and error to such a degree, that they are supposed by some to exist
conventionally only, and not in the nature of things: but then, again,
the things which are allowed to be goods admit of a similar error,
because harm cornes to many from them: for before now some have perished
through wealth, and others through valour.

We must be content then, in speaking of such things and from such data,
to set forth the truth roughly and in outline; in other words, since
we are speaking of general matter and from general data, to draw also
conclusions merely general. And in the same spirit should each person
receive what we say: for the man of education will seek exactness so far
in each subject as the nature of the thing admits, it being plainly much
the same absurdity to put up with a mathematician who tries to persuade
instead of proving, and to demand strict demonstrative reasoning of a
Rhetorician.

[Sidenote: 1095a] Now each man judges well what he knows, and of these
things he is a good judge: on each particular matter then he is a good
judge who has been instructed in _it_, and in a general way the man of
general mental cultivation.

Hence the young man is not a fit student of Moral Philosophy, for he has
no experience in the actions of life, while all that is said presupposes
and is concerned with these: and in the next place, since he is apt to
follow the impulses of his passions, he will hear as though he heard
not, and to no profit, the end in view being practice and not mere
knowledge.

And I draw no distinction between young in years, and youthful in temper
and disposition: the defect to which I allude being no direct result of