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Book 10
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 aiming
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 flute-playing 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.
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