So it is plain that Science must mean the most accurate of all
Knowledge; but if so, then the Scientific man must not merely know the
deductions from the First Principles but be in possession of truth
respecting the First Principles. So that Science must be equivalent to
Intuition and Knowledge; it is, so to speak, Knowledge of the most
precious objects, _with a head on_.[23]
I say of the most precious things, because it is absurd to suppose
πολιτικὴ,[24] or Practical Wisdom, to be the highest, unless it can be
shown that Man is the most excellent of all that exists in the
Universe. Now if “healthy” and “good” are relative terms, differing
when applied to men or to fish, but “white” and “straight” are the same
always, men must allow that the Scientific is the same always, but the
Practically Wise varies: for whatever provides all things well for
itself, to this they would apply the term Practically Wise, and commit
these matters to it; which is the reason, by the way, that they call
some brutes Practically Wise, such that is as plainly have a faculty of
forethought respecting their own subsistence.
And it is quite plain that Science and πολιτικὴ cannot be identical:
because if men give the name of Science to that faculty which is
employed upon what is expedient for themselves, there will be many
instead of one, because there is not one and the same faculty employed
on the good of all animals collectively, unless in the same sense as
you may say there is one art of healing with respect to all living
beings.
If it is urged that man is superior to all other animals, that makes no
difference: for there are many other things more Godlike in their
nature than Man, as, most obviously, the elements of which the Universe
is composed.[25]
It is plain then that Science is the union of Knowledge and Intuition,
and has for its objects those things which are most precious in their
nature. Accordingly, Anexagoras, Thales, and men of that stamp, people
call Scientific, but not Practically Wise because they see them
ignorant of what concerns themselves; and they say that what they know
is quite out of the common run certainly, and wonderful, and hard, and
very fine no doubt, but still useless because they do not seek after
what is good for them as men.
Chapter VIII.
But Practical Wisdom is employed upon human matters, and such as are
objects of deliberation (for we say, that to deliberate well is most
peculiarly the work of the man who possesses this Wisdom), and no man
deliberates about things which cannot be otherwise than they are, nor
about any save those that have some definite End and this End good
resulting from Moral Action; and the man to whom we should give the
name of Good in Counsel, simply and without modification, is he who in
the way of calculation has a capacity for attaining that of practical
goods which is the best for Man.