GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

188 ETHICS AND POLITICS: THE GREEKS
succeed at times, albeit intermittently, in perceiving. Thus
in exercising the theoretical reason in contemplative
pursuits, we engage in an activity which is not other
than that of God himself.
And since the exercise of our highest faculties is also the
source of our greatest pleasure, the life of intellectual
contemplation and research is also the pleasantest life.
It is thus an end to which all other forms of activity
are in the last resort means. Men engage, or should do,
in business or affairs, in order that they may obtain leisure
for intellectual contemplation. The ultimate object or
purpose of politics is not different Men regulate the
affairs of the State, not merely in order that the State
may be well run, but in order that, because it is well run,
they may be in a position to afford themselves leisure
for intellectual activity; and just as it is die mark of a
headmaster or of a successful business director that
good
his intervention should never be required, so in a well-
governed
State the best rulers are those who have little
or no occasion for the exercise of. their authority. Success
in statecraft consists, in other words, in Hitniniafrtng the
occasions for the exercise of statecraft and thus providing
time and leisure for the exercise ofa faculty which is higher
than that of the statesman.
Such in summary is the teaching of Aristotle's Politics;
the conclusion of the Ethics is not different. At the end of
the Ethics we are told that the best life for man is not
that of the citizen, although the excellence of the citizen
must first be acquired before the best life can be lived.
Now the excellence of the citizen depends upon the
observance of the rule of the mean. The virtues which
we have already described, the virtue of the practical
intellect which consists in the recognition of the mean,
the settled habit of acting in accordance with the mean,
the "virtues of character which enable us to act rightly
without having to pause on each occasion to consider
whether what we are doing is, in fact, right all these,
which are integral parts of the good life of the ordinary