making something beyond itself is
always the object, but cannot be of Doing because the very well-doing
is in itself an End.
For this reason we think Pericles and men of that stamp to be
Practically Wise, because they can see what is good for themselves and
for men in general, and we also think those to be such who are skilled
in domestic management or civil government. In fact, this is the reason
why we call the habit of perfected self-mastery by the name which in
Greek it bears, etymologically signifying “that which preserves the
Practical Wisdom:” for what it does preserve is the Notion I have
mentioned, _i.e._ of one’s own true interest.[18]
For it is not every kind of Notion which the pleasant and the painful
corrupt and pervert, as, for instance, that “the three angles of every
rectilineal triangle are equal to two right angles,” but only those
bearing on moral action.