Aristotle probably reckoned an act of speculative wisdom, or a scientific discovery, to be a better thing than an act of fortitude or temperance. St Thomas uses Aristotelian language, but can hardly mean more by it than this, that, other things being equal, an act is morally better, the more fully it represents the choice of 'reason,' that is, of the 'rational will.' On the ethical value of acts of pure intellect, as compared with acts of the conative faculties -- a difficult point, generally neglected -- cf. Ethics and Natural Law, pp. 73-77, Sect. III.

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