of pain or self-sacrifice, although in accordance with the theory which makes virtue a habit, he could not admit that such a mind was virtuous in the highest, or indeed in any very high, degree. All habits, when acquired, issue in acts which are easy and agreeable to the agent; if they do not issue in such acts, the habits are not acquired, they are still in a state of formation. The performer is a tyro, but no proficient. He may be skilled in his art up to a certain point, but he is not yet perfect. This is true in regard to all the arts. The musician who plays with difficulty, even though he plays tolerably well, has still much to learn. So the virtuous man, whose virtue is a fight and a struggle, is still more or less in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity, and he may know that he is so just from the pain which accompanies his acts of virtue, as he may know that he has broken loose from these bonds entirely when pleasure mingles with his virtuous exercises. The delight, then, which a man finds in virtue, the misery which he finds in vice, this, according to Aristotle, is the test or criterion by which a man may try whether his virtue is perfect or not, and whether or not he has attained to the assured habit and disposition of virtue.
53. In concluding this account of the chief points contained in the ethical system of Aristotle, I may just add one word on his doctrine concerning happiness. Happiness was with him, as with all the ancient
