to any particular object of self-interest. In this last sense, what is called justice means the same thing with exact and perfect proprie|ty of conduct and behaviour, and compre|hends in it, not only the offices of both com|mutative and distributive justice, but of every other virtue, of prudence, of fortitude, of temperance. It is in this last sense that Plato evidently understands what he calls justice, and which, therefore according to him, com|prehends in it the perfection of every sort of virtue.
Such is the account given by Plato of the nature of virtue, or of that temper of mind which is the proper object of praise and ap|probation. It consists, according to him, in that state of mind in which every faculty con|fines itsself within its proper sphere without encroaching upon that of any other, and per|forms its proper office with that precise de|gree of strength and vigour which belongs to it. His account, it is evident, coincides in every respect with what we have said above concerning the propriety of conduct.
II. Virtue, * 1.1 according to Aristotle, con|sists
