which such a life can be led—in accordance, namely, with excellence or virtue.
23. But a new question arises out of the answer which has just been given. That answer was this, that the right working of man's moral nature was an arrangement in which reason ruled and passion obeyed. This answer brings forward the new question, But how is such an arrangement or adjustment to be brought about? in other words, How is moral virtue to be produced?
24. To this question Aristotle answers in one word, that moral virtue is produced or acquired by habit. Practise the virtues and you will acquire them; and you can acquire them in no other way. This answer is more important and more profound than it appears. It is opposed at once to the doctrine that virtue is implanted in us by nature, or comes to us merely from nature, and to the doctrine which Plato seems to have favoured, that virtue might be merely theoretical, might consist in a mere knowledge of what is right. Both of these doctrines were impugned by Aristotle in the assertion that the practice of virtue, its habitual exercise, was necessary to the attainment and existence of virtue.
25. The following remarks, in which Aristotle shows that the moral virtues are not ours by nature, but are acquired by custom, are well worthy of your
