A Friend Is Another I.

Those Who Assert That The Mathematical Sciences Say Nothing Of The Beautiful Or The Good Are In Error. For These Sciences Say And Prove A Great Deal About Them; If They Do Not Expressly Mention Them, But Prove Attributes Which Are Their Results Or Definitions, It Is Not True That They Tell Us Nothing About Them. The Chief Forms Of Beauty Are Order And Symmetry And Definiteness, Which The Mathematical Sciences Demonstrate In A Special Degree.

We Are Masters Of Our Actions From The Beginning Up To The Very End. But, In The Case Of Our Habits, We Are Only Masters Of Their Commencement - Each Particular Little Increase Being As Imperceptible As In The Case Of Bodily Infirmities. But Yet Our Habits Are Voluntary, In That It Was Once In Our Power To Adopt Or Not To Adopt Such Or Such A Course Of Conduct.

What Is The Highest Good In All Matters Of Action? To The Name, There Is Almost Complete Agreement; For Uneducated And Educated Alike Call It Happiness, And Make Happiness Identical With The Good Life And Successful Living. They Disagree, However, About The Meaning Of Happiness.

For We Do Not Think That We Know A Thing Until We Are Acquainted With Its Primary Conditions Or First Principles, And Have Carried Our Analysis As Far As Its Simplest Elements.

If Happiness, Then, Is Activity Expressing Virtue, It Is Reasonable For It To Express The Supreme Virtue, Which Will Be The Virtueof The Best Thing.