The Source

In Book Seven, Chapter Eight, while Aristotle is talking about temperance and dissipation, there was a passage he said that really stuck out to me and was really profound. A little after 1151a 10, Aristotle says, "For virtue keeps the source safe, while vice destroys it, and in actions the source is that for the sake of which one acts, just as in mathematics the sources are the hypotheses; so neither there nor here is reason able to teach anyone the sources, but here it is virtue, either natural or habituated, that directs one to right opinion about the source."

We have been discussing virtue ever since reading Meno, but this passage by Aristotle seems to really hammer the point home. The idea that it is virtue that keeps the source/the good/the truth/the beautiful safe and when we act, we act (if we are wanting to be virtuous) as a byproduct of the source/the good/the truth/the beautiful is a very powerful concept. And if one can take that to heart, and not let vice destroy the source; one would live a virtuous life that ends with a beautiful end. In regards to the last part; if virtue keeps the source safe and the source is why one acts, then it makes since then that virtue, by nature, leads people to the true source. However, the phrase, "so neither there nor here is reason able to teach anyone the sources" does not seem to work. This might just be nitpicking, but it seems as if reason could play a role in teaching about the sources. If virtue is something that can be "natural or habituated, that directs one to the right opinon about the source" then could reason be something that helps habituate one to become virtuous; and therefore play a role in teaching one about the right source? Either way, the crucial role that virtue has in dealing with the source is too important not to apply to one's journey towards a beautiful end.