PRUDENCE, in ethics, may be defined an ability of judging what is best, in the choice both of ends and means. According to the definition of the Roman moralist, De Officiis, lib. i. cap. 43. prudence is the knowledge of what is to be desired or avoided. Accordingly he makes prudentia (De Legibus, lib. i.) to be a contraction of providentia, or foresight. Plato (De Legibus, lib. iii.) calls this the leading virtue; and Juvenal, Sat. x. observes,
Nullum nomen abest si sit prudentia.
The idea of prudence includes providencia, or due consultation, that is, concerning such things as demand consultation, in a right manner, and for a competent time, that the resolution taken up may be neither too precipitate nor too slow; and prudentia, or a faculty of discerning proper means when they occur: and to the perfection of prudence, these three things are farther required, viz. proutia, or a natural sagacity; proutia, presence of mind, or a ready turn of thought; and proutia, or experience. The extremes of prudence are
craft or cunning on the one hand, which is the pursuit of an ill end by direct and proper, though not honest means; and folly on the other, which is either a mistake, both as to the end and means, or prosecuting a good end by foreign and improper means.