Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics, Comprising his Practical Philosophy, Translated from the Greek. Illustrated by Introductions and Notes; The Critical History of his Life; And a New Analysis of His Speculative Works.

Aristotle considered ethics to be a practical rather than theoretical study, i.e., one aimed at becoming good and doing good rather than knowing for its own sake. He wrote several treatises on ethics, including most notably, the Nicomachean Ethics. "The fourth group of Aristotle's treatises deals with practical philosophy and literature and is best represented by the Nichomachean Ethics, perhaps the finest introduction to they study of conduct ever written; the Politics, one of the most widely read books on government in modern as in ancient times; and the Poetics, now a fragment but still the greatest piece of literature criticism in existence" (Hornstein, Reader’s Companion to World Literature). Dr. John Gillies was a British classicist of the eighteenth century who translated the major works of Socrates, Lysias, and Aristotle. Primarily a historian, Gillies' work focused on the great figures of the ancient world their influence on the modern world.