As Certain As π

The following quotation appears in the Selected Quotes section at the end of Lesson V: Action and Habit:

“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly.”

-Aristotle

Piggybacking my previous post The Specter of Discipline, I would like to briefly discuss the simplicity of this quote. To avoid any confusion, I have used the word simple to illustrate not baseness or thoughtlessness, but, on the contrary, brilliance.

Aristotle is essentially saying that excellence is the direct result of right action. Within the context of the previous post, right action would be defined as doing what we have committed ourselves to do. i.e., being consistent in our decisions and actions. The end of our efforts being the attainment of discipline.

As we know (and Aristotle as well, no doubt), all actions seek to perpetuate themselves through the law of habit. Thus, in terms of our objective (discipline) we can easily reformulate Aristotle's immortal words as: Discipline is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have discipline, but we rather have discipline because we have acted rightly.

Right action, in this case, the consistent doing of that which has been decided, will invariably lead to the attainment of discipline. It is as certain as π.