epithet of virtuous, in the highest sense of the word, can be applied.
39. A further point to be noticed in treating of the ethics of Aristotle is this, that virtue is voluntary, that is, it is dependent on ourselves. In other words, it is a matter of choice and election. We have it in our power to prefer and practise the right, and to reject and eschew the wrong. This position, in which there is certainly no great originality, seems to have been advanced in opposition to those who saw no other ground for morality than blind obedience to the dictates of law; to the sophistical opinion that the actions of men are prompted by a blind and irresistible instinct; that men always pursue what appears to them at the time to be for their own good; that they are not the masters or the makers of their own conception of good; that nature has fixed this for them; and that if they pursue evil under the appearance or semblance of good, the fault is not theirs but hers. In fact, even at this early period the doctrine seems to have been broached that man, in all his actions, was the slave or victim of necessity, that his conduct was determined by a power over which he had no control, and that therefore he could not justly be held responsible for his actions, or regarded as amenable to punishment when he had done wrong. In opposition to this doctrine, Aristotle maintains that man's conduct is voluntary; that he is a free as well as an intelligent agent; and that there-
