ly be acquired by practice; intellectual
virtue can be taught; and by the constant practice of moral virtue a man
becomes virtuous, but he can only practise it by a resolute determination
to do so. Virtue, therefore, is defined further as a habit accompanied by,
or arising out of, deliberate choice, and based upon free and conscious
action. From these principles, Aristotle is led to take a wider view of
virtue than other philosophers: he includes friendship under this head, as
one of the very greatest virtues, and a principal means for a steady
continuance in all virtue; and as the unrestricted exercise of each
species of activity directed towards the good, produces a feeling of
pleasure, he considers pleasure as a very powerful means of virtue.

Connected with Aristotle's system of ethics was his system of politics,
the former being only a part, as it were, of the latter; the former aiming
at the happiness of individuals, the latter at that of communities; so
that the latter is the perfection and completion of the former. For
Aristotle looked upon man as a "political animal"--as a being, that is,
created by nature for the state, and for living in the state; which, as a
totality consisting of organically connected members, is by nature prior
to the individual or the family. The state he looked upon as a whole
consisting of mutually dependent and connected members, with reference as
well to imaginary as to actually existing constitutions. The constitution
is the arrangement of the powers in the state--the soul of the state, as it
were,--according to which the sovereignty is determined. The laws are the
determining principles, according to which the dominant body governs and
restrains those who would, and punishes those who do, transgress them. He
defines three kinds of constitutions, each of them having a corresponding
perversion:--a republic, arising from the principle of equality; this at
times degenerates into democracy; monarchy, and aristocracy, which arise
from principles of inequality, founded on the preponderance of external or
internal strength and wealth, and which are apt to degenerate into tyranny
and oligarchy. The education of youth he considers as a principal concern
of the state, in order that, all the individual citizens being trained to
a virtuous life, virtue may become predominant in all the spheres of
political life; and, accordingly, by means of politics the object is
realized of which ethics are the