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[4]
And as
‘wholesome’ and ‘good’ mean one thing for men and
another for fishes, whereas ‘white’ and ‘straight’
mean the same thing always, so everybody would denote the same thing by
‘wise,’ but not by ‘prudent’; for each kind of
beings will describe as prudent, and will entrust itself to, one who can discern its own
particular welfare; hence even some of the lower animals are said to be prudent, namely
those which display a capacity for forethought as regards their own lives.
It is also clear that Wisdom cannot be the same thing as Political Science; for if we are
to call knowledge of our own interests wisdom, there will be a number of different kinds
of wisdom, one for each species: there cannot be a single such wisdom dealing with the
good of all living things, any more than there is one art of medicine for all existing
things. It may be argued that man is superior to the other animals, but this makes no
difference: since there exist other things far more divine in their nature than man,
for
instance, to mention the most visible, the things1 of which the
celestial system is composed.
1 This means apparently the sun, stars, and planets, elsewhere referred to by Aristotle as ‘the divine bodies that move through the heaven,’ ‘the visible divine things,’ ‘the heaven and the most divine of visible things’ （Aristot. Met. 1074a 30, Aristot. Met. 1026a 18, Aristot. Phys. 196a 33）.
Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 19, translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1934.
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