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For the Principles of the matters of moral action are the final

cause of them:[19] now to the man who has been corrupted by

reason of pleasure or pain the Principle immediately becomes

obscured, nor does he see that it is his duty to choose and act

in each instance with a view to this final cause and by reason of

it: for viciousness has a tendency to destroy the moral

Principle: and so Practical Wisdom must be "a state conjoined

with reason, true, having human good for its object, and apt to

do."

Then again Art admits of degrees of excellence, but Practical

Wisdom does not:[20] and in Art he who goes wrong purposely is

preferable to him who does so unwittingly,[21] but not so in

respect of Practical Wisdom or the other Virtues. It plainly is

then an Excellence of a certain kind, and not an Art.