, 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