The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

virtues are forms of practical
wisdom, and why Socrates in one respect was on the right track
while in another he went astray; in thinking that all the virtues
were forms of practical wisdom he was wrong, but in saying they
implied practical wisdom he was right. This is confirmed by the
fact that even now all men, when they define virtue, after naming
the state of character and its objects add ‘that (state) which is
in accordance with the right rule’; now the right rule is that
which is in accordance with practical wisdom. All men, then, seem
somehow to divine that this kind of state is virtue, viz. that
which is in accordance with practical wisdom. But we must go a
little further. For it is not merely the state in accordance with
the right rule, but the state that implies the presence of the
right rule, that is virtue; and practical wisdom is a right rule
about such matters. Socrates, then, thought the virtues were rules
or rational principles (for he thought they were, all of them,
forms of scientific knowledge), while we think they involve a
rational principle.
    It is clear, then, from what has been said, that it is not
possible to be good in the strict sense without practical wisdom,
nor practically wise without moral virtue. But in this way we may
also refute the dialectical argument whereby it might be contended
that the virtues exist in separation from each other; the same man,
it might be said, is not best equipped by nature for all the
virtues, so that he will have already acquired one when he has not
yet acquired another. This is possible in respect of the natural
virtues, but not in respect of those in respect of which a man is
called without qualification good; for with the presence of the one
quality, practical wisdom, will be given all the virtues. And it is
plain that, even if it were of no practical value, we should have
needed it because it is the virtue of the part of us in question;
plain too that the choice will not be right without practical
wisdom any more than without virtue; for the one deter, mines the
end and the other makes us do the things that lead to the end.
    But again it is not supreme over philosophic wisdom, i.e. over
the superior part of us, any more than the art of medicine is over
health; for it does not use it but provides for its coming into
being; it issues orders, then, for its sake, but not to it.
Further, to maintain its supremacy would be like saying that the
art of politics rules the gods because it issues orders about all
the affairs of the state.

Nicomachean Ethics, Book VII
    Translated by W. D. Ross
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1
    Let us now make a fresh beginning and point out that of moral
states to be avoided there are three kinds-vice, incontinence,
brutishness. The contraries of two of these are evident,-one we
call virtue, the other continence; to brutishness it would be most
fitting to oppose superhuman virtue, a heroic and divine kind of
virtue, as Homer has represented Priam saying of Hector that he was
very good,
For he seemed not, he,
The child of a mortal man, but as one that of God’s seed came.
    Therefore if, as they say, men become gods by excess of virtue,
of this kind must evidently be the state opposed to the brutish
state; for as a brute has no vice or virtue, so neither has a god;
his state is higher than virtue, and that of a brute is a different
kind of state from vice.
    Now, since it is rarely that a godlike man is found-to use the
epithet of the Spartans, who when they admire any one highly call
him a ‘godlike man’-so too the brutish type is rarely found among
men; it is found chiefly among barbarians, but some brutish
qualities are also produced by disease or deformity; and we also
call by this evil name those men who go beyond all ordinary
standards by reason of vice. Of this kind of disposition, however,
we must later make some mention, while we have discussed vice
before we must now discuss incontinence and softness (or
effeminacy), and continence and endurance; for we must treat each
of the two neither as identical with virtue or wickedness, nor as a
different genus. We must, as in all other cases, set the observed
facts before us and, after first discussing the difficulties, go on
to prove, if possible, the truth of all the common opinions about
these affections of the mind, or, failing this, of the greater
number and the most authoritative; for if we both refute the
objections and leave the common opinions undisturbed, we