which the first essays of the learner may by chance, or by the guidance of his master (ἀπὸ τύχης καὶ ἄλλου ὑποθεμένου), attain a sort of success or an artistic appearance, but the learner is no artist as yet."[1] Playing on the fiddle, for example, is an art, and the power or capacity of playing on the fiddle may be called a habit—a habit acquired, and only to be acquired, by practising on that instrument. Thus we may say without a paradox, that a fiddler becomes a fiddler (i.e., a master on that instrument) by being already a fiddler (that is, a learner or imperfect performer on that instrument); and so of all the other arts, they are all acquired only by our already being to some extent that which we desire to become to a greater extent, and it is only after we have become completely what we already are imperfectly, that we are entitled to the name of artist. Thus we may say that painting is a habit and that he alone who has acquired this habit as a confirmed power of mind and of hand, is a painter; and yet it would be quite true to say that he could acquire this habit only by the practice of painting; in other words, that he could become a painter only by already being a painter, although his first essays might be unworthy of the name of painting.
33. So in regard to virtue, it is a habit, and it is acquired by means of certain virtuous acts; but these acts are as yet imperfect, are as little entitled
- ↑ Eth. Nic., B. II. 4; Grant p. 75, 1st ed., vol. i. p. 415, 2d ed.
