an actor employs gestures, and a dancer motions, not practising any
random movement, but a regular systematic action; so life must be passed
according to a certain fixed kind, and not any promiscuous way, and that
certain kind we call a suitable and harmonious one. Nor do we think wisdom
similar to the art of navigation or medicine, but rather to that kind of
action which I have spoken of, and to dancing; I mean, inasmuch as the
ultimate point, that is to say, the production of the art, lies in the art
itself, and is not sought for from foreign sources. And yet there are
other points in which there is a difference between wisdom and those arts;
because in those arts those things which are done properly do nevertheless
not comprise all the parts of the arts of which they consist. But the
things which we call right, or rightly done, if you will allow the
expression, and which they call {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}, contain in them the whole
completeness of virtue. For wisdom is the only thing which is contained
wholly in itself; and this is not the case with the other arts.

And it is only out of ignorance that the object of the art of medicine or
navigation is compared with the object of wisdom; for wisdom embraces
greatness of mind and justice, and judges all the accidents which befal
mankind beneath itself: and this too is not the case in the other arts.
But no one will be able to maintain those very virtues of which I have
just made mention, unless he lays down a rule that there is nothing which
is of any importance, nothing which differs from anything else, except
what is honourable or disgraceful.

VIII. Let us see now how admirably these rules follow from those
principles which I have already laid down. For as this is the ultimate
(_extremum_) point, (for you have noticed, I dare say, that I translate
what the Greek philosopher calls {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}, sometimes by the word _extremum_,
sometimes by _ultimum_, and sometimes by _summum_, and instead of
_extremum_ or _ultimum_, I may also use the word _finis