his being. To
this end he distinguishes in man's nature three modes of existence:
first, _feelings_ such as joy, pain, anger; second, _potentialities_ or
capacities for such feelings; third, _habits_ which are built upon
these potentialities, but with an element of reason or deliberation
superadded. He has no difficulty in establishing that the virtue of
man must be a habit. And the test of the excellence of that habit, as
of every other developed capacity, will be twofold; it will make the
worker good, it will cause him to produce good work.

So far Aristotle's analysis of virtue is quite on the lines of his
general philosophy. Here, however, he diverges into what seems at
first a curiously mechanical conception. Pointing out that in
everything quantitative there are two extremes conceivable, and a
_mean_ or average between them, he proceeds to define virtue as a mean
between two extremes, a mean, however, having relation to no mere
numerical standard, but having reference _to us_. In this last {196}
qualification he perhaps saves his definition from its mechanical turn,
while he leaves himself scope for much curious and ingenious
observation on the several virtues regarded as means between two
extremes. He further endeavours to save it by adding, that it is
"defined by reason, and as the wise man would define it."

Reason then, as the impersonal ruler,--the wise man, as the
personification of reason,--this is the standard of virtue, and
therefore also of happiness. How then shall we escape an externality
in our standard, divesting it of that binding character which comes
only when the law without is also recognised and accepted as the law
within? The answer of Aristotle, as of his predecessors, is that this
will be brought about by wise training and virtuous surroundings, in
short, by the civic community being itself good and happy. Thus we get
another dynamic relation; for regarded as a member of the body politic
each individual becomes a potentiality along with all the other
members, conditioned by the state of which he and they are members,
brought gradually into harmony with the reason which is in the state,
and in the process realising not his own possibilities only, but those
of the community also, which exists only in and through its members.
Thus each and all, in so far as they realise their own well-being by
the perfect development of the virtuous {197} habit in their lives,
contribute _ipso facto