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ARISTOTLE'S MORALS AND POLITICS 121
with things which might have been otherwise, the theoretical
with universal and unalterable truths. Now ethics and
politics belong, as we have seen, to the realm of things
which might have been otherwise. In the course of the
preceding exposition the more important of the pro*
nounccmcnts of practical reason in the spheres of ethics
and politics have been enumerated. Thus the function
of the practical reason in ethics has been shown to consist
in the direction of conduct by a rule, the rule, namely,
of the mean; and this, Aristotle is careful to point out,
is an end peculiar to human beings, since only human
beings are capable of living by rule. The practical reason
in politics prescribes cooperation with one's fellowcitizens
in promoting the welfare of the State. Man, it will
be remembered, has been defined by Aristotle as a social
and political being. What is more, he is the only being
who, in Aristotle's view, can be so defined. Animals, it is
true, herd, but they do not herd consciously or in pursuit
of a deliberate purpose. Civic cooperation, then, is a
distinctive capacity of human beings. In the exercise of
this distinctive capacity the practical reason performs its
appropriate function in the political sphere, and the
distinctively political end of man is achieved.
The Activity of Contemplation as the Highest Good.
The theoretical reason is, however, still unprovided
for. The subject matter of the theoretical reason is, as
we have seen, to be found in the realm of truths which are
universal and unalterable; that is to say, it is to be found
in the realms of philosophy and science. Since the activity
of the theoretical reason is at once the most distinctive
and the highest activity of man,
the highest kind of good life is to be found.
it is in its exercise that
Aristotle goes further and affirms that the theoretical
reason is an expression of the divine in man, for the activity
of God is defined in his metaphysical writings as the unbroken
arid continuous contemplation of those very
realities which we pursue in science and philosophy and