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Character Improvement 
Nicomachean Ethics
by Aristotle
350 BC
translated by W. D. Ross
Book 10, Chapter 1
After these matters we ought perhaps next to discuss
pleasure. For it is thought to be most intimately connected with our human
nature, which is the reason why in educating the young we steer them by the
rudders of pleasure and pain; it is thought, too, that to enjoy the things we
ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on virtue of
character. For these things extend right through life, with a weight and power
of their own in respect both to virtue and to the happy life, since men choose
what is pleasant and avoid what is painful; and such things, it will be thought,
we should least of all omit to discuss, especially since they admit of much
dispute. For some say pleasure is the good, while others, on the contrary, say
it is thoroughly bad -- some no doubt being persuaded that the facts are so, and
others thinking it has a better effect on our life to exhibit pleasure as a bad
thing even if it is not; for most people (they think) incline towards it and are
the slaves of their pleasures, for which reason they ought to lead them in the
opposite direction, since thus they will reach the middle state. But surely this
is not correct. For arguments about matters concerned with feelings and actions
are less reliable than facts: and so when they clash with the facts of
perception they are despised, and discredit the truth as well; if a man who runs
down pleasure is once seen to be alming at it, his inclining towards it is
thought to imply that it is all worthy of being aimed at; for most people are
not good at drawing distinctions. True arguments seem, then, most useful, not
only with a view to knowledge, but with a view to life also; for since they
harmonize with the facts they are believed, and so they stimulate those who
understand them to live according to them. -- Enough of such questions; let us
proceed to review the opinions that have been expressed about pleasure.
Book 10, Chapter 2
Eudoxus thought pleasure was the good because he saw all things, both
rational and irrational, aiming at it, and because in all things that which is
the object of choice is what is excellent, and that which is most the object of
choice the greatest good; thus the fact that all things moved towards the same
object indicated that this was for all things the chief good (for each thing, he
argued, finds its own good, as it finds its own nourishment); and that which is
good for all things and at which all aim was the good. His arguments were
credited more because of the excellence of his character than for their own
sake; he was thought to be remarkably self-controlled, and therefore it was
thought that he was not saying what he did say as a friend of pleasure, but that
the facts really were so. He believed that the same conclusion followed no less
plainly from a study of the contrary of pleasure; pain was in itself an object
of aversion to all things, and therefore its contrary must be similarly an
object of choice. And again that is most an object of choice which we choose not
because or for the sake of something else, and pleasure is admittedly of this
nature; for no one asks to what end he is pleased, thus implying that pleasure
is in itself an object of choice. Further, he argued that pleasure when added to
any good, e.g. to just or temperate action, makes it more worthy of choice, and
that it is only by itself that the good can be increased.
This argument seems to show it to be one of the goods, and no more a good
than any other; for every good is more worthy of choice along with another good
than taken alone. And so it is by an argument of this kind that Plato proves the
good not to be pleasure; he argues that the pleasant life is more desirable with
wisdom than without, and that if the mixture is better, pleasure is not the
good; for the good cannot become more desirable by the addition of anything to
it. Now it is clear that nothing else, any more than pleasure, can be the good
if it is made more desirable by the addition of any of the things that are good
in themselves. What, then, is there that satisfies this criterion, which at the
same time we can participate in? It is something of this sort that we are
looking for. Those who object that that at which all things aim is not
necessarily good are, we may surmise, talking nonsense. For we say that that
which every one thinks really is so; and the man who attacks this belief will
hardly have anything more credible to maintain instead. If it is senseless
creatures that desire the things in question, there might be something in what
they say; but if intelligent creatures do so as well, what sense can there be in
this view? But perhaps even in inferior creatures there is some natural good
stronger than themselves which aims at their proper good.
Nor does the argument about the contrary of pleasure seem to be correct.
They say that if pain is an evil it does not follow that pleasure is a good; for
evil is opposed to evil and at the same time both are opposed to the neutral
state -- which is correct enough but does not apply to the things in question.
For if both pleasure and pain belonged to the class of evils they ought both to
be objects of aversion, while if they belonged to the class of neutrals neither
should be an object of aversion or they should both be equally so; but in fact
people evidently avoid the one as evil and choose the other as good; that then
must be the nature of the opposition between them.
Book 10, Chapter 3
Nor again, if pleasure is not a quality, does it follow that it is not a
good; for the activities of virtue are not qualities either, nor is happiness.
They say, however, that the good is determinate, while pleasure is
indeterminate, because it admits of degrees. Now if it is from the feeling of
pleasure that they judge thus, the same will be true of justice and the other
virtues, in respect of which we plainly say that people of a certain character
are so more or less, and act more or less in accordance with these virtues; for
people may be more just or brave, and it is possible also to act justly or
temperately more or less. But if their judgement is based on the various
pleasures, surely they are not stating the real cause, if in fact some pleasures
are unmixed and others mixed. Again, just as health admits of degrees without
being indeterminate, why should not pleasure? The same proportion is not found
in all things, nor a single proportion always in the same thing, but it may be
relaxed and yet persist up to a point, and it may differ in degree. The case of
pleasure also may therefore be of this kind.
Again, they assume that the good is perfect while movements and comings into
being are imperfect, and try to exhibit pleasure as being a movement and a
coming into being. But they do not seem to be right even in saying that it is a
movement. For speed and slowness are thought to be proper to every movement, and
if a movement, e.g. that of the heavens, has not speed or slowness in itself, it
has it in relation to something else; but of pleasure neither of these things is
true. For while we may become pleased quickly as we may become angry quickly, we
cannot be pleased quickly, not even in relation to some one else, while we can
walk, or grow, or the like, quickly. While, then, we can change quickly or
slowly into a state of pleasure, we cannot quickly exhibit the activity of
pleasure, i.e. be pleased. Again, how can it be a coming into being? It is not
thought that any chance thing can come out of any chance thing, but that a thing
is dissolved into that out of which it comes into being; and pain would be the
destruction of that of which pleasure is the coming into being.
They say, too, that pain is the lack of that which is according to nature,
and pleasure is replenishment. But these experiences are bodily. If then
pleasure is replenishment with that which is according to nature, that which
feels pleasure will be that in which the replenishment takes place, i.e. the
body; but that is not thought to be the case; therefore the replenishment is not
pleasure, though one would be pleased when replenishment was taking place, just
as one would be pained if one was being operated on. This opinion seems to be
based on the pains and pleasures connected with nutrition; on the fact that when
people have been short of food and have felt pain beforehand they are pleased by
the replenishment. But this does not happen with all pleasures; for the
pleasures of learning and, among the sensuous pleasures, those of smell, and
also many sounds and sights, and memories and hopes, do not presuppose pain. Of
what then will these be the coming into being? There has not been lack of
anything of which they could be the supplying anew.
In reply to those who bring forward the disgraceful pleasures one may say
that these are not pleasant; if things are pleasant to people of vicious
constitution, we must not suppose that they are also pleasant to others than
these, just as we do not reason so about the things that are wholesome or sweet
or bitter to sick people, or ascribe whiteness to the things that seem white to
those suffering from a disease of the eye. Or one might answer thus -- that the
pleasures are desirable, but not from these sources, as wealth is desirable, but
not as the reward of betrayal, and health, but not at the cost of eating
anything and everything. Or perhaps pleasures differ in kind; for those derived
from noble sources are different from those derived from base sources, and one
cannot the pleasure of the just man without being just, nor that of the musical
man without being musical, and so on.
The fact, too, that a friend is different from a flatterer seems to make it
plain that pleasure is not a good or that pleasures are different in kind; for
the one is thought to consort with us with a view to the good, the other with a
view to our pleasure, and the one is reproached for his conduct while the other
is praised on the ground that he consorts with us for different ends. And no one
would choose to live with the intellect of a child throughout his life, however
much he were to be pleased at the things that children are pleased at, nor to
get enjoyment by doing some most disgraceful deed, though he were never to feel
any pain in consequence. And there are many things we should be keen about even
if they brought no pleasure, e.g. seeing, remembering, knowing, possessing the
virtues. If pleasures necessarily do accompany these, that makes no odds; we
should choose these even if no pleasure resulted. It seems to be clear, then,
that neither is pleasure the good nor is all pleasure desirable, and that some
pleasures are desirable in themselves, differing in kind or in their sources
from the others. So much for the things that are said about pleasure and pain.
Book 10, Chapter 4
What pleasure is, or what kind of thing it is, will become plainer if we
take up the question aga from the beginning. Seeing seems to be at any moment
complete, for it does not lack anything which coming into being later will
complete its form; and pleasure also seems to be of this nature. For it is a
whole, and at no time can one find a pleasure whose form will be completed if
the pleasure lasts longer. For this reason, too, it is not a movement. For every
movement (e.g. that of building) takes time and is for the sake of an end, and
is complete when it has made what it aims at. It is complete, therefore, only in
the whole time or at that final moment. In their parts and during the time they
occupy, all movements are incomplete, and are different in kind from the whole
movement and from each other. For the fitting together of the stones is
different from the fluting of the column, and these are both different from the
making of the temple; and the making of the temple is complete (for it lacks
nothing with a view to the end proposed), but the making of the base or of the
triglyph is incomplete; for each is the making of only a part. They differ in
kind, then, and it is not possible to find at any and every time a movement
complete in form, but if at all, only in the whole time. So, too, in the case of
walking and all other movements. For if locomotion is a movement from to there,
it, too, has differences in kind -- flying, walking, leaping, and so on. And not
only so, but in walking itself there are such differences; for the whence and
whither are not the same in the whole racecourse and in a part of it, nor in one
part and in another, nor is it the same thing to traverse this line and that;
for one traverses not only a line but one which is in a place, and this one is
in a different place from that. We have discussed movement with precision in
another work, but it seems that it is not complete at any and every time, but
that the many movements are incomplete and different in kind, since the whence
and whither give them their form. But of pleasure the form is complete at any
and every time. Plainly, then, pleasure and movement must be different from each
other, and pleasure must be one of the things that are whole and complete. This
would seem to be the case, too, from the fact that it is not possible to move
otherwise than in time, but it is possible to be pleased; for that which takes
place in a moment is a whole.
From these considerations it is clear, too, that these thinkers are not
right in saying there is a movement or a coming into being of pleasure. For
these cannot be ascribed to all things, but only to those that are divisible and
not wholes; there is no coming into being of seeing nor of a point nor of a
unit, nor is any of these a movement or coming into being; therefore there is no
movement or coming into being of pleasure either; for it is a whole.
Since every sense is active in relation to its object, and a sense which is
in good condition acts perfectly in relation to the most beautiful of its
objects (for perfect activity seems to be ideally of this nature; whether we say
that it is active, or the organ in which it resides, may be assumed to be
immaterial), it follows that in the case of each sense the best activity is that
of the best-conditioned organ in relation to the finest of its objects. And this
activity will be the most complete and pleasant. For, while there is pleasure in
respect of any sense, and in respect of thought and contemplation no less, the
most complete is pleasantest, and that of a well-conditioned organ in relation
to the worthiest of its objects is the most complete; and the pleasure completes
the activity. But the pleasure does not complete it in the same way as the
combination of object and sense, both good, just as health and the doctor are
not in the same way the cause of a man's being healthy. (That pleasure is
produced in respect to each sense is plain; for we speak of sights and sounds as
pleasant. It is also plain that it arises most of all when both the sense is at
its best and it is active in reference to an object which corresponds; when both
object and perceiver are of the best there will always be pleasure, since the
requisite agent and patient are both present.) Pleasure completes the activity
not as the corresponding permanent state does, by its immanence, but as an end
which supervenes as the bloom of youth does on those in the flower of their age.
So long, then, as both the intelligible or sensible object and the
discriminating or contemplative faculty are as they should be, the pleasure will
be involved in the activity; for when both the passive and the active factor are
unchanged and are related to each other in the same way, the same result
naturally follows.
How, then, is it that no one is continuously pleased? Is it that we grow
weary? Certainly all human beings are incapable of continuous activity.
Therefore pleasure also is not continuous; for it accompanies activity. Some
things delight us when they are new, but later do so less, for the same reason;
for at first the mind is in a state of stimulation and intensely active about
them, as people are with respect to their vision when they look hard at a thing,
but afterwards our activity is not of this kind, but has grown relaxed; for
which reason the pleasure also is dulled.
One might think that all men desire pleasure because they all aim at life;
life is an activity, and each man is active about those things and with those
faculties that he loves most; e.g. the musician is active with his hearing in
reference to tunes, the student with his mind in reference to theoretical
questions, and so on in each case; now pleasure completes the activities, and
therefore life, which they desire. It is with good reason, then, that they aim
at pleasure too, since for every one it completes life, which is desirable. But
whether we choose life for the sake of pleasure or pleasure for the sake of life
is a question we may dismiss for the present. For they seem to be bound up
together and not to admit of separation, since without activity pleasure does
not arise, and every activity is completed by the attendant pleasure.
Book 10, Chapter 5
For this reason pleasures seem, too, to differ in kind. For things different
in kind are, we think, completed by different things (we see this to be true
both of natural objects and of things produced by art, e.g. animals, trees, a
painting, a sculpture, a house, an implement); and, similarly, we think that
activities differing in kind are completed by things differing in kind. Now the
activities of thought differ from those of the senses, and both differ among
themselves, in kind; so, therefore, do the pleasures that complete them.
This may be seen, too, from the fact that each of the pleasures is bound up
with the activity it completes. For an activity is intensified by its proper
pleasure, since each class of things is better judged of and brought to
precision by those who engage in the activity with pleasure; e.g. it is those
who enjoy geometrical thinking that become geometers and grasp the various
propositions better, and, similarly, those who are fond of music or of building,
and so on, make progress in their proper function by enjoying it; so the
pleasures intensify the activities, and what intensifies a thing is proper to
it, but things different in kind have properties different in kind.
This will be even more apparent from the fact that activities are hindered
by pleasures arising from other sources. For people who are fond of playing the
flute are incapable of attending to arguments if they overhear some one playing
the flute, since they enjoy flute-playing more than the activity in hand; so the
pleasure connected with fluteplaying destroys the activity concerned with
argument. This happens, similarly, in all other cases, when one is active about
two things at once; the more pleasant activity drives out the other, and if it
is much more pleasant does so all the more, so that one even ceases from the
other. This is why when we enjoy anything very much we do not throw ourselves
into anything else, and do one thing only when we are not much pleased by
another; e.g. in the theatre the people who eat sweets do so most when the
actors are poor. Now since activities are made precise and more enduring and
better by their proper pleasure, and injured by alien pleasures, evidently the
two kinds of pleasure are far apart. For alien pleasures do pretty much what
proper pains do, since activities are destroyed by their proper pains; e.g. if a
man finds writing or doing sums unpleasant and painful, he does not write, or
does not do sums, because the activity is painful. So an activity suffers
contrary effects from its proper pleasures and pains, i.e. from those that
supervene on it in virtue of its own nature. And alien pleasures have been
stated to do much the same as pain; they destroy the activity, only not to the
same degree.
Now since activities differ in respect of goodness and badness, and some are
worthy to be chosen, others to be avoided, and others neutral, so, too, are the
pleasures; for to each activity there is a proper pleasure. The pleasure proper
to a worthy activity is good and that proper to an unworthy activity bad; just
as the appetites for noble objects are laudable, those for base objects
culpable. But the pleasures involved in activities are more proper to them than
the desires; for the latter are separated both in time and in nature, while the
former are close to the activities, and so hard to distinguish from them that it
admits of dispute whether the activity is not the same as the pleasure. (Still,
pleasure does not seem to be thought or perception -- that would be strange; but
because they are not found apart they appear to some people the same.) As
activities are different, then, so are the corresponding pleasures. Now sight is
superior to touch in purity, and hearing and smell to taste; the pleasures,
therefore, are similarly superior, and those of thought superior to these, and
within each of the two kinds some are superior to others.
Each animal is thought to have a proper pleasure, as it has a proper
function; viz. that which corresponds to its activity. If we survey them species
by species, too, this will be evident; horse, dog, and man have different
pleasures, as Heraclitus says 'asses would prefer sweepings to gold'; for food
is pleasanter than gold to asses. So the pleasures of creatures different in
kind differ in kind, and it is plausible to suppose that those of a single
species do not differ. But they vary to no small extent, in the case of men at
least; the same things delight some people and pain others, and are painful and
odious to some, and pleasant to and liked by others. This happens, too, in the
case of sweet things; the same things do not seem sweet to a man in a fever and
a healthy man -- nor hot to a weak man and one in good condition. The same
happens in other cases. But in all such matters that which appears to the good
man is thought to be really so. If this is correct, as it seems to be, and
virtue and the good man as such are the measure of each thing, those also will
be pleasures which appear so to him, and those things pleasant which he enjoys.
If the things he finds tiresome seem pleasant to some one, that is nothing
surprising; for men may be ruined and spoilt in many ways; but the things are
not pleasant, but only pleasant to these people and to people in this condition.
Those which are admittedly disgraceful plainly should not be said to be
pleasures, except to a perverted taste; but of those that are thought to be good
what kind of pleasure or what pleasure should be said to be that proper to man?
Is it not plain from the corresponding activities? The pleasures follow these.
Whether, then, the perfect and supremely happy man has one or more activities,
the pleasures that perfect these will be said in the strict sense to be
pleasures proper to man, and the rest will be so in a secondary and fractional
way, as are the activities.
Book 10, Chapter 6
Now that we have spoken of the virtues, the forms of friendship, and the
varieties of pleasure, what remains is to discuss in outline the nature of
happiness, since this is what we state the end of human nature to be. Our
discussion will be the more concise if we first sum up what we have said
already. We said, then, that it is not a disposition; for if it were it might
belong to some one who was asleep throughout his life, living the life of a
plant, or, again, to some one who was suffering the greatest misfortunes. If
these implications are unacceptable, and we must rather class happiness as an
activity, as we have said before, and if some activities are necessary, and
desirable for the sake of something else, while others are so in themselves,
evidently happiness must be placed among those desirable in themselves, not
among those desirable for the sake of something else; for happiness does not
lack anything, but is self-sufficient. Now those activities are desirable in
themselves from which nothing is sought beyond the activity. And of this nature
virtuous actions are thought to be; for to do noble and good deeds is a thing
desirable for its own sake.
Pleasant amusements also are thought to be of this nature; we choose them
not for the sake of other things; for we are injured rather than benefited by
them, since we are led to neglect our bodies and our property. But most of the
people who are deemed happy take refuge in such pastimes, which is the reason
why those who are ready-witted at them are highly esteemed at the courts of
tyrants; they make themselves pleasant companions in the tyrants' favourite
pursuits, and that is the sort of man they want. Now these things are thought to
be of the nature of happiness because people in despotic positions spend their
leisure in them, but perhaps such people prove nothing; for virtue and reason,
from which good activities flow, do not depend on despotic position; nor, if
these people, who have never tasted pure and generous pleasure, take refuge in
the bodily pleasures, should these for that reason be thought more desirable;
for boys, too, think the things that are valued among themselves are the best.
It is to be expected, then, that, as different things seem valuable to boys and
to men, so they should to bad men and to good. Now, as we have often maintained,
those things are both valuable and pleasant which are such to the good man; and
to each man the activity in accordance with his own disposition is most
desirable, and, therefore, to the good man that which is in accordance with
virtue. Happiness, therefore, does not lie in amusement; it would, indeed, be
strange if the end were amusement, and one were to take trouble and suffer
hardship all one's life in order to amuse oneself. For, in a word, everything
that we choose we choose for the sake of something else -- except happiness,
which is an end. Now to exert oneself and work for the sake of amusement seems
silly and utterly childish. But to amuse oneself in order that one may exert
oneself, as Anacharsis puts it, seems right; for amusement is a sort of
relaxation, and we need relaxation because we cannot work continuously.
Relaxation, then, is not an end; for it is taken for the sake of activity.
The happy life is thought to be virtuous; now a virtuous life requires
exertion, and does not consist in amusement. And we say that serious things are
better than laughable things and those connected with amusement, and that the
activity of the better of any two things -- whether it be two elements of our
being or two men -- is the more serious; but the activity of the better is ipso
facto superior and more of the nature of happiness. And any chance person --
even a slave -- can enjoy the bodily pleasures no less than the best man; but no
one assigns to a slave a share in happiness -- unless he assigns to him also a
share in human life. For happiness does not lie in such occupations, but, as we
have said before, in virtuous activities.
Book 10, Chapter 7
If happiness is activity in accordance with virtue, it is reasonable that it
should be in accordance with the highest virtue; and this will be that of the
best thing in us. Whether it be reason or something else that is this element
which is thought to be our natural ruler and guide and to take thought of things
noble and divine, whether it be itself also divine or only the most divine
element in us, the activity of this in accordance with its proper virtue will be
perfect happiness. That this activity is contemplative we have already said.
Now this would seem to be in agreement both with what we said before and
with the truth. For, firstly, this activity is the best (since not only is
reason the best thing in us, but the objects of reason are the best of knowable
objects); and secondly, it is the most continuous, since we can contemplate
truth more continuously than we can do anything. And we think happiness has
pleasure mingled with it, but the activity of philosophic wisdom is admittedly
the pleasantest of virtuous activities; at all events the pursuit of it is
thought to offer pleasures marvellous for their purity and their enduringness,
and it is to be expected that those who know will pass their time more
pleasantly than those who inquire. And the self-sufficiency that is spoken of
must belong most to the contemplative activity. For while a philosopher, as well
as a just man or one possessing any other virtue, needs the necessaries of life,
when they are sufficiently equipped with things of that sort the just man needs
people towards whom and with whom he shall act justly, and the temperate man,
the brave man, and each of the others is in the same case, but the philosopher,
even when by himself, can contemplate truth, and the better the wiser he is; he
can perhaps do so better if he has fellow-workers, but still he is the most
self-sufficient. And this activity alone would seem to be loved for its own
sake; for nothing arises from it apart from the contemplating, while from
practical activities we gain more or less apart from the action. And happiness
is thought to depend on leisure; for we are busy that we may have leisure, and
make war that we may live in peace. Now the activity of the practical virtues is
exhibited in political or military affairs, but the actions concerned with these
seem to be unleisurely. Warlike actions are completely so (for no one chooses to
be at war, or provokes war, for the sake of being at war; any one would seem
absolutely murderous if he were to make enemies of his friends in order to bring
about battle and slaughter); but the action of the statesman is also
unleisurely, and -- apart from the political action itself -- aims at despotic
power and honours, or at all events happiness, for him and his fellow citizens
-- a happiness different from political action, and evidently sought as being
different. So if among virtuous actions political and military actions are
distinguished by nobility and greatness, and these are unleisurely and aim at an
end and are not desirable for their own sake, but the activity of reason, which
is contemplative, seems both to be superior in serious worth and to aim at no
end beyond itself, and to have its pleasure proper to itself (and this augments
the activity), and the self-sufficiency, leisureliness, unweariedness (so far as
this is possible for man), and all the other attributes ascribed to the
supremely happy man are evidently those connected with this activity, it follows
that this will be the complete happiness of man, if it be allowed a complete
term of life (for none of the attributes of happiness is incomplete).
But such a life would be too high for man; for it is not in so far as he is
man that he will live so, but in so far as something divine is present in him;
and by so much as this is superior to our composite nature is its activity
superior to that which is the exercise of the other kind of virtue. If reason is
divine, then, in comparison with man, the life according to it is divine in
comparison with human life. But we must not follow those who advise us, being
men, to think of human things, and, being mortal, of mortal things, but must, so
far as we can, make ourselves immortal, and strain every nerve to live in
accordance with the best thing in us; for even if it be small in bulk, much more
does it in power and worth surpass everything. This would seem, too, to be each
man himself, since it is the authoritative and better part of him. It would be
strange, then, if he were to choose not the life of his self but that of
something else. And what we said before' will apply now; that which is proper to
each thing is by nature best and most pleasant for each thing; for man,
therefore, the life according to reason is best and pleasantest, since reason
more than anything else is man. This life therefore is also the happiest.
Book 10, Chapter 8
But in a secondary degree the life in accordance with the other kind of
virtue is happy; for the activities in accordance with this befit our human
estate. Just and brave acts, and other virtuous acts, we do in relation to each
other, observing our respective duties with regard to contracts and services and
all manner of actions and with regard to passions; and all of these seem to be
typically human. Some of them seem even to arise from the body, and virtue of
character to be in many ways bound up with the passions. Practical wisdom, too,
is linked to virtue of character, and this to practical wisdom, since the
principles of practical wisdom are in accordance with the moral virtues and
rightness in morals is in accordance with practical wisdom. Being connected with
the passions also, the moral virtues must belong to our composite nature; and
the virtues of our composite nature are human; so, therefore, are the life and
the happiness which correspond to these. The excellence of the reason is a thing
apart; we must be content to say this much about it, for to describe it
precisely is a task greater than our purpose requires. It would seem, however,
also to need external equipment but little, or less than moral virtue does.
Grant that both need the necessaries, and do so equally, even if the statesman's
work is the more concerned with the body and things of that sort; for there will
be little difference there; but in what they need for the exercise of their
activities there will be much difference. The liberal man will need money for
the doing of his liberal deeds, and the just man too will need it for the
returning of services (for wishes are hard to discern, and even people who are
not just pretend to wish to act justly); and the brave man will need power if he
is to accomplish any of the acts that correspond to his virtue, and the
temperate man will need opportunity; for how else is either he or any of the
others to be recognized? It is debated, too, whether the will or the deed is
more essential to virtue, which is assumed to involve both; it is surely clear
that its perfection involves both; but for deeds many things are needed, and
more, the greater and nobler the deeds are. But the man who is contemplating the
truth needs no such thing, at least with a view to the exercise of his activity;
indeed they are, one may say, even hindrances, at all events to his
contemplation; but in so far as he is a man and lives with a number of people,
he chooses to do virtuous acts; he will therefore need such aids to living a
human life.
But that perfect happiness is a contemplative activity will appear from the
following consideration as well. We assume the gods to be above all other beings
blessed and happy; but what sort of actions must we assign to them? Acts of
justice? Will not the gods seem absurd if they make contracts and return
deposits, and so on? Acts of a brave man, then, confronting dangers and running
risks because it is noble to do so? Or liberal acts? To whom will they give? It
will be strange if they are really to have money or anything of the kind. And
what would their temperate acts be? Is not such praise tasteless, since they
have no bad appetites? If we were to run through them all, the circumstances of
action would be found trivial and unworthy of gods. Still, every one supposes
that they live and therefore that they are active; we cannot suppose them to
sleep like Endymion. Now if you take away from a living being action, and still
more production, what is left but contemplation? Therefore the activity of God,
which surpasses all others in blessedness, must be contemplative; and of human
activities, therefore, that which is most akin to this must be most of the
nature of happiness.
This is indicated, too, by the fact that the other animals have no share in
happiness, being completely deprived of such activity. For while the whole life
of the gods is blessed, and that of men too in so far as some likeness of such
activity belongs to them, none of the other animals is happy, since they in no
way share in contemplation. Happiness extends, then, just so far as
contemplation does, and those to whom contemplation more fully belongs are more
truly happy, not as a mere concomitant but in virtue of the contemplation; for
this is in itself precious. Happiness, therefore, must be some form of
contemplation.
But, being a man, one will also need external prosperity; for our nature is
not self-sufficient for the purpose of contemplation, but our body also must be
healthy and must have food and other attention. Still, we must not think that
the man who is to be happy will need many things or great things, merely because
he cannot be supremely happy without external goods; for self-sufficiency and
action do not involve excess, and we can do noble acts without ruling earth and
sea; for even with moderate advantages one can act virtuously (this is manifest
enough; for private persons are thought to do worthy acts no less than despots
-- indeed even more); and it is enough that we should have so much as that; for
the life of the man who is active in accordance with virtue will be happy.
Solon, too, was perhaps sketching well the happy man when he described him as
moderately furnished with externals but as having done (as Solon thought) the
noblest acts, and lived temperately; for one can with but moderate possessions
do what one ought. Anaxagoras also seems to have supposed the happy man not to
be rich nor a despot, when he said that he would not be surprised if the happy
man were to seem to most people a strange person; for they judge by externals,
since these are all they perceive. The opinions of the wise seem, then, to
harmonize with our arguments. But while even such things carry some conviction,
the truth in practical matters is discerned from the facts of life; for these
are the decisive factor. We must therefore survey what we have already said,
bringing it to the test of the facts of life, and if it harmonizes with the
facts we must accept it, but if it clashes with them we must suppose it to be
mere theory. Now he who exercises his reason and cultivates it seems to be both
in the best state of mind and most dear to the gods. For if the gods have any
care for human affairs, as they are thought to have, it would be reasonable both
that they should delight in that which was best and most akin to them (i.e.
reason) and that they should reward those who love and honour this most, as
caring for the things that are dear to them and acting both rightly and nobly.
And that all these attributes belong most of all to the philosopher is manifest.
He, therefore, is the dearest to the gods. And he who is that will presumably be
also the happiest; so that in this way too the philosopher will more than any
other be happy.
Book 10, Chapter 9
If these matters and the virtues, and also friendship and pleasure, have
been dealt with sufficiently in outline, are we to suppose that our programme
has reached its end? Surely, as the saying goes, where there are things to be
done the end is not to survey and recognize the various things, but rather to do
them; with regard to virtue, then, it is not enough to know, but we must try to
have and use it, or try any other way there may be of becoming good. Now if
arguments were in themselves enough to make men good, they would justly, as
Theognis says, have won very great rewards, and such rewards should have been
provided; but as things are, while they seem to have power to encourage and
stimulate the generous-minded among our youth, and to make a character which is
gently born, and a true lover of what is noble, ready to be possessed by virtue,
they are not able to encourage the many to nobility and goodness. For these do
not by nature obey the sense of shame, but only fear, and do not abstain from
bad acts because of their baseness but through fear of punishment; living by
passion they pursue their own pleasures and the means to them, and and the
opposite pains, and have not even a conception of what is noble and truly
pleasant, since they have never tasted it. What argument would remould such
people? It is hard, if not impossible, to remove by argument the traits that
have long since been incorporated in the character; and perhaps we must be
content if, when all the influences by which we are thought to become good are
present, we get some tincture of virtue.
Now some think that we are made good by nature, others by habituation,
others by teaching. Nature's part evidently does not depend on us, but as a
result of some divine causes is present in those who are truly fortunate; while
argument and teaching, we may suspect, are not powerful with all men, but the
soul of the student must first have been cultivated by means of habits for noble
joy and noble hatred, like earth which is to nourish the seed. For he who lives
as passion directs will not hear argument that dissuades him, nor understand it
if he does; and how can we persuade one in such a state to change his ways? And
in general passion seems to yield not to argument but to force. The character,
then, must somehow be there already with a kinship to virtue, loving what is
noble and hating what is base.
But it is difficult to get from youth up a right training for virtue if one
has not been brought up under right laws; for to live temperately and hardily is
not pleasant to most people, especially when they are young. For this reason
their nurture and occupations should be fixed by law; for they will not be
painful when they have become customary. But it is surely not enough that when
they are young they should get the right nurture and attention; since they must,
even when they are grown up, practise and be habituated to them, we shall need
laws for this as well, and generally speaking to cover the whole of life; for
most people obey necessity rather than argument, and punishments rather than the
sense of what is noble.
This is why some think that legislators ought to stimulate men to virtue and
urge them forward by the motive of the noble, on the assumption that those who
have been well advanced by the formation of habits will attend to such
influences; and that punishments and penalties should be imposed on those who
disobey and are of inferior nature, while the incurably bad should be completely
banished. A good man (they think), since he lives with his mind fixed on what is
noble, will submit to argument, while a bad man, whose desire is for pleasure,
is corrected by pain like a beast of burden. This is, too, why they say the
pains inflicted should be those that are most opposed to the pleasures such men
love.
However that may be, if (as we have said) the man who is to be good must be
well trained and habituated, and go on to spend his time in worthy occupations
and neither willingly nor unwillingly do bad actions, and if this can be brought
about if men live in accordance with a sort of reason and right order, provided
this has force, -- if this be so, the paternal command indeed has not the
required force or compulsive power (nor in general has the command of one man,
unless he be a king or something similar), but the law has compulsive power,
while it is at the same time a rule proceeding from a sort of practical wisdom
and reason. And while people hate men who oppose their impulses, even if they
oppose them rightly, the law in its ordaining of what is good is not burdensome.
In the Spartan state alone, or almost alone, the legislator seems to have
paid attention to questions of nurture and occupations; in most states such
matters have been neglected, and each man lives as he pleases, Cyclops-fashion,
'to his own wife and children dealing law'. Now it is best that there should be
a public and proper care for such matters; but if they are neglected by the
community it would seem right for each man to help his children and friends
towards virtue, and that they should have the power, or at least the will, to do
this.
It would seem from what has been said that he can do this better if he makes
himself capable of legislating. For public control is plainly effected by laws,
and good control by good laws; whether written or unwritten would seem to make
no difference, nor whether they are laws providing for the education of
individuals or of groups -- any more than it does in the case of music or
gymnastics and other such pursuits. For as in cities laws and prevailing types
of character have force, so in households do the injunctions and the habits of
the father, and these have even more because of the tie of blood and the
benefits he confers; for the children start with a natural affection and
disposition to obey. Further, private education has an advantage over public, as
private medical treatment has; for while in general rest and abstinence from
food are good for a man in a fever, for a particular man they may not be; and a
boxer presumably does not prescribe the same style of fighting to all his
pupils. It would seem, then, that the detail is worked out with more precision
if the control is private; for each person is more likely to get what suits his
case.
But the details can be best looked after, one by one, by a doctor or
gymnastic instructor or any one else who has the general knowledge of what is
good for every one or for people of a certain kind (for the sciences both are
said to be, and are, concerned with what is universal); not but what some
particular detail may perhaps be well looked after by an unscientific person, if
he has studied accurately in the light of experience what happens in each case,
just as some people seem to be their own best doctors, though they could give no
help to any one else. None the less, it will perhaps be agreed that if a man
does wish to become master of an art or science he must go to the universal, and
come to know it as well as possible; for, as we have said, it is with this that
the sciences are concerned.
And surely he who wants to make men, whether many or few, better by his care
must try to become capable of legislating, if it is through laws that we can
become good. For to get any one whatever -- any one who is put before us -- into
the right condition is not for the first chance comer; if any one can do it, it
is the man who knows, just as in medicine and all other matters which give scope
for care and prudence.
Must we not, then, next examine whence or how one can learn how to
legislate? Is it, as in all other cases, from statesmen? Certainly it was
thought to be a part of statesmanship. Or is a difference apparent between
statesmanship and the other sciences and arts? In the others the same people are
found offering to teach the arts and practising them, e.g. doctors or painters;
but while the sophists profess to teach politics, it is practised not by any of
them but by the politicians, who would seem to do so by dint of a certain skill
and experience rather than of thought; for they are not found either writing or
speaking about such matters (though it were a nobler occupation perhaps than
composing speeches for the law-courts and the assembly), nor again are they
found to have made statesmen of their own sons or any other of their friends.
But it was to be expected that they should if they could; for there is nothing
better than such a skill that they could have left to their cities, or could
prefer to have for themselves, or, therefore, for those dearest to them. Still,
experience seems to contribute not a little; else they could not have become
politicians by familiarity with politics; and so it seems that those who aim at
knowing about the art of politics need experience as well.
But those of the sophists who profess the art seem to be very far from
teaching it. For, to put the matter generally, they do not even know what kind
of thing it is nor what kinds of things it is about; otherwise they would not
have classed it as identical with rhetoric or even inferior to it, nor have
thought it easy to legislate by collecting the laws that are thought well of;
they say it is possible to select the best laws, as though even the selection
did not demand intelligence and as though right judgement were not the greatest
thing, as in matters of music. For while people experienced in any department
judge rightly the works produced in it, and understand by what means or how they
are achieved, and what harmonizes with what, the inexperienced must be content
if they do not fail to see whether the work has been well or ill made -- as in
the case of painting. Now laws are as it were the' works' of the political art;
how then can one learn from them to be a legislator, or judge which are best?
Even medical men do not seem to be made by a study of text-books. Yet people
try, at any rate, to state not only the treatments, but also how particular
classes of people can be cured and should be treated -- distinguishing the
various habits of body; but while this seems useful to experienced people, to
the inexperienced it is valueless. Surely, then, while collections of laws, and
of constitutions also, may be serviceable to those who can study them and judge
what is good or bad and what enactments suit what circumstances, those who go
through such collections without a practised faculty will not have right
judgement (unless it be as a spontaneous gift of nature), though they may
perhaps become more intelligent in such matters.
Now our predecessors have left the subject of legislation to us unexamined;
it is perhaps best, therefore, that we should ourselves study it, and in general
study the question of the constitution, in order to complete to the best of our
ability our philosophy of human nature. First, then, if anything has been said
well in detail by earlier thinkers, let us try to review it; then in the light
of the constitutions we have collected let us study what sorts of influence
preserve and destroy states, and what sorts preserve or destroy the particular
kinds of constitution, and to what causes it is due that some are well and
others ill administered. When these have been studied we shall perhaps be more
likely to see with a comprehensive view, which constitution is best, and how
each must be ordered, and what laws and customs it must use, if it is to be at
its best. Let us make a beginning of our discussion.
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