fore under two guises: it is found first and most easily in the most finished and perfect practitioners of any of the arts, and it is also the most finished of all the forms of knowledge, combining science and intuitive reason in the consideration and contemplation
of the highest objects. As justice is a habit in which the individual virtues conceived as habits are brought into contact with the habit which insures submission to the law of the
state, and as prudence is a habit in which calculation of the means to ends and the consequences of actions is brought into contact with calculation of the practicable ingredients of the common good, so wisdom is a habit in which the excellences of
all conduct, art, and knowledge are brought into contact with the basic and pervading traits of men and things. The virtues themselves also have a psychological context in
the sense that other dispositions besides the virtues treat of the passions in man, and other activities besides those in accordance with virtue are good or achieve goods, even to the
point of being mistaken by many men and by philosophers as well for the good itself and happiness. After the virtues have been treated, therefore, a fresh start must be taken36 to place the virtues among these moral states before the dialectic is completed and happiness itself can be treated. There are three moral states to be avoided: vice, incontinence, and brutishness; the contraries to the first two are virtue and continence, and since brutishness and its contrary are different in genus from virtue and vice, while continence and incontinence are of the same genus as virtue and vice although not identical habits,
the discussion turns largely on continence and related habits.
Pleasure and pain are in need of similar consideration, for the
good may be either an activity or a habit, and pleasure, although
it is not a habit, is, like happiness, an unimpeded activity
of a habit, and may be good or bad, while pain is an evil,
either absolutely or relatively. In addition to these habits and