There are eleven Virtues named by the said Philosopher. The first is called Courage, which is sword and bridle to moderate our boldness and timidity in things which are the ruin of our life. The second is Temperance, which is the law and bridle of our gluttony and of our undue abstinence in those things requisite for the preservation of our life. The third is Liberality, which is the moderator of our giving and of our receiving things temporal. The fourth is Magnificence, which is the moderator of great expenditures, making and supporting those within certain limits. The fifth is Magnanimity, which is the moderator and acquirer of great honours and fame. The sixth is the Love of Honour, which is the moderator and regulator to us of the honours of this World. The seventh is Mildness, which moderates our anger and our excessive or undue patience against our external misfortunes. The eighth is Affability, which makes us live on good terms with other men. The ninth is called Truth, which makes us moderate in boasting ourselves over and above what we are, and in depreciating ourselves below what we are in our speech. The tenth is called Eutrapelia, pleasantness of intercourse, which makes us moderate in joys or pleasures, causing us to use them in due measure. The eleventh is Justice, which teaches us to love and to act with uprightness in all things.
And each of these Virtues has two collateral enemies, that is to say, vices; one in excess and one in defect. And these Moral Virtues are the centres or middle stations between them, and those Virtues all spring from one root or principle, that is to say, from the habit of our own good choice. Wherefore, in a general sense, it is possible to say of all, that they are a habit of choice standing firm in due moderation; and these are those which make a man happy in their active operation, as the Philosopher says in the first book of the Ethics when he defines Happiness, saying that Happiness is virtuous action in a perfect life.
By many, Prudence, that is, good, judgment or wisdom, is well asserted to be a Moral Virtue. But Aristotle numbers that amongst the Intellectual Virtues, although it is the guide of the moral, and points out the way by which they are formed, and without it they could not be. Verily, it is to be known that we can have in this life two happinesses or felicities by following two different roads, both good and excellent, which lead us to them: the one is the Active Life and the other is the Contemplative Life, which (although by the Active Life one may attain, as has been said, to a good state of Happiness) leads us to supreme Happiness, even as the Philosopher proves in the tenth book of the Ethics; and Christ affirms it with His own Lips in the Gospel of Luke, speaking to Martha, when replying to her: "Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about many things: verily, one thing alone is needful," meaning, that which thou hast in hand; and He adds: "Mary has chosen the better part, which shall not be taken away from her." And Mary, according to that which is previously written in the Gospel, sitting at the feet of Christ, showed no care for the service of the house, but listened only to the words of the Saviour.
For if we will explain this in the moral sense, our Lord wished to show thereby that the Contemplative Life was supremely good, although the Active Life might be good; this is evident to him who will give his mind to the words of the Gospel.
It would be possible, however, for any one to say, in argument against me: Since the happiness of the Contemplative Life is more excellent than that of the Active Life, and both may be, and are, the fruit and end of Nobility, why not rather have proceeded in the argument along the line of the Intellectual Virtues than of the Moral? To this it is possible to reply briefly, that in all instruction it is desirable to have regard to the capability of the learner, and to lead him by that path which is easiest to him. Wherefore, since the Moral Virtues appear to be, and are, more general and more required than the others, and are more seen in outward appearances, it was more convenient and more useful to proceed along that path than by the other; for thus indeed we shall attain to the knowledge of the bees by arguing of profit from the wax, as well as by arguing of profit from the honey, for both the one and the other proceed from them.
CHAPTER XVIII.
In the preceding chapter has been determined how each Moral Virtue comes from one root, or first principle, that is, a good habit of choice; and the present text bears upon that, until the part which begins: "Nobility by right." In this part, then, it proceeds, by a way that is allowable, to teach that each Virtue mentioned above, taken singly, or otherwise generally, proceeds from Nobility as an effect from its cause, and it is founded upon a philosophical proposition, which says that, when two things are found to meet in one, both these things must be reduced to a third, or one to the other, as an effect to a cause: because one thing having stood first and of itself, it cannot exist except it be from one; and if those two could not be both the effect of a third, or else one the effect of the other, each would have had a separate first cause, which is impossible. It says, then, that
Such virtue shows its good
To others' intellect,
For when two things agree in one,
Producing one effect,
One must from other come,
Or each one from a third,
If each be as each, and more, then one
From the other is inferred.
Where it is to be known that here one does not proceed by an evident demonstration; as it would be to say that the cold is the generative principle of water, when we see the clouds; but certainly by a beautiful and suitable induction. For if there are many laudable things in us, and one is the principle or first cause of them all, reason requires each to be reduced to that first cause, which comprehends more things; and this ought more reasonably to be called the principle of those things than that which comprehends in itself less of their principle. For as the trunk of a tree, which contains or encloses all the other branches, ought to be called the first beginning and cause of those branches, and not those branches the cause of the trunk, so Nobility, which comprehends each and every Virtue (as the cause contains the effect) and many other actions or operations of ours which are praiseworthy, it ought to be held for such; that the Virtue may be reduced to it, rather than to the other third which is in us. Finally it says that the position taken (namely, that each Moral Virtue comes from one root, and that such Virtue and Nobility unite in one thing, as is stated above, and that therefore it is requisite to reduce the one to the other, or both to a third; and that if the one contains the value of the other and more, from that it proceeds rather than from the other third) may be considered as a rule established and set forth, as was before intended.