Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/438

Rh checks and guides the passions; and the action of the one of these upon the other constitutes the moral nature of man. The due and proper working of this moral nature constitutes man's excellence or virtue. So that the answer to our question, What is the best and most excellent way of living rationally? is this, That the best and most excellent way of living rationally is by maintaining the due and proper working of our moral nature, a nature made up, as has been said, of reason and passion.

22. This answer gives rise to the new question, But what is the due and proper working of man's moral nature? (I may here remark in passing, that in thus carrying on the inquiry by the way of question and answer, I am going to work more formally and methodically even than Aristotle himself. But this procedure may conduce, I think, to distinctness of exposition.) The obvious answer to this question is, that the due and proper working of man's moral nature must consist in such an adjustment between reason and passion, as that the one of these, the reason, shall guide and govern, and that the other, the passions, shall obey even while they contrive to impel. When this adjustment is effected, the right working of man's moral nature is secured; in other words, moral virtue is the result, while happiness is at the same time attained, inasmuch as man is now living a rational life in the best and noblest way in