BOOK X

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

THE END

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