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13. We have therefore also
to reconsider the nature of Virtue. The fact is that the case of Virtue is closely
analogous to that of Prudence in relation to Cleverness. Prudence and Cleverness are not
the same, but they are similar; and natural virtue is related in the same way to Virtue in
the true sense. All are agreed that the various moral qualities are in a sense bestowed by
nature: we are just, and capable of temperance, and brave, and possessed of the other
virtues from the moment of our birth. But nevertheless we expect to find that true
goodness is something different, and that the virtues in the true sense come to belong to
us in another way. For even children and wild animals possess the natural dispositions,
yet without Intelligence these may manifestly be harmful. This at all events appears to be
a matter of observation, that just as a man of powerful frame who has lost his sight meets
with heavy falls when he moves about, because he cannot see, so it also happens in the
moral sphere;
[2]
whereas if a man of good natural
disposition acquires Intelligence,1 then he excels in conduct, and the disposition which
previously only resembled Virtue will now be Virtue in the true sense. Hence just as with
the faculty of forming opinions2 there are two qualities, Cleverness and Prudence, so also in the moral part of
the soul there are two qualities, natural virtue and true Virtue; and true Virtue cannot
exist without Prudence.
[3]
Hence some people maintain that
all the virtues are forms of Prudence; and
Socrates' line of enquiry was right in one way though wrong in another; he
was mistaken in thinking that