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ARISTOTLE'S MORALS AND POLITICS 107
statesman proceeds to embody this general knowledge in
his laws, the educator in his curriculum, with the result
that those who have been trained to revere and to obey
the laws, those whose opinions have been formed by the
curriculum, are constrained to take the same views on
moral questions, to hold the same opinions as to what is
good and desirable, as the legislator and the educator,
The general knowledge of the good which is possessed
by the legislator and the educator, and the insight which
enables them to recognize the presence of the good in
particular cases are virtues of the intellect. They constitute
what Aristotle calls practical wisdom. But there
is no evidence that Aristotle, any more than Plato, considered
that they were within the 'compass of the mental
equipment of the ordinary citizen. The ordinary man in
Aristotle's State, as in Plato's, does what is good as a result
of his training, his reverence for the laws, and his amena-
bility to the influence of public opinion, but he does not
know in general what good is, and he does not, therefore,
know in particular cases why it is that he should do this
particular good thing. Aristotle's ordinary citizen, in fact,
like Plato's, achieves such virtue as is appropriate to his
attainments and condition, but the virtue is automatic,
the result of habit, not spontaneous, the expression of
insight.
Preliminary Remarks on Free Will. This conception of
two levels or grades of virtue, of which one is in effect
automatic, leads to a consideration of Aristotle's doctrine
of the Will. Most of those who have written upon the
if there is to be a
subject of ethics have laid it down that,
morality in any of the senses in which this word is nor-
mally used, there must be freedom of the will and freedom,
therefore, ofchoice. For if, when faced with a choice between
A and B, a man is not free to choose A and reject B, then
there is no sense in saying that he ought to choose A.
"Ought," in fact, as Kant pointed out, 1
1 See Chapter VI, p. 905.
implies "can".