A great rock I have said; but by rights it was two rocks leaning together at the top, both some twenty feet high, and at the first sight inaccessible. Even Alan (though you may say he had as good as four hands) failed twice in an attempt to climb them; and it was only at the third trial, and then by standing on my shoulders and leaping up with such force as I thought must have broken my collar-bone, that he secured a lodgment. § V. But since they do not regard every virtue as a mean, nor call it moral, we must discuss this difference by approaching the matter more from first principles. Captain Broughton, as he walked back to Oxney Colne, made up his mind that he would say nothing on the matter to his aunt till the next morning. He wanted to think over it all, and to think it over, if possible, by himself.
“Let us go to the theatre to-night,” said Lord Henry. “There is sure to be something on, somewhere. Once there, he let down his leathern girdle; and with the aid of that and a pair of shallow footholds in the rock, I scrambled up beside him. Some things in the world exist absolutely, as the earth, the sky, the stars, and the sea; others have relation to us, as good and evil, as what is desirable or to be avoided, as pleasant and painful: and since reason has an eye to both of these classes, when it considers the former it is scientific and contemplative, when it considers the latter it is deliberative and practical. And prudence is the virtue in the latter case, as knowledge in the former. He had taken a step in life, the most important that a man is ever called on to take, and he had to reflect whether or no he had taken it with wisdom.
I have promised to dine at White’s, but it is only with an old friend, so I can send him a wire to say that I am ill, or that I am prevented from coming in consequence of a subsequent engagement. I think that would be a rather nice excuse: it would have all the surprise of candour.” And there is this difference between prudence and knowledge, prudence consists in applying the contemplative to the practical and emotional so as to make reason paramount. On which account it often needs the help of fortune; whereas knowledge needs neither the help of fortune nor deliberation to gain its ends: for it considers only things which are always the same. And as the geometrician does not deliberate about the triangle, as to whether its interior angles are together equal to two right angles, for he knows it as a fact--and deliberation only takes place in the case of things which differ at different times, not in the case of things which are certain and unchangeable--so the contemplative mind having its scope in first principles, and things that are fixed, and that ever have one nature which does not admit of change, has no need for deliberation. But prudence, which has to enter into matters full of obscurity and confusion, frequently has to take its chance, and to deliberate about things which are uncertain, and, in carrying the deliberation into practice, has to co-operate with the unreasoning element, which comes to its help, and is involved in its decisions, for they need an impetus.
Now this impetus is given to passion by the moral character, an impetus requiring reason to regulate it, that it may render moderate and not excessive help, and at the seasonable time. For the emotional and unreasoning elements are subject to motions sometimes too quick and vehement, at other times too remiss and slow. And so everything we do may be a success from one point of view, but a failure from many points of view; as to hit the mark one thing only is requisite, but one may miss it in various ways, as one may shoot beyond or too short. This then is the function of practical reason following nature, to prevent our passions going either too far or too short. For where from weakness and want of strength, or from fear and hesitation, the impetus gives in and abandons what is good, there reason is by to stir it up and rekindle it; and where on the other hand it goes ahead too fast and in disorder, there it represses and checks its zeal. And thus setting bounds to the emotional motions, it engenders in the unreasoning part of the soul moral virtues, which are the mean between excess and deficiency.
Not that we can say that all virtue exists in the mean, but knowledge and prudence being in no need of the unreasoning element, and being situated in the pure and unemotional part of the soul, is a complete perfection and power of reason, whereby we get the most divine and happy fruit of understanding. But that virtue which is necessary because of the body, and needs the help of the passions as an instrument towards the practical, not destroying or doing away with but ordering and regulating the unreasoning part of the soul, is perfection as regards its power and quality, but in quantity it is a mean correcting both excess and deficiency.