The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

are
the same thing. And from this has come the use of the name
‘understanding’ in virtue of which men are said to be ‘of good
understanding’, viz. from the application of the word to the
grasping of scientific truth; for we often call such grasping
understanding.
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    What is called judgement, in virtue of which men are said to ‘be
sympathetic judges’ and to ‘have judgement’, is the right
discrimination of the equitable. This is shown by the fact that we
say the equitable man is above all others a man of sympathetic
judgement, and identify equity with sympathetic judgement about
certain facts. And sympathetic judgement is judgement which
discriminates what is equitable and does so correctly; and correct
judgement is that which judges what is true.
    Now all the states we have considered converge, as might be
expected, to the same point; for when we speak of judgement and
understanding and practical wisdom and intuitive reason we credit
the same people with possessing judgement and having reached years
of reason and with having practical wisdom and understanding. For
all these faculties deal with ultimates, i.e. with particulars; and
being a man of understanding and of good or sympathetic judgement
consists in being able judge about the things with which practical
wisdom is concerned; for the equities are common to all good men in
relation to other men. Now all things which have to be done are
included among particulars or ultimates; for not only must the man
of practical wisdom know particular facts, but understanding and
judgement are also concerned with things to be done, and these are
ultimates. And intuitive reason is concerned with the ultimates in
both directions; for both the first terms and the last are objects
of intuitive reason and not of argument, and the intuitive reason
which is presupposed by demonstrations grasps the unchangeable and
first terms, while the intuitive reason involved in practical
reasonings grasps the last and variable fact, i.e. the minor
premiss. For these variable facts are the starting-points for the
apprehension of the end, since the universals are reached from the
particulars; of these therefore we must have perception, and this
perception is intuitive reason.
    This is why these states are thought to be natural
endowments-why, while no one is thought to be a philosopher by
nature, people are thought to have by nature judgement,
understanding, and intuitive reason. This is shown by the fact that
we think our powers correspond to our time of life, and that a
particular age brings with it intuitive reason and judgement; this
implies that nature is the cause. (Hence intuitive reason is both
beginning and end; for demonstrations are from these and about
these.) Therefore we ought to attend to the undemonstrated sayings
and opinions of experienced and older people or of people of
practical wisdom not less than to demonstrations; for because
experience has given them an eye they see aright.
    We have stated, then, what practical and philosophic wisdom are,
and with what each of them is concerned, and we have said that each
is the virtue of a different part of the soul.
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    Difficulties might be raised as to the utility of these
qualities of mind. For (1) philosophic wisdom will contemplate none
of the things that will make a man happy (for it is not concerned
with any coming into being), and though practical wisdom has this
merit, for what purpose do we need it? Practical wisdom is the
quality of mind concerned with things just and noble and good for
man, but these are the things which it is the mark of a good man to
do, and we are none the more able to act for knowing them if the
virtues are states of character, just as we are none the better
able to act for knowing the things that are healthy and sound, in
the sense not of producing but of issuing from the state of health;
for we are none the more able to act for having the art of medicine
or of gymnastics. But (2) if we are to say that a man should have
practical wisdom not for the sake of knowing moral truths but for
the sake of becoming good, practical wisdom will be of no use to
those who are good; again it is of no use to those who have not
virtue; for it will make no difference whether they have practical
wisdom themselves or obey others who have it, and it would be
enough for us to do what we do in the case of health; though we
wish to become