Didascalicon, Book II: the sciences, their parts and their discipline
Chapter XX. Division of the practical
The practical is divided into solitary, private and public. Or otherwise: into ethical, economic and political; or otherwise: moral, dispensative and civil. One is the solitary, ethical and moral. Again, the private, economic and dispensative. And the same the public, political and civil. Oeconomus is interpreted dispenser. Hence economic is called dispensative. Polis in Greek is called civitas in Latin; hence the political is called civil. When we set ethics as a part of the practical, ethics is to be taken strictly in the morals of each person, and it is the same as the solitary. The solitary, then, is that which, taking care of itself, raises, adorns and increases everything with virtues, admitting nothing in life in which it does not rejoice, and doing nothing it must repent. The private is that which distributes the duty of household affairs in a moderate arrangement.
The public is that which, taking up the care of the commonwealth, heals by the skill of its providence for all, by the balance of justice, the steadiness of fortitude and the patience of temperance. The solitary, then, suits individuals, the private fathers of families, the political the rulers of cities. The practical is called actual because it unfolds the things proposed by its operations. It is called moral by which an honorable manner of living is sought or acquired, and institutions tending to virtue are prepared. It is called dispensative when the order of domestic affairs is wisely arranged. It is called civil by which the utility of the whole city is administered.