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 numen abest si sit prudentia.

The idea of prudence includes ἀναλογία, 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 συνειδήσις, or a faculty of discerning proper means when they occur; and to the perfection of prudence, these three things are farther required, viz. διάνοια, or a natural sagacity; αὐτοπροσέχεια, presence of mind, or a ready turn of thought; and εμπειρία, or experience. The extremities 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. Grove's Moral Philosophy, vol. ii. chap. ii.