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\f0\fs58 \cf0                                      350 BC
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                               NICOMACHEAN ETHICS
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                                  by Aristotle
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                            translated by W. D. Ross
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                              BOOK I
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                                 1
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  EVERY art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit,
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is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has
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rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim. But a
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certain difference is found among ends; some are activities, others
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are products apart from the activities that produce them. Where
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there are ends apart from the actions, it is the nature of the
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products to be better than the activities. Now, as there are many
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actions, arts, and sciences, their ends also are many; the end of
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the medical art is health, that of shipbuilding a vessel, that of
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strategy victory, that of economics wealth. But where such arts fall
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under a single capacity- as bridle-making and the other arts concerned
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with the equipment of horses fall under the art of riding, and this
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and every military action under strategy, in the same way other arts
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fall under yet others- in all of these the ends of the master arts
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are to be preferred to all the subordinate ends; for it is for the
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sake of the former that the latter are pursued. It makes no difference
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whether the activities themselves are the ends of the actions, or
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something else apart from the activities, as in the case of the
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sciences just mentioned.
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                                 2
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  If, then, there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for
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its own sake (everything else being desired for the sake of this), and
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if we do not choose everything for the sake of something else (for
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at that rate the process would go on to infinity, so that our desire
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would be empty and vain), clearly this must be the good and the
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chief good. Will not the knowledge of it, then, have a great influence
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on life? Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more
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likely to hit upon what is right? If so, we must try, in outline at
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least, to determine what it is, and of which of the sciences or
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capacities it is the object. It would seem to belong to the most
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authoritative art and that which is most truly the master art. And
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politics appears to be of this nature; for it is this that ordains
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which of the sciences should be studied in a state, and which each
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class of citizens should learn and up to what point they should
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learn them; and we see even the most highly esteemed of capacities
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to fall under this, e.g. strategy, economics, rhetoric; now, since
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politics uses the rest of the sciences, and since, again, it
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legislates as to what we are to do and what we are to abstain from,
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the end of this science must include those of the others, so that this
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end must be the good for man. For even if the end is the same for a
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single man and for a state, that of the state seems at all events
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something greater and more complete whether to attain or to
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preserve; though it is worth while to attain the end merely for one
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man, it is finer and more godlike to attain it for a nation or for
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city-states. These, then, are the ends at which our inquiry aims,
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since it is political science, in one sense of that term.
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                                 3
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  Our discussion will be adequate if it has as much clearness as the
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subject-matter admits of, for precision is not to be sought for
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alike in all discussions, any more than in all the products of the
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crafts. Now fine and just actions, which political science
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investigates, admit of much variety and fluctuation of opinion, so
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that they may be thought to exist only by convention, and not by
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nature. And goods also give rise to a similar fluctuation because they
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bring harm to many people; for before now men have been undone by
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reason of their wealth, and others by reason of their courage. We must
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be content, then, in speaking of such subjects and with such premisses
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to indicate the truth roughly and in outline, and in speaking about
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things which are only for the most part true and with premisses of the
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same kind to reach conclusions that are no better. In the same spirit,
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therefore, should each type of statement be received; for it is the
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mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of
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things just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is
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evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a
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mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician scientific proofs.
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  Now each man judges well the things he knows, and of these he is a
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good judge. And so the man who has been educated in a subject is a
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good judge of that subject, and the man who has received an
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all-round education is a good judge in general. Hence a young man is
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not a proper hearer of lectures on political science; for he is
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inexperienced in the actions that occur in life, but its discussions
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start from these and are about these; and, further, since he tends
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to follow his passions, his study will be vain and unprofitable,
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because the end aimed at is not knowledge but action. And it makes
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no difference whether he is young in years or youthful in character;
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the defect does not depend on time, but on his living, and pursuing
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each successive object, as passion directs. For to such persons, as to
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the incontinent, knowledge brings no profit; but to those who desire
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and act in accordance with a rational principle knowledge about such
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matters will be of great benefit.
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  These remarks about the student, the sort of treatment to be
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expected, and the purpose of the inquiry, may be taken as our preface.
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                                 4
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  Let us resume our inquiry and state, in view of the fact that all
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knowledge and every pursuit aims at some good, what it is that we
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say political science aims at and what is the highest of all goods
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achievable by action. Verbally there is very general agreement; for
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both the general run of men and people of superior refinement say that
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it is happiness, and identify living well and doing well with being
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happy; but with regard to what happiness is they differ, and the
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many do not give the same account as the wise. For the former think it
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is some plain and obvious thing, like pleasure, wealth, or honour;
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they differ, however, from one another- and often even the same man
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identifies it with different things, with health when he is ill,
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with wealth when he is poor; but, conscious of their ignorance, they
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admire those who proclaim some great ideal that is above their
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comprehension. Now some thought that apart from these many goods there
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is another which is self-subsistent and causes the goodness of all
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these as well. To examine all the opinions that have been held were
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perhaps somewhat fruitless; enough to examine those that are most
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prevalent or that seem to be arguable.
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  Let us not fail to notice, however, that there is a difference
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between arguments from and those to the first principles. For Plato,
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too, was right in raising this question and asking, as he used to
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do, 'are we on the way from or to the first principles?' There is a
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difference, as there is in a race-course between the course from the
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judges to the turning-point and the way back. For, while we must begin
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with what is known, things are objects of knowledge in two senses-
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some to us, some without qualification. Presumably, then, we must
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begin with things known to us. Hence any one who is to listen
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intelligently to lectures about what is noble and just, and generally,
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about the subjects of political science must have been brought up in
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good habits. For the fact is the starting-point, and if this is
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sufficiently plain to him, he will not at the start need the reason as
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well; and the man who has been well brought up has or can easily get
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startingpoints. And as for him who neither has nor can get them, let
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him hear the words of Hesiod:
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     Far best is he who knows all things himself;
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      Good, he that hearkens when men counsel right;
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      But he who neither knows, nor lays to heart
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      Another's wisdom, is a useless wight.
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                                 5
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  Let us, however, resume our discussion from the point at which we
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digressed. To judge from the lives that men lead, most men, and men of
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the most vulgar type, seem (not without some ground) to identify the
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good, or happiness, with pleasure; which is the reason why they love
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the life of enjoyment. For there are, we may say, three prominent
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types of life- that just mentioned, the political, and thirdly the
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contemplative life. Now the mass of mankind are evidently quite
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slavish in their tastes, preferring a life suitable to beasts, but
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they get some ground for their view from the fact that many of those
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in high places share the tastes of Sardanapallus. A consideration of
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the prominent types of life shows that people of superior refinement
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and of active disposition identify happiness with honour; for this is,
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roughly speaking, the end of the political life. But it seems too
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superficial to be what we are looking for, since it is thought to
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depend on those who bestow honour rather than on him who receives
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it, but the good we divine to be something proper to a man and not
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easily taken from him. Further, men seem to pursue honour in order
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that they may be assured of their goodness; at least it is by men of
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practical wisdom that they seek to be honoured, and among those who
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know them, and on the ground of their virtue; clearly, then, according
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to them, at any rate, virtue is better. And perhaps one might even
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suppose this to be, rather than honour, the end of the political life.
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But even this appears somewhat incomplete; for possession of virtue
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seems actually compatible with being asleep, or with lifelong
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inactivity, and, further, with the greatest sufferings and
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misfortunes; but a man who was living so no one would call happy,
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unless he were maintaining a thesis at all costs. But enough of
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this; for the subject has been sufficiently treated even in the
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current discussions. Third comes the contemplative life, which we
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shall consider later.
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  The life of money-making is one undertaken under compulsion, and
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wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely
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useful and for the sake of something else. And so one might rather
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take the aforenamed objects to be ends; for they are loved for
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themselves. But it is evident that not even these are ends; yet many
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arguments have been thrown away in support of them. Let us leave
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this subject, then.
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                                 6
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  We had perhaps better consider the universal good and discuss
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thoroughly what is meant by it, although such an inquiry is made an
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uphill one by the fact that the Forms have been introduced by
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friends of our own. Yet it would perhaps be thought to be better,
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indeed to be our duty, for the sake of maintaining the truth even to
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destroy what touches us closely, especially as we are philosophers
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or lovers of wisdom; for, while both are dear, piety requires us to
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honour truth above our friends.
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  The men who introduced this doctrine did not posit Ideas of
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classes within which they recognized priority and posteriority
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(which is the reason why they did not maintain the existence of an
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Idea embracing all numbers); but the term 'good' is used both in the
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category of substance and in that of quality and in that of
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relation, and that which is per se, i.e. substance, is prior in nature
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to the relative (for the latter is like an off shoot and accident of
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being); so that there could not be a common Idea set over all these
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goods. Further, since 'good' has as many senses as 'being' (for it
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is predicated both in the category of substance, as of God and of
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reason, and in quality, i.e. of the virtues, and in quantity, i.e.
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of that which is moderate, and in relation, i.e. of the useful, and in
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time, i.e. of the right opportunity, and in place, i.e. of the right
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locality and the like), clearly it cannot be something universally
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present in all cases and single; for then it could not have been
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predicated in all the categories but in one only. Further, since of
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the things answering to one Idea there is one science, there would
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have been one science of all the goods; but as it is there are many
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sciences even of the things that fall under one category, e.g. of
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opportunity, for opportunity in war is studied by strategics and in
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disease by medicine, and the moderate in food is studied by medicine
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and in exercise by the science of gymnastics. And one might ask the
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question, what in the world they mean by 'a thing itself', is (as is
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the case) in 'man himself' and in a particular man the account of
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man is one and the same. For in so far as they are man, they will in
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no respect differ; and if this is so, neither will 'good itself' and
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particular goods, in so far as they are good. But again it will not be
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good any the more for being eternal, since that which lasts long is no
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whiter than that which perishes in a day. The Pythagoreans seem to
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give a more plausible account of the good, when they place the one
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in the column of goods; and it is they that Speusippus seems to have
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followed.
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  But let us discuss these matters elsewhere; an objection to what
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we have said, however, may be discerned in the fact that the
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Platonists have not been speaking about all goods, and that the
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goods that are pursued and loved for themselves are called good by
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reference to a single Form, while those which tend to produce or to
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preserve these somehow or to prevent their contraries are called so by
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reference to these, and in a secondary sense. Clearly, then, goods
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must be spoken of in two ways, and some must be good in themselves,
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the others by reason of these. Let us separate, then, things good in
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themselves from things useful, and consider whether the former are
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called good by reference to a single Idea. What sort of goods would
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one call good in themselves? Is it those that are pursued even when
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isolated from others, such as intelligence, sight, and certain
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pleasures and honours? Certainly, if we pursue these also for the sake
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of something else, yet one would place them among things good in
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themselves. Or is nothing other than the Idea of good good in
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itself? In that case the Form will be empty. But if the things we have
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named are also things good in themselves, the account of the good will
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have to appear as something identical in them all, as that of
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whiteness is identical in snow and in white lead. But of honour,
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wisdom, and pleasure, just in respect of their goodness, the
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accounts are distinct and diverse. The good, therefore, is not some
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common element answering to one Idea.
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  But what then do we mean by the good? It is surely not like the
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things that only chance to have the same name. Are goods one, then, by
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being derived from one good or by all contributing to one good, or are
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they rather one by analogy? Certainly as sight is in the body, so is
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reason in the soul, and so on in other cases. But perhaps these
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subjects had better be dismissed for the present; for perfect
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precision about them would be more appropriate to another branch of
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philosophy. And similarly with regard to the Idea; even if there is
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some one good which is universally predicable of goods or is capable
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of separate and independent existence, clearly it could not be
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achieved or attained by man; but we are now seeking something
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attainable. Perhaps, however, some one might think it worth while to
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recognize this with a view to the goods that are attainable and
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achievable; for having this as a sort of pattern we shall know
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better the goods that are good for us, and if we know them shall
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attain them. This argument has some plausibility, but seems to clash
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with the procedure of the sciences; for all of these, though they
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aim at some good and seek to supply the deficiency of it, leave on one
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side the knowledge of the good. Yet that all the exponents of the arts
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should be ignorant of, and should not even seek, so great an aid is
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not probable. It is hard, too, to see how a weaver or a carpenter will
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be benefited in regard to his own craft by knowing this 'good itself',
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or how the man who has viewed the Idea itself will be a better
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doctor or general thereby. For a doctor seems not even to study health
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in this way, but the health of man, or perhaps rather the health of
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a particular man; it is individuals that he is healing. But enough
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of these topics.
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                                 7
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  Let us again return to the good we are seeking, and ask what it
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can be. It seems different in different actions and arts; it is
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different in medicine, in strategy, and in the other arts likewise.
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What then is the good of each? Surely that for whose sake everything
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else is done. In medicine this is health, in strategy victory, in
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architecture a house, in any other sphere something else, and in every
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action and pursuit the end; for it is for the sake of this that all
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men do whatever else they do. Therefore, if there is an end for all
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that we do, this will be the good achievable by action, and if there
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are more than one, these will be the goods achievable by action.
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  So the argument has by a different course reached the same point;
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but we must try to state this even more clearly. Since there are
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evidently more than one end, and we choose some of these (e.g. wealth,
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flutes, and in general instruments) for the sake of something else,
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clearly not all ends are final ends; but the chief good is evidently
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something final. Therefore, if there is only one final end, this
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will be what we are seeking, and if there are more than one, the
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most final of these will be what we are seeking. Now we call that
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which is in itself worthy of pursuit more final than that which is
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worthy of pursuit for the sake of something else, and that which is
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never desirable for the sake of something else more final than the
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things that are desirable both in themselves and for the sake of
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that other thing, and therefore we call final without qualification
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that which is always desirable in itself and never for the sake of
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something else.
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  Now such a thing happiness, above all else, is held to be; for
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this we choose always for self and never for the sake of something
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else, but honour, pleasure, reason, and every virtue we choose
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indeed for themselves (for if nothing resulted from them we should
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still choose each of them), but we choose them also for the sake of
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happiness, judging that by means of them we shall be happy. Happiness,
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on the other hand, no one chooses for the sake of these, nor, in
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general, for anything other than itself.
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  From the point of view of self-sufficiency the same result seems
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to follow; for the final good is thought to be self-sufficient. Now by
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self-sufficient we do not mean that which is sufficient for a man by
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himself, for one who lives a solitary life, but also for parents,
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children, wife, and in general for his friends and fellow citizens,
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since man is born for citizenship. But some limit must be set to this;
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for if we extend our requirement to ancestors and descendants and
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friends' friends we are in for an infinite series. Let us examine this
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question, however, on another occasion; the self-sufficient we now
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define as that which when isolated makes life desirable and lacking in
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nothing; and such we think happiness to be; and further we think it
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most desirable of all things, without being counted as one good
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thing among others- if it were so counted it would clearly be made
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more desirable by the addition of even the least of goods; for that
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which is added becomes an excess of goods, and of goods the greater
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is always more desirable. Happiness, then, is something final and
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self-sufficient, and is the end of action.
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  Presumably, however, to say that happiness is the chief good seems a
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platitude, and a clearer account of what it is still desired. This
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might perhaps be given, if we could first ascertain the function of
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man. For just as for a flute-player, a sculptor, or an artist, and, in
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general, for all things that have a function or activity, the good and
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the 'well' is thought to reside in the function, so would it seem to
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be for man, if he has a function. Have the carpenter, then, and the
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tanner certain functions or activities, and has man none? Is he born
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without a function? Or as eye, hand, foot, and in general each of
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the parts evidently has a function, may one lay it down that man
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similarly has a function apart from all these? What then can this
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be? Life seems to be common even to plants, but we are seeking what is
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peculiar to man. Let us exclude, therefore, the life of nutrition
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and growth. Next there would be a life of perception, but it also
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seems to be common even to the horse, the ox, and every animal.
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There remains, then, an active life of the element that has a rational
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principle; of this, one part has such a principle in the sense of
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being obedient to one, the other in the sense of possessing one and
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exercising thought. And, as 'life of the rational element' also has
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two meanings, we must state that life in the sense of activity is what
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we mean; for this seems to be the more proper sense of the term. Now
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if the function of man is an activity of soul which follows or implies
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a rational principle, and if we say 'so-and-so-and 'a good
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so-and-so' have a function which is the same in kind, e.g. a lyre, and
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a good lyre-player, and so without qualification in all cases,
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eminence in respect of goodness being idded to the name of the
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function (for the function of a lyre-player is to play the lyre, and
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that of a good lyre-player is to do so well): if this is the case,
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and we state the function of man to be a certain kind of life, and
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this to be an activity or actions of the soul implying a rational
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principle, and the function of a good man to be the good and noble
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performance of these, and if any action is well performed when it is
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performed in accordance with the appropriate excellence: if this is
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the case, human good turns out to be activity of soul in accordance
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with virtue, and if there are more than one virtue, in accordance with
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the best and most complete.
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  But we must add 'in a complete life.' For one swallow does not
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make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short
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time, does not make a man blessed and happy.
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  Let this serve as an outline of the good; for we must presumably
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first sketch it roughly, and then later fill in the details. But it
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would seem that any one is capable of carrying on and articulating
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what has once been well outlined, and that time is a good discoverer
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or partner in such a work; to which facts the advances of the arts are
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due; for any one can add what is lacking. And we must also remember
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what has been said before, and not look for precision in all things
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alike, but in each class of things such precision as accords with
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the subject-matter, and so much as is appropriate to the inquiry.
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For a carpenter and a geometer investigate the right angle in
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different ways; the former does so in so far as the right angle is
\
useful for his work, while the latter inquires what it is or what sort
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of thing it is; for he is a spectator of the truth. We must act in the
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same way, then, in all other matters as well, that our main task may
\
not be subordinated to minor questions. Nor must we demand the cause
\
in all matters alike; it is enough in some cases that the fact be well
\
established, as in the case of the first principles; the fact is the
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primary thing or first principle. Now of first principles we see
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some by induction, some by perception, some by a certain
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habituation, and others too in other ways. But each set of
\
principles we must try to investigate in the natural way, and we
\
must take pains to state them definitely, since they have a great
\
influence on what follows. For the beginning is thought to be more
\
than half of the whole, and many of the questions we ask are cleared
\
up by it.
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                                 8
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  We must consider it, however, in the light not only of our
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conclusion and our premisses, but also of what is commonly said
\
about it; for with a true view all the data harmonize, but with a
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false one the facts soon clash. Now goods have been divided into three
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classes, and some are described as external, others as relating to
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soul or to body; we call those that relate to soul most properly and
\
truly goods, and psychical actions and activities we class as relating
\
to soul. Therefore our account must be sound, at least according to
\
this view, which is an old one and agreed on by philosophers. It is
\
correct also in that we identify the end with certain actions and
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activities; for thus it falls among goods of the soul and not among
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external goods. Another belief which harmonizes with our account is
\
that the happy man lives well and does well; for we have practically
\
defined happiness as a sort of good life and good action. The
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characteristics that are looked for in happiness seem also, all of
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them, to belong to what we have defined happiness as being. For some
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identify happiness with virtue, some with practical wisdom, others
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with a kind of philosophic wisdom, others with these, or one of these,
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accompanied by pleasure or not without pleasure; while others
\
include also external prosperity. Now some of these views have been
\
held by many men and men of old, others by a few eminent persons;
\
and it is not probable that either of these should be entirely
\
mistaken, but rather that they should be right in at least some one
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respect or even in most respects.
\

\
  With those who identify happiness with virtue or some one virtue our
\
account is in harmony; for to virtue belongs virtuous activity. But it
\
makes, perhaps, no small difference whether we place the chief good in
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possession or in use, in state of mind or in activity. For the state
\
of mind may exist without producing any good result, as in a man who
\
is asleep or in some other way quite inactive, but the activity
\
cannot; for one who has the activity will of necessity be acting,
\
and acting well. And as in the Olympic Games it is not the most
\
beautiful and the strongest that are crowned but those who compete
\
(for it is some of these that are victorious), so those who act win,
\
and rightly win, the noble and good things in life.
\

\
  Their life is also in itself pleasant. For pleasure is a state of
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soul, and to each man that which he is said to be a lover of is
\
pleasant; e.g. not only is a horse pleasant to the lover of horses,
\
and a spectacle to the lover of sights, but also in the same way
\
just acts are pleasant to the lover of justice and in general virtuous
\
acts to the lover of virtue. Now for most men their pleasures are in
\
conflict with one another because these are not by nature pleasant,
\
but the lovers of what is noble find pleasant the things that are by
\
nature pleasant; and virtuous actions are such, so that these are
\
pleasant for such men as well as in their own nature. Their life,
\
therefore, has no further need of pleasure as a sort of adventitious
\
charm, but has its pleasure in itself. For, besides what we have said,
\
the man who does not rejoice in noble actions is not even good;
\
since no one would call a man just who did not enjoy acting justly,
\
nor any man liberal who did not enjoy liberal actions; and similarly
\
in all other cases. If this is so, virtuous actions must be in
\
themselves pleasant. But they are also good and noble, and have each
\
of these attributes in the highest degree, since the good man judges
\
well about these attributes; his judgement is such as we have
\
described. Happiness then is the best, noblest, and most pleasant
\
thing in the world, and these attributes are not severed as in the
\
inscription at Delos-
\

\
     Most noble is that which is justest, and best is health;
\

\
     But pleasantest is it to win what we love.
\

\
  For all these properties belong to the best activities; and these,
\
or one- the best- of these, we identify with happiness.
\

\
  Yet evidently, as we said, it needs the external goods as well;
\
for it is impossible, or not easy, to do noble acts without the proper
\
equipment. In many actions we use friends and riches and political
\
power as instruments; and there are some things the lack of which
\
takes the lustre from happiness, as good birth, goodly children,
\
beauty; for the man who is very ugly in appearance or ill-born or
\
solitary and childless is not very likely to be happy, and perhaps a
\
man would be still less likely if he had thoroughly bad children or
\
friends or had lost good children or friends by death. As we said,
\
then, happiness seems to need this sort of prosperity in addition; for
\
which reason some identify happiness with good fortune, though
\
others identify it with virtue.
\

\
                                 9
\

\
  For this reason also the question is asked, whether happiness is
\
to be acquired by learning or by habituation or some other sort of
\
training, or comes in virtue of some divine providence or again by
\
chance. Now if there is any gift of the gods to men, it is
\
reasonable that happiness should be god-given, and most surely
\
god-given of all human things inasmuch as it is the best. But this
\
question would perhaps be more appropriate to another inquiry;
\
happiness seems, however, even if it is not god-sent but comes as a
\
result of virtue and some process of learning or training, to be among
\
the most godlike things; for that which is the prize and end of virtue
\
seems to be the best thing in the world, and something godlike and
\
blessed.
\

\
  It will also on this view be very generally shared; for all who
\
are not maimed as regards their potentiality for virtue may win it
\
by a certain kind of study and care. But if it is better to be happy
\
thus than by chance, it is reasonable that the facts should be so,
\
since everything that depends on the action of nature is by nature
\
as good as it can be, and similarly everything that depends on art
\
or any rational cause, and especially if it depends on the best of all
\
causes. To entrust to chance what is greatest and most noble would
\
be a very defective arrangement.
\

\
  The answer to the question we are asking is plain also from the
\
definition of happiness; for it has been said to be a virtuous
\
activity of soul, of a certain kind. Of the remaining goods, some must
\
necessarily pre-exist as conditions of happiness, and others are
\
naturally co-operative and useful as instruments. And this will be
\
found to agree with what we said at the outset; for we stated the
\
end of political science to be the best end, and political science
\
spends most of its pains on making the citizens to be of a certain
\
character, viz. good and capable of noble acts.
\

\
  It is natural, then, that we call neither ox nor horse nor any other
\
of the animals happy; for none of them is capable of sharing in such
\
activity. For this reason also a boy is not happy; for he is not yet
\
capable of such acts, owing to his age; and boys who are called
\
happy are being congratulated by reason of the hopes we have for them.
\
For there is required, as we said, not only complete virtue but also a
\
complete life, since many changes occur in life, and all manner of
\
chances, and the most prosperous may fall into great misfortunes in
\
old age, as is told of Priam in the Trojan Cycle; and one who has
\
experienced such chances and has ended wretchedly no one calls happy.
\

\
                                10
\

\
  Must no one at all, then, be called happy while he lives; must we,
\
as Solon says, see the end? Even if we are to lay down this
\
doctrine, is it also the case that a man is happy when he is dead?
\
Or is not this quite absurd, especially for us who say that
\
happiness is an activity? But if we do not call the dead man happy,
\
and if Solon does not mean this, but that one can then safely call a
\
man blessed as being at last beyond evils and misfortunes, this also
\
affords matter for discussion; for both evil and good are thought to
\
exist for a dead man, as much as for one who is alive but not aware of
\
them; e.g. honours and dishonours and the good or bad fortunes of
\
children and in general of descendants. And this also presents a
\
problem; for though a man has lived happily up to old age and has
\
had a death worthy of his life, many reverses may befall his
\
descendants- some of them may be good and attain the life they
\
deserve, while with others the opposite may be the case; and clearly
\
too the degrees of relationship between them and their ancestors may
\
vary indefinitely. It would be odd, then, if the dead man were to
\
share in these changes and become at one time happy, at another
\
wretched; while it would also be odd if the fortunes of the
\
descendants did not for some time have some effect on the happiness
\
of their ancestors.
\

\
  But we must return to our first difficulty; for perhaps by a
\
consideration of it our present problem might be solved. Now if we
\
must see the end and only then call a man happy, not as being happy
\
but as having been so before, surely this is a paradox, that when he
\
is happy the attribute that belongs to him is not to be truly
\
predicated of him because we do not wish to call living men happy,
\
on account of the changes that may befall them, and because we have
\
assumed happiness to be something permanent and by no means easily
\
changed, while a single man may suffer many turns of fortune's
\
wheel. For clearly if we were to keep pace with his fortunes, we
\
should often call the same man happy and again wretched, making the
\
happy man out to be chameleon and insecurely based. Or is this keeping
\
pace with his fortunes quite wrong? Success or failure in life does
\
not depend on these, but human life, as we said, needs these as mere
\
additions, while virtuous activities or their opposites are what
\
constitute happiness or the reverse.
\

\
  The question we have now discussed confirms our definition. For no
\
function of man has so much permanence as virtuous activities (these
\
are thought to be more durable even than knowledge of the sciences),
\
and of these themselves the most valuable are more durable because
\
those who are happy spend their life most readily and most
\
continuously in these; for this seems to be the reason why we do not
\
forget them. The attribute in question, then, will belong to the happy
\
man, and he will be happy throughout his life; for always, or by
\
preference to everything else, he will be engaged in virtuous action
\
and contemplation, and he will bear the chances of life most nobly and
\
altogether decorously, if he is 'truly good' and 'foursquare beyond
\
reproach'.
\

\
  Now many events happen by chance, and events differing in
\
importance; small pieces of good fortune or of its opposite clearly do
\
not weigh down the scales of life one way or the other, but a
\
multitude of great events if they turn out well will make life happier
\
(for not only are they themselves such as to add beauty to life, but
\
the way a man deals with them may be noble and good), while if they
\
turn out ill they crush and maim happiness; for they both bring pain
\
with them and hinder many activities. Yet even in these nobility
\
shines through, when a man bears with resignation many great
\
misfortunes, not through insensibility to pain but through nobility
\
and greatness of soul.
\

\
  If activities are, as we said, what gives life its character, no
\
happy man can become miserable; for he will never do the acts that are
\
hateful and mean. For the man who is truly good and wise, we think,
\
bears all the chances life becomingly and always makes the best of
\
circumstances, as a good general makes the best military use of the
\
army at his command and a good shoemaker makes the best shoes out of
\
the hides that are given him; and so with all other craftsmen. And
\
if this is the case, the happy man can never become miserable;
\
though he will not reach blessedness, if he meet with fortunes like
\
those of Priam.
\

\
  Nor, again, is he many-coloured and changeable; for neither will
\
he be moved from his happy state easily or by any ordinary
\
misadventures, but only by many great ones, nor, if he has had many
\
great misadventures, will he recover his happiness in a short time,
\
but if at all, only in a long and complete one in which he has
\
attained many splendid successes.
\

\
  When then should we not say that he is happy who is active in
\
accordance with complete virtue and is sufficiently equipped with
\
external goods, not for some chance period but throughout a complete
\
life? Or must we add 'and who is destined to live thus and die as
\
befits his life'? Certainly the future is obscure to us, while
\
happiness, we claim, is an end and something in every way final. If
\
so, we shall call happy those among living men in whom these
\
conditions are, and are to be, fulfilled- but happy men. So much for
\
these questions.
\

\
                                11
\

\
  That the fortunes of descendants and of all a man's friends should
\
not affect his happiness at all seems a very unfriendly doctrine,
\
and one opposed to the opinions men hold; but since the events that
\
happen are numerous and admit of all sorts of difference, and some
\
come more near to us and others less so, it seems a long- nay, an
\
infinite- task to discuss each in detail; a general outline will
\
perhaps suffice. If, then, as some of a man's own misadventures have a
\
certain weight and influence on life while others are, as it were,
\
lighter, so too there are differences among the misadventures of our
\
friends taken as a whole, and it makes a difference whether the
\
various suffering befall the living or the dead (much more even than
\
whether lawless and terrible deeds are presupposed in a tragedy or
\
done on the stage), this difference also must be taken into account;
\
or rather, perhaps, the fact that doubt is felt whether the dead share
\
in any good or evil. For it seems, from these considerations, that
\
even if anything whether good or evil penetrates to them, it must be
\
something weak and negligible, either in itself or for them, or if
\
not, at least it must be such in degree and kind as not to make
\
happy those who are not happy nor to take away their blessedness
\
from those who are. The good or bad fortunes of friends, then, seem to
\
have some effects on the dead, but effects of such a kind and degree
\
as neither to make the happy unhappy nor to produce any other change
\
of the kind.
\

\
                                12
\

\
  These questions having been definitely answered, let us consider
\
whether happiness is among the things that are praised or rather among
\
the things that are prized; for clearly it is not to be placed among
\
potentialities. Everything that is praised seems to be praised because
\
it is of a certain kind and is related somehow to something else;
\
for we praise the just or brave man and in general both the good man
\
and virtue itself because of the actions and functions involved, and
\
we praise the strong man, the good runner, and so on, because he is of
\
a certain kind and is related in a certain way to something good and
\
important. This is clear also from the praises of the gods; for it
\
seems absurd that the gods should be referred to our standard, but
\
this is done because praise involves a reference, to something else.
\
But if if praise is for things such as we have described, clearly what
\
applies to the best things is not praise, but something greater and
\
better, as is indeed obvious; for what we do to the gods and the
\
most godlike of men is to call them blessed and happy. And so too with
\
good things; no one praises happiness as he does justice, but rather
\
calls it blessed, as being something more divine and better.
\

\
  Eudoxus also seems to have been right in his method of advocating
\
the supremacy of pleasure; he thought that the fact that, though a
\
good, it is not praised indicated it to be better than the things that
\
are praised, and that this is what God and the good are; for by
\
reference to these all other things are judged. Praise is
\
appropriate to virtue, for as a result of virtue men tend to do
\
noble deeds, but encomia are bestowed on acts, whether of the body
\
or of the soul. But perhaps nicety in these matters is more proper
\
to those who have made a study of encomia; to us it is clear from what
\
has been said that happiness is among the things that are prized and
\
perfect. It seems to be so also from the fact that it is a first
\
principle; for it is for the sake of this that we all do all that we
\
do, and the first principle and cause of goods is, we claim, something
\
prized and divine.
\

\
                                13
\

\
  Since happiness is an activity of soul in accordance with perfect
\
virtue, we must consider the nature of virtue; for perhaps we shall
\
thus see better the nature of happiness. The true student of politics,
\
too, is thought to have studied virtue above all things; for he wishes
\
to make his fellow citizens good and obedient to the laws. As an
\
example of this we have the lawgivers of the Cretans and the Spartans,
\
and any others of the kind that there may have been. And if this
\
inquiry belongs to political science, clearly the pursuit of it will
\
be in accordance with our original plan. But clearly the virtue we
\
must study is human virtue; for the good we were seeking was human
\
good and the happiness human happiness. By human virtue we mean not
\
that of the body but that of the soul; and happiness also we call an
\
activity of soul. But if this is so, clearly the student of politics
\
must know somehow the facts about soul, as the man who is to heal
\
the eyes or the body as a whole must know about the eyes or the
\
body; and all the more since politics is more prized and better than
\
medicine; but even among doctors the best educated spend much labour
\
on acquiring knowledge of the body. The student of politics, then,
\
must study the soul, and must study it with these objects in view, and
\
do so just to the extent which is sufficient for the questions we
\
are discussing; for further precision is perhaps something more
\
laborious than our purposes require.
\

\
  Some things are said about it, adequately enough, even in the
\
discussions outside our school, and we must use these; e.g. that one
\
element in the soul is irrational and one has a rational principle.
\
Whether these are separated as the parts of the body or of anything
\
divisible are, or are distinct by definition but by nature
\
inseparable, like convex and concave in the circumference of a circle,
\
does not affect the present question.
\

\
  Of the irrational element one division seems to be widely
\
distributed, and vegetative in its nature, I mean that which causes
\
nutrition and growth; for it is this kind of power of the soul that
\
one must assign to all nurslings and to embryos, and this same power
\
to fullgrown creatures; this is more reasonable than to assign some
\
different power to them. Now the excellence of this seems to be common
\
to all species and not specifically human; for this part or faculty
\
seems to function most in sleep, while goodness and badness are
\
least manifest in sleep (whence comes the saying that the happy are
\
not better off than the wretched for half their lives; and this
\
happens naturally enough, since sleep is an inactivity of the soul
\
in that respect in which it is called good or bad), unless perhaps
\
to a small extent some of the movements actually penetrate to the
\
soul, and in this respect the dreams of good men are better than those
\
of ordinary people. Enough of this subject, however; let us leave
\
the nutritive faculty alone, since it has by its nature no share in
\
human excellence.
\

\
  There seems to be also another irrational element in the soul-one
\
which in a sense, however, shares in a rational principle. For we
\
praise the rational principle of the continent man and of the
\
incontinent, and the part of their soul that has such a principle,
\
since it urges them aright and towards the best objects; but there
\
is found in them also another element naturally opposed to the
\
rational principle, which fights against and resists that principle.
\
For exactly as paralysed limbs when we intend to move them to the
\
right turn on the contrary to the left, so is it with the soul; the
\
impulses of incontinent people move in contrary directions. But
\
while in the body we see that which moves astray, in the soul we do
\
not. No doubt, however, we must none the less suppose that in the soul
\
too there is something contrary to the rational principle, resisting
\
and opposing it. In what sense it is distinct from the other
\
elements does not concern us. Now even this seems to have a share in a
\
rational principle, as we said; at any rate in the continent man it
\
obeys the rational principle and presumably in the temperate and brave
\
man it is still more obedient; for in him it speaks, on all matters,
\
with the same voice as the rational principle.
\

\
  Therefore the irrational element also appears to be two-fold. For
\
the vegetative element in no way shares in a rational principle, but
\
the appetitive and in general the desiring element in a sense shares
\
in it, in so far as it listens to and obeys it; this is the sense in
\
which we speak of 'taking account' of one's father or one's friends,
\
not that in which we speak of 'accounting for a mathematical property.
\
That the irrational element is in some sense persuaded by a rational
\
principle is indicated also by the giving of advice and by all reproof
\
and exhortation. And if this element also must be said to have a
\
rational principle, that which has a rational principle (as well as
\
that which has not) will be twofold, one subdivision having it in
\
the strict sense and in itself, and the other having a tendency to
\
obey as one does one's father.
\

\
  Virtue too is distinguished into kinds in accordance with this
\
difference; for we say that some of the virtues are intellectual and
\
others moral, philosophic wisdom and understanding and practical
\
wisdom being intellectual, liberality and temperance moral. For in
\
speaking about a man's character we do not say that he is wise or
\
has understanding but that he is good-tempered or temperate; yet we
\
praise the wise man also with respect to his state of mind; and of
\
states of mind we call those which merit praise virtues.
\

\
                              BOOK II
\

\
                                 1
\

\
  VIRTUE, then, being of two kinds, intellectual and moral,
\
intellectual virtue in the main owes both its birth and its growth
\
to teaching (for which reason it requires experience and time),
\
while moral virtue comes about as a result of habit, whence also its
\
name (ethike) is one that is formed by a slight variation from the
\
word ethos (habit). From this it is also plain that none of the
\
moral virtues arises in us by nature; for nothing that exists by
\
nature can form a habit contrary to its nature. For instance the stone
\
which by nature moves downwards cannot be habituated to move
\
upwards, not even if one tries to train it by throwing it up ten
\
thousand times; nor can fire be habituated to move downwards, nor
\
can anything else that by nature behaves in one way be trained to
\
behave in another. Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature
\
do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive
\
them, and are made perfect by habit.
\

\
  Again, of all the things that come to us by nature we first
\
acquire the potentiality and later exhibit the activity (this is plain
\
in the case of the senses; for it was not by often seeing or often
\
hearing that we got these senses, but on the contrary we had them
\
before we used them, and did not come to have them by using them); but
\
the virtues we get by first exercising them, as also happens in the
\
case of the arts as well. For the things we have to learn before we
\
can do them, we learn by doing them, e.g. men become builders by
\
building and lyreplayers by playing the lyre; so too we become just by
\
doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing
\
brave acts.
\

\
  This is confirmed by what happens in states; for legislators make
\
the citizens good by forming habits in them, and this is the wish of
\
every legislator, and those who do not effect it miss their mark,
\
and it is in this that a good constitution differs from a bad one.
\

\
  Again, it is from the same causes and by the same means that every
\
virtue is both produced and destroyed, and similarly every art; for it
\
is from playing the lyre that both good and bad lyre-players are
\
produced. And the corresponding statement is true of builders and of
\
all the rest; men will be good or bad builders as a result of building
\
well or badly. For if this were not so, there would have been no
\
need of a teacher, but all men would have been born good or bad at
\
their craft. This, then, is the case with the virtues also; by doing
\
the acts that we do in our transactions with other men we become
\
just or unjust, and by doing the acts that we do in the presence of
\
danger, and being habituated to feel fear or confidence, we become
\
brave or cowardly. The same is true of appetites and feelings of
\
anger; some men become temperate and good-tempered, others
\
self-indulgent and irascible, by behaving in one way or the other in
\
the appropriate circumstances. Thus, in one word, states of
\
character arise out of like activities. This is why the activities
\
we exhibit must be of a certain kind; it is because the states of
\
character correspond to the differences between these. It makes no
\
small difference, then, whether we form habits of one kind or of
\
another from our very youth; it makes a very great difference, or
\
rather all the difference.
\

\
                                 2
\

\
  Since, then, the present inquiry does not aim at theoretical
\
knowledge like the others (for we are inquiring not in order to know
\
what virtue is, but in order to become good, since otherwise our
\
inquiry would have been of no use), we must examine the nature of
\
actions, namely how we ought to do them; for these determine also
\
the nature of the states of character that are produced, as we have
\
said. Now, that we must act according to the right rule is a common
\
principle and must be assumed-it will be discussed later, i.e. both
\
what the right rule is, and how it is related to the other virtues.
\
But this must be agreed upon beforehand, that the whole account of
\
matters of conduct must be given in outline and not precisely, as we
\
said at the very beginning that the accounts we demand must be in
\
accordance with the subject-matter; matters concerned with conduct and
\
questions of what is good for us have no fixity, any more than matters
\
of health. The general account being of this nature, the account of
\
particular cases is yet more lacking in exactness; for they do not
\
fall under any art or precept but the agents themselves must in each
\
case consider what is appropriate to the occasion, as happens also
\
in the art of medicine or of navigation.
\

\
  But though our present account is of this nature we must give what
\
help we can. First, then, let us consider this, that it is the
\
nature of such things to be destroyed by defect and excess, as we
\
see in the case of strength and of health (for to gain light on things
\
imperceptible we must use the evidence of sensible things); both
\
excessive and defective exercise destroys the strength, and
\
similarly drink or food which is above or below a certain amount
\
destroys the health, while that which is proportionate both produces
\
and increases and preserves it. So too is it, then, in the case of
\
temperance and courage and the other virtues. For the man who flies
\
from and fears everything and does not stand his ground against
\
anything becomes a coward, and the man who fears nothing at all but
\
goes to meet every danger becomes rash; and similarly the man who
\
indulges in every pleasure and abstains from none becomes
\
self-indulgent, while the man who shuns every pleasure, as boors do,
\
becomes in a way insensible; temperance and courage, then, are
\
destroyed by excess and defect, and preserved by the mean.
\

\
  But not only are the sources and causes of their origination and
\
growth the same as those of their destruction, but also the sphere
\
of their actualization will be the same; for this is also true of
\
the things which are more evident to sense, e.g. of strength; it is
\
produced by taking much food and undergoing much exertion, and it is
\
the strong man that will be most able to do these things. So too is it
\
with the virtues; by abstaining from pleasures we become temperate,
\
and it is when we have become so that we are most able to abstain from
\
them; and similarly too in the case of courage; for by being
\
habituated to despise things that are terrible and to stand our ground
\
against them we become brave, and it is when we have become so that we
\
shall be most able to stand our ground against them.
\

\
                                 3
\

\
  We must take as a sign of states of character the pleasure or pain
\
that ensues on acts; for the man who abstains from bodily pleasures
\
and delights in this very fact is temperate, while the man who is
\
annoyed at it is self-indulgent, and he who stands his ground
\
against things that are terrible and delights in this or at least is
\
not pained is brave, while the man who is pained is a coward. For
\
moral excellence is concerned with pleasures and pains; it is on
\
account of the pleasure that we do bad things, and on account of the
\
pain that we abstain from noble ones. Hence we ought to have been
\
brought up in a particular way from our very youth, as Plato says,
\
so as both to delight in and to be pained by the things that we ought;
\
for this is the right education.
\

\
  Again, if the virtues are concerned with actions and passions, and
\
every passion and every action is accompanied by pleasure and pain,
\
for this reason also virtue will be concerned with pleasures and
\
pains. This is indicated also by the fact that punishment is inflicted
\
by these means; for it is a kind of cure, and it is the nature of
\
cures to be effected by contraries.
\

\
  Again, as we said but lately, every state of soul has a nature
\
relative to and concerned with the kind of things by which it tends to
\
be made worse or better; but it is by reason of pleasures and pains
\
that men become bad, by pursuing and avoiding these- either the
\
pleasures and pains they ought not or when they ought not or as they
\
ought not, or by going wrong in one of the other similar ways that may
\
be distinguished. Hence men even define the virtues as certain
\
states of impassivity and rest; not well, however, because they
\
speak absolutely, and do not say 'as one ought' and 'as one ought not'
\
and 'when one ought or ought not', and the other things that may be
\
added. We assume, then, that this kind of excellence tends to do
\
what is best with regard to pleasures and pains, and vice does the
\
contrary.
\

\
  The following facts also may show us that virtue and vice are
\
concerned with these same things. There being three objects of
\
choice and three of avoidance, the noble, the advantageous, the
\
pleasant, and their contraries, the base, the injurious, the
\
painful, about all of these the good man tends to go right and the bad
\
man to go wrong, and especially about pleasure; for this is common
\
to the animals, and also it accompanies all objects of choice; for
\
even the noble and the advantageous appear pleasant.
\

\
  Again, it has grown up with us all from our infancy; this is why
\
it is difficult to rub off this passion, engrained as it is in our
\
life. And we measure even our actions, some of us more and others
\
less, by the rule of pleasure and pain. For this reason, then, our
\
whole inquiry must be about these; for to feel delight and pain
\
rightly or wrongly has no small effect on our actions.
\

\
  Again, it is harder to fight with pleasure than with anger, to use
\
Heraclitus' phrase', but both art and virtue are always concerned with
\
what is harder; for even the good is better when it is harder.
\
Therefore for this reason also the whole concern both of virtue and of
\
political science is with pleasures and pains; for the man who uses
\
these well will be good, he who uses them badly bad.
\

\
  That virtue, then, is concerned with pleasures and pains, and that
\
by the acts from which it arises it is both increased and, if they are
\
done differently, destroyed, and that the acts from which it arose are
\
those in which it actualizes itself- let this be taken as said.
\

\
                                 4
\

\
  The question might be asked,; what we mean by saying that we must
\
become just by doing just acts, and temperate by doing temperate acts;
\
for if men do just and temperate acts, they are already just and
\
temperate, exactly as, if they do what is in accordance with the
\
laws of grammar and of music, they are grammarians and musicians.
\

\
  Or is this not true even of the arts? It is possible to do something
\
that is in accordance with the laws of grammar, either by chance or at
\
the suggestion of another. A man will be a grammarian, then, only when
\
he has both done something grammatical and done it grammatically;
\
and this means doing it in accordance with the grammatical knowledge
\
in himself.
\

\
  Again, the case of the arts and that of the virtues are not similar;
\
for the products of the arts have their goodness in themselves, so
\
that it is enough that they should have a certain character, but if
\
the acts that are in accordance with the virtues have themselves a
\
certain character it does not follow that they are done justly or
\
temperately. The agent also must be in a certain condition when he
\
does them; in the first place he must have knowledge, secondly he must
\
choose the acts, and choose them for their own sakes, and thirdly
\
his action must proceed from a firm and unchangeable character.
\
These are not reckoned in as conditions of the possession of the arts,
\
except the bare knowledge; but as a condition of the possession of the
\
virtues knowledge has little or no weight, while the other
\
conditions count not for a little but for everything, i.e. the very
\
conditions which result from often doing just and temperate acts.
\

\
  Actions, then, are called just and temperate when they are such as
\
the just or the temperate man would do; but it is not the man who does
\
these that is just and temperate, but the man who also does them as
\
just and temperate men do them. It is well said, then, that it is by
\
doing just acts that the just man is produced, and by doing
\
temperate acts the temperate man; without doing these no one would
\
have even a prospect of becoming good.
\

\
  But most people do not do these, but take refuge in theory and think
\
they are being philosophers and will become good in this way, behaving
\
somewhat like patients who listen attentively to their doctors, but do
\
none of the things they are ordered to do. As the latter will not be
\
made well in body by such a course of treatment, the former will not
\
be made well in soul by such a course of philosophy.
\

\
                                 5
\

\
  Next we must consider what virtue is. Since things that are found in
\
the soul are of three kinds- passions, faculties, states of
\
character, virtue must be one of these. By passions I mean appetite,
\
anger, fear, confidence, envy, joy, friendly feeling, hatred, longing,
\
emulation, pity, and in general the feelings that are accompanied by
\
pleasure or pain; by faculties the things in virtue of which we are
\
said to be capable of feeling these, e.g. of becoming angry or being
\
pained or feeling pity; by states of character the things in virtue of
\
which we stand well or badly with reference to the passions, e.g. with
\
reference to anger we stand badly if we feel it violently or too
\
weakly, and well if we feel it moderately; and similarly with
\
reference to the other passions.
\

\
  Now neither the virtues nor the vices are passions, because we are
\
not called good or bad on the ground of our passions, but are so
\
called on the ground of our virtues and our vices, and because we
\
are neither praised nor blamed for our passions (for the man who feels
\
fear or anger is not praised, nor is the man who simply feels anger
\
blamed, but the man who feels it in a certain way), but for our
\
virtues and our vices we are praised or blamed.
\

\
  Again, we feel anger and fear without choice, but the virtues are
\
modes of choice or involve choice. Further, in respect of the passions
\
we are said to be moved, but in respect of the virtues and the vices
\
we are said not to be moved but to be disposed in a particular way.
\

\
  For these reasons also they are not faculties; for we are neither
\
called good nor bad, nor praised nor blamed, for the simple capacity
\
of feeling the passions; again, we have the faculties by nature, but
\
we are not made good or bad by nature; we have spoken of this
\
before. If, then, the virtues are neither passions nor faculties,
\
all that remains is that they should be states of character.
\

\
  Thus we have stated what virtue is in respect of its genus.
\

\
                                 6
\

\
  We must, however, not only describe virtue as a state of
\
character, but also say what sort of state it is. We may remark, then,
\
that every virtue or excellence both brings into good condition the
\
thing of which it is the excellence and makes the work of that thing
\
be done well; e.g. the excellence of the eye makes both the eye and
\
its work good; for it is by the excellence of the eye that we see
\
well. Similarly the excellence of the horse makes a horse both good in
\
itself and good at running and at carrying its rider and at awaiting
\
the attack of the enemy. Therefore, if this is true in every case, the
\
virtue of man also will be the state of character which makes a man
\
good and which makes him do his own work well.
\

\
  How this is to happen we have stated already, but it will be made
\
plain also by the following consideration of the specific nature of
\
virtue. In everything that is continuous and divisible it is
\
possible to take more, less, or an equal amount, and that either in
\
terms of the thing itself or relatively to us; and the equal is an
\
intermediate between excess and defect. By the intermediate in the
\
object I mean that which is equidistant from each of the extremes,
\
which is one and the same for all men; by the intermediate
\
relatively to us that which is neither too much nor too little- and
\
this is not one, nor the same for all. For instance, if ten is many
\
and two is few, six is the intermediate, taken in terms of the object;
\
for it exceeds and is exceeded by an equal amount; this is
\
intermediate according to arithmetical proportion. But the
\
intermediate relatively to us is not to be taken so; if ten pounds are
\
too much for a particular person to eat and two too little, it does
\
not follow that the trainer will order six pounds; for this also is
\
perhaps too much for the person who is to take it, or too little- too
\
little for Milo, too much for the beginner in athletic exercises.
\
The same is true of running and wrestling. Thus a master of any art
\
avoids excess and defect, but seeks the intermediate and chooses
\
this- the intermediate not in the object but relatively to us.
\

\
  If it is thus, then, that every art does its work well- by looking
\
to the intermediate and judging its works by this standard (so that
\
we often say of good works of art that it is not possible either to
\
take away or to add anything, implying that excess and defect
\
destroy the goodness of works of art, while the mean preserves it; and
\
good artists, as we say, look to this in their work), and if, further,
\
virtue is more exact and better than any art, as nature also is,
\
then virtue must have the quality of aiming at the intermediate. I
\
mean moral virtue; for it is this that is concerned with passions
\
and actions, and in these there is excess, defect, and the
\
intermediate. For instance, both fear and confidence and appetite
\
and anger and pity and in general pleasure and pain may be felt both
\
too much and too little, and in both cases not well; but to feel
\
them at the right times, with reference to the right objects,
\
towards the right people, with the right motive, and in the right way,
\
is what is both intermediate and best, and this is characteristic of
\
virtue. Similarly with regard to actions also there is excess, defect,
\
and the intermediate. Now virtue is concerned with passions and
\
actions, in which excess is a form of failure, and so is defect, while
\
the intermediate is praised and is a form of success; and being
\
praised and being successful are both characteristics of virtue.
\
Therefore virtue is a kind of mean, since, as we have seen, it aims at
\
what is intermediate.
\

\
  Again, it is possible to fail in many ways (for evil belongs to the
\
class of the unlimited, as the Pythagoreans conjectured, and good to
\
that of the limited), while to succeed is possible only in one way
\
(for which reason also one is easy and the other difficult- to miss
\
the mark easy, to hit it difficult); for these reasons also, then,
\
excess and defect are characteristic of vice, and the mean of virtue;
\

\
     For men are good in but one way, but bad in many.
\

\
  Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying
\
in a mean, i.e. the mean relative to us, this being determined by a
\
rational principle, and by that principle by which the man of
\
practical wisdom would determine it. Now it is a mean between two
\
vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on
\
defect; and again it is a mean because the vices respectively fall
\
short of or exceed what is right in both passions and actions, while
\
virtue both finds and chooses that which is intermediate. Hence in
\
respect of its substance and the definition which states its essence
\
virtue is a mean, with regard to what is best and right an extreme.
\

\
  But not every action nor every passion admits of a mean; for some
\
have names that already imply badness, e.g. spite, shamelessness,
\
envy, and in the case of actions adultery, theft, murder; for all of
\
these and suchlike things imply by their names that they are
\
themselves bad, and not the excesses or deficiencies of them. It is
\
not possible, then, ever to be right with regard to them; one must
\
always be wrong. Nor does goodness or badness with regard to such
\
things depend on committing adultery with the right woman, at the
\
right time, and in the right way, but simply to do any of them is to
\
go wrong. It would be equally absurd, then, to expect that in
\
unjust, cowardly, and voluptuous action there should be a mean, an
\
excess, and a deficiency; for at that rate there would be a mean of
\
excess and of deficiency, an excess of excess, and a deficiency of
\
deficiency. But as there is no excess and deficiency of temperance and
\
courage because what is intermediate is in a sense an extreme, so
\
too of the actions we have mentioned there is no mean nor any excess
\
and deficiency, but however they are done they are wrong; for in
\
general there is neither a mean of excess and deficiency, nor excess
\
and deficiency of a mean.
\

\
                                 7
\

\
  We must, however, not only make this general statement, but also
\
apply it to the individual facts. For among statements about conduct
\
those which are general apply more widely, but those which are
\
particular are more genuine, since conduct has to do with individual
\
cases, and our statements must harmonize with the facts in these
\
cases. We may take these cases from our table. With regard to feelings
\
of fear and confidence courage is the mean; of the people who
\
exceed, he who exceeds in fearlessness has no name (many of the states
\
have no name), while the man who exceeds in confidence is rash, and he
\
who exceeds in fear and falls short in confidence is a coward. With
\
regard to pleasures and pains- not all of them, and not so much with
\
regard to the pains- the mean is temperance, the excess
\
self-indulgence. Persons deficient with regard to the pleasures are
\
not often found; hence such persons also have received no name. But
\
let us call them 'insensible'.
\

\
  With regard to giving and taking of money the mean is liberality,
\
the excess and the defect prodigality and meanness. In these actions
\
people exceed and fall short in contrary ways; the prodigal exceeds in
\
spending and falls short in taking, while the mean man exceeds in
\
taking and falls short in spending. (At present we are giving a mere
\
outline or summary, and are satisfied with this; later these states
\
will be more exactly determined.) With regard to money there are
\
also other dispositions- a mean, magnificence (for the magnificent
\
man differs from the liberal man; the former deals with large sums,
\
the latter with small ones), an excess, tastelessness and vulgarity,
\
and a deficiency, niggardliness; these differ from the states
\
opposed to liberality, and the mode of their difference will be stated
\
later. With regard to honour and dishonour the mean is proper pride,
\
the excess is known as a sort of 'empty vanity', and the deficiency is
\
undue humility; and as we said liberality was related to magnificence,
\
differing from it by dealing with small sums, so there is a state
\
similarly related to proper pride, being concerned with small
\
honours while that is concerned with great. For it is possible to
\
desire honour as one ought, and more than one ought, and less, and the
\
man who exceeds in his desires is called ambitious, the man who
\
falls short unambitious, while the intermediate person has no name.
\
The dispositions also are nameless, except that that of the
\
ambitious man is called ambition. Hence the people who are at the
\
extremes lay claim to the middle place; and we ourselves sometimes
\
call the intermediate person ambitious and sometimes unambitious,
\
and sometimes praise the ambitious man and sometimes the
\
unambitious. The reason of our doing this will be stated in what
\
follows; but now let us speak of the remaining states according to the
\
method which has been indicated.
\

\
  With regard to anger also there is an excess, a deficiency, and a
\
mean. Although they can scarcely be said to have names, yet since we
\
call the intermediate person good-tempered let us call the mean good
\
temper; of the persons at the extremes let the one who exceeds be
\
called irascible, and his vice irascibility, and the man who falls
\
short an inirascible sort of person, and the deficiency
\
inirascibility.
\

\
  There are also three other means, which have a certain likeness to
\
one another, but differ from one another: for they are all concerned
\
with intercourse in words and actions, but differ in that one is
\
concerned with truth in this sphere, the other two with
\
pleasantness; and of this one kind is exhibited in giving amusement,
\
the other in all the circumstances of life. We must therefore speak of
\
these too, that we may the better see that in all things the mean is
\
praise-worthy, and the extremes neither praiseworthy nor right, but
\
worthy of blame. Now most of these states also have no names, but we
\
must try, as in the other cases, to invent names ourselves so that
\
we may be clear and easy to follow. With regard to truth, then, the
\
intermediate is a truthful sort of person and the mean may be called
\
truthfulness, while the pretence which exaggerates is boastfulness and
\
the person characterized by it a boaster, and that which understates
\
is mock modesty and the person characterized by it mock-modest. With
\
regard to pleasantness in the giving of amusement the intermediate
\
person is ready-witted and the disposition ready wit, the excess is
\
buffoonery and the person characterized by it a buffoon, while the man
\
who falls short is a sort of boor and his state is boorishness. With
\
regard to the remaining kind of pleasantness, that which is
\
exhibited in life in general, the man who is pleasant in the right way
\
is friendly and the mean is friendliness, while the man who exceeds is
\
an obsequious person if he has no end in view, a flatterer if he is
\
aiming at his own advantage, and the man who falls short and is
\
unpleasant in all circumstances is a quarrelsome and surly sort of
\
person.
\

\
  There are also means in the passions and concerned with the
\
passions; since shame is not a virtue, and yet praise is extended to
\
the modest man. For even in these matters one man is said to be
\
intermediate, and another to exceed, as for instance the bashful man
\
who is ashamed of everything; while he who falls short or is not
\
ashamed of anything at all is shameless, and the intermediate person
\
is modest. Righteous indignation is a mean between envy and spite, and
\
these states are concerned with the pain and pleasure that are felt at
\
the fortunes of our neighbours; the man who is characterized by
\
righteous indignation is pained at undeserved good fortune, the
\
envious man, going beyond him, is pained at all good fortune, and
\
the spiteful man falls so far short of being pained that he even
\
rejoices. But these states there will be an opportunity of
\
describing elsewhere; with regard to justice, since it has not one
\
simple meaning, we shall, after describing the other states,
\
distinguish its two kinds and say how each of them is a mean; and
\
similarly we shall treat also of the rational virtues.
\

\
                                 8
\

\
  There are three kinds of disposition, then, two of them vices,
\
involving excess and deficiency respectively, and one a virtue, viz.
\
the mean, and all are in a sense opposed to all; for the extreme
\
states are contrary both to the intermediate state and to each
\
other, and the intermediate to the extremes; as the equal is greater
\
relatively to the less, less relatively to the greater, so the
\
middle states are excessive relatively to the deficiencies,
\
deficient relatively to the excesses, both in passions and in actions.
\
For the brave man appears rash relatively to the coward, and
\
cowardly relatively to the rash man; and similarly the temperate man
\
appears self-indulgent relatively to the insensible man, insensible
\
relatively to the self-indulgent, and the liberal man prodigal
\
relatively to the mean man, mean relatively to the prodigal. Hence
\
also the people at the extremes push the intermediate man each over to
\
the other, and the brave man is called rash by the coward, cowardly by
\
the rash man, and correspondingly in the other cases.
\

\
  These states being thus opposed to one another, the greatest
\
contrariety is that of the extremes to each other, rather than to
\
the intermediate; for these are further from each other than from
\
the intermediate, as the great is further from the small and the small
\
from the great than both are from the equal. Again, to the
\
intermediate some extremes show a certain likeness, as that of
\
rashness to courage and that of prodigality to liberality; but the
\
extremes show the greatest unlikeness to each other; now contraries
\
are defined as the things that are furthest from each other, so that
\
things that are further apart are more contrary.
\

\
  To the mean in some cases the deficiency, in some the excess is more
\
opposed; e.g. it is not rashness, which is an excess, but cowardice,
\
which is a deficiency, that is more opposed to courage, and not
\
insensibility, which is a deficiency, but self-indulgence, which is an
\
excess, that is more opposed to temperance. This happens from two
\
reasons, one being drawn from the thing itself; for because one
\
extreme is nearer and liker to the intermediate, we oppose not this
\
but rather its contrary to the intermediate. E.g. since rashness is
\
thought liker and nearer to courage, and cowardice more unlike, we
\
oppose rather the latter to courage; for things that are further
\
from the intermediate are thought more contrary to it. This, then,
\
is one cause, drawn from the thing itself; another is drawn from
\
ourselves; for the things to which we ourselves more naturally tend
\
seem more contrary to the intermediate. For instance, we ourselves
\
tend more naturally to pleasures, and hence are more easily carried
\
away towards self-indulgence than towards propriety. We describe as
\
contrary to the mean, then, rather the directions in which we more
\
often go to great lengths; and therefore self-indulgence, which is
\
an excess, is the more contrary to temperance.
\

\
                                 9
\

\
  That moral virtue is a mean, then, and in what sense it is so, and
\
that it is a mean between two vices, the one involving excess, the
\
other deficiency, and that it is such because its character is to
\
aim at what is intermediate in passions and in actions, has been
\
sufficiently stated. Hence also it is no easy task to be good. For
\
in everything it is no easy task to find the middle, e.g. to find
\
the middle of a circle is not for every one but for him who knows; so,
\
too, any one can get angry- that is easy- or give or spend money; but
\
to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right
\
time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for
\
every one, nor is it easy; wherefore goodness is both rare and
\
laudable and noble.
\

\
  Hence he who aims at the intermediate must first depart from what is
\
the more contrary to it, as Calypso advises-
\

\
     Hold the ship out beyond that surf and spray.
\

\
  For of the extremes one is more erroneous, one less so; therefore,
\
since to hit the mean is hard in the extreme, we must as a second
\
best, as people say, take the least of the evils; and this will be
\
done best in the way we describe. But we must consider the things
\
towards which we ourselves also are easily carried away; for some of
\
us tend to one thing, some to another; and this will be recognizable
\
from the pleasure and the pain we feel. We must drag ourselves away to
\
the contrary extreme; for we shall get into the intermediate state
\
by drawing well away from error, as people do in straightening
\
sticks that are bent.
\

\
  Now in everything the pleasant or pleasure is most to be guarded
\
against; for we do not judge it impartially. We ought, then, to feel
\
towards pleasure as the elders of the people felt towards Helen, and
\
in all circumstances repeat their saying; for if we dismiss pleasure
\
thus we are less likely to go astray. It is by doing this, then, (to
\
sum the matter up) that we shall best be able to hit the mean.
\

\
  But this is no doubt difficult, and especially in individual
\
cases; for or is not easy to determine both how and with whom and on
\
what provocation and how long one should be angry; for we too
\
sometimes praise those who fall short and call them good-tempered, but
\
sometimes we praise those who get angry and call them manly. The
\
man, however, who deviates little from goodness is not blamed, whether
\
he do so in the direction of the more or of the less, but only the man
\
who deviates more widely; for he does not fail to be noticed. But up
\
to what point and to what extent a man must deviate before he
\
becomes blameworthy it is not easy to determine by reasoning, any more
\
than anything else that is perceived by the senses; such things depend
\
on particular facts, and the decision rests with perception. So
\
much, then, is plain, that the intermediate state is in all things
\
to be praised, but that we must incline sometimes towards the
\
excess, sometimes towards the deficiency; for so shall we most
\
easily hit the mean and what is right.
\

\
                              BOOK III
\

\
                                 1
\

\
  SINCE virtue is concerned with passions and actions, and on
\
voluntary passions and actions praise and blame are bestowed, on those
\
that are involuntary pardon, and sometimes also pity, to distinguish
\
the voluntary and the involuntary is presumably necessary for those
\
who are studying the nature of virtue, and useful also for legislators
\
with a view to the assigning both of honours and of punishments. Those
\
things, then, are thought-involuntary, which take place under
\
compulsion or owing to ignorance; and that is compulsory of which
\
the moving principle is outside, being a principle in which nothing is
\
contributed by the person who is acting or is feeling the passion,
\
e.g. if he were to be carried somewhere by a wind, or by men who had
\
him in their power.
\

\
  But with regard to the things that are done from fear of greater
\
evils or for some noble object (e.g. if a tyrant were to order one
\
to do something base, having one's parents and children in his
\
power, and if one did the action they were to be saved, but
\
otherwise would be put to death), it may be debated whether such
\
actions are involuntary or voluntary. Something of the sort happens
\
also with regard to the throwing of goods overboard in a storm; for in
\
the abstract no one throws goods away voluntarily, but on condition of
\
its securing the safety of himself and his crew any sensible man
\
does so. Such actions, then, are mixed, but are more like voluntary
\
actions; for they are worthy of choice at the time when they are done,
\
and the end of an action is relative to the occasion. Both the
\
terms, then, 'voluntary' and 'involuntary', must be used with
\
reference to the moment of action. Now the man acts voluntarily; for
\
the principle that moves the instrumental parts of the body in such
\
actions is in him, and the things of which the moving principle is
\
in a man himself are in his power to do or not to do. Such actions,
\
therefore, are voluntary, but in the abstract perhaps involuntary; for
\
no one would choose any such act in itself.
\

\
  For such actions men are sometimes even praised, when they endure
\
something base or painful in return for great and noble objects
\
gained; in the opposite case they are blamed, since to endure the
\
greatest indignities for no noble end or for a trifling end is the
\
mark of an inferior person. On some actions praise indeed is not
\
bestowed, but pardon is, when one does what he ought not under
\
pressure which overstrains human nature and which no one could
\
withstand. But some acts, perhaps, we cannot be forced to do, but
\
ought rather to face death after the most fearful sufferings; for
\
the things that 'forced' Euripides Alcmaeon to slay his mother seem
\
absurd. It is difficult sometimes to determine what should be chosen
\
at what cost, and what should be endured in return for what gain,
\
and yet more difficult to abide by our decisions; for as a rule what
\
is expected is painful, and what we are forced to do is base, whence
\
praise and blame are bestowed on those who have been compelled or have
\
not.
\

\
  What sort of acts, then, should be called compulsory? We answer that
\
without qualification actions are so when the cause is in the external
\
circumstances and the agent contributes nothing. But the things that
\
in themselves are involuntary, but now and in return for these gains
\
are worthy of choice, and whose moving principle is in the agent,
\
are in themselves involuntary, but now and in return for these gains
\
voluntary. They are more like voluntary acts; for actions are in the
\
class of particulars, and the particular acts here are voluntary. What
\
sort of things are to be chosen, and in return for what, it is not
\
easy to state; for there are many differences in the particular cases.
\

\
  But if some one were to say that pleasant and noble objects have a
\
compelling power, forcing us from without, all acts would be for him
\
compulsory; for it is for these objects that all men do everything
\
they do. And those who act under compulsion and unwillingly act with
\
pain, but those who do acts for their pleasantness and nobility do
\
them with pleasure; it is absurd to make external circumstances
\
responsible, and not oneself, as being easily caught by such
\
attractions, and to make oneself responsible for noble acts but the
\
pleasant objects responsible for base acts. The compulsory, then,
\
seems to be that whose moving principle is outside, the person
\
compelled contributing nothing.
\

\
  Everything that is done by reason of ignorance is not voluntary;
\
it is only what produces pain and repentance that is involuntary.
\
For the man who has done something owing to ignorance, and feels not
\
the least vexation at his action, has not acted voluntarily, since
\
he did not know what he was doing, nor yet involuntarily, since he
\
is not pained. Of people, then, who act by reason of ignorance he
\
who repents is thought an involuntary agent, and the man who does
\
not repent may, since he is different, be called a not voluntary
\
agent; for, since he differs from the other, it is better that he
\
should have a name of his own.
\

\
  Acting by reason of ignorance seems also to be different from acting
\
in ignorance; for the man who is drunk or in a rage is thought to
\
act as a result not of ignorance but of one of the causes mentioned,
\
yet not knowingly but in ignorance.
\

\
  Now every wicked man is ignorant of what he ought to do and what
\
he ought to abstain from, and it is by reason of error of this kind
\
that men become unjust and in general bad; but the term
\
'involuntary' tends to be used not if a man is ignorant of what is
\
to his advantage- for it is not mistaken purpose that causes
\
involuntary action (it leads rather to wickedness), nor ignorance of
\
the universal (for that men are blamed), but ignorance of particulars,
\
i.e. of the circumstances of the action and the objects with which
\
it is concerned. For it is on these that both pity and pardon
\
depend, since the person who is ignorant of any of these acts
\
involuntarily.
\

\
  Perhaps it is just as well, therefore, to determine their nature and
\
number. A man may be ignorant, then, of who he is, what he is doing,
\
what or whom he is acting on, and sometimes also what (e.g. what
\
instrument) he is doing it with, and to what end (e.g. he may think
\
his act will conduce to some one's safety), and how he is doing it
\
(e.g. whether gently or violently). Now of all of these no one could
\
be ignorant unless he were mad, and evidently also he could not be
\
ignorant of the agent; for how could he not know himself? But of
\
what he is doing a man might be ignorant, as for instance people say
\
'it slipped out of their mouths as they were speaking', or 'they did
\
not know it was a secret', as Aeschylus said of the mysteries, or a
\
man might say he 'let it go off when he merely wanted to show its
\
working', as the man did with the catapult. Again, one might think
\
one's son was an enemy, as Merope did, or that a pointed spear had a
\
button on it, or that a stone was pumicestone; or one might give a man
\
a draught to save him, and really kill him; or one might want to touch
\
a man, as people do in sparring, and really wound him. The ignorance
\
may relate, then, to any of these things, i.e. of the circumstances of
\
the action, and the man who was ignorant of any of these is thought to
\
have acted involuntarily, and especially if he was ignorant on the
\
most important points; and these are thought to be the circumstances
\
of the action and its end. Further, the doing of an act that is called
\
involuntary in virtue of ignorance of this sort must be painful and
\
involve repentance.
\

\
  Since that which is done under compulsion or by reason of
\
ignorance is involuntary, the voluntary would seem to be that of which
\
the moving principle is in the agent himself, he being aware of the
\
particular circumstances of the action. Presumably acts done by reason
\
of anger or appetite are not rightly called involuntary. For in the
\
first place, on that showing none of the other animals will act
\
voluntarily, nor will children; and secondly, is it meant that we do
\
not do voluntarily any of the acts that are due to appetite or
\
anger, or that we do the noble acts voluntarily and the base acts
\
involuntarily? Is not this absurd, when one and the same thing is
\
the cause? But it would surely be odd to describe as involuntary the
\
things one ought to desire; and we ought both to be angry at certain
\
things and to have an appetite for certain things, e.g. for health and
\
for learning. Also what is involuntary is thought to be painful, but
\
what is in accordance with appetite is thought to be pleasant.
\
Again, what is the difference in respect of involuntariness between
\
errors committed upon calculation and those committed in anger? Both
\
are to be avoided, but the irrational passions are thought not less
\
human than reason is, and therefore also the actions which proceed
\
from anger or appetite are the man's actions. It would be odd, then,
\
to treat them as involuntary.
\

\
                                 2
\

\
  Both the voluntary and the involuntary having been delimited, we
\
must next discuss choice; for it is thought to be most closely bound
\
up with virtue and to discriminate characters better than actions do.
\

\
  Choice, then, seems to be voluntary, but not the same thing as the
\
voluntary; the latter extends more widely. For both children and the
\
lower animals share in voluntary action, but not in choice, and acts
\
done on the spur of the moment we describe as voluntary, but not as
\
chosen.
\

\
  Those who say it is appetite or anger or wish or a kind of opinion
\
do not seem to be right. For choice is not common to irrational
\
creatures as well, but appetite and anger are. Again, the
\
incontinent man acts with appetite, but not with choice; while the
\
continent man on the contrary acts with choice, but not with appetite.
\
Again, appetite is contrary to choice, but not appetite to appetite.
\
Again, appetite relates to the pleasant and the painful, choice
\
neither to the painful nor to the pleasant.
\

\
  Still less is it anger; for acts due to anger are thought to be less
\
than any others objects of choice.
\

\
  But neither is it wish, though it seems near to it; for choice
\
cannot relate to impossibles, and if any one said he chose them he
\
would be thought silly; but there may be a wish even for
\
impossibles, e.g. for immortality. And wish may relate to things
\
that could in no way be brought about by one's own efforts, e.g.
\
that a particular actor or athlete should win in a competition; but no
\
one chooses such things, but only the things that he thinks could be
\
brought about by his own efforts. Again, wish relates rather to the
\
end, choice to the means; for instance, we wish to be healthy, but
\
we choose the acts which will make us healthy, and we wish to be happy
\
and say we do, but we cannot well say we choose to be so; for, in
\
general, choice seems to relate to the things that are in our own
\
power.
\

\
  For this reason, too, it cannot be opinion; for opinion is thought
\
to relate to all kinds of things, no less to eternal things and
\
impossible things than to things in our own power; and it is
\
distinguished by its falsity or truth, not by its badness or goodness,
\
while choice is distinguished rather by these.
\

\
  Now with opinion in general perhaps no one even says it is
\
identical. But it is not identical even with any kind of opinion;
\
for by choosing what is good or bad we are men of a certain character,
\
which we are not by holding certain opinions. And we choose to get
\
or avoid something good or bad, but we have opinions about what a
\
thing is or whom it is good for or how it is good for him; we can
\
hardly be said to opine to get or avoid anything. And choice is
\
praised for being related to the right object rather than for being
\
rightly related to it, opinion for being truly related to its
\
object. And we choose what we best know to be good, but we opine
\
what we do not quite know; and it is not the same people that are
\
thought to make the best choices and to have the best opinions, but
\
some are thought to have fairly good opinions, but by reason of vice
\
to choose what they should not. If opinion precedes choice or
\
accompanies it, that makes no difference; for it is not this that we
\
are considering, but whether it is identical with some kind of
\
opinion.
\

\
  What, then, or what kind of thing is it, since it is none of the
\
things we have mentioned? It seems to be voluntary, but not all that
\
is voluntary to be an object of choice. Is it, then, what has been
\
decided on by previous deliberation? At any rate choice involves a
\
rational principle and thought. Even the name seems to suggest that it
\
is what is chosen before other things.
\

\
                                 3
\

\
  Do we deliberate about everything, and is everything a possible
\
subject of deliberation, or is deliberation impossible about some
\
things? We ought presumably to call not what a fool or a madman
\
would deliberate about, but what a sensible man would deliberate
\
about, a subject of deliberation. Now about eternal things no one
\
deliberates, e.g. about the material universe or the
\
incommensurability of the diagonal and the side of a square. But no
\
more do we deliberate about the things that involve movement but
\
always happen in the same way, whether of necessity or by nature or
\
from any other cause, e.g. the solstices and the risings of the stars;
\
nor about things that happen now in one way, now in another, e.g.
\
droughts and rains; nor about chance events, like the finding of
\
treasure. But we do not deliberate even about all human affairs; for
\
instance, no Spartan deliberates about the best constitution for the
\
Scythians. For none of these things can be brought about by our own
\
efforts.
\

\
  We deliberate about things that are in our power and can be done;
\
and these are in fact what is left. For nature, necessity, and
\
chance are thought to be causes, and also reason and everything that
\
depends on man. Now every class of men deliberates about the things
\
that can be done by their own efforts. And in the case of exact and
\
self-contained sciences there is no deliberation, e.g. about the
\
letters of the alphabet (for we have no doubt how they should be
\
written); but the things that are brought about by our own efforts,
\
but not always in the same way, are the things about which we
\
deliberate, e.g. questions of medical treatment or of money-making.
\
And we do so more in the case of the art of navigation than in that of
\
gymnastics, inasmuch as it has been less exactly worked out, and again
\
about other things in the same ratio, and more also in the case of the
\
arts than in that of the sciences; for we have more doubt about the
\
former. Deliberation is concerned with things that happen in a certain
\
way for the most part, but in which the event is obscure, and with
\
things in which it is indeterminate. We call in others to aid us in
\
deliberation on important questions, distrusting ourselves as not
\
being equal to deciding.
\

\
  We deliberate not about ends but about means. For a doctor does
\
not deliberate whether he shall heal, nor an orator whether he shall
\
persuade, nor a statesman whether he shall produce law and order,
\
nor does any one else deliberate about his end. They assume the end
\
and consider how and by what means it is to be attained; and if it
\
seems to be produced by several means they consider by which it is
\
most easily and best produced, while if it is achieved by one only
\
they consider how it will be achieved by this and by what means this
\
will be achieved, till they come to the first cause, which in the
\
order of discovery is last. For the person who deliberates seems to
\
investigate and analyse in the way described as though he were
\
analysing a geometrical construction (not all investigation appears to
\
be deliberation- for instance mathematical investigations- but all
\
deliberation is investigation), and what is last in the order of
\
analysis seems to be first in the order of becoming. And if we come on
\
an impossibility, we give up the search, e.g. if we need money and
\
this cannot be got; but if a thing appears possible we try to do it.
\
By 'possible' things I mean things that might be brought about by
\
our own efforts; and these in a sense include things that can be
\
brought about by the efforts of our friends, since the moving
\
principle is in ourselves. The subject of investigation is sometimes
\
the instruments, sometimes the use of them; and similarly in the other
\
cases- sometimes the means, sometimes the mode of using it or the
\
means of bringing it about. It seems, then, as has been said, that man
\
is a moving principle of actions; now deliberation is about the things
\
to be done by the agent himself, and actions are for the sake of
\
things other than themselves. For the end cannot be a subject of
\
deliberation, but only the means; nor indeed can the particular
\
facts be a subject of it, as whether this is bread or has been baked
\
as it should; for these are matters of perception. If we are to be
\
always deliberating, we shall have to go on to infinity.
\

\
  The same thing is deliberated upon and is chosen, except that the
\
object of choice is already determinate, since it is that which has
\
been decided upon as a result of deliberation that is the object of
\
choice. For every one ceases to inquire how he is to act when he has
\
brought the moving principle back to himself and to the ruling part of
\
himself; for this is what chooses. This is plain also from the ancient
\
constitutions, which Homer represented; for the kings announced
\
their choices to the people. The object of choice being one of the
\
things in our own power which is desired after deliberation, choice
\
will be deliberate desire of things in our own power; for when we have
\
decided as a result of deliberation, we desire in accordance with
\
our deliberation.
\

\
  We may take it, then, that we have described choice in outline,
\
and stated the nature of its objects and the fact that it is concerned
\
with means.
\

\
                                 4
\

\
  That wish is for the end has already been stated; some think it is
\
for the good, others for the apparent good. Now those who say that the
\
good is the object of wish must admit in consequence that that which
\
the man who does not choose aright wishes for is not an object of wish
\
(for if it is to be so, it must also be good; but it was, if it so
\
happened, bad); while those who say the apparent good is the object of
\
wish must admit that there is no natural object of wish, but only what
\
seems good to each man. Now different things appear good to
\
different people, and, if it so happens, even contrary things.
\

\
  If these consequences are unpleasing, are we to say that
\
absolutely and in truth the good is the object of wish, but for each
\
person the apparent good; that that which is in truth an object of
\
wish is an object of wish to the good man, while any chance thing
\
may be so the bad man, as in the case of bodies also the things that
\
are in truth wholesome are wholesome for bodies which are in good
\
condition, while for those that are diseased other things are
\
wholesome- or bitter or sweet or hot or heavy, and so on; since the
\
good man judges each class of things rightly, and in each the truth
\
appears to him? For each state of character has its own ideas of the
\
noble and the pleasant, and perhaps the good man differs from others
\
most by seeing the truth in each class of things, being as it were the
\
norm and measure of them. In most things the error seems to be due
\
to pleasure; for it appears a good when it is not. We therefore choose
\
the pleasant as a good, and avoid pain as an evil.
\

\
                                 5
\

\
  The end, then, being what we wish for, the means what we
\
deliberate about and choose, actions concerning means must be
\
according to choice and voluntary. Now the exercise of the virtues
\
is concerned with means. Therefore virtue also is in our own power,
\
and so too vice. For where it is in our power to act it is also in our
\
power not to act, and vice versa; so that, if to act, where this is
\
noble, is in our power, not to act, which will be base, will also be
\
in our power, and if not to act, where this is noble, is in our power,
\
to act, which will be base, will also be in our power. Now if it is in
\
our power to do noble or base acts, and likewise in our power not to
\
do them, and this was what being good or bad meant, then it is in
\
our power to be virtuous or vicious.
\

\
  The saying that 'no one is voluntarily wicked nor involuntarily
\
happy' seems to be partly false and partly true; for no one is
\
involuntarily happy, but wickedness is voluntary. Or else we shall
\
have to dispute what has just been said, at any rate, and deny that
\
man is a moving principle or begetter of his actions as of children.
\
But if these facts are evident and we cannot refer actions to moving
\
principles other than those in ourselves, the acts whose moving
\
principles are in us must themselves also be in our power and
\
voluntary.
\

\
  Witness seems to be borne to this both by individuals in their
\
private capacity and by legislators themselves; for these punish and
\
take vengeance on those who do wicked acts (unless they have acted
\
under compulsion or as a result of ignorance for which they are not
\
themselves responsible), while they honour those who do noble acts, as
\
though they meant to encourage the latter and deter the former. But no
\
one is encouraged to do the things that are neither in our power nor
\
voluntary; it is assumed that there is no gain in being persuaded
\
not to be hot or in pain or hungry or the like, since we shall
\
experience these feelings none the less. Indeed, we punish a man for
\
his very ignorance, if he is thought responsible for the ignorance, as
\
when penalties are doubled in the case of drunkenness; for the
\
moving principle is in the man himself, since he had the power of
\
not getting drunk and his getting drunk was the cause of his
\
ignorance. And we punish those who are ignorant of anything in the
\
laws that they ought to know and that is not difficult, and so too
\
in the case of anything else that they are thought to be ignorant of
\
through carelessness; we assume that it is in their power not to be
\
ignorant, since they have the power of taking care.
\

\
  But perhaps a man is the kind of man not to take care. Still they
\
are themselves by their slack lives responsible for becoming men of
\
that kind, and men make themselves responsible for being unjust or
\
self-indulgent, in the one case by cheating and in the other by
\
spending their time in drinking bouts and the like; for it is
\
activities exercised on particular objects that make the corresponding
\
character. This is plain from the case of people training for any
\
contest or action; they practise the activity the whole time. Now
\
not to know that it is from the exercise of activities on particular
\
objects that states of character are produced is the mark of a
\
thoroughly senseless person. Again, it is irrational to suppose that a
\
man who acts unjustly does not wish to be unjust or a man who acts
\
self-indulgently to be self-indulgent. But if without being ignorant a
\
man does the things which will make him unjust, he will be unjust
\
voluntarily. Yet it does not follow that if he wishes he will cease to
\
be unjust and will be just. For neither does the man who is ill become
\
well on those terms. We may suppose a case in which he is ill
\
voluntarily, through living incontinently and disobeying his
\
doctors. In that case it was then open to him not to be ill, but not
\
now, when he has thrown away his chance, just as when you have let a
\
stone go it is too late to recover it; but yet it was in your power to
\
throw it, since the moving principle was in you. So, too, to the
\
unjust and to the self-indulgent man it was open at the beginning
\
not to become men of this kind, and so they are unjust and
\
selfindulgent voluntarily; but now that they have become so it is
\
not possible for them not to be so.
\

\
  But not only are the vices of the soul voluntary, but those of the
\
body also for some men, whom we accordingly blame; while no one blames
\
those who are ugly by nature, we blame those who are so owing to
\
want of exercise and care. So it is, too, with respect to weakness and
\
infirmity; no one would reproach a man blind from birth or by
\
disease or from a blow, but rather pity him, while every one would
\
blame a man who was blind from drunkenness or some other form of
\
self-indulgence. Of vices of the body, then, those in our own power
\
are blamed, those not in our power are not. And if this be so, in
\
the other cases also the vices that are blamed must be in our own
\
power.
\

\
  Now some one may say that all men desire the apparent good, but have
\
no control over the appearance, but the end appears to each man in a
\
form answering to his character. We reply that if each man is
\
somehow responsible for his state of mind, he will also be himself
\
somehow responsible for the appearance; but if not, no one is
\
responsible for his own evildoing, but every one does evil acts
\
through ignorance of the end, thinking that by these he will get
\
what is best, and the aiming at the end is not self-chosen but one
\
must be born with an eye, as it were, by which to judge rightly and
\
choose what is truly good, and he is well endowed by nature who is
\
well endowed with this. For it is what is greatest and most noble, and
\
what we cannot get or learn from another, but must have just such as
\
it was when given us at birth, and to be well and nobly endowed with
\
this will be perfect and true excellence of natural endowment. If this
\
is true, then, how will virtue be more voluntary than vice? To both
\
men alike, the good and the bad, the end appears and is fixed by
\
nature or however it may be, and it is by referring everything else to
\
this that men do whatever they do.
\

\
  Whether, then, it is not by nature that the end appears to each
\
man such as it does appear, but something also depends on him, or
\
the end is natural but because the good man adopts the means
\
voluntarily virtue is voluntary, vice also will be none the less
\
voluntary; for in the case of the bad man there is equally present
\
that which depends on himself in his actions even if not in his end.
\
If, then, as is asserted, the virtues are voluntary (for we are
\
ourselves somehow partly responsible for our states of character,
\
and it is by being persons of a certain kind that we assume the end to
\
be so and so), the vices also will be voluntary; for the same is
\
true of them.
\

\
  With regard to the virtues in general we have stated their genus
\
in outline, viz. that they are means and that they are states of
\
character, and that they tend, and by their own nature, to the doing
\
of the acts by which they are produced, and that they are in our power
\
and voluntary, and act as the right rule prescribes. But actions and
\
states of character are not voluntary in the same way; for we are
\
masters of our actions from the beginning right to the end, if we know
\
the particular facts, but though we control the beginning of our
\
states of character the gradual progress is not obvious any more
\
than it is in illnesses; because it was in our power, however, to
\
act in this way or not in this way, therefore the states are
\
voluntary.
\

\
  Let us take up the several virtues, however, and say which they
\
are and what sort of things they are concerned with and how they are
\
concerned with them; at the same time it will become plain how many
\
they are. And first let us speak of courage.
\

\
                                 6
\

\
  That it is a mean with regard to feelings of fear and confidence has
\
already been made evident; and plainly the things we fear are terrible
\
things, and these are, to speak without qualification, evils; for
\
which reason people even define fear as expectation of evil. Now we
\
fear all evils, e.g. disgrace, poverty, disease, friendlessness,
\
death, but the brave man is not thought to be concerned with all;
\
for to fear some things is even right and noble, and it is base not to
\
fear them- e.g. disgrace; he who fears this is good and modest, and
\
he who does not is shameless. He is, however, by some people called
\
brave, by a transference of the word to a new meaning; for he has in
\
him something which is like the brave man, since the brave man also is
\
a fearless person. Poverty and disease we perhaps ought not to fear,
\
nor in general the things that do not proceed from vice and are not
\
due to a man himself. But not even the man who is fearless of these is
\
brave. Yet we apply the word to him also in virtue of a similarity;
\
for some who in the dangers of war are cowards are liberal and are
\
confident in face of the loss of money. Nor is a man a coward if he
\
fears insult to his wife and children or envy or anything of the kind;
\
nor brave if he is confident when he is about to be flogged. With what
\
sort of terrible things, then, is the brave man concerned? Surely with
\
the greatest; for no one is more likely than he to stand his ground
\
against what is awe-inspiring. Now death is the most terrible of all
\
things; for it is the end, and nothing is thought to be any longer
\
either good or bad for the dead. But the brave man would not seem to
\
be concerned even with death in all circumstances, e.g. at sea or in
\
disease. In what circumstances, then? Surely in the noblest. Now
\
such deaths are those in battle; for these take place in the
\
greatest and noblest danger. And these are correspondingly honoured in
\
city-states and at the courts of monarchs. Properly, then, he will
\
be called brave who is fearless in face of a noble death, and of all
\
emergencies that involve death; and the emergencies of war are in
\
the highest degree of this kind. Yet at sea also, and in disease,
\
the brave man is fearless, but not in the same way as the seaman;
\
for he has given up hope of safety, and is disliking the thought of
\
death in this shape, while they are hopeful because of their
\
experience. At the same time, we show courage in situations where
\
there is the opportunity of showing prowess or where death is noble;
\
but in these forms of death neither of these conditions is fulfilled.
\

\
                                 7
\

\
  What is terrible is not the same for all men; but we say there are
\
things terrible even beyond human strength. These, then, are terrible
\
to every one- at least to every sensible man; but the terrible
\
things that are not beyond human strength differ in magnitude and
\
degree, and so too do the things that inspire confidence. Now the
\
brave man is as dauntless as man may be. Therefore, while he will fear
\
even the things that are not beyond human strength, he will face
\
them as he ought and as the rule directs, for honour's sake; for
\
this is the end of virtue. But it is possible to fear these more, or
\
less, and again to fear things that are not terrible as if they
\
were. Of the faults that are committed one consists in fearing what
\
one should not, another in fearing as we should not, another in
\
fearing when we should not, and so on; and so too with respect to
\
the things that inspire confidence. The man, then, who faces and who
\
fears the right things and from the right motive, in the right way and
\
from the right time, and who feels confidence under the
\
corresponding conditions, is brave; for the brave man feels and acts
\
according to the merits of the case and in whatever way the rule
\
directs. Now the end of every activity is conformity to the
\
corresponding state of character. This is true, therefore, of the
\
brave man as well as of others. But courage is noble. Therefore the
\
end also is noble; for each thing is defined by its end. Therefore
\
it is for a noble end that the brave man endures and acts as courage
\
directs.
\

\
  Of those who go to excess he who exceeds in fearlessness has no name
\
(we have said previously that many states of character have no names),
\
but he would be a sort of madman or insensible person if he feared
\
nothing, neither earthquakes nor the waves, as they say the Celts do
\
not; while the man who exceeds in confidence about what really is
\
terrible is rash. The rash man, however, is also thought to be
\
boastful and only a pretender to courage; at all events, as the
\
brave man is with regard to what is terrible, so the rash man wishes
\
to appear; and so he imitates him in situations where he can. Hence
\
also most of them are a mixture of rashness and cowardice; for,
\
while in these situations they display confidence, they do not hold
\
their ground against what is really terrible. The man who exceeds in
\
fear is a coward; for he fears both what he ought not and as he
\
ought not, and all the similar characterizations attach to him. He
\
is lacking also in confidence; but he is more conspicuous for his
\
excess of fear in painful situations. The coward, then, is a
\
despairing sort of person; for he fears everything. The brave man,
\
on the other hand, has the opposite disposition; for confidence is the
\
mark of a hopeful disposition. The coward, the rash man, and the brave
\
man, then, are concerned with the same objects but are differently
\
disposed towards them; for the first two exceed and fall short,
\
while the third holds the middle, which is the right, position; and
\
rash men are precipitate, and wish for dangers beforehand but draw
\
back when they are in them, while brave men are keen in the moment
\
of action, but quiet beforehand.
\

\
  As we have said, then, courage is a mean with respect to things that
\
inspire confidence or fear, in the circumstances that have been
\
stated; and it chooses or endures things because it is noble to do so,
\
or because it is base not to do so. But to die to escape from
\
poverty or love or anything painful is not the mark of a brave man,
\
but rather of a coward; for it is softness to fly from what is
\
troublesome, and such a man endures death not because it is noble
\
but to fly from evil.
\

\
                                 8
\

\
  Courage, then, is something of this sort, but the name is also
\
applied to five other kinds.
\

\
  First comes the courage of the citizen-soldier; for this is most
\
like true courage. Citizen-soldiers seem to face dangers because of
\
the penalties imposed by the laws and the reproaches they would
\
otherwise incur, and because of the honours they win by such action;
\
and therefore those peoples seem to be bravest among whom cowards
\
are held in dishonour and brave men in honour. This is the kind of
\
courage that Homer depicts, e.g. in Diomede and in Hector:
\

\
  First will Polydamas be to heap reproach on me then; and
\

\
     For Hector one day 'mid the Trojans shall utter his vaulting
\

\
       harangue:
\

\
     Afraid was Tydeides, and fled from my face.
\

\
  This kind of courage is most like to that which we described
\
earlier, because it is due to virtue; for it is due to shame and to
\
desire of a noble object (i.e. honour) and avoidance of disgrace,
\
which is ignoble. One might rank in the same class even those who
\
are compelled by their rulers; but they are inferior, inasmuch as they
\
do what they do not from shame but from fear, and to avoid not what is
\
disgraceful but what is painful; for their masters compel them, as
\
Hector does:
\

\
     But if I shall spy any dastard that cowers far from the fight,
\

\
     Vainly will such an one hope to escape from the dogs.
\

\
  And those who give them their posts, and beat them if they
\
retreat, do the same, and so do those who draw them up with trenches
\
or something of the sort behind them; all of these apply compulsion.
\
But one ought to be brave not under compulsion but because it is noble
\
to be so.
\

\
  (2) Experience with regard to particular facts is also thought to be
\
courage; this is indeed the reason why Socrates thought courage was
\
knowledge. Other people exhibit this quality in other dangers, and
\
professional soldiers exhibit it in the dangers of war; for there seem
\
to be many empty alarms in war, of which these have had the most
\
comprehensive experience; therefore they seem brave, because the
\
others do not know the nature of the facts. Again, their experience
\
makes them most capable in attack and in defence, since they can use
\
their arms and have the kind that are likely to be best both for
\
attack and for defence; therefore they fight like armed men against
\
unarmed or like trained athletes against amateurs; for in such
\
contests too it is not the bravest men that fight best, but those
\
who are strongest and have their bodies in the best condition.
\
Professional soldiers turn cowards, however, when the danger puts
\
too great a strain on them and they are inferior in numbers and
\
equipment; for they are the first to fly, while citizen-forces die
\
at their posts, as in fact happened at the temple of Hermes. For to
\
the latter flight is disgraceful and death is preferable to safety
\
on those terms; while the former from the very beginning faced the
\
danger on the assumption that they were stronger, and when they know
\
the facts they fly, fearing death more than disgrace; but the brave
\
man is not that sort of person.
\

\
  (3) Passion also is sometimes reckoned as courage; those who act
\
from passion, like wild beasts rushing at those who have wounded them,
\
are thought to be brave, because brave men also are passionate; for
\
passion above all things is eager to rush on danger, and hence Homer's
\
'put strength into his passion' and 'aroused their spirit and
\
passion and 'hard he breathed panting' and 'his blood boiled'. For all
\
such expressions seem to indicate the stirring and onset of passion.
\
Now brave men act for honour's sake, but passion aids them; while wild
\
beasts act under the influence of pain; for they attack because they
\
have been wounded or because they are afraid, since if they are in a
\
forest they do not come near one. Thus they are not brave because,
\
driven by pain and passion, they rush on danger without foreseeing any
\
of the perils, since at that rate even asses would be brave when
\
they are hungry; for blows will not drive them from their food; and
\
lust also makes adulterers do many daring things. (Those creatures are
\
not brave, then, which are driven on to danger by pain or passion.)
\
The 'courage' that is due to passion seems to be the most natural, and
\
to be courage if choice and motive be added.
\

\
  Men, then, as well as beasts, suffer pain when they are angry, and
\
are pleased when they exact their revenge; those who fight for these
\
reasons, however, are pugnacious but not brave; for they do not act
\
for honour's sake nor as the rule directs, but from strength of
\
feeling; they have, however, something akin to courage.
\

\
  (4) Nor are sanguine people brave; for they are confident in danger
\
only because they have conquered often and against many foes. Yet they
\
closely resemble brave men, because both are confident; but brave
\
men are confident for the reasons stated earlier, while these are so
\
because they think they are the strongest and can suffer nothing.
\
(Drunken men also behave in this way; they become sanguine). When
\
their adventures do not succeed, however, they run away; but it was
\
the mark of a brave man to face things that are, and seem, terrible
\
for a man, because it is noble to do so and disgraceful not to do
\
so. Hence also it is thought the mark of a braver man to be fearless
\
and undisturbed in sudden alarms than to be so in those that are
\
foreseen; for it must have proceeded more from a state of character,
\
because less from preparation; acts that are foreseen may be chosen by
\
calculation and rule, but sudden actions must be in accordance with
\
one's state of character.
\

\
  (5) People who are ignorant of the danger also appear brave, and
\
they are not far removed from those of a sanguine temper, but are
\
inferior inasmuch as they have no self-reliance while these have.
\
Hence also the sanguine hold their ground for a time; but those who
\
have been deceived about the facts fly if they know or suspect that
\
these are different from what they supposed, as happened to the
\
Argives when they fell in with the Spartans and took them for
\
Sicyonians.
\

\
  We have, then, described the character both of brave men and of
\
those who are thought to be brave.
\

\
                                 9
\

\
  Though courage is concerned with feelings of confidence and of fear,
\
it is not concerned with both alike, but more with the things that
\
inspire fear; for he who is undisturbed in face of these and bears
\
himself as he should towards these is more truly brave than the man
\
who does so towards the things that inspire confidence. It is for
\
facing what is painful, then, as has been said, that men are called
\
brave. Hence also courage involves pain, and is justly praised; for it
\
is harder to face what is painful than to abstain from what is
\
pleasant.
\

\
  Yet the end which courage sets before it would seem to be
\
pleasant, but to be concealed by the attending circumstances, as
\
happens also in athletic contests; for the end at which boxers aim
\
is pleasant- the crown and the honours- but the blows they take are
\
distressing to flesh and blood, and painful, and so is their whole
\
exertion; and because the blows and the exertions are many the end,
\
which is but small, appears to have nothing pleasant in it. And so, if
\
the case of courage is similar, death and wounds will be painful to
\
the brave man and against his will, but he will face them because it
\
is noble to do so or because it is base not to do so. And the more
\
he is possessed of virtue in its entirety and the happier he is, the
\
more he will be pained at the thought of death; for life is best worth
\
living for such a man, and he is knowingly losing the greatest
\
goods, and this is painful. But he is none the less brave, and perhaps
\
all the more so, because he chooses noble deeds of war at that cost.
\
It is not the case, then, with all the virtues that the exercise of
\
them is pleasant, except in so far as it reaches its end. But it is
\
quite possible that the best soldiers may be not men of this sort
\
but those who are less brave but have no other good; for these are
\
ready to face danger, and they sell their life for trifling gains.
\

\
  So much, then, for courage; it is not difficult to grasp its
\
nature in outline, at any rate, from what has been said.
\

\
                                10
\

\
  After courage let us speak of temperance; for these seem to be the
\
virtues of the irrational parts. We have said that temperance is a
\
mean with regard to pleasures (for it is less, and not in the same
\
way, concerned with pains); self-indulgence also is manifested in
\
the same sphere. Now, therefore, let us determine with what sort of
\
pleasures they are concerned. We may assume the distinction between
\
bodily pleasures and those of the soul, such as love of honour and
\
love of learning; for the lover of each of these delights in that of
\
which he is a lover, the body being in no way affected, but rather the
\
mind; but men who are concerned with such pleasures are called neither
\
temperate nor self-indulgent. Nor, again, are those who are
\
concerned with the other pleasures that are not bodily; for those
\
who are fond of hearing and telling stories and who spend their days
\
on anything that turns up are called gossips, but not
\
self-indulgent, nor are those who are pained at the loss of money or
\
of friends.
\

\
  Temperance must be concerned with bodily pleasures, but not all even
\
of these; for those who delight in objects of vision, such as
\
colours and shapes and painting, are called neither temperate nor
\
self-indulgent; yet it would seem possible to delight even in these
\
either as one should or to excess or to a deficient degree.
\

\
  And so too is it with objects of hearing; no one calls those who
\
delight extravagantly in music or acting self-indulgent, nor those who
\
do so as they ought temperate.
\

\
  Nor do we apply these names to those who delight in odour, unless it
\
be incidentally; we do not call those self-indulgent who delight in
\
the odour of apples or roses or incense, but rather those who
\
delight in the odour of unguents or of dainty dishes; for
\
self-indulgent people delight in these because these remind them of
\
the objects of their appetite. And one may see even other people, when
\
they are hungry, delighting in the smell of food; but to delight in
\
this kind of thing is the mark of the self-indulgent man; for these
\
are objects of appetite to him.
\

\
  Nor is there in animals other than man any pleasure connected with
\
these senses, except incidentally. For dogs do not delight in the
\
scent of hares, but in the eating of them, but the scent told them the
\
hares were there; nor does the lion delight in the lowing of the ox,
\
but in eating it; but he perceived by the lowing that it was near, and
\
therefore appears to delight in the lowing; and similarly he does
\
not delight because he sees 'a stag or a wild goat', but because he is
\
going to make a meal of it. Temperance and self-indulgence, however,
\
are concerned with the kind of pleasures that the other animals
\
share in, which therefore appear slavish and brutish; these are
\
touch and taste. But even of taste they appear to make little or no
\
use; for the business of taste is the discriminating of flavours,
\
which is done by winetasters and people who season dishes; but they
\
hardly take pleasure in making these discriminations, or at least
\
self-indulgent people do not, but in the actual enjoyment, which in
\
all cases comes through touch, both in the case of food and in that of
\
drink and in that of sexual intercourse. This is why a certain
\
gourmand prayed that his throat might become longer than a crane's,
\
implying that it was the contact that he took pleasure in. Thus the
\
sense with which self-indulgence is connected is the most widely
\
shared of the senses; and self-indulgence would seem to be justly a
\
matter of reproach, because it attaches to us not as men but as
\
animals. To delight in such things, then, and to love them above all
\
others, is brutish. For even of the pleasures of touch the most
\
liberal have been eliminated, e.g. those produced in the gymnasium
\
by rubbing and by the consequent heat; for the contact
\
characteristic of the self-indulgent man does not affect the whole
\
body but only certain parts.
\

\
                                11
\

\
  Of the appetites some seem to be common, others to be peculiar to
\
individuals and acquired; e.g. the appetite for food is natural, since
\
every one who is without it craves for food or drink, and sometimes
\
for both, and for love also (as Homer says) if he is young and
\
lusty; but not every one craves for this or that kind of nourishment
\
or love, nor for the same things. Hence such craving appears to be our
\
very own. Yet it has of course something natural about it; for
\
different things are pleasant to different kinds of people, and
\
some things are more pleasant to every one than chance objects. Now in
\
the natural appetites few go wrong, and only in one direction, that of
\
excess; for to eat or drink whatever offers itself till one is
\
surfeited is to exceed the natural amount, since natural appetite is
\
the replenishment of one's deficiency. Hence these people are called
\
belly-gods, this implying that they fill their belly beyond what is
\
right. It is people of entirely slavish character that become like
\
this. But with regard to the pleasures peculiar to individuals many
\
people go wrong and in many ways. For while the people who are 'fond
\
of so and so' are so called because they delight either in the wrong
\
things, or more than most people do, or in the wrong way, the
\
self-indulgent exceed in all three ways; they both delight in some
\
things that they ought not to delight in (since they are hateful), and
\
if one ought to delight in some of the things they delight in, they do
\
so more than one ought and than most men do.
\

\
  Plainly, then, excess with regard to pleasures is self-indulgence
\
and is culpable; with regard to pains one is not, as in the case of
\
courage, called temperate for facing them or self-indulgent for not
\
doing so, but the selfindulgent man is so called because he is
\
pained more than he ought at not getting pleasant things (even his
\
pain being caused by pleasure), and the temperate man is so called
\
because he is not pained at the absence of what is pleasant and at his
\
abstinence from it.
\

\
  The self-indulgent man, then, craves for all pleasant things or
\
those that are most pleasant, and is led by his appetite to choose
\
these at the cost of everything else; hence he is pained both when
\
he fails to get them and when he is merely craving for them (for
\
appetite involves pain); but it seems absurd to be pained for the sake
\
of pleasure. People who fall short with regard to pleasures and
\
delight in them less than they should are hardly found; for such
\
insensibility is not human. Even the other animals distinguish
\
different kinds of food and enjoy some and not others; and if there is
\
any one who finds nothing pleasant and nothing more attractive than
\
anything else, he must be something quite different from a man; this
\
sort of person has not received a name because he hardly occurs. The
\
temperate man occupies a middle position with regard to these objects.
\
For he neither enjoys the things that the self-indulgent man enjoys
\
most-but rather dislikes them-nor in general the things that he should
\
not, nor anything of this sort to excess, nor does he feel pain or
\
craving when they are absent, or does so only to a moderate degree,
\
and not more than he should, nor when he should not, and so on; but
\
the things that, being pleasant, make for health or for good
\
condition, he will desire moderately and as he should, and also
\
other pleasant things if they are not hindrances to these ends, or
\
contrary to what is noble, or beyond his means. For he who neglects
\
these conditions loves such pleasures more than they are worth, but
\
the temperate man is not that sort of person, but the sort of person
\
that the right rule prescribes.
\

\
                                12
\

\
  Self-indulgence is more like a voluntary state than cowardice. For
\
the former is actuated by pleasure, the latter by pain, of which the
\
one is to be chosen and the other to be avoided; and pain upsets and
\
destroys the nature of the person who feels it, while pleasure does
\
nothing of the sort. Therefore self-indulgence is more voluntary.
\
Hence also it is more a matter of reproach; for it is easier to become
\
accustomed to its objects, since there are many things of this sort in
\
life, and the process of habituation to them is free from danger,
\
while with terrible objects the reverse is the case. But cowardice
\
would seem to be voluntary in a different degree from its particular
\
manifestations; for it is itself painless, but in these we are upset
\
by pain, so that we even throw down our arms and disgrace ourselves in
\
other ways; hence our acts are even thought to be done under
\
compulsion. For the self-indulgent man, on the other hand, the
\
particular acts are voluntary (for he does them with craving and
\
desire), but the whole state is less so; for no one craves to be
\
self-indulgent.
\

\
  The name self-indulgence is applied also to childish faults; for
\
they bear a certain resemblance to what we have been considering.
\
Which is called after which, makes no difference to our present
\
purpose; plainly, however, the later is called after the earlier.
\
The transference of the name seems not a bad one; for that which
\
desires what is base and which develops quickly ought to be kept in
\
a chastened condition, and these characteristics belong above all to
\
appetite and to the child, since children in fact live at the beck and
\
call of appetite, and it is in them that the desire for what is
\
pleasant is strongest. If, then, it is not going to be obedient and
\
subject to the ruling principle, it will go to great lengths; for in
\
an irrational being the desire for pleasure is insatiable even if it
\
tries every source of gratification, and the exercise of appetite
\
increases its innate force, and if appetites are strong and violent
\
they even expel the power of calculation. Hence they should be
\
moderate and few, and should in no way oppose the rational
\
principle-and this is what we call an obedient and chastened state-and
\
as the child should live according to the direction of his tutor, so
\
the appetitive element should live according to rational principle.
\
Hence the appetitive element in a temperate man should harmonize
\
with the rational principle; for the noble is the mark at which both
\
aim, and the temperate man craves for the things be ought, as he
\
ought, as when he ought; and when he ought; and this is what
\
rational principle directs.
\

\
  Here we conclude our account of temperance.
\

\
                              BOOK IV
\

\
                                 1
\

\
  LET us speak next of liberality. It seems to be the mean with regard
\
to wealth; for the liberal man is praised not in respect of military
\
matters, nor of those in respect of which the temrate man is
\
praised, nor of judicial decisions, but with regard to the giving
\
and taking of wealth, and especially in respect of giving. Now by
\
'wealth' we mean all the things whose value is measured by money.
\
Further, prodigality and meanness are excesses and defects with regard
\
to wealth; and meanness we always impute to those who care more than
\
they ought for wealth, but we sometimes apply the word 'prodigality'
\
in a complex sense; for we call those men prodigals who are
\
incontinent and spend money on self-indulgence. Hence also they are
\
thought the poorest characters; for they combine more vices than
\
one. Therefore the application of the word to them is not its proper
\
use; for a 'prodigal' means a man who has a single evil quality,
\
that of wasting his substance; since a prodigal is one who is being
\
ruined by his own fault, and the wasting of substance is thought to be
\
a sort of ruining of oneself, life being held to depend on
\
possession of substance.
\

\
  This, then, is the sense in which we take the word 'prodigality'.
\
Now the things that have a use may be used either well or badly; and
\
riches is a useful thing; and everything is used best by the man who
\
has the virtue concerned with it; riches, therefore, will be used best
\
by the man who has the virtue concerned with wealth; and this is the
\
liberal man. Now spending and giving seem to be the using of wealth;
\
taking and keeping rather the possession of it. Hence it is more the
\
mark of the liberal man to give to the right people than to take
\
from the right sources and not to take from the wrong. For it is
\
more characteristic of virtue to do good than to have good done to
\
one, and more characteristic to do what is noble than not to do what
\
is base; and it is not hard to see that giving implies doing good
\
and doing what is noble, and taking implies having good done to one or
\
not acting basely. And gratitude is felt towards him who gives, not
\
towards him who does not take, and praise also is bestowed more on
\
him. It is easier, also, not to take than to give; for men are apter
\
to give away their own too little than to take what is another's.
\
Givers, too, are called liberal; but those who do not take are not
\
praised for liberality but rather for justice; while those who take
\
are hardly praised at all. And the liberal are almost the most loved
\
of all virtuous characters, since they are useful; and this depends on
\
their giving.
\

\
  Now virtuous actions are noble and done for the sake of the noble.
\
Therefore the liberal man, like other virtuous men, will give for
\
the sake of the noble, and rightly; for he will give to the right
\
people, the right amounts, and at the right time, with all the other
\
qualifications that accompany right giving; and that too with pleasure
\
or without pain; for that which is virtuous is pleasant or free from
\
pain-least of all will it be painful. But he who gives to the wrong
\
people or not for the sake of the noble but for some other cause, will
\
be called not liberal but by some other name. Nor is he liberal who
\
gives with pain; for he would prefer the wealth to the noble act,
\
and this is not characteristic of a liberal man. But no more will
\
the liberal man take from wrong sources; for such taking is not
\
characteristic of the man who sets no store by wealth. Nor will he
\
be a ready asker; for it is not characteristic of a man who confers
\
benefits to accept them lightly. But he will take from the right
\
sources, e.g. from his own possessions, not as something noble but
\
as a necessity, that he may have something to give. Nor will he
\
neglect his own property, since he wishes by means of this to help
\
others. And he will refrain from giving to anybody and everybody, that
\
he may have something to give to the right people, at the right
\
time, and where it is noble to do so. It is highly characteristic of a
\
liberal man also to go to excess in giving, so that he leaves too
\
little for himself; for it is the nature of a liberal man not to
\
look to himself. The term 'liberality' is used relatively to a man's
\
substance; for liberality resides not in the multitude of the gifts
\
but in the state of character of the giver, and this is relative to
\
the giver's substance. There is therefore nothing to prevent the man
\
who gives less from being the more liberal man, if he has less to give
\
those are thought to be more liberal who have not made their wealth
\
but inherited it; for in the first place they have no experience of
\
want, and secondly all men are fonder of their own productions, as are
\
parents and poets. It is not easy for the liberal man to be rich,
\
since he is not apt either at taking or at keeping, but at giving
\
away, and does not value wealth for its own sake but as a means to
\
giving. Hence comes the charge that is brought against fortune, that
\
those who deserve riches most get it least. But it is not unreasonable
\
that it should turn out so; for he cannot have wealth, any more than
\
anything else, if he does not take pains to have it. Yet he will not
\
give to the wrong people nor at the wrong time, and so on; for he
\
would no longer be acting in accordance with liberality, and if he
\
spent on these objects he would have nothing to spend on the right
\
objects. For, as has been said, he is liberal who spends according
\
to his substance and on the right objects; and he who exceeds is
\
prodigal. Hence we do not call despots prodigal; for it is thought not
\
easy for them to give and spend beyond the amount of their
\
possessions. Liberality, then, being a mean with regard to giving
\
and taking of wealth, the liberal man will both give and spend the
\
right amounts and on the right objects, alike in small things and in
\
great, and that with pleasure; he will also take the right amounts and
\
from the right sources. For, the virtue being a mean with regard to
\
both, he will do both as he ought; since this sort of taking
\
accompanies proper giving, and that which is not of this sort is
\
contrary to it, and accordingly the giving and taking that accompany
\
each other are present together in the same man, while the contrary
\
kinds evidently are not. But if he happens to spend in a manner
\
contrary to what is right and noble, he will be pained, but moderately
\
and as he ought; for it is the mark of virtue both to be pleased and
\
to be pained at the right objects and in the right way. Further, the
\
liberal man is easy to deal with in money matters; for he can be got
\
the better of, since he sets no store by money, and is more annoyed if
\
he has not spent something that he ought than pained if he has spent
\
something that he ought not, and does not agree with the saying of
\
Simonides.
\

\
  The prodigal errs in these respects also; for he is neither
\
pleased nor pained at the right things or in the right way; this
\
will be more evident as we go on. We have said that prodigality and
\
meanness are excesses and deficiencies, and in two things, in giving
\
and in taking; for we include spending under giving. Now prodigality
\
exceeds in giving and not taking, while meanness falls short in
\
giving, and exceeds in taking, except in small things.
\

\
  The characteristics of prodigality are not often combined; for it is
\
not easy to give to all if you take from none; private persons soon
\
exhaust their substance with giving, and it is to these that the
\
name of prodigals is applied- though a man of this sort would seem to
\
be in no small degree better than a mean man. For he is easily cured
\
both by age and by poverty, and thus he may move towards the middle
\
state. For he has the characteristics of the liberal man, since he
\
both gives and refrains from taking, though he does neither of these
\
in the right manner or well. Therefore if he were brought to do so
\
by habituation or in some other way, he would be liberal; for he
\
will then give to the right people, and will not take from the wrong
\
sources. This is why he is thought to have not a bad character; it
\
is not the mark of a wicked or ignoble man to go to excess in giving
\
and not taking, but only of a foolish one. The man who is prodigal
\
in this way is thought much better than the mean man both for the
\
aforesaid reasons and because he benefits many while the other
\
benefits no one, not even himself.
\

\
  But most prodigal people, as has been said, also take from the wrong
\
sources, and are in this respect mean. They become apt to take because
\
they wish to spend and cannot do this easily; for their possessions
\
soon run short. Thus they are forced to provide means from some
\
other source. At the same time, because they care nothing for
\
honour, they take recklessly and from any source; for they have an
\
appetite for giving, and they do not mind how or from what source.
\
Hence also their giving is not liberal; for it is not noble, nor
\
does it aim at nobility, nor is it done in the right way; sometimes
\
they make rich those who should be poor, and will give nothing to
\
people of respectable character, and much to flatterers or those who
\
provide them with some other pleasure. Hence also most of them are
\
self-indulgent; for they spend lightly and waste money on their
\
indulgences, and incline towards pleasures because they do not live
\
with a view to what is noble.
\

\
  The prodigal man, then, turns into what we have described if he is
\
left untutored, but if he is treated with care he will arrive at the
\
intermediate and right state. But meanness is both incurable (for
\
old age and every disability is thought to make men mean) and more
\
innate in men than prodigality; for most men are fonder of getting
\
money than of giving. It also extends widely, and is multiform,
\
since there seem to be many kinds of meanness.
\

\
  For it consists in two things, deficiency in giving and excess in
\
taking, and is not found complete in all men but is sometimes divided;
\
some men go to excess in taking, others fall short in giving. Those
\
who are called by such names as 'miserly', 'close', 'stingy', all fall
\
short in giving, but do not covet the possessions of others nor wish
\
to get them. In some this is due to a sort of honesty and avoidance of
\
what is disgraceful (for some seem, or at least profess, to hoard
\
their money for this reason, that they may not some day be forced to
\
do something disgraceful; to this class belong the cheeseparer and
\
every one of the sort; he is so called from his excess of
\
unwillingness to give anything); while others again keep their hands
\
off the property of others from fear, on the ground that it is not
\
easy, if one takes the property of others oneself, to avoid having
\
one's own taken by them; they are therefore content neither to take
\
nor to give.
\

\
  Others again exceed in respect of taking by taking anything and from
\
any source, e.g. those who ply sordid trades, pimps and all such
\
people, and those who lend small sums and at high rates. For all of
\
these take more than they ought and from wrong sources. What is common
\
to them is evidently sordid love of gain; they all put up with a bad
\
name for the sake of gain, and little gain at that. For those who make
\
great gains but from wrong sources, and not the right gains, e.g.
\
despots when they sack cities and spoil temples, we do not call mean
\
but rather wicked, impious, and unjust. But the gamester and the
\
footpad (and the highwayman) belong to the class of the mean, since
\
they have a sordid love of gain. For it is for gain that both of
\
them ply their craft and endure the disgrace of it, and the one
\
faces the greatest dangers for the sake of the booty, while the
\
other makes gain from his friends, to whom he ought to be giving.
\
Both, then, since they are willing to make gain from wrong sources,
\
are sordid lovers of gain; therefore all such forms of taking are
\
mean.
\

\
  And it is natural that meanness is described as the contrary of
\
liberality; for not only is it a greater evil than prodigality, but
\
men err more often in this direction than in the way of prodigality as
\
we have described it.
\

\
  So much, then, for liberality and the opposed vices.
\

\
                                 2
\

\
  It would seem proper to discuss magnificence next. For this also
\
seems to be a virtue concerned with wealth; but it does not like
\
liberality extend to all the actions that are concerned with wealth,
\
but only to those that involve expenditure; and in these it
\
surpasses liberality in scale. For, as the name itself suggests, it is
\
a fitting expenditure involving largeness of scale. But the scale is
\
relative; for the expense of equipping a trireme is not the same as
\
that of heading a sacred embassy. It is what is fitting, then, in
\
relation to the agent, and to the circumstances and the object. The
\
man who in small or middling things spends according to the merits
\
of the case is not called magnificent (e.g. the man who can say
\
'many a gift I gave the wanderer'), but only the man who does so in
\
great things. For the magnificent man is liberal, but the liberal
\
man is not necessarily magnificent. The deficiency of this state of
\
character is called niggardliness, the excess vulgarity, lack of
\
taste, and the like, which do not go to excess in the amount spent
\
on right objects, but by showy expenditure in the wrong
\
circumstances and the wrong manner; we shall speak of these vices
\
later.
\

\
  The magnificent man is like an artist; for he can see what is
\
fitting and spend large sums tastefully. For, as we said at the
\
begining, a state of character is determined by its activities and
\
by its objects. Now the expenses of the magnificent man are large
\
and fitting. Such, therefore, are also his results; for thus there
\
will be a great expenditure and one that is fitting to its result.
\
Therefore the result should be worthy of the expense, and the
\
expense should be worthy of the result, or should even exceed it.
\
And the magnificent man will spend such sums for honour's sake; for
\
this is common to the virtues. And further he will do so gladly and
\
lavishly; for nice calculation is a niggardly thing. And he will
\
consider how the result can be made most beautiful and most becoming
\
rather than for how much it can be produced and how it can be produced
\
most cheaply. It is necessary, then, that the magnificent man be
\
also liberal. For the liberal man also will spend what he ought and as
\
he ought; and it is in these matters that the greatness implied in the
\
name of the magnificent man-his bigness, as it were-is manifested,
\
since liberality is concerned with these matters; and at an equal
\
expense he will produce a more magnificent work of art. For a
\
possession and a work of art have not the same excellence. The most
\
valuable possession is that which is worth most, e.g. gold, but the
\
most valuable work of art is that which is great and beautiful (for
\
the contemplation of such a work inspires admiration, and so does
\
magnificence); and a work has an excellence-viz. magnificence-which
\
involves magnitude. Magnificence is an attribute of expenditures of
\
the kind which we call honourable, e.g. those connected with the
\
gods-votive offerings, buildings, and sacrifices-and similarly with
\
any form of religious worship, and all those that are proper objects
\
of public-spirited ambition, as when people think they ought to
\
equip a chorus or a trireme, or entertain the city, in a brilliant
\
way. But in all cases, as has been said, we have regard to the agent
\
as well and ask who he is and what means he has; for the expenditure
\
should be worthy of his means, and suit not only the result but also
\
the producer. Hence a poor man cannot be magnificent, since he has not
\
the means with which to spend large sums fittingly; and he who tries
\
is a fool, since he spends beyond what can be expected of him and what
\
is proper, but it is right expenditure that is virtuous. But great
\
expenditure is becoming to those who have suitable means to start
\
with, acquired by their own efforts or from ancestors or connexions,
\
and to people of high birth or reputation, and so on; for all these
\
things bring with them greatness and prestige. Primarily, then, the
\
magnificent man is of this sort, and magnificence is shown in
\
expenditures of this sort, as has been said; for these are the
\
greatest and most honourable. Of private occasions of expenditure
\
the most suitable are those that take place once for all, e.g. a
\
wedding or anything of the kind, or anything that interests the
\
whole city or the people of position in it, and also the receiving
\
of foreign guests and the sending of them on their way, and gifts
\
and counter-gifts; for the magnificent man spends not on himself but
\
on public objects, and gifts bear some resemblance to votive
\
offerings. A magnificent man will also furnish his house suitably to
\
his wealth (for even a house is a sort of public ornament), and will
\
spend by preference on those works that are lasting (for these are the
\
most beautiful), and on every class of things he will spend what is
\
becoming; for the same things are not suitable for gods and for men,
\
nor in a temple and in a tomb. And since each expenditure may be great
\
of its kind, and what is most magnificent absolutely is great
\
expenditure on a great object, but what is magnificent here is what is
\
great in these circumstances, and greatness in the work differs from
\
greatness in the expense (for the most beautiful ball or bottle is
\
magnificent as a gift to a child, but the price of it is small and
\
mean),-therefore it is characteristic of the magnificent man, whatever
\
kind of result he is producing, to produce it magnificently (for
\
such a result is not easily surpassed) and to make it worthy of the
\
expenditure.
\

\
  Such, then, is the magnificent man; the man who goes to excess and
\
is vulgar exceeds, as has been said, by spending beyond what is right.
\
For on small objects of expenditure he spends much and displays a
\
tasteless showiness; e.g. he gives a club dinner on the scale of a
\
wedding banquet, and when he provides the chorus for a comedy he
\
brings them on to the stage in purple, as they do at Megara. And all
\
such things he will do not for honour's sake but to show off his
\
wealth, and because he thinks he is admired for these things, and
\
where he ought to spend much he spends little and where little,
\
much. The niggardly man on the other hand will fall short in
\
everything, and after spending the greatest sums will spoil the beauty
\
of the result for a trifle, and whatever he is doing he will
\
hesitate and consider how he may spend least, and lament even that,
\
and think he is doing everything on a bigger scale than he ought.
\

\
  These states of character, then, are vices; yet they do not bring
\
disgrace because they are neither harmful to one's neighbour nor
\
very unseemly.
\

\
                                 3
\

\
  Pride seems even from its name to be concerned with great things;
\
what sort of great things, is the first question we must try to
\
answer. It makes no difference whether we consider the state of
\
character or the man characterized by it. Now the man is thought to be
\
proud who thinks himself worthy of great things, being worthy of them;
\
for he who does so beyond his deserts is a fool, but no virtuous man
\
is foolish or silly. The proud man, then, is the man we have
\
described. For he who is worthy of little and thinks himself worthy of
\
little is temperate, but not proud; for pride implies greatness, as
\
beauty implies a goodsized body, and little people may be neat and
\
well-proportioned but cannot be beautiful. On the other hand, he who
\
thinks himself worthy of great things, being unworthy of them, is
\
vain; though not every one who thinks himself worthy of more than he
\
really is worthy of in vain. The man who thinks himself worthy of
\
worthy of less than he is really worthy of is unduly humble, whether
\
his deserts be great or moderate, or his deserts be small but his
\
claims yet smaller. And the man whose deserts are great would seem
\
most unduly humble; for what would he have done if they had been less?
\
The proud man, then, is an extreme in respect of the greatness of
\
his claims, but a mean in respect of the rightness of them; for he
\
claims what is accordance with his merits, while the others go to
\
excess or fall short.
\

\
  If, then, he deserves and claims great things, and above all the
\
great things, he will be concerned with one thing in particular.
\
Desert is relative to external goods; and the greatest of these, we
\
should say, is that which we render to the gods, and which people of
\
position most aim at, and which is the prize appointed for the noblest
\
deeds; and this is honour; that is surely the greatest of external
\
goods. Honours and dishonours, therefore, are the objects with respect
\
to which the proud man is as he should be. And even apart from
\
argument it is with honour that proud men appear to be concerned;
\
for it is honour that they chiefly claim, but in accordance with their
\
deserts. The unduly humble man falls short both in comparison with his
\
own merits and in comparison with the proud man's claims. The vain man
\
goes to excess in comparison with his own merits, but does not
\
exceed the proud man's claims.
\

\
  Now the proud man, since he deserves most, must be good in the
\
highest degree; for the better man always deserves more, and the
\
best man most. Therefore the truly proud man must be good. And
\
greatness in every virtue would seem to be characteristic of a proud
\
man. And it would be most unbecoming for a proud man to fly from
\
danger, swinging his arms by his sides, or to wrong another; for to
\
what end should he do disgraceful acts, he to whom nothing is great?
\
If we consider him point by point we shall see the utter absurdity
\
of a proud man who is not good. Nor, again, would he be worthy of
\
honour if he were bad; for honour is the prize of virtue, and it is to
\
the good that it is rendered. Pride, then, seems to be a sort of crown
\
of the virtues; for it makes them greater, and it is not found without
\
them. Therefore it is hard to be truly proud; for it is impossible
\
without nobility and goodness of character. It is chiefly with honours
\
and dishonours, then, that the proud man is concerned; and at
\
honours that are great and conferred by good men he will be moderately
\
Pleased, thinking that he is coming by his own or even less than his
\
own; for there can be no honour that is worthy of perfect virtue,
\
yet he will at any rate accept it since they have nothing greater to
\
bestow on him; but honour from casual people and on trifling grounds
\
he will utterly despise, since it is not this that he deserves, and
\
dishonour too, since in his case it cannot be just. In the first
\
place, then, as has been said, the proud man is concerned with
\
honours; yet he will also bear himself with moderation towards
\
wealth and power and all good or evil fortune, whatever may befall
\
him, and will be neither over-joyed by good fortune nor over-pained by
\
evil. For not even towards honour does he bear himself as if it were a
\
very great thing. Power and wealth are desirable for the sake of
\
honour (at least those who have them wish to get honour by means of
\
them); and for him to whom even honour is a little thing the others
\
must be so too. Hence proud men are thought to be disdainful.
\

\
  The goods of fortune also are thought to contribute towards pride.
\
For men who are well-born are thought worthy of honour, and so are
\
those who enjoy power or wealth; for they are in a superior
\
position, and everything that has a superiority in something good is
\
held in greater honour. Hence even such things make men prouder; for
\
they are honoured by some for having them; but in truth the good man
\
alone is to be honoured; he, however, who has both advantages is
\
thought the more worthy of honour. But those who without virtue have
\
such goods are neither justified in making great claims nor entitled
\
to the name of 'proud'; for these things imply perfect virtue.
\
Disdainful and insolent, however, even those who have such goods
\
become. For without virtue it is not easy to bear gracefully the goods
\
of fortune; and, being unable to bear them, and thinking themselves
\
superior to others, they despise others and themselves do what they
\
please. They imitate the proud man without being like him, and this
\
they do where they can; so they do not act virtuously, but they do
\
despise others. For the proud man despises justly (since he thinks
\
truly), but the many do so at random.
\

\
  He does not run into trifling dangers, nor is he fond of danger,
\
because he honours few things; but he will face great dangers, and
\
when he is in danger he is unsparing of his life, knowing that there
\
are conditions on which life is not worth having. And he is the sort
\
of man to confer benefits, but he is ashamed of receiving them; for
\
the one is the mark of a superior, the other of an inferior. And he is
\
apt to confer greater benefits in return; for thus the original
\
benefactor besides being paid will incur a debt to him, and will be
\
the gainer by the transaction. They seem also to remember any
\
service they have done, but not those they have received (for he who
\
receives a service is inferior to him who has done it, but the proud
\
man wishes to be superior), and to hear of the former with pleasure,
\
of the latter with displeasure; this, it seems, is why Thetis did
\
not mention to Zeus the services she had done him, and why the
\
Spartans did not recount their services to the Athenians, but those
\
they had received. It is a mark of the proud man also to ask for
\
nothing or scarcely anything, but to give help readily, and to be
\
dignified towards people who enjoy high position and good fortune, but
\
unassuming towards those of the middle class; for it is a difficult
\
and lofty thing to be superior to the former, but easy to be so to the
\
latter, and a lofty bearing over the former is no mark of
\
ill-breeding, but among humble people it is as vulgar as a display
\
of strength against the weak. Again, it is characteristic of the proud
\
man not to aim at the things commonly held in honour, or the things in
\
which others excel; to be sluggish and to hold back except where great
\
honour or a great work is at stake, and to be a man of few deeds,
\
but of great and notable ones. He must also be open in his hate and in
\
his love (for to conceal one's feelings, i.e. to care less for truth
\
than for what people will think, is a coward's part), and must speak
\
and act openly; for he is free of speech because he is contemptuous,
\
and he is given to telling the truth, except when he speaks in irony
\
to the vulgar. He must be unable to make his life revolve round
\
another, unless it be a friend; for this is slavish, and for this
\
reason all flatterers are servile and people lacking in self-respect
\
are flatterers. Nor is he given to admiration; for nothing to him is
\
great. Nor is he mindful of wrongs; for it is not the part of a
\
proud man to have a long memory, especially for wrongs, but rather
\
to overlook them. Nor is he a gossip; for he will speak neither
\
about himself nor about another, since he cares not to be praised
\
nor for others to be blamed; nor again is he given to praise; and
\
for the same reason he is not an evil-speaker, even about his enemies,
\
except from haughtiness. With regard to necessary or small matters
\
he is least of all me given to lamentation or the asking of favours;
\
for it is the part of one who takes such matters seriously to behave
\
so with respect to them. He is one who will possess beautiful and
\
profitless things rather than profitable and useful ones; for this
\
is more proper to a character that suffices to itself.
\

\
  Further, a slow step is thought proper to the proud man, a deep
\
voice, and a level utterance; for the man who takes few things
\
seriously is not likely to be hurried, nor the man who thinks
\
nothing great to be excited, while a shrill voice and a rapid gait are
\
the results of hurry and excitement.
\

\
  Such, then, is the proud man; the man who falls short of him is
\
unduly humble, and the man who goes beyond him is vain. Now even these
\
are not thought to be bad (for they are not malicious), but only
\
mistaken. For the unduly humble man, being worthy of good things, robs
\
himself of what he deserves, and to have something bad about him
\
from the fact that he does not think himself worthy of good things,
\
and seems also not to know himself; else he would have desired the
\
things he was worthy of, since these were good. Yet such people are
\
not thought to be fools, but rather unduly retiring. Such a
\
reputation, however, seems actually to make them worse; for each class
\
of people aims at what corresponds to its worth, and these people
\
stand back even from noble actions and undertakings, deeming
\
themselves unworthy, and from external goods no less. Vain people,
\
on the other hand, are fools and ignorant of themselves, and that
\
manifestly; for, not being worthy of them, they attempt honourable
\
undertakings, and then are found out; and tetadorn themselves with
\
clothing and outward show and such things, and wish their strokes of
\
good fortune to be made public, and speak about them as if they
\
would be honoured for them. But undue humility is more opposed to
\
pride than vanity is; for it is both commoner and worse.
\

\
  Pride, then, is concerned with honour on the grand scale, as has
\
been said.
\

\
                                 4
\

\
  There seems to be in the sphere of honour also, as was said in our
\
first remarks on the subject, a virtue which would appear to be
\
related to pride as liberality is to magnificence. For neither of
\
these has anything to do with the grand scale, but both dispose us
\
as is right with regard to middling and unimportant objects; as in
\
getting and giving of wealth there is a mean and an excess and defect,
\
so too honour may be desired more than is right, or less, or from
\
the right sources and in the right way. We blame both the ambitious
\
man as am at honour more than is right and from wrong sources, and the
\
unambitious man as not willing to be honoured even for noble
\
reasons. But sometimes we praise the ambitious man as being manly
\
and a lover of what is noble, and the unambitious man as being
\
moderate and self-controlled, as we said in our first treatment of the
\
subject. Evidently, since 'fond of such and such an object' has more
\
than one meaning, we do not assign the term 'ambition' or 'love of
\
honour' always to the same thing, but when we praise the quality we
\
think of the man who loves honour more than most people, and when we
\
blame it we think of him who loves it more than is right. The mean
\
being without a name, the extremes seem to dispute for its place as
\
though that were vacant by default. But where there is excess and
\
defect, there is also an intermediate; now men desire honour both more
\
than they should and less; therefore it is possible also to do so as
\
one should; at all events this is the state of character that is
\
praised, being an unnamed mean in respect of honour. Relatively to
\
ambition it seems to be unambitiousness, and relatively to
\
unambitiousness it seems to be ambition, while relatively to both
\
severally it seems in a sense to be both together. This appears to
\
be true of the other virtues also. But in this case the extremes
\
seem to be contradictories because the mean has not received a name.
\

\
                                 5
\

\
  Good temper is a mean with respect to anger; the middle state
\
being unnamed, and the extremes almost without a name as well, we
\
place good temper in the middle position, though it inclines towards
\
the deficiency, which is without a name. The excess might called a
\
sort of 'irascibility'. For the passion is anger, while its causes are
\
many and diverse.
\

\
  The man who is angry at the right things and with the right
\
people, and, further, as he ought, when he ought, and as long as he
\
ought, is praised. This will be the good-tempered man, then, since
\
good temper is praised. For the good-tempered man tends to be
\
unperturbed and not to be led by passion, but to be angry in the
\
manner, at the things, and for the length of time, that the rule
\
dictates; but he is thought to err rather in the direction of
\
deficiency; for the good-tempered man is not revengeful, but rather
\
tends to make allowances.
\

\
  The deficiency, whether it is a sort of 'inirascibility' or whatever
\
it is, is blamed. For those who are not angry at the things they
\
should be angry at are thought to be fools, and so are those who are
\
not angry in the right way, at the right time, or with the right
\
persons; for such a man is thought not to feel things nor to be pained
\
by them, and, since he does not get angry, he is thought unlikely to
\
defend himself; and to endure being insulted and put up with insult to
\
one's friends is slavish.
\

\
  The excess can be manifested in all the points that have been
\
named (for one can be angry with the wrong persons, at the wrong
\
things, more than is right, too quickly, or too long); yet all are not
\
found in the same person. Indeed they could not; for evil destroys
\
even itself, and if it is complete becomes unbearable. Now
\
hot-tempered people get angry quickly and with the wrong persons and
\
at the wrong things and more than is right, but their anger ceases
\
quickly-which is the best point about them. This happens to them
\
because they do not restrain their anger but retaliate openly owing to
\
their quickness of temper, and then their anger ceases. By reason of
\
excess choleric people are quick-tempered and ready to be angry with
\
everything and on every occasion; whence their name. Sulky people
\
are hard to appease, and retain their anger long; for they repress
\
their passion. But it ceases when they retaliate; for revenge relieves
\
them of their anger, producing in them pleasure instead of pain. If
\
this does not happen they retain their burden; for owing to its not
\
being obvious no one even reasons with them, and to digest one's anger
\
in oneself takes time. Such people are most troublesome to
\
themselves and to their dearest friends. We call had-tempered those
\
who are angry at the wrong things, more than is right, and longer, and
\
cannot be appeased until they inflict vengeance or punishment.
\

\
  To good temper we oppose the excess rather than the defect; for
\
not only is it commoner since revenge is the more human), but
\
bad-tempered people are worse to live with.
\

\
  What we have said in our earlier treatment of the subject is plain
\
also from what we are now saying; viz. that it is not easy to define
\
how, with whom, at what, and how long one should be angry, and at what
\
point right action ceases and wrong begins. For the man who strays a
\
little from the path, either towards the more or towards the less,
\
is not blamed; since sometimes we praise those who exhibit the
\
deficiency, and call them good-tempered, and sometimes we call angry
\
people manly, as being capable of ruling. How far, therefore, and
\
how a man must stray before he becomes blameworthy, it is not easy
\
to state in words; for the decision depends on the particular facts
\
and on perception. But so much at least is plain, that the middle
\
state is praiseworthy- that in virtue of which we are angry with the
\
right people, at the right things, in the right way, and so on,
\
while the excesses and defects are blameworthy- slightly so if they
\
are present in a low degree, more if in a higher degree, and very
\
much if in a high degree. Evidently, then, we must cling to the
\
middle state.- Enough of the states relative to anger.
\

\
                                 6
\

\
  In gatherings of men, in social life and the interchange of words
\
and deeds, some men are thought to be obsequious, viz. those who to
\
give pleasure praise everything and never oppose, but think it their
\
duty 'to give no pain to the people they meet'; while those who, on
\
the contrary, oppose everything and care not a whit about giving
\
pain are called churlish and contentious. That the states we have
\
named are culpable is plain enough, and that the middle state is
\
laudable- that in virtue of which a man will put up with, and will
\
resent, the right things and in the right way; but no name has been
\
assigned to it, though it most resembles friendship. For the man who
\
corresponds to this middle state is very much what, with affection
\
added, we call a good friend. But the state in question differs from
\
friendship in that it implies no passion or affection for one's
\
associates; since it is not by reason of loving or hating that such
\
a man takes everything in the right way, but by being a man of a
\
certain kind. For he will behave so alike towards those he knows and
\
those he does not know, towards intimates and those who are not so,
\
except that in each of these cases he will behave as is befitting; for
\
it is not proper to have the same care for intimates and for
\
strangers, nor again is it the same conditions that make it right to
\
give pain to them. Now we have said generally that he will associate
\
with people in the right way; but it is by reference to what is
\
honourable and expedient that he will aim at not giving pain or at
\
contributing pleasure. For he seems to be concerned with the pleasures
\
and pains of social life; and wherever it is not honourable, or is
\
harmful, for him to contribute pleasure, he will refuse, and will
\
choose rather to give pain; also if his acquiescence in another's
\
action would bring disgrace, and that in a high degree, or injury,
\
on that other, while his opposition brings a little pain, he will
\
not acquiesce but will decline. He will associate differently with
\
people in high station and with ordinary people, with closer and
\
more distant acquaintances, and so too with regard to all other
\
differences, rendering to each class what is befitting, and while
\
for its own sake he chooses to contribute pleasure, and avoids the
\
giving of pain, he will be guided by the consequences, if these are
\
greater, i.e. honour and expediency. For the sake of a great future
\
pleasure, too, he will inflict small pains.
\

\
  The man who attains the mean, then, is such as we have described,
\
but has not received a name; of those who contribute pleasure, the man
\
who aims at being pleasant with no ulterior object is obsequious,
\
but the man who does so in order that he may get some advantage in the
\
direction of money or the things that money buys is a flatterer; while
\
the man who quarrels with everything is, as has been said, churlish
\
and contentious. And the extremes seem to be contradictory to each
\
other because the mean is without a name.
\

\
                                 7
\

\
  The mean opposed to boastfulness is found in almost the same sphere;
\
and this also is without a name. It will be no bad plan to describe
\
these states as well; for we shall both know the facts about character
\
better if we go through them in detail, and we shall be convinced that
\
the virtues are means if we see this to be so in all cases. In the
\
field of social life those who make the giving of pleasure or pain
\
their object in associating with others have been described; let us
\
now describe those who pursue truth or falsehood alike in words and
\
deeds and in the claims they put forward. The boastful man, then, is
\
thought to be apt to claim the things that bring glory, when he has
\
not got them, or to claim more of them than he has, and the
\
mock-modest man on the other hand to disclaim what he has or
\
belittle it, while the man who observes the mean is one who calls a
\
thing by its own name, being truthful both in life and in word, owning
\
to what he has, and neither more nor less. Now each of these courses
\
may be adopted either with or without an object. But each man speaks
\
and acts and lives in accordance with his character, if he is not
\
acting for some ulterior object. And falsehood is in itself mean and
\
culpable, and truth noble and worthy of praise. Thus the truthful
\
man is another case of a man who, being in the mean, is worthy of
\
praise, and both forms of untruthful man are culpable, and
\
particularly the boastful man.
\

\
  Let us discuss them both, but first of all the truthful man. We
\
are not speaking of the man who keeps faith in his agreements, i.e. in
\
the things that pertain to justice or injustice (for this would belong
\
to another virtue), but the man who in the matters in which nothing of
\
this sort is at stake is true both in word and in life because his
\
character is such. But such a man would seem to be as a matter of fact
\
equitable. For the man who loves truth, and is truthful where
\
nothing is at stake, will still more be truthful where something is at
\
stake; he will avoid falsehood as something base, seeing that he
\
avoided it even for its own sake; and such a man is worthy of
\
praise. He inclines rather to understate the truth; for this seems
\
in better taste because exaggerations are wearisome.
\

\
  He who claims more than he has with no ulterior object is a
\
contemptible sort of fellow (otherwise he would not have delighted
\
in falsehood), but seems futile rather than bad; but if he does it for
\
an object, he who does it for the sake of reputation or honour is (for
\
a boaster) not very much to be blamed, but he who does it for money,
\
or the things that lead to money, is an uglier character (it is not
\
the capacity that makes the boaster, but the purpose; for it is in
\
virtue of his state of character and by being a man of a certain
\
kind that he is boaster); as one man is a liar because he enjoys the
\
lie itself, and another because he desires reputation or gain. Now
\
those who boast for the sake of reputation claim such qualities as
\
will praise or congratulation, but those whose object is gain claim
\
qualities which are of value to one's neighbours and one's lack of
\
which is not easily detected, e.g. the powers of a seer, a sage, or
\
a physician. For this reason it is such things as these that most
\
people claim and boast about; for in them the above-mentioned
\
qualities are found.
\

\
  Mock-modest people, who understate things, seem more attractive in
\
character; for they are thought to speak not for gain but to avoid
\
parade; and here too it is qualities which bring reputation that
\
they disclaim, as Socrates used to do. Those who disclaim trifling and
\
obvious qualities are called humbugs and are more contemptible; and
\
sometimes this seems to be boastfulness, like the Spartan dress; for
\
both excess and great deficiency are boastful. But those who use
\
understatement with moderation and understate about matters that do
\
not very much force themselves on our notice seem attractive. And it
\
is the boaster that seems to be opposed to the truthful man; for he is
\
the worse character.
\

\
                                 8
\

\
  Since life includes rest as well as activity, and in this is
\
included leisure and amusement, there seems here also to be a kind
\
of intercourse which is tasteful; there is such a thing as saying-
\
and again listening to- what one should and as one should. The
\
kind of people one is speaking or listening to will also make a
\
difference. Evidently here also there is both an excess and a
\
deficiency as compared with the mean. Those who carry humour to excess
\
are thought to be vulgar buffoons, striving after humour at all costs,
\
and aiming rather at raising a laugh than at saying what is becoming
\
and at avoiding pain to the object of their fun; while those who can
\
neither make a joke themselves nor put up with those who do are
\
thought to be boorish and unpolished. But those who joke in a tasteful
\
way are called ready-witted, which implies a sort of readiness to turn
\
this way and that; for such sallies are thought to be movements of the
\
character, and as bodies are discriminated by their movements, so
\
too are characters. The ridiculous side of things is not far to
\
seek, however, and most people delight more than they should in
\
amusement and in jestinly. and so even buffoons are called
\
ready-witted because they are found attractive; but that they differ
\
from the ready-witted man, and to no small extent, is clear from
\
what has been said.
\

\
  To the middle state belongs also tact; it is the mark of a tactful
\
man to say and listen to such things as befit a good and well-bred
\
man; for there are some things that it befits such a man to say and to
\
hear by way of jest, and the well-bred man's jesting differs from that
\
of a vulgar man, and the joking of an educated man from that of an
\
uneducated. One may see this even from the old and the new comedies;
\
to the authors of the former indecency of language was amusing, to
\
those of the latter innuendo is more so; and these differ in no
\
small degree in respect of propriety. Now should we define the man who
\
jokes well by his saying what is not unbecoming to a well-bred man, or
\
by his not giving pain, or even giving delight, to the hearer? Or is
\
the latter definition, at any rate, itself indefinite, since different
\
things are hateful or pleasant to different people? The kind of
\
jokes he will listen to will be the same; for the kind he can put up
\
with are also the kind he seems to make. There are, then, jokes he
\
will not make; for the jest is a sort of abuse, and there are things
\
that lawgivers forbid us to abuse; and they should, perhaps, have
\
forbidden us even to make a jest of such. The refined and well-bred
\
man, therefore, will be as we have described, being as it were a law
\
to himself.
\

\
  Such, then, is the man who observes the mean, whether he be called
\
tactful or ready-witted. The buffoon, on the other hand, is the slave
\
of his sense of humour, and spares neither himself nor others if he
\
can raise a laugh, and says things none of which a man of refinement
\
would say, and to some of which he would not even listen. The boor,
\
again, is useless for such social intercourse; for he contributes
\
nothing and finds fault with everything. But relaxation and
\
amusement are thought to be a necessary element in life.
\

\
  The means in life that have been described, then, are three in
\
number, and are all concerned with an interchange of words and deeds
\
of some kind. They differ, however, in that one is concerned with
\
truth; and the other two with pleasantness. Of those concerned with
\
pleasure, one is displayed in jests, the other in the general social
\
intercourse of life.
\

\
                                 9
\

\
  Shame should not be described as a virtue; for it is more like a
\
feeling than a state of character. It is defined, at any rate, as a
\
kind of fear of dishonour, and produces an effect similar to that
\
produced by fear of danger; for people who feel disgraced blush, and
\
those who fear death turn pale. Both, therefore, seem to be in a sense
\
bodily conditions, which is thought to be characteristic of feeling
\
rather than of a state of character.
\

\
  The feeling is not becoming to every age, but only to youth. For
\
we think young people should be prone to the feeling of shame
\
because they live by feeling and therefore commit many errors, but are
\
restrained by shame; and we praise young people who are prone to
\
this feeling, but an older person no one would praise for being
\
prone to the sense of disgrace, since we think he should not do
\
anything that need cause this sense. For the sense of disgrace is
\
not even characteristic of a good man, since it is consequent on bad
\
actions (for such actions should not be done; and if some actions
\
are disgraceful in very truth and others only according to common
\
opinion, this makes no difference; for neither class of actions should
\
be done, so that no disgrace should be felt); and it is a mark of a
\
bad man even to be such as to do any disgraceful action. To be so
\
constituted as to feel disgraced if one does such an action, and for
\
this reason to think oneself good, is absurd; for it is for
\
voluntary actions that shame is felt, and the good man will never
\
voluntarily do bad actions. But shame may be said to be
\
conditionally a good thing; if a good man does such actions, he will
\
feel disgraced; but the virtues are not subject to such a
\
qualification. And if shamelessness-not to be ashamed of doing base
\
actions-is bad, that does not make it good to be ashamed of doing such
\
actions. Continence too is not virtue, but a mixed sort of state; this
\
will be shown later. Now, however, let us discuss justice.
\

\
                              BOOK V
\

\
                                 1
\

\
  WITH regards to justice and injustice we must (1) consider what kind
\
of actions they are concerned with, (2) what sort of mean justice
\
is, and (3) between what extremes the just act is intermediate. Our
\
investigation shall follow the same course as the preceding
\
discussions.
\

\
  We see that all men mean by justice that kind of state of
\
character which makes people disposed to do what is just and makes
\
them act justly and wish for what is just; and similarly by
\
injustice that state which makes them act unjustly and wish for what
\
is unjust. Let us too, then, lay this down as a general basis. For the
\
same is not true of the sciences and the faculties as of states of
\
character. A faculty or a science which is one and the same is held to
\
relate to contrary objects, but a state of character which is one of
\
two contraries does not produce the contrary results; e.g. as a result
\
of health we do not do what is the opposite of healthy, but only
\
what is healthy; for we say a man walks healthily, when he walks as
\
a healthy man would.
\

\
  Now often one contrary state is recognized from its contrary, and
\
often states are recognized from the subjects that exhibit them; for
\
(A) if good condition is known, bad condition also becomes known,
\
and (B) good condition is known from the things that are in good
\
condition, and they from it. If good condition is firmness of flesh,
\
it is necessary both that bad condition should be flabbiness of
\
flesh and that the wholesome should be that which causes firmness in
\
flesh. And it follows for the most part that if one contrary is
\
ambiguous the other also will be ambiguous; e.g. if 'just' is so, that
\
'unjust' will be so too.
\

\
  Now 'justice' and 'injustice' seem to be ambiguous, but because
\
their different meanings approach near to one another the ambiguity
\
escapes notice and is not obvious as it is, comparatively, when the
\
meanings are far apart, e.g. (for here the difference in outward
\
form is great) as the ambiguity in the use of kleis for the
\
collar-bone of an animal and for that with which we lock a door. Let
\
us take as a starting-point, then, the various meanings of 'an
\
unjust man'. Both the lawless man and the grasping and unfair man
\
are thought to be unjust, so that evidently both the law-abiding and
\
the fair man will be just. The just, then, is the lawful and the fair,
\
the unjust the unlawful and the unfair.
\

\
  Since the unjust man is grasping, he must be concerned with
\
goods-not all goods, but those with which prosperity and adversity
\
have to do, which taken absolutely are always good, but for a
\
particular person are not always good. Now men pray for and pursue
\
these things; but they should not, but should pray that the things
\
that are good absolutely may also be good for them, and should
\
choose the things that are good for them. The unjust man does not
\
always choose the greater, but also the less-in the case of things bad
\
absolutely; but because the lesser evil is itself thought to be in a
\
sense good, and graspingness is directed at the good, therefore he
\
is thought to be grasping. And he is unfair; for this contains and
\
is common to both.
\

\
  Since the lawless man was seen to be unjust and the law-abiding
\
man just, evidently all lawful acts are in a sense just acts; for
\
the acts laid down by the legislative art are lawful, and each of
\
these, we say, is just. Now the laws in their enactments on all
\
subjects aim at the common advantage either of all or of the best or
\
of those who hold power, or something of the sort; so that in one
\
sense we call those acts just that tend to produce and preserve
\
happiness and its components for the political society. And the law
\
bids us do both the acts of a brave man (e.g. not to desert our post
\
nor take to flight nor throw away our arms), and those of a
\
temperate man (e.g. not to commit adultery nor to gratify one's lust),
\
and those of a good-tempered man (e.g. not to strike another nor to
\
speak evil), and similarly with regard to the other virtues and
\
forms of wickedness, commanding some acts and forbidding others; and
\
the rightly-framed law does this rightly, and the hastily conceived
\
one less well. This form of justice, then, is complete virtue, but not
\
absolutely, but in relation to our neighbour. And therefore justice is
\
often thought to be the greatest of virtues, and 'neither evening
\
nor morning star' is so wonderful; and proverbially 'in justice is
\
every virtue comprehended'. And it is complete virtue in its fullest
\
sense, because it is the actual exercise of complete virtue. It is
\
complete because he who possesses it can exercise his virtue not
\
only in himself but towards his neighbour also; for many men can
\
exercise virtue in their own affairs, but not in their relations to
\
their neighbour. This is why the saying of Bias is thought to be true,
\
that 'rule will show the man'; for a ruler is necessarily in
\
relation to other men and a member of a society. For this same
\
reason justice, alone of the virtues, is thought to be 'another's
\
good', because it is related to our neighbour; for it does what is
\
advantageous to another, either a ruler or a copartner. Now the
\
worst man is he who exercises his wickedness both towards himself
\
and towards his friends, and the best man is not he who exercises
\
his virtue towards himself but he who exercises it towards another;
\
for this is a difficult task. Justice in this sense, then, is not part
\
of virtue but virtue entire, nor is the contrary injustice a part of
\
vice but vice entire. What the difference is between virtue and
\
justice in this sense is plain from what we have said; they are the
\
same but their essence is not the same; what, as a relation to one's
\
neighbour, is justice is, as a certain kind of state without
\
qualification, virtue.
\

\
                                 2
\

\
  But at all events what we are investigating is the justice which
\
is a part of virtue; for there is a justice of this kind, as we
\
maintain. Similarly it is with injustice in the particular sense
\
that we are concerned.
\

\
  That there is such a thing is indicated by the fact that while the
\
man who exhibits in action the other forms of wickedness acts
\
wrongly indeed, but not graspingly (e.g. the man who throws away his
\
shield through cowardice or speaks harshly through bad temper or fails
\
to help a friend with money through meanness), when a man acts
\
graspingly he often exhibits none of these vices,-no, nor all
\
together, but certainly wickedness of some kind (for we blame him) and
\
injustice. There is, then, another kind of injustice which is a part
\
of injustice in the wide sense, and a use of the word 'unjust' which
\
answers to a part of what is unjust in the wide sense of 'contrary
\
to the law'. Again if one man commits adultery for the sake of gain
\
and makes money by it, while another does so at the bidding of
\
appetite though he loses money and is penalized for it, the latter
\
would be held to be self-indulgent rather than grasping, but the
\
former is unjust, but not self-indulgent; evidently, therefore, he
\
is unjust by reason of his making gain by his act. Again, all other
\
unjust acts are ascribed invariably to some particular kind of
\
wickedness, e.g. adultery to self-indulgence, the desertion of a
\
comrade in battle to cowardice, physical violence to anger; but if a
\
man makes gain, his action is ascribed to no form of wickedness but
\
injustice. Evidently, therefore, there is apart from injustice in
\
the wide sense another, 'particular', injustice which shares the
\
name and nature of the first, because its definition falls within
\
the same genus; for the significance of both consists in a relation to
\
one's neighbour, but the one is concerned with honour or money or
\
safety-or that which includes all these, if we had a single name for
\
it-and its motive is the pleasure that arises from gain; while the
\
other is concerned with all the objects with which the good man is
\
concerned.
\

\
  It is clear, then, that there is more than one kind of justice,
\
and that there is one which is distinct from virtue entire; we must
\
try to grasp its genus and differentia.
\

\
  The unjust has been divided into the unlawful and the unfair, and
\
the just into the lawful and the fair. To the unlawful answers the
\
afore-mentioned sense of injustice. But since unfair and the
\
unlawful are not the same, but are different as a part is from its
\
whole (for all that is unfair is unlawful, but not all that is
\
unlawful is unfair), the unjust and injustice in the sense of the
\
unfair are not the same as but different from the former kind, as part
\
from whole; for injustice in this sense is a part of injustice in
\
the wide sense, and similarly justice in the one sense of justice in
\
the other. Therefore we must speak also about particular justice and
\
particular and similarly about the just and the unjust. The justice,
\
then, which answers to the whole of virtue, and the corresponding
\
injustice, one being the exercise of virtue as a whole, and the
\
other that of vice as a whole, towards one's neighbour, we may leave
\
on one side. And how the meanings of 'just' and 'unjust' which
\
answer to these are to be distinguished is evident; for practically
\
the majority of the acts commanded by the law are those which are
\
prescribed from the point of view of virtue taken as a whole; for
\
the law bids us practise every virtue and forbids us to practise any
\
vice. And the things that tend to produce virtue taken as a whole
\
are those of the acts prescribed by the law which have been prescribed
\
with a view to education for the common good. But with regard to the
\
education of the individual as such, which makes him without
\
qualification a good man, we must determine later whether this is
\
the function of the political art or of another; for perhaps it is not
\
the same to be a good man and a good citizen of any state taken at
\
random.
\

\
  Of particular justice and that which is just in the corresponding
\
sense, (A) one kind is that which is manifested in distributions of
\
honour or money or the other things that fall to be divided among
\
those who have a share in the constitution (for in these it is
\
possible for one man to have a share either unequal or equal to that
\
of another), and (B) one is that which plays a rectifying part in
\
transactions between man and man. Of this there are two divisions;
\
of transactions (1) some are voluntary and (2) others
\
involuntary- voluntary such transactions as sale, purchase, loan for
\
consumption, pledging, loan for use, depositing, letting (they are
\
called voluntary because the origin of these transactions is
\
voluntary), while of the involuntary (a) some are clandestine, such as
\
theft, adultery, poisoning, procuring, enticement of slaves,
\
assassination, false witness, and (b) others are violent, such as
\
assault, imprisonment, murder, robbery with violence, mutilation,
\
abuse, insult.
\

\
                                 3
\

\
  (A) We have shown that both the unjust man and the unjust act are
\
unfair or unequal; now it is clear that there is also an
\
intermediate between the two unequals involved in either case. And
\
this is the equal; for in any kind of action in which there's a more
\
and a less there is also what is equal. If, then, the unjust is
\
unequal, just is equal, as all men suppose it to be, even apart from
\
argument. And since the equal is intermediate, the just will be an
\
intermediate. Now equality implies at least two things. The just,
\
then, must be both intermediate and equal and relative (i.e. for
\
certain persons). And since the equall intermediate it must be between
\
certain things (which are respectively greater and less); equal, it
\
involves two things; qua just, it is for certain people. The just,
\
therefore, involves at least four terms; for the persons for whom it
\
is in fact just are two, and the things in which it is manifested, the
\
objects distributed, are two. And the same equality will exist between
\
the persons and between the things concerned; for as the latter the
\
things concerned-are related, so are the former; if they are not
\
equal, they will not have what is equal, but this is the origin of
\
quarrels and complaints-when either equals have and are awarded
\
unequal shares, or unequals equal shares. Further, this is plain
\
from the fact that awards should be 'according to merit'; for all
\
men agree that what is just in distribution must be according to merit
\
in some sense, though they do not all specify the same sort of
\
merit, but democrats identify it with the status of freeman,
\
supporters of oligarchy with wealth (or with noble birth), and
\
supporters of aristocracy with excellence.
\

\
  The just, then, is a species of the proportionate (proportion
\
being not a property only of the kind of number which consists of
\
abstract units, but of number in general). For proportion is
\
equality of ratios, and involves four terms at least (that discrete
\
proportion involves four terms is plain, but so does continuous
\
proportion, for it uses one term as two and mentions it twice; e.g.
\
'as the line A is to the line B, so is the line B to the line C';
\
the line B, then, has been mentioned twice, so that if the line B be
\
assumed twice, the proportional terms will be four); and the just,
\
too, involves at least four terms, and the ratio between one pair is
\
the same as that between the other pair; for there is a similar
\
distinction between the persons and between the things. As the term A,
\
then, is to B, so will C be to D, and therefore, alternando, as A is
\
to C, B will be to D. Therefore also the whole is in the same ratio to
\
the whole; and this coupling the distribution effects, and, if the
\
terms are so combined, effects justly. The conjunction, then, of the
\
term A with C and of B with D is what is just in distribution, and
\
this species of the just is intermediate, and the unjust is what
\
violates the proportion; for the proportional is intermediate, and the
\
just is proportional. (Mathematicians call this kind of proportion
\
geometrical; for it is in geometrical proportion that it follows
\
that the whole is to the whole as either part is to the
\
corresponding part.) This proportion is not continuous; for we
\
cannot get a single term standing for a person and a thing.
\

\
  This, then, is what the just is-the proportional; the unjust is what
\
violates the proportion. Hence one term becomes too great, the other
\
too small, as indeed happens in practice; for the man who acts
\
unjustly has too much, and the man who is unjustly treated too little,
\
of what is good. In the case of evil the reverse is true; for the
\
lesser evil is reckoned a good in comparison with the greater evil,
\
since the lesser evil is rather to be chosen than the greater, and
\
what is worthy of choice is good, and what is worthier of choice a
\
greater good.
\

\
  This, then, is one species of the just.
\

\
                                 4
\

\
  (B) The remaining one is the rectificatory, which arises in
\
connexion with transactions both voluntary and involuntary. This
\
form of the just has a different specific character from the former.
\
For the justice which distributes common possessions is always in
\
accordance with the kind of proportion mentioned above (for in the
\
case also in which the distribution is made from the common funds of a
\
partnership it will be according to the same ratio which the funds put
\
into the business by the partners bear to one another); and the
\
injustice opposed to this kind of justice is that which violates the
\
proportion. But the justice in transactions between man and man is a
\
sort of equality indeed, and the injustice a sort of inequality; not
\
according to that kind of proportion, however, but according to
\
arithmetical proportion. For it makes no difference whether a good man
\
has defrauded a bad man or a bad man a good one, nor whether it is a
\
good or a bad man that has committed adultery; the law looks only to
\
the distinctive character of the injury, and treats the parties as
\
equal, if one is in the wrong and the other is being wronged, and if
\
one inflicted injury and the other has received it. Therefore, this
\
kind of injustice being an inequality, the judge tries to equalize it;
\
for in the case also in which one has received and the other has
\
inflicted a wound, or one has slain and the other been slain, the
\
suffering and the action have been unequally distributed; but the
\
judge tries to equalize by means of the penalty, taking away from
\
the gain of the assailant. For the term 'gain' is applied generally to
\
such cases, even if it be not a term appropriate to certain cases,
\
e.g. to the person who inflicts a woundand 'loss' to the sufferer;
\
at all events when the suffering has been estimated, the one is called
\
loss and the other gain. Therefore the equal is intermediate between
\
the greater and the less, but the gain and the loss are respectively
\
greater and less in contrary ways; more of the good and less of the
\
evil are gain, and the contrary is loss; intermediate between them is,
\
as we saw, equal, which we say is just; therefore corrective justice
\
will be the intermediate between loss and gain. This is why, when
\
people dispute, they take refuge in the judge; and to go to the
\
judge is to go to justice; for the nature of the judge is to be a sort
\
of animate justice; and they seek the judge as an intermediate, and in
\
some states they call judges mediators, on the assumption that if they
\
get what is intermediate they will get what is just. The just, then,
\
is an intermediate, since the judge is so. Now the judge restores
\
equality; it is as though there were a line divided into unequal
\
parts, and he took away that by which the greater segment exceeds
\
the half, and added it to the smaller segment. And when the whole
\
has been equally divided, then they say they have 'their own'-i.e.
\
when they have got what is equal. The equal is intermediate between
\
the greater and the lesser line according to arithmetical
\
proportion. It is for this reason also that it is called just
\
(sikaion), because it is a division into two equal parts (sicha), just
\
as if one were to call it sichaion; and the judge (sikastes) is one
\
who bisects (sichastes). For when something is subtracted from one
\
of two equals and added to the other, the other is in excess by
\
these two; since if what was taken from the one had not been added
\
to the other, the latter would have been in excess by one only. It
\
therefore exceeds the intermediate by one, and the intermediate
\
exceeds by one that from which something was taken. By this, then,
\
we shall recognize both what we must subtract from that which has
\
more, and what we must add to that which has less; we must add to
\
the latter that by which the intermediate exceeds it, and subtract
\
from the greatest that by which it exceeds the intermediate. Let the
\
lines AA', BB', CC' be equal to one another; from the line AA' let the
\
segment AE have been subtracted, and to the line CC' let the segment
\
CD have been added, so that the whole line DCC' exceeds the line EA'
\
by the segment CD and the segment CF; therefore it exceeds the line
\
BB' by the segment CD. (See diagram.)
\

\
  These names, both loss and gain, have come from voluntary
\
exchange; for to have more than one's own is called gaining, and to
\
have less than one's original share is called losing, e.g. in buying
\
and selling and in all other matters in which the law has left
\
people free to make their own terms; but when they get neither more
\
nor less but just what belongs to themselves, they say that they
\
have their own and that they neither lose nor gain.
\

\
  Therefore the just is intermediate between a sort of gain and a sort
\
of loss, viz. those which are involuntary; it consists in having an
\
equal amount before and after the transaction.
\

\
                                 5
\

\
  Some think that reciprocity is without qualification just, as the
\
Pythagoreans said; for they defined justice without qualification as
\
reciprocity. Now 'reciprocity' fits neither distributive nor
\
rectificatory justice-yet people want even the justice of Rhadamanthus
\
to mean this:
\

\
  Should a man suffer what he did, right justice would be done
\

\
-for in many cases reciprocity and rectificatory justice are not in
\
accord; e.g. (1) if an official has inflicted a wound, he should not
\
be wounded in return, and if some one has wounded an official, he
\
ought not to be wounded only but punished in addition. Further (2)
\
there is a great difference between a voluntary and an involuntary
\
act. But in associations for exchange this sort of justice does hold
\
men together-reciprocity in accordance with a proportion and not on
\
the basis of precisely equal return. For it is by proportionate
\
requital that the city holds together. Men seek to return either
\
evil for evil-and if they cana not do so, think their position mere
\
slavery-or good for good-and if they cannot do so there is no
\
exchange, but it is by exchange that they hold together. This is why
\
they give a prominent place to the temple of the Graces-to promote the
\
requital of services; for this is characteristic of grace-we should
\
serve in return one who has shown grace to us, and should another time
\
take the initiative in showing it.
\

\
  Now proportionate return is secured by cross-conjunction. Let A be a
\
builder, B a shoemaker, C a house, D a shoe. The builder, then, must
\
get from the shoemaker the latter's work, and must himself give him in
\
return his own. If, then, first there is proportionate equality of
\
goods, and then reciprocal action takes place, the result we mention
\
will be effected. If not, the bargain is not equal, and does not hold;
\
for there is nothing to prevent the work of the one being better
\
than that of the other; they must therefore be equated. (And this is
\
true of the other arts also; for they would have been destroyed if
\
what the patient suffered had not been just what the agent did, and of
\
the same amount and kind.) For it is not two doctors that associate
\
for exchange, but a doctor and a farmer, or in general people who
\
are different and unequal; but these must be equated. This is why
\
all things that are exchanged must be somehow comparable. It is for
\
this end that money has been introduced, and it becomes in a sense
\
an intermediate; for it measures all things, and therefore the
\
excess and the defect-how many shoes are equal to a house or to a
\
given amount of food. The number of shoes exchanged for a house (or
\
for a given amount of food) must therefore correspond to the ratio
\
of builder to shoemaker. For if this be not so, there will be no
\
exchange and no intercourse. And this proportion will not be
\
effected unless the goods are somehow equal. All goods must
\
therefore be measured by some one thing, as we said before. Now this
\
unit is in truth demand, which holds all things together (for if men
\
did not need one another's goods at all, or did not need them equally,
\
there would be either no exchange or not the same exchange); but money
\
has become by convention a sort of representative of demand; and
\
this is why it has the name 'money' (nomisma)-because it exists not by
\
nature but by law (nomos) and it is in our power to change it and make
\
it useless. There will, then, be reciprocity when the terms have
\
been equated so that as farmer is to shoemaker, the amount of the
\
shoemaker's work is to that of the farmer's work for which it
\
exchanges. But we must not bring them into a figure of proportion when
\
they have already exchanged (otherwise one extreme will have both
\
excesses), but when they still have their own goods. Thus they are
\
equals and associates just because this equality can be effected in
\
their case. Let A be a farmer, C food, B a shoemaker, D his product
\
equated to C. If it had not been possible for reciprocity to be thus
\
effected, there would have been no association of the parties. That
\
demand holds things together as a single unit is shown by the fact
\
that when men do not need one another, i.e. when neither needs the
\
other or one does not need the other, they do not exchange, as we do
\
when some one wants what one has oneself, e.g. when people permit
\
the exportation of corn in exchange for wine. This equation
\
therefore must be established. And for the future exchange-that if
\
we do not need a thing now we shall have it if ever we do need
\
it-money is as it were our surety; for it must be possible for us to
\
get what we want by bringing the money. Now the same thing happens
\
to money itself as to goods-it is not always worth the same; yet it
\
tends to be steadier. This is why all goods must have a price set on
\
them; for then there will always be exchange, and if so, association
\
of man with man. Money, then, acting as a measure, makes goods
\
commensurate and equates them; for neither would there have been
\
association if there were not exchange, nor exchange if there were not
\
equality, nor equality if there were not commensurability. Now in
\
truth it is impossible that things differing so much should become
\
commensurate, but with reference to demand they may become so
\
sufficiently. There must, then, be a unit, and that fixed by agreement
\
(for which reason it is called money); for it is this that makes all
\
things commensurate, since all things are measured by money. Let A
\
be a house, B ten minae, C a bed. A is half of B, if the house is
\
worth five minae or equal to them; the bed, C, is a tenth of B; it
\
is plain, then, how many beds are equal to a house, viz. five. That
\
exchange took place thus before there was money is plain; for it makes
\
no difference whether it is five beds that exchange for a house, or
\
the money value of five beds.
\

\
  We have now defined the unjust and the just. These having been
\
marked off from each other, it is plain that just action is
\
intermediate between acting unjustly and being unjustly treated; for
\
the one is to have too much and the other to have too little.
\
Justice is a kind of mean, but not in the same way as the other
\
virtues, but because it relates to an intermediate amount, while
\
injustice relates to the extremes. And justice is that in virtue of
\
which the just man is said to be a doer, by choice, of that which is
\
just, and one who will distribute either between himself and another
\
or between two others not so as to give more of what is desirable to
\
himself and less to his neighbour (and conversely with what is
\
harmful), but so as to give what is equal in accordance with
\
proportion; and similarly in distributing between two other persons.
\
Injustice on the other hand is similarly related to the unjust,
\
which is excess and defect, contrary to proportion, of the useful or
\
hurtful. For which reason injustice is excess and defect, viz. because
\
it is productive of excess and defect-in one's own case excess of what
\
is in its own nature useful and defect of what is hurtful, while in
\
the case of others it is as a whole like what it is in one's own case,
\
but proportion may be violated in either direction. In the unjust
\
act to have too little is to be unjustly treated; to have too much
\
is to act unjustly.
\

\
  Let this be taken as our account of the nature of justice and
\
injustice, and similarly of the just and the unjust in general.
\

\
                                 6
\

\
  Since acting unjustly does not necessarily imply being unjust, we
\
must ask what sort of unjust acts imply that the doer is unjust with
\
respect to each type of injustice, e.g. a thief, an adulterer, or a
\
brigand. Surely the answer does not turn on the difference between
\
these types. For a man might even lie with a woman knowing who she
\
was, but the origin of his might be not deliberate choice but passion.
\
He acts unjustly, then, but is not unjust; e.g. a man is not a
\
thief, yet he stole, nor an adulterer, yet he committed adultery;
\
and similarly in all other cases.
\

\
  Now we have previously stated how the reciprocal is related to the
\
just; but we must not forget that what we are looking for is not
\
only what is just without qualification but also political justice.
\
This is found among men who share their life with a view to
\
selfsufficiency, men who are free and either proportionately or
\
arithmetically equal, so that between those who do not fulfil this
\
condition there is no political justice but justice in a special sense
\
and by analogy. For justice exists only between men whose mutual
\
relations are governed by law; and law exists for men between whom
\
there is injustice; for legal justice is the discrimination of the
\
just and the unjust. And between men between whom there is injustice
\
there is also unjust action (though there is not injustice between all
\
between whom there is unjust action), and this is assigning too much
\
to oneself of things good in themselves and too little of things
\
evil in themselves. This is why we do not allow a man to rule, but
\
rational principle, because a man behaves thus in his own interests
\
and becomes a tyrant. The magistrate on the other hand is the guardian
\
of justice, and, if of justice, then of equality also. And since he is
\
assumed to have no more than his share, if he is just (for he does not
\
assign to himself more of what is good in itself, unless such a
\
share is proportional to his merits-so that it is for others that he
\
labours, and it is for this reason that men, as we stated
\
previously, say that justice is 'another's good'), therefore a
\
reward must be given him, and this is honour and privilege; but
\
those for whom such things are not enough become tyrants.
\

\
  The justice of a master and that of a father are not the same as the
\
justice of citizens, though they are like it; for there can be no
\
injustice in the unqualified sense towards thing that are one's own,
\
but a man's chattel, and his child until it reaches a certain age
\
and sets up for itself, are as it were part of himself, and no one
\
chooses to hurt himself (for which reason there can be no injustice
\
towards oneself). Therefore the justice or injustice of citizens is
\
not manifested in these relations; for it was as we saw according to
\
law, and between people naturally subject to law, and these as we saw'
\
are people who have an equal share in ruling and being ruled. Hence
\
justice can more truly be manifested towards a wife than towards
\
children and chattels, for the former is household justice; but even
\
this is different from political justice.
\

\
                                 7
\

\
  Of political justice part is natural, part legal, natural, that
\
which everywhere has the same force and does not exist by people's
\
thinking this or that; legal, that which is originally indifferent,
\
but when it has been laid down is not indifferent, e.g. that a
\
prisoner's ransom shall be a mina, or that a goat and not two sheep
\
shall be sacrificed, and again all the laws that are passed for
\
particular cases, e.g. that sacrifice shall be made in honour of
\
Brasidas, and the provisions of decrees. Now some think that all
\
justice is of this sort, because that which is by nature is
\
unchangeable and has everywhere the same force (as fire burns both
\
here and in Persia), while they see change in the things recognized as
\
just. This, however, is not true in this unqualified way, but is
\
true in a sense; or rather, with the gods it is perhaps not true at
\
all, while with us there is something that is just even by nature, yet
\
all of it is changeable; but still some is by nature, some not by
\
nature. It is evident which sort of thing, among things capable of
\
being otherwise, is by nature, and which is not but is legal and
\
conventional, assuming that both are equally changeable. And in all
\
other things the same distinction will apply; by nature the right hand
\
is stronger, yet it is possible that all men should come to be
\
ambidextrous. The things which are just by virtue of convention and
\
expediency are like measures; for wine and corn measures are not
\
everywhere equal, but larger in wholesale and smaller in retail
\
markets. Similarly, the things which are just not by nature but by
\
human enactment are not everywhere the same, since constitutions
\
also are not the same, though there is but one which is everywhere
\
by nature the best. Of things just and lawful each is related as the
\
universal to its particulars; for the things that are done are many,
\
but of them each is one, since it is universal.
\

\
  There is a difference between the act of injustice and what is
\
unjust, and between the act of justice and what is just; for a thing
\
is unjust by nature or by enactment; and this very thing, when it
\
has been done, is an act of injustice, but before it is done is not
\
yet that but is unjust. So, too, with an act of justice (though the
\
general term is rather 'just action', and 'act of justice' is
\
applied to the correction of the act of injustice).
\

\
  Each of these must later be examined separately with regard to the
\
nature and number of its species and the nature of the things with
\
which it is concerned.
\

\
                                 8
\

\
  Acts just and unjust being as we have described them, a man acts
\
unjustly or justly whenever he does such acts voluntarily; when
\
involuntarily, he acts neither unjustly nor justly except in an
\
incidental way; for he does things which happen to be just or
\
unjust. Whether an act is or is not one of injustice (or of justice)
\
is determined by its voluntariness or involuntariness; for when it
\
is voluntary it is blamed, and at the same time is then an act of
\
injustice; so that there will be things that are unjust but not yet
\
acts of injustice, if voluntariness be not present as well. By the
\
voluntary I mean, as has been said before, any of the things in a
\
man's own power which he does with knowledge, i.e. not in ignorance
\
either of the person acted on or of the instrument used or of the
\
end that will be attained (e.g. whom he is striking, with what, and to
\
what end), each such act being done not incidentally nor under
\
compulsion (e.g. if A takes B's hand and therewith strikes C, B does
\
not act voluntarily; for the act was not in his own power). The person
\
struck may be the striker's father, and the striker may know that it
\
is a man or one of the persons present, but not know that it is his
\
father; a similar distinction may be made in the case of the end,
\
and with regard to the whole action. Therefore that which is done in
\
ignorance, or though not done in ignorance is not in the agent's
\
power, or is done under compulsion, is involuntary (for many natural
\
processes, even, we knowingly both perform and experience, none of
\
which is either voluntary or involuntary; e.g. growing old or
\
dying). But in the case of unjust and just acts alike the injustice or
\
justice may be only incidental; for a man might return a deposit
\
unwillingly and from fear, and then he must not be said either to do
\
what is just or to act justly, except in an incidental way.
\
Similarly the man who under compulsion and unwillingly fails to return
\
the deposit must be said to act unjustly, and to do what is unjust,
\
only incidentally. Of voluntary acts we do some by choice, others
\
not by choice; by choice those which we do after deliberation, not
\
by choice those which we do without previous deliberation. Thus
\
there are three kinds of injury in transactions between man and man;
\
those done in ignorance are mistakes when the person acted on, the
\
act, the instrument, or the end that will be attained is other than
\
the agent supposed; the agent thought either that he was not hiting
\
any one or that he was not hitting with this missile or not hitting
\
this person or to this end, but a result followed other than that
\
which he thought likely (e.g. he threw not with intent to wound but
\
only to prick), or the person hit or the missile was other than he
\
supposed. Now when (1) the injury takes place contrary to reasonable
\
expectation, it is a misadventure. When (2) it is not contrary to
\
reasonable expectation, but does not imply vice, it is a mistake
\
(for a man makes a mistake when the fault originates in him, but is
\
the victim of accident when the origin lies outside him). When (3)
\
he acts with knowledge but not after deliberation, it is an act of
\
injustice-e.g. the acts due to anger or to other passions necessary or
\
natural to man; for when men do such harmful and mistaken acts they
\
act unjustly, and the acts are acts of injustice, but this does not
\
imply that the doers are unjust or wicked; for the injury is not due
\
to vice. But when (4) a man acts from choice, he is an unjust man
\
and a vicious man.
\

\
  Hence acts proceeding from anger are rightly judged not to be done
\
of malice aforethought; for it is not the man who acts in anger but he
\
who enraged him that starts the mischief. Again, the matter in dispute
\
is not whether the thing happened or not, but its justice; for it is
\
apparent injustice that occasions rage. For they do not dispute
\
about the occurrence of the act-as in commercial transactions where
\
one of the two parties must be vicious-unless they do so owing to
\
forgetfulness; but, agreeing about the fact, they dispute on which
\
side justice lies (whereas a man who has deliberately injured
\
another cannot help knowing that he has done so), so that the one
\
thinks he is being treated unjustly and the other disagrees.
\

\
  But if a man harms another by choice, he acts unjustly; and these
\
are the acts of injustice which imply that the doer is an unjust
\
man, provided that the act violates proportion or equality. Similarly,
\
a man is just when he acts justly by choice; but he acts justly if
\
he merely acts voluntarily.
\

\
  Of involuntary acts some are excusable, others not. For the mistakes
\
which men make not only in ignorance but also from ignorance are
\
excusable, while those which men do not from ignorance but (though
\
they do them in ignorance) owing to a passion which is neither natural
\
nor such as man is liable to, are not excusable.
\

\
                                 9
\

\
  Assuming that we have sufficiently defined the suffering and doing
\
of injustice, it may be asked (1) whether the truth in expressed in
\
Euripides' paradoxical words:
\

\
     I slew my mother, that's my tale in brief.
\

\
     Were you both willing, or unwilling both?
\

\
  Is it truly possible to be willingly treated unjustly, or is all
\
suffering of injustice the contrary involuntary, as all unjust
\
action is voluntary? And is all suffering of injustice of the latter
\
kind or else all of the former, or is it sometimes voluntary,
\
sometimes involuntary? So, too, with the case of being justly treated;
\
all just action is voluntary, so that it is reasonable that there
\
should be a similar opposition in either case-that both being unjustly
\
and being justly treated should be either alike voluntary or alike
\
involuntary. But it would be thought paradoxical even in the case of
\
being justly treated, if it were always voluntary; for some are
\
unwillingly treated justly. (2) One might raise this question also,
\
whether every one who has suffered what is unjust is being unjustly
\
treated, or on the other hand it is with suffering as with acting.
\
In action and in passivity alike it is possible to partake of
\
justice incidentally, and similarly (it is plain) of injustice; for to
\
do what is unjust is not the same as to act unjustly, nor to suffer
\
what is unjust as to be treated unjustly, and similarly in the case of
\
acting justly and being justly treated; for it is impossible to be
\
unjustly treated if the other does not act unjustly, or justly treated
\
unless he acts justly. Now if to act unjustly is simply to harm some
\
one voluntarily, and 'voluntarily' means 'knowing the person acted on,
\
the instrument, and the manner of one's acting', and the incontinent
\
man voluntarily harms himself, not only will he voluntarily be
\
unjustly treated but it will be possible to treat oneself unjustly.
\
(This also is one of the questions in doubt, whether a man can treat
\
himself unjustly.) Again, a man may voluntarily, owing to
\
incontinence, be harmed by another who acts voluntarily, so that it
\
would be possible to be voluntarily treated unjustly. Or is our
\
definition incorrect; must we to 'harming another, with knowledge both
\
of the person acted on, of the instrument, and of the manner' add
\
'contrary to the wish of the person acted on'? Then a man may be
\
voluntarily harmed and voluntarily suffer what is unjust, but no one
\
is voluntarily treated unjustly; for no one wishes to be unjustly
\
treated, not even the incontinent man. He acts contrary to his wish;
\
for no one wishes for what he does not think to be good, but the
\
incontinent man does do things that he does not think he ought to
\
do. Again, one who gives what is his own, as Homer says Glaucus gave
\
Diomede
\

\
  Armour of gold for brazen, the price of a hundred beeves for nine,
\

\
is not unjustly treated; for though to give is in his power, to be
\
unjustly treated is not, but there must be some one to treat him
\
unjustly. It is plain, then, that being unjustly treated is not
\
voluntary.
\

\
  Of the questions we intended to discuss two still remain for
\
discussion; (3) whether it is the man who has assigned to another more
\
than his share that acts unjustly, or he who has the excessive
\
share, and (4) whether it is possible to treat oneself unjustly. The
\
questions are connected; for if the former alternative is possible and
\
the distributor acts unjustly and not the man who has the excessive
\
share, then if a man assigns more to another than to himself,
\
knowingly and voluntarily, he treats himself unjustly; which is what
\
modest people seem to do, since the virtuous man tends to take less
\
than his share. Or does this statement too need qualification? For (a)
\
he perhaps gets more than his share of some other good, e.g. of honour
\
or of intrinsic nobility. (b) The question is solved by applying the
\
distinction we applied to unjust action; for he suffers nothing
\
contrary to his own wish, so that he is not unjustly treated as far as
\
this goes, but at most only suffers harm.
\

\
  It is plain too that the distributor acts unjustly, but not always
\
the man who has the excessive share; for it is not he to whom what
\
is unjust appertains that acts unjustly, but he to whom it
\
appertains to do the unjust act voluntarily, i.e. the person in whom
\
lies the origin of the action, and this lies in the distributor, not
\
in the receiver. Again, since the word 'do' is ambiguous, and there is
\
a sense in which lifeless things, or a hand, or a servant who obeys an
\
order, may be said to slay, he who gets an excessive share does not
\
act unjustly, though he 'does' what is unjust.
\

\
  Again, if the distributor gave his judgement in ignorance, he does
\
not act unjustly in respect of legal justice, and his judgement is not
\
unjust in this sense, but in a sense it is unjust (for legal justice
\
and primordial justice are different); but if with knowledge he judged
\
unjustly, he is himself aiming at an excessive share either of
\
gratitude or of revenge. As much, then, as if he were to share in
\
the plunder, the man who has judged unjustly for these reasons has got
\
too much; the fact that what he gets is different from what he
\
distributes makes no difference, for even if he awards land with a
\
view to sharing in the plunder he gets not land but money.
\

\
  Men think that acting unjustly is in their power, and therefore that
\
being just is easy. But it is not; to lie with one's neighbour's wife,
\
to wound another, to deliver a bribe, is easy and in our power, but to
\
do these things as a result of a certain state of character is neither
\
easy nor in our power. Similarly to know what is just and what is
\
unjust requires, men think, no great wisdom, because it is not hard to
\
understand the matters dealt with by the laws (though these are not
\
the things that are just, except incidentally); but how actions must
\
be done and distributions effected in order to be just, to know this
\
is a greater achievement than knowing what is good for the health;
\
though even there, while it is easy to know that honey, wine,
\
hellebore, cautery, and the use of the knife are so, to know how, to
\
whom, and when these should be applied with a view to producing
\
health, is no less an achievement than that of being a physician.
\
Again, for this very reason men think that acting unjustly is
\
characteristic of the just man no less than of the unjust, because
\
he would be not less but even more capable of doing each of these
\
unjust acts; for he could lie with a woman or wound a neighbour; and
\
the brave man could throw away his shield and turn to flight in this
\
direction or in that. But to play the coward or to act unjustly
\
consists not in doing these things, except incidentally, but in
\
doing them as the result of a certain state of character, just as to
\
practise medicine and healing consists not in applying or not applying
\
the knife, in using or not using medicines, but in doing so in a
\
certain way.
\

\
  Just acts occur between people who participate in things good in
\
themselves and can have too much or too little of them; for some
\
beings (e.g. presumably the gods) cannot have too much of them, and to
\
others, those who are incurably bad, not even the smallest share in
\
them is beneficial but all such goods are harmful, while to others
\
they are beneficial up to a point; therefore justice is essentially
\
something human.
\

\
                                10
\

\
  Our next subject is equity and the equitable (to epiekes), and their
\
respective relations to justice and the just. For on examination
\
they appear to be neither absolutely the same nor generically
\
different; and while we sometime praise what is equitable and the
\
equitable man (so that we apply the name by way of praise even to
\
instances of the other virtues, instead of 'good' meaning by
\
epieikestebon that a thing is better), at other times, when we
\
reason it out, it seems strange if the equitable, being something
\
different from the just, is yet praiseworthy; for either the just or
\
the equitable is not good, if they are different; or, if both are
\
good, they are the same.
\

\
  These, then, are pretty much the considerations that give rise to
\
the problem about the equitable; they are all in a sense correct and
\
not opposed to one another; for the equitable, though it is better
\
than one kind of justice, yet is just, and it is not as being a
\
different class of thing that it is better than the just. The same
\
thing, then, is just and equitable, and while both are good the
\
equitable is superior. What creates the problem is that the
\
equitable is just, but not the legally just but a correction of
\
legal justice. The reason is that all law is universal but about
\
some things it is not possible to make a universal statement which
\
shall be correct. In those cases, then, in which it is necessary to
\
speak universally, but not possible to do so correctly, the law
\
takes the usual case, though it is not ignorant of the possibility
\
of error. And it is none the less correct; for the error is in the law
\
nor in the legislator but in the nature of the thing, since the matter
\
of practical affairs is of this kind from the start. When the law
\
speaks universally, then, and a case arises on it which is not covered
\
by the universal statement, then it is right, where the legislator
\
fails us and has erred by oversimplicity, to correct the omission-to
\
say what the legislator himself would have said had he been present,
\
and would have put into his law if he had known. Hence the equitable
\
is just, and better than one kind of justice-not better than
\
absolute justice but better than the error that arises from the
\
absoluteness of the statement. And this is the nature of the
\
equitable, a correction of law where it is defective owing to its
\
universality. In fact this is the reason why all things are not
\
determined by law, that about some things it is impossible to lay down
\
a law, so that a decree is needed. For when the thing is indefinite
\
the rule also is indefinite, like the leaden rule used in making the
\
Lesbian moulding; the rule adapts itself to the shape of the stone and
\
is not rigid, and so too the decree is adapted to the facts.
\

\
  It is plain, then, what the equitable is, and that it is just and is
\
better than one kind of justice. It is evident also from this who
\
the equitable man is; the man who chooses and does such acts, and is
\
no stickler for his rights in a bad sense but tends to take less
\
than his share though he has the law oft his side, is equitable, and
\
this state of character is equity, which is a sort of justice and
\
not a different state of character.
\

\
                                11
\

\
  Whether a man can treat himself unjustly or not, is evident from
\
what has been said. For (a) one class of just acts are those acts in
\
accordance with any virtue which are prescribed by the law; e.g. the
\
law does not expressly permit suicide, and what it does not
\
expressly permit it forbids. Again, when a man in violation of the law
\
harms another (otherwise than in retaliation) voluntarily, he acts
\
unjustly, and a voluntary agent is one who knows both the person he is
\
affecting by his action and the instrument he is using; and he who
\
through anger voluntarily stabs himself does this contrary to the
\
right rule of life, and this the law does not allow; therefore he is
\
acting unjustly. But towards whom? Surely towards the state, not
\
towards himself. For he suffers voluntarily, but no one is voluntarily
\
treated unjustly. This is also the reason why the state punishes; a
\
certain loss of civil rights attaches to the man who destroys himself,
\
on the ground that he is treating the state unjustly.
\

\
  Further (b) in that sense of 'acting unjustly' in which the man
\
who 'acts unjustly' is unjust only and not bad all round, it is not
\
possible to treat oneself unjustly (this is different from the
\
former sense; the unjust man in one sense of the term is wicked in a
\
particularized way just as the coward is, not in the sense of being
\
wicked all round, so that his 'unjust act' does not manifest
\
wickedness in general). For (i) that would imply the possibility of
\
the same thing's having been subtracted from and added to the same
\
thing at the same time; but this is impossible-the just and the unjust
\
always involve more than one person. Further, (ii) unjust action is
\
voluntary and done by choice, and takes the initiative (for the man
\
who because he has suffered does the same in return is not thought
\
to act unjustly); but if a man harms himself he suffers and does the
\
same things at the same time. Further, (iii) if a man could treat
\
himself unjustly, he could be voluntarily treated unjustly. Besides,
\
(iv) no one acts unjustly without committing particular acts of
\
injustice; but no one can commit adultery with his own wife or
\
housebreaking on his own house or theft on his own property,
\

\
  In general, the question 'can a man treat himself unjustly?' is
\
solved also by the distinction we applied to the question 'can a man
\
be voluntarily treated unjustly?'
\

\
  (It is evident too that both are bad, being unjustly treated and
\
acting unjustly; for the one means having less and the other having
\
more than the intermediate amount, which plays the part here that
\
the healthy does in the medical art, and that good condition does in
\
the art of bodily training. But still acting unjustly is the worse,
\
for it involves vice and is blameworthy-involves vice which is
\
either of the complete and unqualified kind or almost so (we must
\
admit the latter alternative, because not all voluntary unjust
\
action implies injustice as a state of character), while being
\
unjustly treated does not involve vice and injustice in oneself. In
\
itself, then, being unjustly treated is less bad, but there is nothing
\
to prevent its being incidentally a greater evil. But theory cares
\
nothing for this; it calls pleurisy a more serious mischief than a
\
stumble; yet the latter may become incidentally the more serious, if
\
the fall due to it leads to your being taken prisoner or put to
\
death the enemy.)
\

\
  Metaphorically and in virtue of a certain resemblance there is a
\
justice, not indeed between a man and himself, but between certain
\
parts of him; yet not every kind of justice but that of master and
\
servant or that of husband and wife. For these are the ratios in which
\
the part of the soul that has a rational principle stands to the
\
irrational part; and it is with a view to these parts that people also
\
think a man can be unjust to himself, viz. because these parts are
\
liable to suffer something contrary to their respective desires; there
\
is therefore thought to be a mutual justice between them as between
\
ruler and ruled.
\

\
  Let this be taken as our account of justice and the other, i.e.
\
the other moral, virtues.
\

\
                              BOOK VI
\

\
                                 1
\

\
  SINCE we have previously said that one ought to choose that which is
\
intermediate, not the excess nor the defect, and that the intermediate
\
is determined by the dictates of the right rule, let us discuss the
\
nature of these dictates. In all the states of character we have
\
mentioned, as in all other matters, there is a mark to which the man
\
who has the rule looks, and heightens or relaxes his activity
\
accordingly, and there is a standard which determines the mean
\
states which we say are intermediate between excess and defect,
\
being in accordance with the right rule. But such a statement,
\
though true, is by no means clear; for not only here but in all
\
other pursuits which are objects of knowledge it is indeed true to say
\
that we must not exert ourselves nor relax our efforts too much nor
\
too little, but to an intermediate extent and as the right rule
\
dictates; but if a man had only this knowledge he would be none the
\
wiser e.g. we should not know what sort of medicines to apply to our
\
body if some one were to say 'all those which the medical art
\
prescribes, and which agree with the practice of one who possesses the
\
art'. Hence it is necessary with regard to the states of the soul also
\
not only that this true statement should be made, but also that it
\
should be determined what is the right rule and what is the standard
\
that fixes it.
\

\
  We divided the virtues of the soul and a said that some are
\
virtues of character and others of intellect. Now we have discussed in
\
detail the moral virtues; with regard to the others let us express our
\
view as follows, beginning with some remarks about the soul. We said
\
before that there are two parts of the soul-that which grasps a rule
\
or rational principle, and the irrational; let us now draw a similar
\
distinction within the part which grasps a rational principle. And let
\
it be assumed that there are two parts which grasp a rational
\
principle-one by which we contemplate the kind of things whose
\
originative causes are invariable, and one by which we contemplate
\
variable things; for where objects differ in kind the part of the soul
\
answering to each of the two is different in kind, since it is in
\
virtue of a certain likeness and kinship with their objects that
\
they have the knowledge they have. Let one of these parts be called
\
the scientific and the other the calculative; for to deliberate and to
\
calculate are the same thing, but no one deliberates about the
\
invariable. Therefore the calculative is one part of the faculty which
\
grasps a rational principle. We must, then, learn what is the best
\
state of each of these two parts; for this is the virtue of each.
\

\
                                 2
\

\
  The virtue of a thing is relative to its proper work. Now there
\
are three things in the soul which control action and truth-sensation,
\
reason, desire.
\

\
  Of these sensation originates no action; this is plain from the fact
\
that the lower animals have sensation but no share in action.
\

\
  What affirmation and negation are in thinking, pursuit and avoidance
\
are in desire; so that since moral virtue is a state of character
\
concerned with choice, and choice is deliberate desire, therefore both
\
the reasoning must be true and the desire right, if the choice is to
\
be good, and the latter must pursue just what the former asserts.
\
Now this kind of intellect and of truth is practical; of the intellect
\
which is contemplative, not practical nor productive, the good and the
\
bad state are truth and falsity respectively (for this is the work
\
of everything intellectual); while of the part which is practical
\
and intellectual the good state is truth in agreement with right
\
desire.
\

\
  The origin of action-its efficient, not its final cause-is choice,
\
and that of choice is desire and reasoning with a view to an end. This
\
is why choice cannot exist either without reason and intellect or
\
without a moral state; for good action and its opposite cannot exist
\
without a combination of intellect and character. Intellect itself,
\
however, moves nothing, but only the intellect which aims at an end
\
and is practical; for this rules the productive intellect, as well,
\
since every one who makes makes for an end, and that which is made
\
is not an end in the unqualified sense (but only an end in a
\
particular relation, and the end of a particular operation)-only
\
that which is done is that; for good action is an end, and desire aims
\
at this. Hence choice is either desiderative reason or ratiocinative
\
desire, and such an origin of action is a man. (It is to be noted that
\
nothing that is past is an object of choice, e.g. no one chooses to
\
have sacked Troy; for no one deliberates about the past, but about
\
what is future and capable of being otherwise, while what is past is
\
not capable of not having taken place; hence Agathon is right in
\
saying
\

\
     For this alone is lacking even to God,
\

\
     To make undone things thathave once been done.)
\

\
  The work of both the intellectual parts, then, is truth. Therefore
\
the states that are most strictly those in respect of which each of
\
these parts will reach truth are the virtues of the two parts.
\

\
                                 3
\

\
  Let us begin, then, from the beginning, and discuss these states
\
once more. Let it be assumed that the states by virtue of which the
\
soul possesses truth by way of affirmation or denial are five in
\
number, i.e. art, scientific knowledge, practical wisdom,
\
philosophic wisdom, intuitive reason; we do not include judgement
\
and opinion because in these we may be mistaken.
\

\
  Now what scientific knowledge is, if we are to speak exactly and not
\
follow mere similarities, is plain from what follows. We all suppose
\
that what we know is not even capable of being otherwise; of things
\
capable of being otherwise we do not know, when they have passed
\
outside our observation, whether they exist or not. Therefore the
\
object of scientific knowledge is of necessity. Therefore it is
\
eternal; for things that are of necessity in the unqualified sense are
\
all eternal; and things that are eternal are ungenerated and
\
imperishable. Again, every science is thought to be capable of being
\
taught, and its object of being learned. And all teaching starts
\
from what is already known, as we maintain in the Analytics also;
\
for it proceeds sometimes through induction and sometimes by
\
syllogism. Now induction is the starting-point which knowledge even of
\
the universal presupposes, while syllogism proceeds from universals.
\
There are therefore starting-points from which syllogism proceeds,
\
which are not reached by syllogism; it is therefore by induction
\
that they are acquired. Scientific knowledge is, then, a state of
\
capacity to demonstrate, and has the other limiting characteristics
\
which we specify in the Analytics, for it is when a man believes in
\
a certain way and the starting-points are known to him that he has
\
scientific knowledge, since if they are not better known to him than
\
the conclusion, he will have his knowledge only incidentally.
\

\
  Let this, then, be taken as our account of scientific knowledge.
\

\
                                 4
\

\
  In the variable are included both things made and things done;
\
making and acting are different (for their nature we treat even the
\
discussions outside our school as reliable); so that the reasoned
\
state of capacity to act is different from the reasoned state of
\
capacity to make. Hence too they are not included one in the other;
\
for neither is acting making nor is making acting. Now since
\
architecture is an art and is essentially a reasoned state of capacity
\
to make, and there is neither any art that is not such a state nor any
\
such state that is not an art, art is identical with a state of
\
capacity to make, involving a true course of reasoning. All art is
\
concerned with coming into being, i.e. with contriving and considering
\
how something may come into being which is capable of either being
\
or not being, and whose origin is in the maker and not in the thing
\
made; for art is concerned neither with things that are, or come
\
into being, by necessity, nor with things that do so in accordance
\
with nature (since these have their origin in themselves). Making
\
and acting being different, art must be a matter of making, not of
\
acting. And in a sense chance and art are concerned with the same
\
objects; as Agathon says, 'art loves chance and chance loves art'.
\
Art, then, as has been is a state concerned with making, involving a
\
true course of reasoning, and lack of art on the contrary is a state
\
concerned with making, involving a false course of reasoning; both are
\
concerned with the variable.
\

\
                                 5
\

\
  Regarding practical wisdom we shall get at the truth by
\
considering who are the persons we credit with it. Now it is thought
\
to be the mark of a man of practical wisdom to be able to deliberate
\
well about what is good and expedient for himself, not in some
\
particular respect, e.g. about what sorts of thing conduce to health
\
or to strength, but about what sorts of thing conduce to the good life
\
in general. This is shown by the fact that we credit men with
\
practical wisdom in some particular respect when they have
\
calculated well with a view to some good end which is one of those
\
that are not the object of any art. It follows that in the general
\
sense also the man who is capable of deliberating has practical
\
wisdom. Now no one deliberates about things that are invariable, nor
\
about things that it is impossible for him to do. Therefore, since
\
scientific knowledge involves demonstration, but there is no
\
demonstration of things whose first principles are variable (for all
\
such things might actually be otherwise), and since it is impossible
\
to deliberate about things that are of necessity, practical wisdom
\
cannot be scientific knowledge nor art; not science because that which
\
can be done is capable of being otherwise, not art because action
\
and making are different kinds of thing. The remaining alternative,
\
then, is that it is a true and reasoned state of capacity to act
\
with regard to the things that are good or bad for man. For while
\
making has an end other than itself, action cannot; for good action
\
itself is its end. It is for this reason that we think Pericles and
\
men like him have practical wisdom, viz. because they can see what
\
is good for themselves and what is good for men in general; we
\
consider that those can do this who are good at managing households or
\
states. (This is why we call temperance (sophrosune) by this name;
\
we imply that it preserves one's practical wisdom (sozousa tan
\
phronsin). Now what it preserves is a judgement of the kind we have
\
described. For it is not any and every judgement that pleasant and
\
painful objects destroy and pervert, e.g. the judgement that the
\
triangle has or has not its angles equal to two right angles, but only
\
judgements about what is to be done. For the originating causes of the
\
things that are done consist in the end at which they are aimed; but
\
the man who has been ruined by pleasure or pain forthwith fails to see
\
any such originating cause-to see that for the sake of this or because
\
of this he ought to choose and do whatever he chooses and does; for
\
vice is destructive of the originating cause of action.) Practical
\
wisdom, then, must be a reasoned and true state of capacity to act
\
with regard to human goods. But further, while there is such a thing
\
as excellence in art, there is no such thing as excellence in
\
practical wisdom; and in art he who errs willingly is preferable,
\
but in practical wisdom, as in the virtues, he is the reverse.
\
Plainly, then, practical wisdom is a virtue and not an art. There
\
being two parts of the soul that can follow a course of reasoning,
\
it must be the virtue of one of the two, i.e. of that part which forms
\
opinions; for opinion is about the variable and so is practical
\
wisdom. But yet it is not only a reasoned state; this is shown by
\
the fact that a state of that sort may forgotten but practical
\
wisdom cannot.
\

\
                                 6
\

\
  Scientific knowledge is judgement about things that are universal
\
and necessary, and the conclusions of demonstration, and all
\
scientific knowledge, follow from first principles (for scientific
\
knowledge involves apprehension of a rational ground). This being
\
so, the first principle from which what is scientifically known
\
follows cannot be an object of scientific knowledge, of art, or of
\
practical wisdom; for that which can be scientifically known can be
\
demonstrated, and art and practical wisdom deal with things that are
\
variable. Nor are these first principles the objects of philosophic
\
wisdom, for it is a mark of the philosopher to have demonstration
\
about some things. If, then, the states of mind by which we have truth
\
and are never deceived about things invariable or even variable are
\
scientific knowlededge, practical wisdom, philosophic wisdom, and
\
intuitive reason, and it cannot be any of the three (i.e. practical
\
wisdom, scientific knowledge, or philosophic wisdom), the remaining
\
alternative is that it is intuitive reason that grasps the first
\
principles.
\

\
                                 7
\

\
  Wisdom (1) in the arts we ascribe to their most finished
\
exponents, e.g. to Phidias as a sculptor and to Polyclitus as a
\
maker of portrait-statues, and here we mean nothing by wisdom except
\
excellence in art; but (2) we think that some people are wise in
\
general, not in some particular field or in any other limited respect,
\
as Homer says in the Margites,
\

\
     Him did the gods make neither a digger nor yet a ploughman
\

\
     Nor wise in anything else.
\

\
Therefore wisdom must plainly be the most finished of the forms of
\
knowledge. It follows that the wise man must not only know what
\
follows from the first principles, but must also possess truth about
\
the first principles. Therefore wisdom must be intuitive reason
\
combined with scientific knowledge-scientific knowledge of the highest
\
objects which has received as it were its proper completion.
\

\
  Of the highest objects, we say; for it would be strange to think
\
that the art of politics, or practical wisdom, is the best
\
knowledge, since man is not the best thing in the world. Now if what
\
is healthy or good is different for men and for fishes, but what is
\
white or straight is always the same, any one would say that what is
\
wise is the same but what is practically wise is different; for it
\
is to that which observes well the various matters concerning itself
\
that one ascribes practical wisdom, and it is to this that one will
\
entrust such matters. This is why we say that some even of the lower
\
animals have practical wisdom, viz. those which are found to have a
\
power of foresight with regard to their own life. It is evident also
\
that philosophic wisdom and the art of politics cannot be the same;
\
for if the state of mind concerned with a man's own interests is to be
\
called philosophic wisdom, there will be many philosophic wisdoms;
\
there will not be one concerned with the good of all animals (any more
\
than there is one art of medicine for all existing things), but a
\
different philosophic wisdom about the good of each species.
\

\
  But if the argument be that man is the best of the animals, this
\
makes no difference; for there are other things much more divine in
\
their nature even than man, e.g., most conspicuously, the bodies of
\
which the heavens are framed. From what has been said it is plain,
\
then, that philosophic wisdom is scientific knowledge, combined with
\
intuitive reason, of the things that are highest by nature. This is
\
why we say Anaxagoras, Thales, and men like them have philosophic
\
but not practical wisdom, when we see them ignorant of what is to
\
their own advantage, and why we say that they know things that are
\
remarkable, admirable, difficult, and divine, but useless; viz.
\
because it is not human goods that they seek.
\

\
  Practical wisdom on the other hand is concerned with things human
\
and things about which it is possible to deliberate; for we say this
\
is above all the work of the man of practical wisdom, to deliberate
\
well, but no one deliberates about things invariable, nor about things
\
which have not an end, and that a good that can be brought about by
\
action. The man who is without qualification good at deliberating is
\
the man who is capable of aiming in accordance with calculation at the
\
best for man of things attainable by action. Nor is practical wisdom
\
concerned with universals only-it must also recognize the particulars;
\
for it is practical, and practice is concerned with particulars.
\
This is why some who do not know, and especially those who have
\
experience, are more practical than others who know; for if a man knew
\
that light meats are digestible and wholesome, but did not know
\
which sorts of meat are light, he would not produce health, but the
\
man who knows that chicken is wholesome is more likely to produce
\
health.
\

\
  Now practical wisdom is concerned with action; therefore one
\
should have both forms of it, or the latter in preference to the
\
former. But of practical as of philosophic wisdom there must be a
\
controlling kind.
\

\
                                 8
\

\
  Political wisdom and practical wisdom are the same state of mind,
\
but their essence is not the same. Of the wisdom concerned with the
\
city, the practical wisdom which plays a controlling part is
\
legislative wisdom, while that which is related to this as particulars
\
to their universal is known by the general name 'political wisdom';
\
this has to do with action and deliberation, for a decree is a thing
\
to be carried out in the form of an individual act. This is why the
\
exponents of this art are alone said to 'take part in politics'; for
\
these alone 'do things' as manual labourers 'do things'.
\

\
  Practical wisdom also is identified especially with that form of
\
it which is concerned with a man himself-with the individual; and this
\
is known by the general name 'practical wisdom'; of the other kinds
\
one is called household management, another legislation, the third
\
politics, and of the latter one part is called deliberative and the
\
other judicial. Now knowing what is good for oneself will be one
\
kind of knowledge, but it is very different from the other kinds;
\
and the man who knows and concerns himself with his own interests is
\
thought to have practical wisdom, while politicians are thought to
\
be busybodies; hence the word of Euripides,
\

\
     But how could I be wise, who might at ease,
\

\
     Numbered among the army's multitude,
\

\
     Have had an equal share?
\

\
     For those who aim too high and do too much.
\

\
Those who think thus seek their own good, and consider that one
\
ought to do so. From this opinion, then, has come the view that such
\
men have practical wisdom; yet perhaps one's own good cannot exist
\
without household management, nor without a form of government.
\
Further, how one should order one's own affairs is not clear and needs
\
inquiry.
\

\
  What has been said is confirmed by the fact that while young men
\
become geometricians and mathematicians and wise in matters like
\
these, it is thought that a young man of practical wisdom cannot be
\
found. The cause is that such wisdom is concerned not only with
\
universals but with particulars, which become familiar from
\
experience, but a young man has no experience, for it is length of
\
time that gives experience; indeed one might ask this question too,
\
why a boy may become a mathematician, but not a philosopher or a
\
physicist. It is because the objects of mathematics exist by
\
abstraction, while the first principles of these other subjects come
\
from experience, and because young men have no conviction about the
\
latter but merely use the proper language, while the essence of
\
mathematical objects is plain enough to them?
\

\
  Further, error in deliberation may be either about the universal
\
or about the particular; we may fall to know either that all water
\
that weighs heavy is bad, or that this particular water weighs heavy.
\

\
  That practical wisdom is not scientific knowledge is evident; for it
\
is, as has been said, concerned with the ultimate particular fact,
\
since the thing to be done is of this nature. It is opposed, then,
\
to intuitive reason; for intuitive reason is of the limiting
\
premisses, for which no reason can be given, while practical wisdom is
\
concerned with the ultimate particular, which is the object not of
\
scientific knowledge but of perception-not the perception of qualities
\
peculiar to one sense but a perception akin to that by which we
\
perceive that the particular figure before us is a triangle; for in
\
that direction as well as in that of the major premiss there will be a
\
limit. But this is rather perception than practical wisdom, though
\
it is another kind of perception than that of the qualities peculiar
\
to each sense.
\

\
                                 9
\

\
  There is a difference between inquiry and deliberation; for
\
deliberation is inquiry into a particular kind of thing. We must grasp
\
the nature of excellence in deliberation as well whether it is a
\
form of scientific knowledge, or opinion, or skill in conjecture, or
\
some other kind of thing. Scientific knowledge it is not; for men do
\
not inquire about the things they know about, but good deliberation is
\
a kind of deliberation, and he who deliberates inquires and
\
calculates. Nor is it skill in conjecture; for this both involves no
\
reasoning and is something that is quick in its operation, while men
\
deliberate a long time, and they say that one should carry out quickly
\
the conclusions of one's deliberation, but should deliberate slowly.
\
Again, readiness of mind is different from excellence in deliberation;
\
it is a sort of skill in conjecture. Nor again is excellence in
\
deliberation opinion of any sort. But since the man who deliberates
\
badly makes a mistake, while he who deliberates well does so
\
correctly, excellence in deliberation is clearly a kind of
\
correctness, but neither of knowledge nor of opinion; for there is
\
no such thing as correctness of knowledge (since there is no such
\
thing as error of knowledge), and correctness of opinion is truth; and
\
at the same time everything that is an object of opinion is already
\
determined. But again excellence in deliberation involves reasoning.
\
The remaining alternative, then, is that it is correctness of
\
thinking; for this is not yet assertion, since, while even opinion
\
is not inquiry but has reached the stage of assertion, the man who
\
is deliberating, whether he does so well or ill, is searching for
\
something and calculating.
\

\
  But excellence in deliberation is a certain correctness of
\
deliberation; hence we must first inquire what deliberation is and
\
what it is about. And, there being more than one kind of
\
correctness, plainly excellence in deliberation is not any and every
\
kind; for (1) the incontinent man and the bad man, if he is clever,
\
will reach as a result of his calculation what he sets before himself,
\
so that he will have deliberated correctly, but he will have got for
\
himself a great evil. Now to have deliberated well is thought to be
\
a good thing; for it is this kind of correctness of deliberation
\
that is excellence in deliberation, viz. that which tends to attain
\
what is good. But (2) it is possible to attain even good by a false
\
syllogism, and to attain what one ought to do but not by the right
\
means, the middle term being false; so that this too is not yet
\
excellence in deliberation this state in virtue of which one attains
\
what one ought but not by the right means. Again (3) it is possible to
\
attain it by long deliberation while another man attains it quickly.
\
Therefore in the former case we have not yet got excellence in
\
deliberation, which is rightness with regard to the
\
expedient-rightness in respect both of the end, the manner, and the
\
time. (4) Further it is possible to have deliberated well either in
\
the unqualified sense or with reference to a particular end.
\
Excellence in deliberation in the unqualified sense, then, is that
\
which succeeds with reference to what is the end in the unqualified
\
sense, and excellence in deliberation in a particular sense is that
\
which succeeds relatively to a particular end. If, then, it is
\
characteristic of men of practical wisdom to have deliberated well,
\
excellence in deliberation will be correctness with regard to what
\
conduces to the end of which practical wisdom is the true
\
apprehension.
\

\
                                10
\

\
  Understanding, also, and goodness of understanding, in virtue of
\
which men are said to be men of understanding or of good
\
understanding, are neither entirely the same as opinion or
\
scientific knowledge (for at that rate all men would have been men
\
of understanding), nor are they one of the particular sciences, such
\
as medicine, the science of things connected with health, or geometry,
\
the science of spatial magnitudes. For understanding is neither
\
about things that are always and are unchangeable, nor about any and
\
every one of the things that come into being, but about things which
\
may become subjects of questioning and deliberation. Hence it is about
\
the same objects as practical wisdom; but understanding and
\
practical wisdom are not the same. For practical wisdom issues
\
commands, since its end is what ought to be done or not to be done;
\
but understanding only judges. (Understanding is identical with
\
goodness of understanding, men of understanding with men of good
\
understanding.) Now understanding is neither the having nor the
\
acquiring of practical wisdom; but as learning is called understanding
\
when it means the exercise of the faculty of knowledge, so
\
'understanding' is applicable to the exercise of the faculty of
\
opinion for the purpose of judging of what some one else says about
\
matters with which practical wisdom is concerned-and of judging
\
soundly; for 'well' and 'soundly' are the same thing. And from this
\
has come the use of the name 'understanding' in virtue of which men
\
are said to be 'of good understanding', viz. from the application of
\
the word to the grasping of scientific truth; for we often call such
\
grasping understanding.
\

\
                                11
\

\
  What is called judgement, in virtue of which men are said to 'be
\
sympathetic judges' and to 'have judgement', is the right
\
discrimination of the equitable. This is shown by the fact that we say
\
the equitable man is above all others a man of sympathetic
\
judgement, and identify equity with sympathetic judgement about
\
certain facts. And sympathetic judgement is judgement which
\
discriminates what is equitable and does so correctly; and correct
\
judgement is that which judges what is true.
\

\
  Now all the states we have considered converge, as might be
\
expected, to the same point; for when we speak of judgement and
\
understanding and practical wisdom and intuitive reason we credit
\
the same people with possessing judgement and having reached years
\
of reason and with having practical wisdom and understanding. For
\
all these faculties deal with ultimates, i.e. with particulars; and
\
being a man of understanding and of good or sympathetic judgement
\
consists in being able judge about the things with which practical
\
wisdom is concerned; for the equities are common to all good men in
\
relation to other men. Now all things which have to be done are
\
included among particulars or ultimates; for not only must the man
\
of practical wisdom know particular facts, but understanding and
\
judgement are also concerned with things to be done, and these are
\
ultimates. And intuitive reason is concerned with the ultimates in
\
both directions; for both the first terms and the last are objects
\
of intuitive reason and not of argument, and the intuitive reason
\
which is presupposed by demonstrations grasps the unchangeable and
\
first terms, while the intuitive reason involved in practical
\
reasonings grasps the last and variable fact, i.e. the minor
\
premiss. For these variable facts are the starting-points for the
\
apprehension of the end, since the universals are reached from the
\
particulars; of these therefore we must have perception, and this
\
perception is intuitive reason.
\

\
  This is why these states are thought to be natural endowments-why,
\
while no one is thought to be a philosopher by nature, people are
\
thought to have by nature judgement, understanding, and intuitive
\
reason. This is shown by the fact that we think our powers
\
correspond to our time of life, and that a particular age brings
\
with it intuitive reason and judgement; this implies that nature is
\
the cause. (Hence intuitive reason is both beginning and end; for
\
demonstrations are from these and about these.) Therefore we ought
\
to attend to the undemonstrated sayings and opinions of experienced
\
and older people or of people of practical wisdom not less than to
\
demonstrations; for because experience has given them an eye they
\
see aright.
\

\
  We have stated, then, what practical and philosophic wisdom are, and
\
with what each of them is concerned, and we have said that each is the
\
virtue of a different part of the soul.
\

\
                                12
\

\
  Difficulties might be raised as to the utility of these qualities of
\
mind. For (1) philosophic wisdom will contemplate none of the things
\
that will make a man happy (for it is not concerned with any coming
\
into being), and though practical wisdom has this merit, for what
\
purpose do we need it? Practical wisdom is the quality of mind
\
concerned with things just and noble and good for man, but these are
\
the things which it is the mark of a good man to do, and we are none
\
the more able to act for knowing them if the virtues are states of
\
character, just as we are none the better able to act for knowing
\
the things that are healthy and sound, in the sense not of producing
\
but of issuing from the state of health; for we are none the more able
\
to act for having the art of medicine or of gymnastics. But (2) if
\
we are to say that a man should have practical wisdom not for the sake
\
of knowing moral truths but for the sake of becoming good, practical
\
wisdom will be of no use to those who are good; again it is of no
\
use to those who have not virtue; for it will make no difference
\
whether they have practical wisdom themselves or obey others who
\
have it, and it would be enough for us to do what we do in the case of
\
health; though we wish to become healthy, yet we do not learn the
\
art of medicine. (3) Besides this, it would be thought strange if
\
practical wisdom, being inferior to philosophic wisdom, is to be put
\
in authority over it, as seems to be implied by the fact that the
\
art which produces anything rules and issues commands about that
\
thing.
\

\
  These, then, are the questions we must discuss; so far we have
\
only stated the difficulties.
\

\
  (1) Now first let us say that in themselves these states must be
\
worthy of choice because they are the virtues of the two parts of
\
the soul respectively, even if neither of them produce anything.
\

\
  (2) Secondly, they do produce something, not as the art of
\
medicine produces health, however, but as health produces health; so
\
does philosophic wisdom produce happiness; for, being a part of virtue
\
entire, by being possessed and by actualizing itself it makes a man
\
happy.
\

\
  (3) Again, the work of man is achieved only in accordance with
\
practical wisdom as well as with moral virtue; for virtue makes us aim
\
at the right mark, and practical wisdom makes us take the right means.
\
(Of the fourth part of the soul-the nutritive-there is no such virtue;
\
for there is nothing which it is in its power to do or not to do.)
\

\
  (4) With regard to our being none the more able to do because of our
\
practical wisdom what is noble and just, let us begin a little further
\
back, starting with the following principle. As we say that some
\
people who do just acts are not necessarily just, i.e. those who do
\
the acts ordained by the laws either unwillingly or owing to ignorance
\
or for some other reason and not for the sake of the acts themselves
\
(though, to be sure, they do what they should and all the things
\
that the good man ought), so is it, it seems, that in order to be good
\
one must be in a certain state when one does the several acts, i.e.
\
one must do them as a result of choice and for the sake of the acts
\
themselves. Now virtue makes the choice right, but the question of the
\
things which should naturally be done to carry out our choice
\
belongs not to virtue but to another faculty. We must devote our
\
attention to these matters and give a clearer statement about them.
\
There is a faculty which is called cleverness; and this is such as
\
to be able to do the things that tend towards the mark we have set
\
before ourselves, and to hit it. Now if the mark be noble, the
\
cleverness is laudable, but if the mark be bad, the cleverness is mere
\
smartness; hence we call even men of practical wisdom clever or smart.
\
Practical wisdom is not the faculty, but it does not exist without
\
this faculty. And this eye of the soul acquires its formed state not
\
without the aid of virtue, as has been said and is plain; for the
\
syllogisms which deal with acts to be done are things which involve
\
a starting-point, viz. 'since the end, i.e. what is best, is of such
\
and such a nature', whatever it may be (let it for the sake of
\
argument be what we please); and this is not evident except to the
\
good man; for wickedness perverts us and causes us to be deceived
\
about the starting-points of action. Therefore it is evident that it
\
is impossible to be practically wise without being good.
\

\
                                13
\

\
  We must therefore consider virtue also once more; for virtue too
\
is similarly related; as practical wisdom is to cleverness-not the
\
same, but like it-so is natural virtue to virtue in the strict
\
sense. For all men think that each type of character belongs to its
\
possessors in some sense by nature; for from the very moment of
\
birth we are just or fitted for selfcontrol or brave or have the other
\
moral qualities; but yet we seek something else as that which is
\
good in the strict sense-we seek for the presence of such qualities in
\
another way. For both children and brutes have the natural
\
dispositions to these qualities, but without reason these are
\
evidently hurtful. Only we seem to see this much, that, while one
\
may be led astray by them, as a strong body which moves without
\
sight may stumble badly because of its lack of sight, still, if a
\
man once acquires reason, that makes a difference in action; and his
\
state, while still like what it was, will then be virtue in the strict
\
sense. Therefore, as in the part of us which forms opinions there
\
are two types, cleverness and practical wisdom, so too in the moral
\
part there are two types, natural virtue and virtue in the strict
\
sense, and of these the latter involves practical wisdom. This is
\
why some say that all the virtues are forms of practical wisdom, and
\
why Socrates in one respect was on the right track while in another he
\
went astray; in thinking that all the virtues were forms of
\
practical wisdom he was wrong, but in saying they implied practical
\
wisdom he was right. This is confirmed by the fact that even now all
\
men, when they define virtue, after naming the state of character
\
and its objects add 'that (state) which is in accordance with the
\
right rule'; now the right rule is that which is in accordance with
\
practical wisdom. All men, then, seem somehow to divine that this kind
\
of state is virtue, viz. that which is in accordance with practical
\
wisdom. But we must go a little further. For it is not merely the
\
state in accordance with the right rule, but the state that implies
\
the presence of the right rule, that is virtue; and practical wisdom
\
is a right rule about such matters. Socrates, then, thought the
\
virtues were rules or rational principles (for he thought they were,
\
all of them, forms of scientific knowledge), while we think they
\
involve a rational principle.
\

\
  It is clear, then, from what has been said, that it is not
\
possible to be good in the strict sense without practical wisdom,
\
nor practically wise without moral virtue. But in this way we may also
\
refute the dialectical argument whereby it might be contended that the
\
virtues exist in separation from each other; the same man, it might be
\
said, is not best equipped by nature for all the virtues, so that he
\
will have already acquired one when he has not yet acquired another.
\
This is possible in respect of the natural virtues, but not in respect
\
of those in respect of which a man is called without qualification
\
good; for with the presence of the one quality, practical wisdom, will
\
be given all the virtues. And it is plain that, even if it were of
\
no practical value, we should have needed it because it is the
\
virtue of the part of us in question; plain too that the choice will
\
not be right without practical wisdom any more than without virtue;
\
for the one deter, mines the end and the other makes us do the
\
things that lead to the end.
\

\
  But again it is not supreme over philosophic wisdom, i.e. over the
\
superior part of us, any more than the art of medicine is over health;
\
for it does not use it but provides for its coming into being; it
\
issues orders, then, for its sake, but not to it. Further, to maintain
\
its supremacy would be like saying that the art of politics rules
\
the gods because it issues orders about all the affairs of the state.
\

\
                              BOOK VII
\

\
                                 1
\

\
  LET us now make a fresh beginning and point out that of moral states
\
to be avoided there are three kinds-vice, incontinence, brutishness.
\
The contraries of two of these are evident,-one we call virtue, the
\
other continence; to brutishness it would be most fitting to oppose
\
superhuman virtue, a heroic and divine kind of virtue, as Homer has
\
represented Priam saying of Hector that he was very good,
\

\
              For he seemed not, he,
\

\
     The child of a mortal man, but as one that of God's seed came.
\

\
  Therefore if, as they say, men become gods by excess of virtue, of
\
this kind must evidently be the state opposed to the brutish state;
\
for as a brute has no vice or virtue, so neither has a god; his
\
state is higher than virtue, and that of a brute is a different kind
\
of state from vice.
\

\
  Now, since it is rarely that a godlike man is found-to use the
\
epithet of the Spartans, who when they admire any one highly call
\
him a 'godlike man'-so too the brutish type is rarely found among men;
\
it is found chiefly among barbarians, but some brutish qualities are
\
also produced by disease or deformity; and we also call by this evil
\
name those men who go beyond all ordinary standards by reason of vice.
\
Of this kind of disposition, however, we must later make some mention,
\
while we have discussed vice before we must now discuss incontinence
\
and softness (or effeminacy), and continence and endurance; for we
\
must treat each of the two neither as identical with virtue or
\
wickedness, nor as a different genus. We must, as in all other
\
cases, set the observed facts before us and, after first discussing
\
the difficulties, go on to prove, if possible, the truth of all the
\
common opinions about these affections of the mind, or, failing
\
this, of the greater number and the most authoritative; for if we both
\
refute the objections and leave the common opinions undisturbed, we
\
shall have proved the case sufficiently.
\

\
  Now (1) both continence and endurance are thought to be included
\
among things good and praiseworthy, and both incontinence and soft,
\
ness among things bad and blameworthy; and the same man is thought
\
to be continent and ready to abide by the result of his
\
calculations, or incontinent and ready to abandon them. And (2) the
\
incontinent man, knowing that what he does is bad, does it as a result
\
of passion, while the continent man, knowing that his appetites are
\
bad, refuses on account of his rational principle to follow them (3)
\
The temperate man all men call continent and disposed to endurance,
\
while the continent man some maintain to be always temperate but
\
others do not; and some call the self-indulgent man incontinent and
\
the incontinent man selfindulgent indiscriminately, while others
\
distinguish them. (4) The man of practical wisdom, they sometimes say,
\
cannot be incontinent, while sometimes they say that some who are
\
practically wise and clever are incontinent. Again (5) men are said to
\
be incontinent even with respect to anger, honour, and gain.-These,
\
then, are the things that are said.
\

\
                                 2
\

\
  Now we may ask (1) how a man who judges rightly can behave
\
incontinently. That he should behave so when he has knowledge, some
\
say is impossible; for it would be strange-so Socrates thought-if when
\
knowledge was in a man something else could master it and drag it
\
about like a slave. For Socrates was entirely opposed to the view in
\
question, holding that there is no such thing as incontinence; no one,
\
he said, when he judges acts against what he judges best-people act so
\
only by reason of ignorance. Now this view plainly contradicts the
\
observed facts, and we must inquire about what happens to such a
\
man; if he acts by reason of ignorance, what is the manner of his
\
ignorance? For that the man who behaves incontinently does not, before
\
he gets into this state, think he ought to act so, is evident. But
\
there are some who concede certain of Socrates' contentions but not
\
others; that nothing is stronger than knowledge they admit, but not
\
that on one acts contrary to what has seemed to him the better course,
\
and therefore they say that the incontinent man has not knowledge when
\
he is mastered by his pleasures, but opinion. But if it is opinion and
\
not knowledge, if it is not a strong conviction that resists but a
\
weak one, as in men who hesitate, we sympathize with their failure
\
to stand by such convictions against strong appetites; but we do not
\
sympathize with wickedness, nor with any of the other blameworthy
\
states. Is it then practical wisdom whose resistance is mastered? That
\
is the strongest of all states. But this is absurd; the same man
\
will be at once practically wise and incontinent, but no one would say
\
that it is the part of a practically wise man to do willingly the
\
basest acts. Besides, it has been shown before that the man of
\
practical wisdom is one who will act (for he is a man concerned with
\
the individual facts) and who has the other virtues.
\

\
  (2) Further, if continence involves having strong and bad appetites,
\
the temperate man will not be continent nor the continent man
\
temperate; for a temperate man will have neither excessive nor bad
\
appetites. But the continent man must; for if the appetites are
\
good, the state of character that restrains us from following them
\
is bad, so that not all continence will be good; while if they are
\
weak and not bad, there is nothing admirable in resisting them, and if
\
they are weak and bad, there is nothing great in resisting these
\
either.
\

\
  (3) Further, if continence makes a man ready to stand by any and
\
every opinion, it is bad, i.e. if it makes him stand even by a false
\
opinion; and if incontinence makes a man apt to abandon any and
\
every opinion, there will be a good incontinence, of which
\
Sophocles' Neoptolemus in the Philoctetes will be an instance; for
\
he is to be praised for not standing by what Odysseus persuaded him to
\
do, because he is pained at telling a lie.
\

\
  (4) Further, the sophistic argument presents a difficulty; the
\
syllogism arising from men's wish to expose paradoxical results
\
arising from an opponent's view, in order that they may be admired
\
when they succeed, is one that puts us in a difficulty (for thought is
\
bound fast when it will not rest because the conclusion does not
\
satisfy it, and cannot advance because it cannot refute the argument).
\
There is an argument from which it follows that folly coupled with
\
incontinence is virtue; for a man does the opposite of what he judges,
\
owing to incontinence, but judges what is good to be evil and
\
something that he should not do, and consequence he will do what is
\
good and not what is evil.
\

\
  (5) Further, he who on conviction does and pursues and chooses
\
what is pleasant would be thought to be better than one who does so as
\
a result not of calculation but of incontinence; for he is easier to
\
cure since he may be persuaded to change his mind. But to the
\
incontinent man may be applied the proverb 'when water chokes, what is
\
one to wash it down with?' If he had been persuaded of the rightness
\
of what he does, he would have desisted when he was persuaded to
\
change his mind; but now he acts in spite of his being persuaded of
\
something quite different.
\

\
  (6) Further, if incontinence and continence are concerned with any
\
and every kind of object, who is it that is incontinent in the
\
unqualified sense? No one has all the forms of incontinence, but we
\
say some people are incontinent without qualification.
\

\
                                 3
\

\
  Of some such kind are the difficulties that arise; some of these
\
points must be refuted and the others left in possession of the field;
\
for the solution of the difficulty is the discovery of the truth.
\
(1) We must consider first, then, whether incontinent people act
\
knowingly or not, and in what sense knowingly; then (2) with what
\
sorts of object the incontinent and the continent man may be said to
\
be concerned (i.e. whether with any and every pleasure and pain or
\
with certain determinate kinds), and whether the continent man and the
\
man of endurance are the same or different; and similarly with
\
regard to the other matters germane to this inquiry. The
\
starting-point of our investigation is (a) the question whether the
\
continent man and the incontinent are differentiated by their
\
objects or by their attitude, i.e. whether the incontinent man is
\
incontinent simply by being concerned with such and such objects,
\
or, instead, by his attitude, or, instead of that, by both these
\
things; (b) the second question is whether incontinence and continence
\
are concerned with any and every object or not. The man who is
\
incontinent in the unqualified sense is neither concerned with any and
\
every object, but with precisely those with which the self-indulgent
\
man is concerned, nor is he characterized by being simply related to
\
these (for then his state would be the same as self-indulgence), but
\
by being related to them in a certain way. For the one is led on in
\
accordance with his own choice, thinking that he ought always to
\
pursue the present pleasure; while the other does not think so, but
\
yet pursues it.
\

\
  (1) As for the suggestion that it is true opinion and not
\
knowledge against which we act incontinently, that makes no difference
\
to the argument; for some people when in a state of opinion do not
\
hesitate, but think they know exactly. If, then, the notion is that
\
owing to their weak conviction those who have opinion are more
\
likely to act against their judgement than those who know, we answer
\
that there need be no difference between knowledge and opinion in this
\
respect; for some men are no less convinced of what they think than
\
others of what they know; as is shown by the of Heraclitus. But (a),
\
since we use the word 'know' in two senses (for both the man who has
\
knowledge but is not using it and he who is using it are said to
\
know), it will make a difference whether, when a man does what he
\
should not, he has the knowledge but is not exercising it, or is
\
exercising it; for the latter seems strange, but not the former.
\

\
  (b) Further, since there are two kinds of premisses, there is
\
nothing to prevent a man's having both premisses and acting against
\
his knowledge, provided that he is using only the universal premiss
\
and not the particular; for it is particular acts that have to be
\
done. And there are also two kinds of universal term; one is
\
predicable of the agent, the other of the object; e.g. 'dry food is
\
good for every man', and 'I am a man', or 'such and such food is dry';
\
but whether 'this food is such and such', of this the incontinent
\
man either has not or is not exercising the knowledge. There will,
\
then, be, firstly, an enormous difference between these manners of
\
knowing, so that to know in one way when we act incontinently would
\
not seem anything strange, while to know in the other way would be
\
extraordinary.
\

\
  And further (c) the possession of knowledge in another sense than
\
those just named is something that happens to men; for within the case
\
of having knowledge but not using it we see a difference of state,
\
admitting of the possibility of having knowledge in a sense and yet
\
not having it, as in the instance of a man asleep, mad, or drunk.
\
But now this is just the condition of men under the influence of
\
passions; for outbursts of anger and sexual appetites and some other
\
such passions, it is evident, actually alter our bodily condition, and
\
in some men even produce fits of madness. It is plain, then, that
\
incontinent people must be said to be in a similar condition to men
\
asleep, mad, or drunk. The fact that men use the language that flows
\
from knowledge proves nothing; for even men under the influence of
\
these passions utter scientific proofs and verses of Empedocles, and
\
those who have just begun to learn a science can string together its
\
phrases, but do not yet know it; for it has to become part of
\
themselves, and that takes time; so that we must suppose that the
\
use of language by men in an incontinent state means no more than
\
its utterance by actors on the stage. (d) Again, we may also view
\
the cause as follows with reference to the facts of human nature.
\
The one opinion is universal, the other is concerned with the
\
particular facts, and here we come to something within the sphere of
\
perception; when a single opinion results from the two, the soul
\
must in one type of case affirm the conclusion, while in the case of
\
opinions concerned with production it must immediately act (e.g. if
\
'everything sweet ought to be tasted', and 'this is sweet', in the
\
sense of being one of the particular sweet things, the man who can act
\
and is not prevented must at the same time actually act
\
accordingly). When, then, the universal opinion is present in us
\
forbidding us to taste, and there is also the opinion that 'everything
\
sweet is pleasant', and that 'this is sweet' (now this is the
\
opinion that is active), and when appetite happens to be present in
\
us, the one opinion bids us avoid the object, but appetite leads us
\
towards it (for it can move each of our bodily parts); so that it
\
turns out that a man behaves incontinently under the influence (in a
\
sense) of a rule and an opinion, and of one not contrary in itself,
\
but only incidentally-for the appetite is contrary, not the opinion-to
\
the right rule. It also follows that this is the reason why the
\
lower animals are not incontinent, viz. because they have no universal
\
judgement but only imagination and memory of particulars.
\

\
  The explanation of how the ignorance is dissolved and the
\
incontinent man regains his knowledge, is the same as in the case of
\
the man drunk or asleep and is not peculiar to this condition; we must
\
go to the students of natural science for it. Now, the last premiss
\
both being an opinion about a perceptible object, and being what
\
determines our actions this a man either has not when he is in the
\
state of passion, or has it in the sense in which having knowledge did
\
not mean knowing but only talking, as a drunken man may utter the
\
verses of Empedocles. And because the last term is not universal nor
\
equally an object of scientific knowledge with the universal term, the
\
position that Socrates sought to establish actually seems to result;
\
for it is not in the presence of what is thought to be knowledge
\
proper that the affection of incontinence arises (nor is it this
\
that is 'dragged about' as a result of the state of passion), but in
\
that of perceptual knowledge.
\

\
  This must suffice as our answer to the question of action with and
\
without knowledge, and how it is possible to behave incontinently with
\
knowledge.
\

\
                                 4
\

\
  (2) We must next discuss whether there is any one who is incontinent
\
without qualification, or all men who are incontinent are so in a
\
particular sense, and if there is, with what sort of objects he is
\
concerned. That both continent persons and persons of endurance, and
\
incontinent and soft persons, are concerned with pleasures and
\
pains, is evident.
\

\
  Now of the things that produce pleasure some are necessary, while
\
others are worthy of choice in themselves but admit of excess, the
\
bodily causes of pleasure being necessary (by such I mean both those
\
concerned with food and those concerned with sexual intercourse,
\
i.e. the bodily matters with which we defined self-indulgence and
\
temperance as being concerned), while the others are not necessary but
\
worthy of choice in themselves (e.g. victory, honour, wealth, and good
\
and pleasant things of this sort). This being so, (a) those who go
\
to excess with reference to the latter, contrary to the right rule
\
which is in themselves, are not called incontinent simply, but
\
incontinent with the qualification 'in respect of money, gain, honour,
\
or anger',-not simply incontinent, on the ground that they are
\
different from incontinent people and are called incontinent by reason
\
of a resemblance. (Compare the case of Anthropos (Man), who won a
\
contest at the Olympic games; in his case the general definition of
\
man differed little from the definition peculiar to him, but yet it
\
was different.) This is shown by the fact that incontinence either
\
without qualification or in respect of some particular bodily pleasure
\
is blamed not only as a fault but as a kind of vice, while none of the
\
people who are incontinent in these other respects is so blamed.
\

\
  But (b) of the people who are incontinent with respect to bodily
\
enjoyments, with which we say the temperate and the self-indulgent man
\
are concerned, he who pursues the excesses of things pleasant-and
\
shuns those of things painful, of hunger and thirst and heat and
\
cold and all the objects of touch and taste-not by choice but contrary
\
to his choice and his judgement, is called incontinent, not with the
\
qualification 'in respect of this or that', e.g. of anger, but just
\
simply. This is confirmed by the fact that men are called 'soft'
\
with regard to these pleasures, but not with regard to any of the
\
others. And for this reason we group together the incontinent and
\
the self-indulgent, the continent and the temperate man-but not any of
\
these other types-because they are concerned somehow with the same
\
pleasures and pains; but though these are concerned with the same
\
objects, they are not similarly related to them, but some of them make
\
a deliberate choice while the others do not.
\

\
  This is why we should describe as self-indulgent rather the man
\
who without appetite or with but a slight appetite pursues the
\
excesses of pleasure and avoids moderate pains, than the man who
\
does so because of his strong appetites; for what would the former do,
\
if he had in addition a vigorous appetite, and a violent pain at the
\
lack of the 'necessary' objects?
\

\
  Now of appetites and pleasures some belong to the class of things
\
generically noble and good-for some pleasant things are by nature
\
worthy of choice, while others are contrary to these, and others are
\
intermediate, to adopt our previous distinction-e.g. wealth, gain,
\
victory, honour. And with reference to all objects whether of this
\
or of the intermediate kind men are not blamed for being affected by
\
them, for desiring and loving them, but for doing so in a certain way,
\
i.e. for going to excess. (This is why all those who contrary to the
\
rule either are mastered by or pursue one of the objects which are
\
naturally noble and good, e.g. those who busy themselves more than
\
they ought about honour or about children and parents, (are not
\
wicked); for these too are good, and those who busy themselves about
\
them are praised; but yet there is an excess even in them-if like
\
Niobe one were to fight even against the gods, or were to be as much
\
devoted to one's father as Satyrus nicknamed 'the filial', who was
\
thought to be very silly on this point.) There is no wickedness, then,
\
with regard to these objects, for the reason named, viz. because
\
each of them is by nature a thing worthy of choice for its own sake;
\
yet excesses in respect of them are bad and to be avoided. Similarly
\
there is no incontinence with regard to them; for incontinence is
\
not only to be avoided but is also a thing worthy of blame; but
\
owing to a similarity in the state of feeling people apply the name
\
incontinence, adding in each case what it is in respect of, as we
\
may describe as a bad doctor or a bad actor one whom we should not
\
call bad, simply. As, then, in this case we do not apply the term
\
without qualification because each of these conditions is no
\
shadness but only analogous to it, so it is clear that in the other
\
case also that alone must be taken to be incontinence and continence
\
which is concerned with the same objects as temperance and
\
self-indulgence, but we apply the term to anger by virtue of a
\
resemblance; and this is why we say with a qualification
\
'incontinent in respect of anger' as we say 'incontinent in respect of
\
honour, or of gain'.
\

\
                                 5
\

\
  (1) Some things are pleasant by nature, and of these (a) some are so
\
without qualification, and (b) others are so with reference to
\
particular classes either of animals or of men; while (2) others are
\
not pleasant by nature, but (a) some of them become so by reason of
\
injuries to the system, and (b) others by reason of acquired habits,
\
and (c) others by reason of originally bad natures. This being so,
\
it is possible with regard to each of the latter kinds to discover
\
similar states of character to those recognized with regard to the
\
former; I mean (A) the brutish states, as in the case of the female
\
who, they say, rips open pregnant women and devours the infants, or of
\
the things in which some of the tribes about the Black Sea that have
\
gone savage are said to delight-in raw meat or in human flesh, or in
\
lending their children to one another to feast upon-or of the story
\
told of Phalaris.
\

\
  These states are brutish, but (B) others arise as a result of
\
disease (or, in some cases, of madness, as with the man who sacrificed
\
and ate his mother, or with the slave who ate the liver of his
\
fellow), and others are morbid states (C) resulting from custom,
\
e.g. the habit of plucking out the hair or of gnawing the nails, or
\
even coals or earth, and in addition to these paederasty; for these
\
arise in some by nature and in others, as in those who have been the
\
victims of lust from childhood, from habit.
\

\
  Now those in whom nature is the cause of such a state no one would
\
call incontinent, any more than one would apply the epithet to women
\
because of the passive part they play in copulation; nor would one
\
apply it to those who are in a morbid condition as a result of
\
habit. To have these various types of habit is beyond the limits of
\
vice, as brutishness is too; for a man who has them to master or be
\
mastered by them is not simple (continence or) incontinence but that
\
which is so by analogy, as the man who is in this condition in respect
\
of fits of anger is to be called incontinent in respect of that
\
feeling but not incontinent simply. For every excessive state
\
whether of folly, of cowardice, of self-indulgence, or of bad
\
temper, is either brutish or morbid; the man who is by nature apt to
\
fear everything, even the squeak of a mouse, is cowardly with a
\
brutish cowardice, while the man who feared a weasel did so in
\
consequence of disease; and of foolish people those who by nature
\
are thoughtless and live by their senses alone are brutish, like
\
some races of the distant barbarians, while those who are so as a
\
result of disease (e.g. of epilepsy) or of madness are morbid. Of
\
these characteristics it is possible to have some only at times, and
\
not to be mastered by them. e.g. Phalaris may have restrained a desire
\
to eat the flesh of a child or an appetite for unnatural sexual
\
pleasure; but it is also possible to be mastered, not merely to have
\
the feelings. Thus, as the wickedness which is on the human level is
\
called wickedness simply, while that which is not is called wickedness
\
not simply but with the qualification 'brutish' or 'morbid', in the
\
same way it is plain that some incontinence is brutish and some
\
morbid, while only that which corresponds to human self-indulgence
\
is incontinence simply.
\

\
  That incontinence and continence, then, are concerned only with
\
the same objects as selfindulgence and temperance and that what is
\
concerned with other objects is a type distinct from incontinence, and
\
called incontinence by a metaphor and not simply, is plain.
\

\
                                 6
\

\
  That incontinence in respect of anger is less disgraceful than
\
that in respect of the appetites is what we will now proceed to see.
\
(1) Anger seems to listen to argument to some extent, but to mishear
\
it, as do hasty servants who run out before they have heard the
\
whole of what one says, and then muddle the order, or as dogs bark
\
if there is but a knock at the door, before looking to see if it is
\
a friend; so anger by reason of the warmth and hastiness of its
\
nature, though it hears, does not hear an order, and springs to take
\
revenge. For argument or imagination informs us that we have been
\
insulted or slighted, and anger, reasoning as it were that anything
\
like this must be fought against, boils up straightway; while
\
appetite, if argument or perception merely says that an object is
\
pleasant, springs to the enjoyment of it. Therefore anger obeys the
\
argument in a sense, but appetite does not. It is therefore more
\
disgraceful; for the man who is incontinent in respect of anger is
\
in a sense conquered by argument, while the other is conquered by
\
appetite and not by argument.
\

\
  (2) Further, we pardon people more easily for following natural
\
desires, since we pardon them more easily for following such appetites
\
as are common to all men, and in so far as they are common; now
\
anger and bad temper are more natural than the appetites for excess,
\
i.e. for unnecessary objects. Take for instance the man who defended
\
himself on the charge of striking his father by saying 'yes, but he
\
struck his father, and he struck his, and' (pointing to his child)
\
'this boy will strike me when he is a man; it runs in the family';
\
or the man who when he was being dragged along by his son bade him
\
stop at the doorway, since he himself had dragged his father only as
\
far as that.
\

\
  (2) Further, those who are more given to plotting against others are
\
more criminal. Now a passionate man is not given to plotting, nor is
\
anger itself-it is open; but the nature of appetite is illustrated
\
by what the poets call Aphrodite, 'guile-weaving daughter of
\
Cyprus', and by Homer's words about her 'embroidered girdle':
\

\
         And the whisper of wooing is there,
\

\
     Whose subtlety stealeth the wits of the wise, how prudent soe'er.
\

\
Therefore if this form of incontinence is more criminal and
\
disgraceful than that in respect of anger, it is both incontinence
\
without qualification and in a sense vice.
\

\
  (4) Further, no one commits wanton outrage with a feeling of pain,
\
but every one who acts in anger acts with pain, while the man who
\
commits outrage acts with pleasure. If, then, those acts at which it
\
is most just to be angry are more criminal than others, the
\
incontinence which is due to appetite is the more criminal; for
\
there is no wanton outrage involved in anger.
\

\
  Plainly, then, the incontinence concerned with appetite is more
\
disgraceful than that concerned with anger, and continence and
\
incontinence are concerned with bodily appetites and pleasures; but we
\
must grasp the differences among the latter themselves. For, as has
\
been said at the beginning, some are human and natural both in kind
\
and in magnitude, others are brutish, and others are due to organic
\
injuries and diseases. Only with the first of these are temperance and
\
self-indulgence concerned; this is why we call the lower animals
\
neither temperate nor self-indulgent except by a metaphor, and only if
\
some one race of animals exceeds another as a whole in wantonness,
\
destructiveness, and omnivorous greed; these have no power of choice
\
or calculation, but they are departures from the natural norm, as,
\
among men, madmen are. Now brutishness is a less evil than vice,
\
though more alarming; for it is not that the better part has been
\
perverted, as in man,-they have no better part. Thus it is like
\
comparing a lifeless thing with a living in respect of badness; for
\
the badness of that which has no originative source of movement is
\
always less hurtful, and reason is an originative source. Thus it is
\
like comparing injustice in the abstract with an unjust man. Each is
\
in some sense worse; for a bad man will do ten thousand times as
\
much evil as a brute.
\

\
                                 7
\

\
  With regard to the pleasures and pains and appetites and aversions
\
arising through touch and taste, to which both self-indulgence and
\
temperance were formerly narrowed down, it possible to be in such a
\
state as to be defeated even by those of them which most people
\
master, or to master even those by which most people are defeated;
\
among these possibilities, those relating to pleasures are
\
incontinence and continence, those relating to pains softness and
\
endurance. The state of most people is intermediate, even if they lean
\
more towards the worse states.
\

\
  Now, since some pleasures are necessary while others are not, and
\
are necessary up to a point while the excesses of them are not, nor
\
the deficiencies, and this is equally true of appetites and pains, the
\
man who pursues the excesses of things pleasant, or pursues to
\
excess necessary objects, and does so by choice, for their own sake
\
and not at all for the sake of any result distinct from them, is
\
self-indulgent; for such a man is of necessity unlikely to repent, and
\
therefore incurable, since a man who cannot repent cannot be cured.
\
The man who is deficient in his pursuit of them is the opposite of
\
self-indulgent; the man who is intermediate is temperate. Similarly,
\
there is the man who avoids bodily pains not because he is defeated by
\
them but by choice. (Of those who do not choose such acts, one kind of
\
man is led to them as a result of the pleasure involved, another
\
because he avoids the pain arising from the appetite, so that these
\
types differ from one another. Now any one would think worse of a
\
man with no appetite or with weak appetite were he to do something
\
disgraceful, than if he did it under the influence of powerful
\
appetite, and worse of him if he struck a blow not in anger than if he
\
did it in anger; for what would he have done if he had been strongly
\
affected? This is why the self-indulgent man is worse than the
\
incontinent.) of the states named, then, the latter is rather a kind
\
of softness; the former is self-indulgence. While to the incontinent
\
man is opposed the continent, to the soft is opposed the man of
\
endurance; for endurance consists in resisting, while continence
\
consists in conquering, and resisting and conquering are different, as
\
not being beaten is different from winning; this is why continence
\
is also more worthy of choice than endurance. Now the man who is
\
defective in respect of resistance to the things which most men both
\
resist and resist successfully is soft and effeminate; for
\
effeminacy too is a kind of softness; such a man trails his cloak to
\
avoid the pain of lifting it, and plays the invalid without thinking
\
himself wretched, though the man he imitates is a wretched man.
\

\
  The case is similar with regard to continence and incontinence.
\
For if a man is defeated by violent and excessive pleasures or
\
pains, there is nothing wonderful in that; indeed we are ready to
\
pardon him if he has resisted, as Theodectes' Philoctetes does when
\
bitten by the snake, or Carcinus' Cercyon in the Alope, and as
\
people who try to restrain their laughter burst out into a guffaw,
\
as happened to Xenophantus. But it is surprising if a man is
\
defeated by and cannot resist pleasures or pains which most men can
\
hold out against, when this is not due to heredity or disease, like
\
the softness that is hereditary with the kings of the Scythians, or
\
that which distinguishes the female sex from the male.
\

\
  The lover of amusement, too, is thought to be self-indulgent, but is
\
really soft. For amusement is a relaxation, since it is a rest from
\
work; and the lover of amusement is one of the people who go to excess
\
in this.
\

\
  Of incontinence one kind is impetuosity, another weakness. For
\
some men after deliberating fail, owing to their emotion, to stand
\
by the conclusions of their deliberation, others because they have not
\
deliberated are led by their emotion; since some men (just as people
\
who first tickle others are not tickled themselves), if they have
\
first perceived and seen what is coming and have first roused
\
themselves and their calculative faculty, are not defeated by their
\
emotion, whether it be pleasant or painful. It is keen and excitable
\
people that suffer especially from the impetuous form of incontinence;
\
for the former by reason of their quickness and the latter by reason
\
of the violence of their passions do not await the argument, because
\
they are apt to follow their imagination.
\

\
                                 8
\

\
  The self-indulgent man, as was said, is not apt to repent; for he
\
stands by his choice; but incontinent man is likely to repent. This is
\
why the position is not as it was expressed in the formulation of
\
the problem, but the selfindulgent man is incurable and the
\
incontinent man curable; for wickedness is like a disease such as
\
dropsy or consumption, while incontinence is like epilepsy; the former
\
is a permanent, the latter an intermittent badness. And generally
\
incontinence and vice are different in kind; vice is unconscious of
\
itself, incontinence is not (of incontinent men themselves, those
\
who become temporarily beside themselves are better than those who
\
have the rational principle but do not abide by it, since the latter
\
are defeated by a weaker passion, and do not act without previous
\
deliberation like the others); for the incontinent man is like the
\
people who get drunk quickly and on little wine, i.e. on less than
\
most people.
\

\
  Evidently, then, incontinence is not vice (though perhaps it is so
\
in a qualified sense); for incontinence is contrary to choice while
\
vice is in accordance with choice; not but what they are similar in
\
respect of the actions they lead to; as in the saying of Demodocus
\
about the Milesians, 'the Milesians are not without sense, but they do
\
the things that senseless people do', so too incontinent people are
\
not criminal, but they will do criminal acts.
\

\
  Now, since the incontinent man is apt to pursue, not on
\
conviction, bodily pleasures that are excessive and contrary to the
\
right rule, while the self-indulgent man is convinced because he is
\
the sort of man to pursue them, it is on the contrary the former
\
that is easily persuaded to change his mind, while the latter is
\
not. For virtue and vice respectively preserve and destroy the first
\
principle, and in actions the final cause is the first principle, as
\
the hypotheses are in mathematics; neither in that case is it argument
\
that teaches the first principles, nor is it so here-virtue either
\
natural or produced by habituation is what teaches right opinion about
\
the first principle. Such a man as this, then, is temperate; his
\
contrary is the self-indulgent.
\

\
  But there is a sort of man who is carried away as a result of
\
passion and contrary to the right rule-a man whom passion masters so
\
that he does not act according to the right rule, but does not
\
master to the extent of making him ready to believe that he ought to
\
pursue such pleasures without reserve; this is the incontinent man,
\
who is better than the self-indulgent man, and not bad without
\
qualification; for the best thing in him, the first principle, is
\
preserved. And contrary to him is another kind of man, he who abides
\
by his convictions and is not carried away, at least as a result of
\
passion. It is evident from these considerations that the latter is
\
a good state and the former a bad one.
\

\
                                 9
\

\
  Is the man continent who abides by any and every rule and any and
\
every choice, or the man who abides by the right choice, and is he
\
incontinent who abandons any and every choice and any and every
\
rule, or he who abandons the rule that is not false and the choice
\
that is right; this is how we put it before in our statement of the
\
problem. Or is it incidentally any and every choice but per se the
\
true rule and the right choice by which the one abides and the other
\
does not? If any one chooses or pursues this for the sake of that, per
\
se he pursues and chooses the latter, but incidentally the former. But
\
when we speak without qualification we mean what is per se.
\
Therefore in a sense the one abides by, and the other abandons, any
\
and every opinion; but without qualification, the true opinion.
\

\
  There are some who are apt to abide by their opinion, who are called
\
strong-headed, viz. those who are hard to persuade in the first
\
instance and are not easily persuaded to change; these have in them
\
something like the continent man, as the prodigal is in a way like the
\
liberal man and the rash man like the confident man; but they are
\
different in many respects. For it is to passion and appetite that the
\
one will not yield, since on occasion the continent man will be easy
\
to persuade; but it is to argument that the others refuse to yield,
\
for they do form appetites and many of them are led by their
\
pleasures. Now the people who are strong-headed are the opinionated,
\
the ignorant, and the boorish-the opinionated being influenced by
\
pleasure and pain; for they delight in the victory they gain if they
\
are not persuaded to change, and are pained if their decisions
\
become null and void as decrees sometimes do; so that they are liker
\
the incontinent than the continent man.
\

\
  But there are some who fail to abide by their resolutions, not as
\
a result of incontinence, e.g. Neoptolemus in Sophocles'
\
Philoctetes; yet it was for the sake of pleasure that he did not stand
\
fast-but a noble pleasure; for telling the truth was noble to him, but
\
he had been persuaded by Odysseus to tell the lie. For not every one
\
who does anything for the sake of pleasure is either self-indulgent or
\
bad or incontinent, but he who does it for a disgraceful pleasure.
\

\
  Since there is also a sort of man who takes less delight than he
\
should in bodily things, and does not abide by the rule, he who is
\
intermediate between him and the incontinent man is the continent man;
\
for the incontinent man fails to abide by the rule because he delights
\
too much in them, and this man because he delights in them too little;
\
while the continent man abides by the rule and does not change on
\
either account. Now if continence is good, both the contrary states
\
must be bad, as they actually appear to be; but because the other
\
extreme is seen in few people and seldom, as temperance is thought
\
to be contrary only to self-indulgence, so is continence to
\
incontinence.
\

\
  Since many names are applied analogically, it is by analogy that
\
we have come to speak of the 'continence' the temperate man; for
\
both the continent man and the temperate man are such as to do nothing
\
contrary to the rule for the sake of the bodily pleasures, but the
\
former has and the latter has not bad appetites, and the latter is
\
such as not to feel pleasure contrary to the rule, while the former is
\
such as to feel pleasure but not to be led by it. And the incontinent
\
and the self-indulgent man are also like another; they are different,
\
but both pursue bodily pleasures- the latter, however, also thinking
\
that he ought to do so, while the former does not think this.
\

\
                                10
\

\
  Nor can the same man have practical wisdom and be incontinent; for
\
it has been shown' that a man is at the same time practically wise,
\
and good in respect of character. Further, a man has practical
\
wisdom not by knowing only but by being able to act; but the
\
incontinent man is unable to act-there is, however, nothing to prevent
\
a clever man from being incontinent; this is why it is sometimes
\
actually thought that some people have practical wisdom but are
\
incontinent, viz. because cleverness and practical wisdom differ in
\
the way we have described in our first discussions, and are near
\
together in respect of their reasoning, but differ in respect of their
\
purpose-nor yet is the incontinent man like the man who knows and is
\
contemplating a truth, but like the man who is asleep or drunk. And he
\
acts willingly (for he acts in a sense with knowledge both of what
\
he does and of the end to which he does it), but is not wicked,
\
since his purpose is good; so that he is half-wicked. And he is not
\
a criminal; for he does not act of malice aforethought; of the two
\
types of incontinent man the one does not abide by the conclusions
\
of his deliberation, while the excitable man does not deliberate at
\
all. And thus the incontinent man like a city which passes all the
\
right decrees and has good laws, but makes no use of them, as in
\
Anaxandrides' jesting remark,
\

\
     The city willed it, that cares nought for laws;
\

\
but the wicked man is like a city that uses its laws, but has wicked
\
laws to use.
\

\
  Now incontinence and continence are concerned with that which is
\
in excess of the state characteristic of most men; for the continent
\
man abides by his resolutions more and the incontinent man less than
\
most men can.
\

\
  Of the forms of incontinence, that of excitable people is more
\
curable than that of those who deliberate but do not abide by their
\
decisions, and those who are incontinent through habituation are
\
more curable than those in whom incontinence is innate; for it is
\
easier to change a habit than to change one's nature; even habit is
\
hard to change just because it is like nature, as Evenus says:
\

\
     I say that habit's but a long practice, friend,
\

\
     And this becomes men's nature in the end.
\

\
  We have now stated what continence, incontinence, endurance, and
\
softness are, and how these states are related to each other.
\

\
                                11
\

\
  The study of pleasure and pain belongs to the province of the
\
political philosopher; for he is the architect of the end, with a view
\
to which we call one thing bad and another good without qualification.
\
Further, it is one of our necessary tasks to consider them; for not
\
only did we lay it down that moral virtue and vice are concerned
\
with pains and pleasures, but most people say that happiness
\
involves pleasure; this is why the blessed man is called by a name
\
derived from a word meaning enjoyment.
\

\
  Now (1) some people think that no pleasure is a good, either in
\
itself or incidentally, since the good and pleasure are not the
\
same; (2) others think that some pleasures are good but that most
\
are bad. (3) Again there is a third view, that even if all pleasures
\
are good, yet the best thing in the world cannot be pleasure. (1)
\
The reasons given for the view that pleasure is not a good at all
\
are (a) that every pleasure is a perceptible process to a natural
\
state, and that no process is of the same kind as its end, e.g. no
\
process of building of the same kind as a house. (b) A temperate man
\
avoids pleasures. (c) A man of practical wisdom pursues what is free
\
from pain, not what is pleasant. (d) The pleasures are a hindrance
\
to thought, and the more so the more one delights in them, e.g. in
\
sexual pleasure; for no one could think of anything while absorbed
\
in this. (e) There is no art of pleasure; but every good is the
\
product of some art. (f) Children and the brutes pursue pleasures. (2)
\
The reasons for the view that not all pleasures are good are that
\
(a) there are pleasures that are actually base and objects of
\
reproach, and (b) there are harmful pleasures; for some pleasant
\
things are unhealthy. (3) The reason for the view that the best
\
thing in the world is not pleasure is that pleasure is not an end
\
but a process.
\

\
                                12
\

\
  These are pretty much the things that are said. That it does not
\
follow from these grounds that pleasure is not a good, or even the
\
chief good, is plain from the following considerations. (A) (a) First,
\
since that which is good may be so in either of two senses (one
\
thing good simply and another good for a particular person), natural
\
constitutions and states of being, and therefore also the
\
corresponding movements and processes, will be correspondingly
\
divisible. Of those which are thought to be bad some will be bad if
\
taken without qualification but not bad for a particular person, but
\
worthy of his choice, and some will not be worthy of choice even for a
\
particular person, but only at a particular time and for a short
\
period, though not without qualification; while others are not even
\
pleasures, but seem to be so, viz. all those which involve pain and
\
whose end is curative, e.g. the processes that go on in sick persons.
\

\
  (b) Further, one kind of good being activity and another being
\
state, the processes that restore us to our natural state are only
\
incidentally pleasant; for that matter the activity at work in the
\
appetites for them is the activity of so much of our state and
\
nature as has remained unimpaired; for there are actually pleasures
\
that involve no pain or appetite (e.g. those of contemplation), the
\
nature in such a case not being defective at all. That the others
\
are incidental is indicated by the fact that men do not enjoy the same
\
pleasant objects when their nature is in its settled state as they
\
do when it is being replenished, but in the former case they enjoy the
\
things that are pleasant without qualification, in the latter the
\
contraries of these as well; for then they enjoy even sharp and bitter
\
things, none of which is pleasant either by nature or without
\
qualification. The states they produce, therefore, are not pleasures
\
naturally or without qualification; for as pleasant things differ,
\
so do the pleasures arising from them.
\

\
  (c) Again, it is not necessary that there should be something else
\
better than pleasure, as some say the end is better than the
\
process; for leasures are not processes nor do they all involve
\
process-they are activities and ends; nor do they arise when we are
\
becoming something, but when we are exercising some faculty; and not
\
all pleasures have an end different from themselves, but only the
\
pleasures of persons who are being led to the perfecting of their
\
nature. This is why it is not right to say that pleasure is
\
perceptible process, but it should rather be called activity of the
\
natural state, and instead of 'perceptible' 'unimpeded'. It is thought
\
by some people to be process just because they think it is in the
\
strict sense good; for they think that activity is process, which it
\
is not.
\

\
  (B) The view that pleasures are bad because some pleasant things are
\
unhealthy is like saying that healthy things are bad because some
\
healthy things are bad for money-making; both are bad in the respect
\
mentioned, but they are not bad for that reason-indeed, thinking
\
itself is sometimes injurious to health.
\

\
  Neither practical wisdom nor any state of being is impeded by the
\
pleasure arising from it; it is foreign pleasures that impede, for the
\
pleasures arising from thinking and learning will make us think and
\
learn all the more.
\

\
  (C) The fact that no pleasure is the product of any art arises
\
naturally enough; there is no art of any other activity either, but
\
only of the corresponding faculty; though for that matter the arts
\
of the perfumer and the cook are thought to be arts of pleasure.
\

\
  (D) The arguments based on the grounds that the temperate man avoids
\
pleasure and that the man of practical wisdom pursues the painless
\
life, and that children and the brutes pursue pleasure, are all
\
refuted by the same consideration. We have pointed out in what sense
\
pleasures are good without qualification and in what sense some are
\
not good; now both the brutes and children pursue pleasures of the
\
latter kind (and the man of practical wisdom pursues tranquil
\
freedom from that kind), viz. those which imply appetite and pain,
\
i.e. the bodily pleasures (for it is these that are of this nature)
\
and the excesses of them, in respect of which the self-indulgent man
\
is self-indulent. This is why the temperate man avoids these
\
pleasures; for even he has pleasures of his own.
\

\
                                13
\

\
  But further (E) it is agreed that pain is bad and to be avoided; for
\
some pain is without qualification bad, and other pain is bad
\
because it is in some respect an impediment to us. Now the contrary of
\
that which is to be avoided, qua something to be avoided and bad, is
\
good. Pleasure, then, is necessarily a good. For the answer of
\
Speusippus, that pleasure is contrary both to pain and to good, as the
\
greater is contrary both to the less and to the equal, is not
\
successful; since he would not say that pleasure is essentially just a
\
species of evil.
\

\
  And (F) if certain pleasures are bad, that does not prevent the
\
chief good from being some pleasure, just as the chief good may be
\
some form of knowledge though certain kinds of knowledge are bad.
\
Perhaps it is even necessary, if each disposition has unimpeded
\
activities, that, whether the activity (if unimpeded) of all our
\
dispositions or that of some one of them is happiness, this should
\
be the thing most worthy of our choice; and this activity is pleasure.
\
Thus the chief good would be some pleasure, though most pleasures
\
might perhaps be bad without qualification. And for this reason all
\
men think that the happy life is pleasant and weave pleasure into
\
their ideal of happiness-and reasonably too; for no activity is
\
perfect when it is impeded, and happiness is a perfect thing; this
\
is why the happy man needs the goods of the body and external goods,
\
i.e. those of fortune, viz. in order that he may not be impeded in
\
these ways. Those who say that the victim on the rack or the man who
\
falls into great misfortunes is happy if he is good, are, whether they
\
mean to or not, talking nonsense. Now because we need fortune as
\
well as other things, some people think good fortune the same thing as
\
happiness; but it is not that, for even good fortune itself when in
\
excess is an impediment, and perhaps should then be no longer called
\
good fortune; for its limit is fixed by reference to happiness.
\

\
  And indeed the fact that all things, both brutes and men, pursue
\
pleasure is an indication of its being somehow the chief good:
\

\
     No voice is wholly lost that many peoples...
\

\
But since no one nature or state either is or is thought the best
\
for all, neither do all pursue the same pleasure; yet all pursue
\
pleasure. And perhaps they actually pursue not the pleasure they think
\
they pursue nor that which they would say they pursue, but the same
\
pleasure; for all things have by nature something divine in them.
\
But the bodily pleasures have appropriated the name both because we
\
oftenest steer our course for them and because all men share in
\
them; thus because they alone are familiar, men think there are no
\
others.
\

\
  It is evident also that if pleasure, i.e. the activity of our
\
faculties, is not a good, it will not be the case that the happy man
\
lives a pleasant life; for to what end should he need pleasure, if
\
it is not a good but the happy man may even live a painful life? For
\
pain is neither an evil nor a good, if pleasure is not; why then
\
should he avoid it? Therefore, too, the life of the good man will
\
not be pleasanter than that of any one else, if his activities are not
\
more pleasant.
\

\
                                14
\

\
  (G) With regard to the bodily pleasures, those who say that some
\
pleasures are very much to be chosen, viz. the noble pleasures, but
\
not the bodily pleasures, i.e. those with which the self-indulgent man
\
is concerned, must consider why, then, the contrary pains are bad. For
\
the contrary of bad is good. Are the necessary pleasures good in the
\
sense in which even that which is not bad is good? Or are they good up
\
to a point? Is it that where you have states and processes of which
\
there cannot be too much, there cannot be too much of the
\
corresponding pleasure, and that where there can be too much of the
\
one there can be too much of the other also? Now there can be too much
\
of bodily goods, and the bad man is bad by virtue of pursuing the
\
excess, not by virtue of pursuing the necessary pleasures (for all men
\
enjoy in some way or other both dainty foods and wines and sexual
\
intercourse, but not all men do so as they ought). The contrary is the
\
case with pain; for he does not avoid the excess of it, he avoids it
\
altogether; and this is peculiar to him, for the alternative to excess
\
of pleasure is not pain, except to the man who pursues this excess.
\

\
  Since we should state not only the truth, but also the cause of
\
error-for this contributes towards producing conviction, since when
\
a reasonable explanation is given of why the false view appears
\
true, this tends to produce belief in the true view-therefore we
\
must state why the bodily pleasures appear the more worthy of
\
choice. (a) Firstly, then, it is because they expel pain; owing to the
\
excesses of pain that men experience, they pursue excessive and in
\
general bodily pleasure as being a cure for the pain. Now curative
\
agencies produce intense feeling-which is the reason why they are
\
pursued-because they show up against the contrary pain. (Indeed
\
pleasure is thought not to be good for these two reasons, as has
\
been said, viz. that (a) some of them are activities belonging to a
\
bad nature-either congenital, as in the case of a brute, or due to
\
habit, i.e. those of bad men; while (b) others are meant to cure a
\
defective nature, and it is better to be in a healthy state than to be
\
getting into it, but these arise during the process of being made
\
perfect and are therefore only incidentally good.) (b) Further, they
\
are pursued because of their violence by those who cannot enjoy
\
other pleasures. (At all events they go out of their way to
\
manufacture thirsts somehow for themselves. When these are harmless,
\
the practice is irreproachable; when they are hurtful, it is bad.) For
\
they have nothing else to enjoy, and, besides, a neutral state is
\
painful to many people because of their nature. For the animal
\
nature is always in travail, as the students of natural science also
\
testify, saying that sight and hearing are painful; but we have become
\
used to this, as they maintain. Similarly, while, in youth, people
\
are, owing to the growth that is going on, in a situation like that of
\
drunken men, and youth is pleasant, on the other hand people of
\
excitable nature always need relief; for even their body is ever in
\
torment owing to its special composition, and they are always under
\
the influence of violent desire; but pain is driven out both by the
\
contrary pleasure, and by any chance pleasure if it be strong; and for
\
these reasons they become self-indulgent and bad. But the pleasures
\
that do not involve pains do not admit of excess; and these are
\
among the things pleasant by nature and not incidentally. By things
\
pleasant incidentally I mean those that act as cures (for because as a
\
result people are cured, through some action of the part that
\
remains healthy, for this reason the process is thought pleasant);
\
by things naturally pleasant I mean those that stimulate the action of
\
the healthy nature.
\

\
  There is no one thing that is always pleasant, because our nature is
\
not simple but there is another element in us as well, inasmuch as
\
we are perishable creatures, so that if the one element does
\
something, this is unnatural to the other nature, and when the two
\
elements are evenly balanced, what is done seems neither painful nor
\
pleasant; for if the nature of anything were simple, the same action
\
would always be most pleasant to it. This is why God always enjoys a
\
single and simple pleasure; for there is not only an activity of
\
movement but an activity of immobility, and pleasure is found more
\
in rest than in movement. But 'change in all things is sweet', as
\
the poet says, because of some vice; for as it is the vicious man that
\
is changeable, so the nature that needs change is vicious; for it is
\
not simple nor good.
\

\
    We have now discussed continence and incontinence, and pleasure
\
and pain, both what each is and in what sense some of them are good
\
and others bad; it remains to speak of friendship.
\

\
                              BOOK VIII
\

\
                                 1
\

\
  AFTER what we have said, a discussion of friendship would
\
naturally follow, since it is a virtue or implies virtue, and is
\
besides most necessary with a view to living. For without friends no
\
one would choose to live, though he had all other goods; even rich men
\
and those in possession of office and of dominating power are
\
thought to need friends most of all; for what is the use of such
\
prosperity without the opportunity of beneficence, which is
\
exercised chiefly and in its most laudable form towards friends? Or
\
how can prosperity be guarded and preserved without friends? The
\
greater it is, the more exposed is it to risk. And in poverty and in
\
other misfortunes men think friends are the only refuge. It helps
\
the young, too, to keep from error; it aids older people by
\
ministering to their needs and supplementing the activities that are
\
failing from weakness; those in the prime of life it stimulates to
\
noble actions-'two going together'-for with friends men are more
\
able both to think and to act. Again, parent seems by nature to feel
\
it for offspring and offspring for parent, not only among men but
\
among birds and among most animals; it is felt mutually by members
\
of the same race, and especially by men, whence we praise lovers of
\
their fellowmen. We may even in our travels how near and dear every
\
man is to every other. Friendship seems too to hold states together,
\
and lawgivers to care more for it than for justice; for unanimity
\
seems to be something like friendship, and this they aim at most of
\
all, and expel faction as their worst enemy; and when men are
\
friends they have no need of justice, while when they are just they
\
need friendship as well, and the truest form of justice is thought
\
to be a friendly quality.
\

\
  But it is not only necessary but also noble; for we praise those who
\
love their friends, and it is thought to be a fine thing to have
\
many friends; and again we think it is the same people that are good
\
men and are friends.
\

\
  Not a few things about friendship are matters of debate. Some define
\
it as a kind of likeness and say like people are friends, whence
\
come the sayings 'like to like', 'birds of a feather flock
\
together', and so on; others on the contrary say 'two of a trade never
\
agree'. On this very question they inquire for deeper and more
\
physical causes, Euripides saying that 'parched earth loves the
\
rain, and stately heaven when filled with rain loves to fall to
\
earth', and Heraclitus that 'it is what opposes that helps' and
\
'from different tones comes the fairest tune' and 'all things are
\
produced through strife'; while Empedocles, as well as others,
\
expresses the opposite view that like aims at like. The physical
\
problems we may leave alone (for they do not belong to the present
\
inquiry); let us examine those which are human and involve character
\
and feeling, e.g. whether friendship can arise between any two
\
people or people cannot be friends if they are wicked, and whether
\
there is one species of friendship or more than one. Those who think
\
there is only one because it admits of degrees have relied on an
\
inadequate indication; for even things different in species admit of
\
degree. We have discussed this matter previously.
\

\
                                 2
\

\
  The kinds of friendship may perhaps be cleared up if we first come
\
to know the object of love. For not everything seems to be loved but
\
only the lovable, and this is good, pleasant, or useful; but it
\
would seem to be that by which some good or pleasure is produced
\
that is useful, so that it is the good and the useful that are lovable
\
as ends. Do men love, then, the good, or what is good for them?
\
These sometimes clash. So too with regard to the pleasant. Now it is
\
thought that each loves what is good for himself, and that the good is
\
without qualification lovable, and what is good for each man is
\
lovable for him; but each man loves not what is good for him but
\
what seems good. This however will make no difference; we shall just
\
have to say that this is 'that which seems lovable'. Now there are
\
three grounds on which people love; of the love of lifeless objects we
\
do not use the word 'friendship'; for it is not mutual love, nor is
\
there a wishing of good to the other (for it would surely be
\
ridiculous to wish wine well; if one wishes anything for it, it is
\
that it may keep, so that one may have it oneself); but to a friend we
\
say we ought to wish what is good for his sake. But to those who
\
thus wish good we ascribe only goodwill, if the wish is not
\
reciprocated; goodwill when it is reciprocal being friendship. Or must
\
we add 'when it is recognized'? For many people have goodwill to those
\
whom they have not seen but judge to be good or useful; and one of
\
these might return this feeling. These people seem to bear goodwill to
\
each other; but how could one call them friends when they do not
\
know their mutual feelings? To be friends, then, the must be
\
mutually recognized as bearing goodwill and wishing well to each other
\
for one of the aforesaid reasons.
\

\
                                 3
\

\
  Now these reasons differ from each other in kind; so, therefore,
\
do the corresponding forms of love and friendship. There are therefore
\
three kinds of friendship, equal in number to the things that are
\
lovable; for with respect to each there is a mutual and recognized
\
love, and those who love each other wish well to each other in that
\
respect in which they love one another. Now those who love each
\
other for their utility do not love each other for themselves but in
\
virtue of some good which they get from each other. So too with
\
those who love for the sake of pleasure; it is not for their character
\
that men love ready-witted people, but because they find them
\
pleasant. Therefore those who love for the sake of utility love for
\
the sake of what is good for themselves, and those who love for the
\
sake of pleasure do so for the sake of what is pleasant to themselves,
\
and not in so far as the other is the person loved but in so far as he
\
is useful or pleasant. And thus these friendships are only incidental;
\
for it is not as being the man he is that the loved person is loved,
\
but as providing some good or pleasure. Such friendships, then, are
\
easily dissolved, if the parties do not remain like themselves; for if
\
the one party is no longer pleasant or useful the other ceases to love
\
him.
\

\
  Now the useful is not permanent but is always changing. Thus when
\
the motive of the friendship is done away, the friendship is
\
dissolved, inasmuch as it existed only for the ends in question.
\
This kind of friendship seems to exist chiefly between old people (for
\
at that age people pursue not the pleasant but the useful) and, of
\
those who are in their prime or young, between those who pursue
\
utility. And such people do not live much with each other either;
\
for sometimes they do not even find each other pleasant; therefore
\
they do not need such companionship unless they are useful to each
\
other; for they are pleasant to each other only in so far as they
\
rouse in each other hopes of something good to come. Among such
\
friendships people also class the friendship of a host and guest. On
\
the other hand the friendship of young people seems to aim at
\
pleasure; for they live under the guidance of emotion, and pursue
\
above all what is pleasant to themselves and what is immediately
\
before them; but with increasing age their pleasures become different.
\
This is why they quickly become friends and quickly cease to be so;
\
their friendship changes with the object that is found pleasant, and
\
such pleasure alters quickly. Young people are amorous too; for the
\
greater part of the friendship of love depends on emotion and aims
\
at pleasure; this is why they fall in love and quickly fall out of
\
love, changing often within a single day. But these people do wish
\
to spend their days and lives together; for it is thus that they
\
attain the purpose of their friendship.
\

\
  Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and
\
alike in virtue; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and
\
they are good themselves. Now those who wish well to their friends for
\
their sake are most truly friends; for they do this by reason of own
\
nature and not incidentally; therefore their friendship lasts as
\
long as they are good-and goodness is an enduring thing. And each is
\
good without qualification and to his friend, for the good are both
\
good without qualification and useful to each other. So too they are
\
pleasant; for the good are pleasant both without qualification and
\
to each other, since to each his own activities and others like them
\
are pleasurable, and the actions of the good are the same or like. And
\
such a friendship is as might be expected permanent, since there
\
meet in it all the qualities that friends should have. For all
\
friendship is for the sake of good or of pleasure-good or pleasure
\
either in the abstract or such as will be enjoyed by him who has the
\
friendly feeling-and is based on a certain resemblance; and to a
\
friendship of good men all the qualities we have named belong in
\
virtue of the nature of the friends themselves; for in the case of
\
this kind of friendship the other qualities also are alike in both
\
friends, and that which is good without qualification is also
\
without qualification pleasant, and these are the most lovable
\
qualities. Love and friendship therefore are found most and in their
\
best form between such men.
\

\
  But it is natural that such friendships should be infrequent; for
\
such men are rare. Further, such friendship requires time and
\
familiarity; as the proverb says, men cannot know each other till they
\
have 'eaten salt together'; nor can they admit each other to
\
friendship or be friends till each has been found lovable and been
\
trusted by each. Those who quickly show the marks of friendship to
\
each other wish to be friends, but are not friends unless they both
\
are lovable and know the fact; for a wish for friendship may arise
\
quickly, but friendship does not.
\

\
                                 4
\

\
  This kind of friendship, then, is perfect both in respect of
\
duration and in all other respects, and in it each gets from each in
\
all respects the same as, or something like what, he gives; which is
\
what ought to happen between friends. Friendship for the sake of
\
pleasure bears a resemblance to this kind; for good people too are
\
pleasant to each other. So too does friendship for the sake of
\
utility; for the good are also useful to each other. Among men of
\
these inferior sorts too, friendships are most permanent when the
\
friends get the same thing from each other (e.g. pleasure), and not
\
only that but also from the same source, as happens between
\
readywitted people, not as happens between lover and beloved. For
\
these do not take pleasure in the same things, but the one in seeing
\
the beloved and the other in receiving attentions from his lover;
\
and when the bloom of youth is passing the friendship sometimes passes
\
too (for the one finds no pleasure in the sight of the other, and
\
the other gets no attentions from the first); but many lovers on the
\
other hand are constant, if familiarity has led them to love each
\
other's characters, these being alike. But those who exchange not
\
pleasure but utility in their amour are both less truly friends and
\
less constant. Those who are friends for the sake of utility part when
\
the advantage is at an end; for they were lovers not of each other but
\
of profit.
\

\
  For the sake of pleasure or utility, then, even bad men may be
\
friends of each other, or good men of bad, or one who is neither
\
good nor bad may be a friend to any sort of person, but for their
\
own sake clearly only good men can be friends; for bad men do not
\
delight in each other unless some advantage come of the relation.
\

\
  The friendship of the good too and this alone is proof against
\
slander; for it is not easy to trust any one talk about a man who
\
has long been tested by oneself; and it is among good men that trust
\
and the feeling that 'he would never wrong me' and all the other
\
things that are demanded in true friendship are found. In the other
\
kinds of friendship, however, there is nothing to prevent these
\
evils arising. For men apply the name of friends even to those whose
\
motive is utility, in which sense states are said to be friendly
\
(for the alliances of states seem to aim at advantage), and to those
\
who love each other for the sake of pleasure, in which sense
\
children are called friends. Therefore we too ought perhaps to call
\
such people friends, and say that there are several kinds of
\
friendship-firstly and in the proper sense that of good men qua
\
good, and by analogy the other kinds; for it is in virtue of something
\
good and something akin to what is found in true friendship that
\
they are friends, since even the pleasant is good for the lovers of
\
pleasure. But these two kinds of friendship are not often united,
\
nor do the same people become friends for the sake of utility and of
\
pleasure; for things that are only incidentally connected are not
\
often coupled together.
\

\
  Friendship being divided into these kinds, bad men will be friends
\
for the sake of pleasure or of utility, being in this respect like
\
each other, but good men will be friends for their own sake, i.e. in
\
virtue of their goodness. These, then, are friends without
\
qualification; the others are friends incidentally and through a
\
resemblance to these.
\

\
                                 5
\

\
  As in regard to the virtues some men are called good in respect of a
\
state of character, others in respect of an activity, so too in the
\
case of friendship; for those who live together delight in each
\
other and confer benefits on each other, but those who are asleep or
\
locally separated are not performing, but are disposed to perform, the
\
activities of friendship; distance does not break off the friendship
\
absolutely, but only the activity of it. But if the absence is
\
lasting, it seems actually to make men forget their friendship;
\
hence the saying 'out of sight, out of mind'. Neither old people nor
\
sour people seem to make friends easily; for there is little that is
\
pleasant in them, and no one can spend his days with one whose company
\
is painful, or not pleasant, since nature seems above all to avoid the
\
painful and to aim at the pleasant. Those, however, who approve of
\
each other but do not live together seem to be well-disposed rather
\
than actual friends. For there is nothing so characteristic of friends
\
as living together (since while it people who are in need that
\
desire benefits, even those who are supremely happy desire to spend
\
their days together; for solitude suits such people least of all); but
\
people cannot live together if they are not pleasant and do not
\
enjoy the same things, as friends who are companions seem to do.
\

\
  The truest friendship, then, is that of the good, as we have
\
frequently said; for that which is without qualification good or
\
pleasant seems to be lovable and desirable, and for each person that
\
which is good or pleasant to him; and the good man is lovable and
\
desirable to the good man for both these reasons. Now it looks as if
\
love were a feeling, friendship a state of character; for love may
\
be felt just as much towards lifeless things, but mutual love involves
\
choice and choice springs from a state of character; and men wish well
\
to those whom they love, for their sake, not as a result of feeling
\
but as a result of a state of character. And in loving a friend men
\
love what is good for themselves; for the good man in becoming a
\
friend becomes a good to his friend. Each, then, both loves what is
\
good for himself, and makes an equal return in goodwill and in
\
pleasantness; for friendship is said to be equality, and both of these
\
are found most in the friendship of the good.
\

\
                                 6
\

\
  Between sour and elderly people friendship arises less readily,
\
inasmuch as they are less good-tempered and enjoy companionship
\
less; for these are thou to be the greatest marks of friendship
\
productive of it. This is why, while men become friends quickly, old
\
men do not; it is because men do not become friends with those in whom
\
they do not delight; and similarly sour people do not quickly make
\
friends either. But such men may bear goodwill to each other; for they
\
wish one another well and aid one another in need; but they are hardly
\
friends because they do not spend their days together nor delight in
\
each other, and these are thought the greatest marks of friendship.
\

\
  One cannot be a friend to many people in the sense of having
\
friendship of the perfect type with them, just as one cannot be in
\
love with many people at once (for love is a sort of excess of
\
feeling, and it is the nature of such only to be felt towards one
\
person); and it is not easy for many people at the same time to please
\
the same person very greatly, or perhaps even to be good in his
\
eyes. One must, too, acquire some experience of the other person and
\
become familiar with him, and that is very hard. But with a view to
\
utility or pleasure it is possible that many people should please one;
\
for many people are useful or pleasant, and these services take little
\
time.
\

\
  Of these two kinds that which is for the sake of pleasure is the
\
more like friendship, when both parties get the same things from
\
each other and delight in each other or in the things, as in the
\
friendships of the young; for generosity is more found in such
\
friendships. Friendship based on utility is for the commercially
\
minded. People who are supremely happy, too, have no need of useful
\
friends, but do need pleasant friends; for they wish to live with some
\
one and, though they can endure for a short time what is painful, no
\
one could put up with it continuously, nor even with the Good itself
\
if it were painful to him; this is why they look out for friends who
\
are pleasant. Perhaps they should look out for friends who, being
\
pleasant, are also good, and good for them too; for so they will
\
have all the characteristics that friends should have.
\

\
  People in positions of authority seem to have friends who fall
\
into distinct classes; some people are useful to them and others are
\
pleasant, but the same people are rarely both; for they seek neither
\
those whose pleasantness is accompanied by virtue nor those whose
\
utility is with a view to noble objects, but in their desire for
\
pleasure they seek for ready-witted people, and their other friends
\
they choose as being clever at doing what they are told, and these
\
characteristics are rarely combined. Now we have said that the good
\
man is at the same time pleasant and useful; but such a man does not
\
become the friend of one who surpasses him in station, unless he is
\
surpassed also in virtue; if this is not so, he does not establish
\
equality by being proportionally exceeded in both respects. But people
\
who surpass him in both respects are not so easy to find.
\

\
  However that may be, the aforesaid friendships involve equality; for
\
the friends get the same things from one another and wish the same
\
things for one another, or exchange one thing for another, e.g.
\
pleasure for utility; we have said, however, that they are both less
\
truly friendships and less permanent.
\

\
  But it is from their likeness and their unlikeness to the same thing
\
that they are thought both to be and not to be friendships. It is by
\
their likeness to the friendship of virtue that they seem to be
\
friendships (for one of them involves pleasure and the other
\
utility, and these characteristics belong to the friendship of
\
virtue as well); while it is because the friendship of virtue is proof
\
against slander and permanent, while these quickly change (besides
\
differing from the former in many other respects), that they appear
\
not to be friendships; i.e. it is because of their unlikeness to the
\
friendship of virtue.
\

\
                                 7
\

\
  But there is another kind of friendship, viz. that which involves an
\
inequality between the parties, e.g. that of father to son and in
\
general of elder to younger, that of man to wife and in general that
\
of ruler to subject. And these friendships differ also from each
\
other; for it is not the same that exists between parents and children
\
and between rulers and subjects, nor is even that of father to son the
\
same as that of son to father, nor that of husband to wife the same as
\
that of wife to husband. For the virtue and the function of each of
\
these is different, and so are the reasons for which they love; the
\
love and the friendship are therefore different also. Each party,
\
then, neither gets the same from the other, nor ought to seek it;
\
but when children render to parents what they ought to render to those
\
who brought them into the world, and parents render what they should
\
to their children, the friendship of such persons will be abiding
\
and excellent. In all friendships implying inequality the love also
\
should be proportional, i.e. the better should be more loved than he
\
loves, and so should the more useful, and similarly in each of the
\
other cases; for when the love is in proportion to the merit of the
\
parties, then in a sense arises equality, which is certainly held to
\
be characteristic of friendship.
\

\
  But equality does not seem to take the same form in acts of
\
justice and in friendship; for in acts of justice what is equal in the
\
primary sense is that which is in proportion to merit, while
\
quantitative equality is secondary, but in friendship quantitative
\
equality is primary and proportion to merit secondary. This becomes
\
clear if there is a great interval in respect of virtue or vice or
\
wealth or anything else between the parties; for then they are no
\
longer friends, and do not even expect to be so. And this is most
\
manifest in the case of the gods; for they surpass us most
\
decisively in all good things. But it is clear also in the case of
\
kings; for with them, too, men who are much their inferiors do not
\
expect to be friends; nor do men of no account expect to be friends
\
with the best or wisest men. In such cases it is not possible to
\
define exactly up to what point friends can remain friends; for much
\
can be taken away and friendship remain, but when one party is removed
\
to a great distance, as God is, the possibility of friendship
\
ceases. This is in fact the origin of the question whether friends
\
really wish for their friends the greatest goods, e.g. that of being
\
gods; since in that case their friends will no longer be friends to
\
them, and therefore will not be good things for them (for friends
\
are good things). The answer is that if we were right in saying that
\
friend wishes good to friend for his sake, his friend must remain
\
the sort of being he is, whatever that may be; therefore it is for him
\
oily so long as he remains a man that he will wish the greatest goods.
\
But perhaps not all the greatest goods; for it is for himself most
\
of all that each man wishes what is good.
\

\
                                 8
\

\
  Most people seem, owing to ambition, to wish to be loved rather than
\
to love; which is why most men love flattery; for the flatterer is a
\
friend in an inferior position, or pretends to be such and to love
\
more than he is loved; and being loved seems to be akin to being
\
honoured, and this is what most people aim at. But it seems to be
\
not for its own sake that people choose honour, but incidentally.
\
For most people enjoy being honoured by those in positions of
\
authority because of their hopes (for they think that if they want
\
anything they will get it from them; and therefore they delight in
\
honour as a token of favour to come); while those who desire honour
\
from good men, and men who know, are aiming at confirming their own
\
opinion of themselves; they delight in honour, therefore, because they
\
believe in their own goodness on the strength of the judgement of
\
those who speak about them. In being loved, on the other hand,
\
people delight for its own sake; whence it would seem to be better
\
than being honoured, and friendship to be desirable in itself. But
\
it seems to lie in loving rather than in being loved, as is
\
indicated by the delight mothers take in loving; for some mothers hand
\
over their children to be brought up, and so long as they know their
\
fate they love them and do not seek to be loved in return (if they
\
cannot have both), but seem to be satisfied if they see them
\
prospering; and they themselves love their children even if these
\
owing to their ignorance give them nothing of a mother's due. Now
\
since friendship depends more on loving, and it is those who love
\
their friends that are praised, loving seems to be the
\
characteristic virtue of friends, so that it is only those in whom
\
this is found in due measure that are lasting friends, and only
\
their friendship that endures.
\

\
  It is in this way more than any other that even unequals can be
\
friends; they can be equalized. Now equality and likeness are
\
friendship, and especially the likeness of those who are like in
\
virtue; for being steadfast in themselves they hold fast to each
\
other, and neither ask nor give base services, but (one may say)
\
even prevent them; for it is characteristic of good men neither to
\
go wrong themselves nor to let their friends do so. But wicked men
\
have no steadfastness (for they do not remain even like to
\
themselves), but become friends for a short time because they
\
delight in each other's wickedness. Friends who are useful or pleasant
\
last longer; i.e. as long as they provide each other with enjoyments
\
or advantages. Friendship for utility's sake seems to be that which
\
most easily exists between contraries, e.g. between poor and rich,
\
between ignorant and learned; for what a man actually lacks he aims
\
at, and one gives something else in return. But under this head,
\
too, might bring lover and beloved, beautiful and ugly. This is why
\
lovers sometimes seem ridiculous, when they demand to be loved as they
\
love; if they are equally lovable their claim can perhaps be
\
justified, but when they have nothing lovable about them it is
\
ridiculous. Perhaps, however, contrary does not even aim at contrary
\
by its own nature, but only incidentally, the desire being for what is
\
intermediate; for that is what is good, e.g. it is good for the dry
\
not to become wet but to come to the intermediate state, and similarly
\
with the hot and in all other cases. These subjects we may dismiss;
\
for they are indeed somewhat foreign to our inquiry.
\

\
                                 9
\

\
  Friendship and justice seem, as we have said at the outset of our
\
discussion, to be concerned with the same objects and exhibited
\
between the same persons. For in every community there is thought to
\
be some form of justice, and friendship too; at least men address as
\
friends their fellow-voyagers and fellowsoldiers, and so too those
\
associated with them in any other kind of community. And the extent of
\
their association is the extent of their friendship, as it is the
\
extent to which justice exists between them. And the proverb 'what
\
friends have is common property' expresses the truth; for friendship
\
depends on community. Now brothers and comrades have all things in
\
common, but the others to whom we have referred have definite things
\
in common-some more things, others fewer; for of friendships, too,
\
some are more and others less truly friendships. And the claims of
\
justice differ too; the duties of parents to children, and those of
\
brothers to each other are not the same, nor those of comrades and
\
those of fellow-citizens, and so, too, with the other kinds of
\
friendship. There is a difference, therefore, also between the acts
\
that are unjust towards each of these classes of associates, and the
\
injustice increases by being exhibited towards those who are friends
\
in a fuller sense; e.g. it is a more terrible thing to defraud a
\
comrade than a fellow-citizen, more terrible not to help a brother
\
than a stranger, and more terrible to wound a father than any one
\
else. And the demands of justice also seem to increase with the
\
intensity of the friendship, which implies that friendship and justice
\
exist between the same persons and have an equal extension.
\

\
  Now all forms of community are like parts of the political
\
community; for men journey together with a view to some particular
\
advantage, and to provide something that they need for the purposes of
\
life; and it is for the sake of advantage that the political community
\
too seems both to have come together originally and to endure, for
\
this is what legislators aim at, and they call just that which is to
\
the common advantage. Now the other communities aim at advantage bit
\
by bit, e.g. sailors at what is advantageous on a voyage with a view
\
to making money or something of the kind, fellow-soldiers at what is
\
advantageous in war, whether it is wealth or victory or the taking
\
of a city that they seek, and members of tribes and demes act
\
similarly (Some communities seem to arise for the sake or pleasure,
\
viz. religious guilds and social clubs; for these exist respectively
\
for the sake of offering sacrifice and of companionship. But all these
\
seem to fall under the political community; for it aims not at present
\
advantage but at what is advantageous for life as a whole), offering
\
sacrifices and arranging gatherings for the purpose, and assigning
\
honours to the gods, and providing pleasant relaxations for
\
themselves. For the ancient sacrifices and gatherings seem to take
\
place after the harvest as a sort of firstfruits, because it was at
\
these seasons that people had most leisure. All the communities, then,
\
seem to be parts of the political community; and the particular
\
kinds friendship will correspond to the particular kinds of community.
\

\
                                10
\

\
  There are three kinds of constitution, and an equal number of
\
deviation-forms--perversions, as it were, of them. The constitutions
\
are monarchy, aristocracy, and thirdly that which is based on a
\
property qualification, which it seems appropriate to call timocratic,
\
though most people are wont to call it polity. The best of these is
\
monarchy, the worst timocracy. The deviation from monarchy is
\
tyrany; for both are forms of one-man rule, but there is the
\
greatest difference between them; the tyrant looks to his own
\
advantage, the king to that of his subjects. For a man is not a king
\
unless he is sufficient to himself and excels his subjects in all good
\
things; and such a man needs nothing further; therefore he will not
\
look to his own interests but to those of his subjects; for a king who
\
is not like that would be a mere titular king. Now tyranny is the very
\
contrary of this; the tyrant pursues his own good. And it is clearer
\
in the case of tyranny that it is the worst deviation-form; but it
\
is the contrary of the best that is worst. Monarchy passes over into
\
tyranny; for tyranny is the evil form of one-man rule and the bad king
\
becomes a tyrant. Aristocracy passes over into oligarchy by the
\
badness of the rulers, who distribute contrary to equity what
\
belongs to the city-all or most of the good things to themselves,
\
and office always to the same people, paying most regard to wealth;
\
thus the rulers are few and are bad men instead of the most worthy.
\
Timocracy passes over into democracy; for these are coterminous, since
\
it is the ideal even of timocracy to be the rule of the majority,
\
and all who have the property qualification count as equal.
\
Democracy is the least bad of the deviations; for in its case the form
\
of constitution is but a slight deviation. These then are the
\
changes to which constitutions are most subject; for these are the
\
smallest and easiest transitions.
\

\
  One may find resemblances to the constitutions and, as it were,
\
patterns of them even in households. For the association of a father
\
with his sons bears the form of monarchy, since the father cares for
\
his children; and this is why Homer calls Zeus 'father'; it is the
\
ideal of monarchy to be paternal rule. But among the Persians the rule
\
of the father is tyrannical; they use their sons as slaves. Tyrannical
\
too is the rule of a master over slaves; for it is the advantage of
\
the master that is brought about in it. Now this seems to be a correct
\
form of government, but the Persian type is perverted; for the modes
\
of rule appropriate to different relations are diverse. The
\
association of man and wife seems to be aristocratic; for the man
\
rules in accordance with his worth, and in those matters in which a
\
man should rule, but the matters that befit a woman he hands over to
\
her. If the man rules in everything the relation passes over into
\
oligarchy; for in doing so he is not acting in accordance with their
\
respective worth, and not ruling in virtue of his superiority.
\
Sometimes, however, women rule, because they are heiresses; so their
\
rule is not in virtue of excellence but due to wealth and power, as in
\
oligarchies. The association of brothers is like timocracy; for they
\
are equal, except in so far as they differ in age; hence if they
\
differ much in age, the friendship is no longer of the fraternal type.
\
Democracy is found chiefly in masterless dwellings (for here every one
\
is on an equality), and in those in which the ruler is weak and
\
every one has licence to do as he pleases.
\

\
                                       11
\

\
  Each of the constitutions may be seen to involve friendship just
\
in so far as it involves justice. The friendship between a king and
\
his subjects depends on an excess of benefits conferred; for he
\
confers benefits on his subjects if being a good man he cares for them
\
with a view to their well-being, as a shepherd does for his sheep
\
(whence Homer called Agamemnon 'shepherd of the peoples'). Such too is
\
the friendship of a father, though this exceeds the other in the
\
greatness of the benefits conferred; for he is responsible for the
\
existence of his children, which is thought the greatest good, and for
\
their nurture and upbringing.
\

\
  These things are ascribed to ancestors as well. Further, by nature a
\
father tends to rule over his sons, ancestors over descendants, a king
\
over his subjects. These friendships imply superiority of one party
\
over the other, which is why ancestors are honoured. The justice
\
therefore that exists between persons so related is not the same on
\
both sides but is in every case proportioned to merit; for that is
\
true of the friendship as well. The friendship of man and wife, again,
\
is the same that is found in an aristocracy; for it is in accordance
\
with virtue the better gets more of what is good, and each gets what
\
befits him; and so, too, with the justice in these relations. The
\
friendship of brothers is like that of comrades; for they are equal
\
and of like age, and such persons are for the most part like in
\
their feelings and their character. Like this, too, is the
\
friendship appropriate to timocratic government; for in such a
\
constitution the ideal is for the citizens to be equal and fair;
\
therefore rule is taken in turn, and on equal terms; and the
\
friendship appropriate here will correspond.
\

\
  But in the deviation-forms, as justice hardly exists, so too does
\
friendship. It exists least in the worst form; in tyranny there is
\
little or no friendship. For where there is nothing common to ruler
\
and ruled, there is not friendship either, since there is not justice;
\
e.g. between craftsman and tool, soul and body, master and slave;
\
the latter in each case is benefited by that which uses it, but
\
there is no friendship nor justice towards lifeless things. But
\
neither is there friendship towards a horse or an ox, nor to a slave
\
qua slave. For there is nothing common to the two parties; the slave
\
is a living tool and the tool a lifeless slave. Qua slave then, one
\
cannot be friends with him. But qua man one can; for there seems to be
\
some justice between any man and any other who can share in a system
\
of law or be a party to an agreement; therefore there can also be
\
friendship with him in so far as he is a man. Therefore while in
\
tyrannies friendship and justice hardly exist, in democracies they
\
exist more fully; for where the citizens are equal they have much in
\
common.
\

\
                                12
\

\
  Every form of friendship, then, involves association, as has been
\
said. One might, however, mark off from the rest both the friendship
\
of kindred and that of comrades. Those of fellow-citizens,
\
fellow-tribesmen, fellow-voyagers, and the like are more like mere
\
friendships of association; for they seem to rest on a sort of
\
compact. With them we might class the friendship of host and guest.
\
The friendship of kinsmen itself, while it seems to be of many
\
kinds, appears to depend in every case on parental friendship; for
\
parents love their children as being a part of themselves, and
\
children their parents as being something originating from them. Now
\
(1) arents know their offspring better than there children know that
\
they are their children, and (2) the originator feels his offspring to
\
be his own more than the offspring do their begetter; for the
\
product belongs to the producer (e.g. a tooth or hair or anything else
\
to him whose it is), but the producer does not belong to the
\
product, or belongs in a less degree. And (3) the length of time
\
produces the same result; parents love their children as soon as these
\
are born, but children love their parents only after time has
\
elapsed and they have acquired understanding or the power of
\
discrimination by the senses. From these considerations it is also
\
plain why mothers love more than fathers do. Parents, then, love their
\
children as themselves (for their issue are by virtue of their
\
separate existence a sort of other selves), while children love
\
their parents as being born of them, and brothers love each other as
\
being born of the same parents; for their identity with them makes
\
them identical with each other (which is the reason why people talk of
\
'the same blood', 'the same stock', and so on). They are, therefore,
\
in a sense the same thing, though in separate individuals. Two
\
things that contribute greatly to friendship are a common upbringing
\
and similarity of age; for 'two of an age take to each other', and
\
people brought up together tend to be comrades; whence the
\
friendship of brothers is akin to that of comrades. And cousins and
\
other kinsmen are bound up together by derivation from brothers,
\
viz. by being derived from the same parents. They come to be closer
\
together or farther apart by virtue of the nearness or distance of the
\
original ancestor.
\

\
  The friendship of children to parents, and of men to gods, is a
\
relation to them as to something good and superior; for they have
\
conferred the greatest benefits, since they are the causes of their
\
being and of their nourishment, and of their education from their
\
birth; and this kind of friendship possesses pleasantness and
\
utility also, more than that of strangers, inasmuch as their life is
\
lived more in common. The friendship of brothers has the
\
characteristics found in that of comrades (and especially when these
\
are good), and in general between people who are like each other,
\
inasmuch as they belong more to each other and start with a love for
\
each other from their very birth, and inasmuch as those born of the
\
same parents and brought up together and similarly educated are more
\
akin in character; and the test of time has been applied most fully
\
and convincingly in their case.
\

\
  Between other kinsmen friendly relations are found in due
\
proportion. Between man and wife friendship seems to exist by
\
nature; for man is naturally inclined to form couples-even more than
\
to form cities, inasmuch as the household is earlier and more
\
necessary than the city, and reproduction is more common to man with
\
the animals. With the other animals the union extends only to this
\
point, but human beings live together not only for the sake of
\
reproduction but also for the various purposes of life; for from the
\
start the functions are divided, and those of man and woman are
\
different; so they help each other by throwing their peculiar gifts
\
into the common stock. It is for these reasons that both utility and
\
pleasure seem to be found in this kind of friendship. But this
\
friendship may be based also on virtue, if the parties are good; for
\
each has its own virtue and they will delight in the fact. And
\
children seem to be a bond of union (which is the reason why childless
\
people part more easily); for children are a good common to both and
\
what is common holds them together.
\

\
    How man and wife and in general friend and friend ought mutually
\
to behave seems to be the same question as how it is just for them
\
to behave; for a man does not seem to have the same duties to a
\
friend, a stranger, a comrade, and a schoolfellow.
\

\
                                13
\

\
  There are three kinds of friendship, as we said at the outset of our
\
inquiry, and in respect of each some are friends on an equality and
\
others by virtue of a superiority (for not only can equally good men
\
become friends but a better man can make friends with a worse, and
\
similarly in friendships of pleasure or utility the friends may be
\
equal or unequal in the benefits they confer). This being so, equals
\
must effect the required equalization on a basis of equality in love
\
and in all other respects, while unequals must render what is in
\
proportion to their superiority or inferiority. Complaints and
\
reproaches arise either only or chiefly in the friendship of
\
utility, and this is only to be expected. For those who are friends on
\
the ground of virtue are anxious to do well by each other (since
\
that is a mark of virtue and of friendship), and between men who are
\
emulating each other in this there cannot be complaints or quarrels;
\
no one is offended by a man who loves him and does well by him-if he
\
is a person of nice feeling he takes his revenge by doing well by
\
the other. And the man who excels the other in the services he renders
\
will not complain of his friend, since he gets what he aims at; for
\
each man desires what is good. Nor do complaints arise much even in
\
friendships of pleasure; for both get at the same time what they
\
desire, if they enjoy spending their time together; and even a man who
\
complained of another for not affording him pleasure would seem
\
ridiculous, since it is in his power not to spend his days with him.
\

\
  But the friendship of utility is full of complaints; for as they use
\
each other for their own interests they always want to get the
\
better of the bargain, and think they have got less than they
\
should, and blame their partners because they do not get all they
\
'want and deserve'; and those who do well by others cannot help them
\
as much as those whom they benefit want.
\

\
  Now it seems that, as justice is of two kinds, one unwritten and the
\
other legal, one kind of friendship of utility is moral and the
\
other legal. And so complaints arise most of all when men do not
\
dissolve the relation in the spirit of the same type of friendship
\
in which they contracted it. The legal type is that which is on
\
fixed terms; its purely commercial variety is on the basis of
\
immediate payment, while the more liberal variety allows time but
\
stipulates for a definite quid pro quo. In this variety the debt is
\
clear and not ambiguous, but in the postponement it contains an
\
element of friendliness; and so some states do not allow suits arising
\
out of such agreements, but think men who have bargained on a basis of
\
credit ought to accept the consequences. The moral type is not on
\
fixed terms; it makes a gift, or does whatever it does, as to a
\
friend; but one expects to receive as much or more, as having not
\
given but lent; and if a man is worse off when the relation is
\
dissolved than he was when it was contracted he will complain. This
\
happens because all or most men, while they wish for what is noble,
\
choose what is advantageous; now it is noble to do well by another
\
without a view to repayment, but it is the receiving of benefits
\
that is advantageous. Therefore if we can we should return the
\
equivalent of what we have received (for we must not make a man our
\
friend against his will; we must recognize that we were mistaken at
\
the first and took a benefit from a person we should not have taken it
\
from-since it was not from a friend, nor from one who did it just
\
for the sake of acting so-and we must settle up just as if we had been
\
benefited on fixed terms). Indeed, one would agree to repay if one
\
could (if one could not, even the giver would not have expected one to
\
do so); therefore if it is possible we must repay. But at the outset
\
we must consider the man by whom we are being benefited and on what
\
terms he is acting, in order that we may accept the benefit on these
\
terms, or else decline it.
\

\
  It is disputable whether we ought to measure a service by its
\
utility to the receiver and make the return with a view to that, or by
\
the benevolence of the giver. For those who have received say they
\
have received from their benefactors what meant little to the latter
\
and what they might have got from others-minimizing the service; while
\
the givers, on the contrary, say it was the biggest thing they had,
\
and what could not have been got from others, and that it was given in
\
times of danger or similar need. Now if the friendship is one that
\
aims at utility, surely the advantage to the receiver is the
\
measure. For it is he that asks for the service, and the other man
\
helps him on the assumption that he will receive the equivalent; so
\
the assistance has been precisely as great as the advantage to the
\
receiver, and therefore he must return as much as he has received,
\
or even more (for that would be nobler). In friendships based on
\
virtue on the other hand, complaints do not arise, but the purpose
\
of the doer is a sort of measure; for in purpose lies the essential
\
element of virtue and character.
\

\
                                14
\

\
  Differences arise also in friendships based on superiority; for each
\
expects to get more out of them, but when this happens the
\
friendship is dissolved. Not only does the better man think he ought
\
to get more, since more should be assigned to a good man, but the more
\
useful similarly expects this; they say a useless man should not get
\
as much as they should, since it becomes an act of public service
\
and not a friendship if the proceeds of the friendship do not answer
\
to the worth of the benefits conferred. For they think that, as in a
\
commercial partnership those who put more in get more out, so it
\
should be in friendship. But the man who is in a state of need and
\
inferiority makes the opposite claim; they think it is the part of a
\
good friend to help those who are in need; what, they say, is the
\
use of being the friend of a good man or a powerful man, if one is
\
to get nothing out of it?
\

\
  At all events it seems that each party is justified in his claim,
\
and that each should get more out of the friendship than the other-not
\
more of the same thing, however, but the superior more honour and
\
the inferior more gain; for honour is the prize of virtue and of
\
beneficence, while gain is the assistance required by inferiority.
\

\
  It seems to be so in constitutional arrangements also; the man who
\
contributes nothing good to the common stock is not honoured; for what
\
belongs to the public is given to the man who benefits the public, and
\
honour does belong to the public. It is not possible to get wealth
\
from the common stock and at the same time honour. For no one puts
\
up with the smaller share in all things; therefore to the man who
\
loses in wealth they assign honour and to the man who is willing to be
\
paid, wealth, since the proportion to merit equalizes the parties
\
and preserves the friendship, as we have said. This then is also the
\
way in which we should associate with unequals; the man who is
\
benefited in respect of wealth or virtue must give honour in return,
\
repaying what he can. For friendship asks a man to do what he can, not
\
what is proportional to the merits of the case; since that cannot
\
always be done, e.g. in honours paid to the gods or to parents; for no
\
one could ever return to them the equivalent of what he gets, but
\
the man who serves them to the utmost of his power is thought to be
\
a good man. This is why it would not seem open to a man to disown
\
his father (though a father may disown his son); being in debt, he
\
should repay, but there is nothing by doing which a son will have done
\
the equivalent of what he has received, so that he is always in
\
debt. But creditors can remit a debt; and a father can therefore do so
\
too. At the same time it is thought that presumably no one would
\
repudiate a son who was not far gone in wickedness; for apart from the
\
natural friendship of father and son it is human nature not to
\
reject a son's assistance. But the son, if he is wicked, will
\
naturally avoid aiding his father, or not be zealous about it; for
\
most people wish to get benefits, but avoid doing them, as a thing
\
unprofitable.-So much for these questions.
\

\
                              BOOK IX
\

\
                                 1
\

\
  IN all friendships between dissimilars it is, as we have said,
\
proportion that equalizes the parties and preserves the friendship;
\
e.g. in the political form of friendship the shoemaker gets a return
\
for his shoes in proportion to his worth, and the weaver and all other
\
craftsmen do the same. Now here a common measure has been provided
\
in the form of money, and therefore everything is referred to this and
\
measured by this; but in the friendship of lovers sometimes the
\
lover complains that his excess of love is not met by love in return
\
though perhaps there is nothing lovable about him), while often the
\
beloved complains that the lover who formerly promised everything
\
now performs nothing. Such incidents happen when the lover loves the
\
beloved for the sake of pleasure while the beloved loves the lover for
\
the sake of utility, and they do not both possess the qualities
\
expected of them. If these be the objects of the friendship it is
\
dissolved when they do not get the things that formed the motives of
\
their love; for each did not love the other person himself but the
\
qualities he had, and these were not enduring; that is why the
\
friendships also are transient. But the love of characters, as has
\
been said, endures because it is self-dependent. Differences arise
\
when what they get is something different and not what they desire;
\
for it is like getting nothing at all when we do not get what we aim
\
at; compare the story of the person who made promises to a
\
lyre-player, promising him the more, the better he sang, but in the
\
morning, when the other demanded the fulfilment of his promises,
\
said that he had given pleasure for pleasure. Now if this had been
\
what each wanted, all would have been well; but if the one wanted
\
enjoyment but the other gain, and the one has what he wants while
\
the other has not, the terms of the association will not have been
\
properly fulfilled; for what each in fact wants is what he attends to,
\
and it is for the sake of that that that he will give what he has.
\

\
  But who is to fix the worth of the service; he who makes the
\
sacrifice or he who has got the advantage? At any rate the other seems
\
to leave it to him. This is what they say Protagoras used to do;
\
whenever he taught anything whatsoever, he bade the learner assess the
\
value of the knowledge, and accepted the amount so fixed. But in
\
such matters some men approve of the saying 'let a man have his
\
fixed reward'. Those who get the money first and then do none of the
\
things they said they would, owing to the extravagance of their
\
promises, naturally find themselves the objects of complaint; for they
\
do not fulfil what they agreed to. The sophists are perhaps
\
compelled to do this because no one would give money for the things
\
they do know. These people then, if they do not do what they have been
\
paid for, are naturally made the objects of complaint.
\

\
  But where there is no contract of service, those who give up
\
something for the sake of the other party cannot (as we have said)
\
be complained of (for that is the nature of the friendship of virtue),
\
and the return to them must be made on the basis of their purpose (for
\
it is purpose that is the characteristic thing in a friend and in
\
virtue). And so too, it seems, should one make a return to those
\
with whom one has studied philosophy; for their worth cannot be
\
measured against money, and they can get no honour which will
\
balance their services, but still it is perhaps enough, as it is
\
with the gods and with one's parents, to give them what one can.
\

\
  If the gift was not of this sort, but was made with a view to a
\
return, it is no doubt preferable that the return made should be one
\
that seems fair to both parties, but if this cannot be achieved, it
\
would seem not only necessary that the person who gets the first
\
service should fix the reward, but also just; for if the other gets in
\
return the equivalent of the advantage the beneficiary has received,
\
or the price lie would have paid for the pleasure, he will have got
\
what is fair as from the other.
\

\
  We see this happening too with things put up for sale, and in some
\
places there are laws providing that no actions shall arise out of
\
voluntary contracts, on the assumption that one should settle with a
\
person to whom one has given credit, in the spirit in which one
\
bargained with him. The law holds that it is more just that the person
\
to whom credit was given should fix the terms than that the person who
\
gave credit should do so. For most things are not assessed at the same
\
value by those who have them and those who want them; each class
\
values highly what is its own and what it is offering; yet the
\
return is made on the terms fixed by the receiver. But no doubt the
\
receiver should assess a thing not at what it seems worth when he
\
has it, but at what he assessed it at before he had it.
\

\
                                 2
\

\
  A further problem is set by such questions as, whether one should in
\
all things give the preference to one's father and obey him, or
\
whether when one is ill one should trust a doctor, and when one has to
\
elect a general should elect a man of military skill; and similarly
\
whether one should render a service by preference to a friend or to
\
a good man, and should show gratitude to a benefactor or oblige a
\
friend, if one cannot do both.
\

\
  All such questions are hard, are they not, to decide with precision?
\
For they admit of many variations of all sorts in respect both of
\
the magnitude of the service and of its nobility necessity. But that
\
we should not give the preference in all things to the same person
\
is plain enough; and we must for the most part return benefits
\
rather than oblige friends, as we must pay back a loan to a creditor
\
rather than make one to a friend. But perhaps even this is not
\
always true; e.g. should a man who has been ransomed out of the
\
hands of brigands ransom his ransomer in return, whoever he may be (or
\
pay him if he has not been captured but demands payment) or should
\
he ransom his father? It would seem that he should ransom his father
\
in preference even to himself. As we have said, then, generally the
\
debt should be paid, but if the gift is exceedingly noble or
\
exceedingly necessary, one should defer to these considerations. For
\
sometimes it is not even fair to return the equivalent of what one has
\
received, when the one man has done a service to one whom he knows
\
to be good, while the other makes a return to one whom he believes
\
to be bad. For that matter, one should sometimes not lend in return to
\
one who has lent to oneself; for the one person lent to a good man,
\
expecting to recover his loan, while the other has no hope of
\
recovering from one who is believed to be bad. Therefore if the
\
facts really are so, the demand is not fair; and if they are not,
\
but people think they are, they would be held to be doing nothing
\
strange in refusing. As we have often pointed out, then, discussions
\
about feelings and actions have just as much definiteness as their
\
subject-matter.
\

\
  That we should not make the same return to every one, nor give a
\
father the preference in everything, as one does not sacrifice
\
everything to Zeus, is plain enough; but since we ought to render
\
different things to parents, brothers, comrades, and benefactors, we
\
ought to render to each class what is appropriate and becoming. And
\
this is what people seem in fact to do; to marriages they invite their
\
kinsfolk; for these have a part in the family and therefore in the
\
doings that affect the family; and at funerals also they think that
\
kinsfolk, before all others, should meet, for the same reason. And
\
it would be thought that in the matter of food we should help our
\
parents before all others, since we owe our own nourishment to them,
\
and it is more honourable to help in this respect the authors of our
\
being even before ourselves; and honour too one should give to one's
\
parents as one does to the gods, but not any and every honour; for
\
that matter one should not give the same honour to one's father and
\
one's mother, nor again should one give them the honour due to a
\
philosopher or to a general, but the honour due to a father, or
\
again to a mother. To all older persons, too, one should give honour
\
appropriate to their age, by rising to receive them and finding
\
seats for them and so on; while to comrades and brothers one should
\
allow freedom of speech and common use of all things. To kinsmen, too,
\
and fellow-tribesmen and fellow-citizens and to every other class
\
one should always try to assign what is appropriate, and to compare
\
the claims of each class with respect to nearness of relation and to
\
virtue or usefulness. The comparison is easier when the persons belong
\
to the same class, and more laborious when they are different. Yet
\
we must not on that account shrink from the task, but decide the
\
question as best we can.
\

\
                                 3
\

\
  Another question that arises is whether friendships should or should
\
not be broken off when the other party does not remain the same.
\
Perhaps we may say that there is nothing strange in breaking off a
\
friendship based on utility or pleasure, when our friends no longer
\
have these attributes. For it was of these attributes that we were the
\
friends; and when these have failed it is reasonable to love no
\
longer. But one might complain of another if, when he loved us for our
\
usefulness or pleasantness, he pretended to love us for our character.
\
For, as we said at the outset, most differences arise between
\
friends when they are not friends in the spirit in which they think
\
they are. So when a man has deceived himself and has thought he was
\
being loved for his character, when the other person was doing nothing
\
of the kind, he must blame himself; when he has been deceived by the
\
pretences of the other person, it is just that he should complain
\
against his deceiver; he will complain with more justice than one does
\
against people who counterfeit the currency, inasmuch as the
\
wrongdoing is concerned with something more valuable.
\

\
  But if one accepts another man as good, and he turns out badly and
\
is seen to do so, must one still love him? Surely it is impossible,
\
since not everything can be loved, but only what is good. What is evil
\
neither can nor should be loved; for it is not one's duty to be a
\
lover of evil, nor to become like what is bad; and we have said that
\
like is dear like. Must the friendship, then, be forthwith broken off?
\
Or is this not so in all cases, but only when one's friends are
\
incurable in their wickedness? If they are capable of being reformed
\
one should rather come to the assistance of their character or their
\
property, inasmuch as this is better and more characteristic of
\
friendship. But a man who breaks off such a friendship would seem to
\
be doing nothing strange; for it was not to a man of this sort that he
\
was a friend; when his friend has changed, therefore, and he is unable
\
to save him, he gives him up.
\

\
  But if one friend remained the same while the other became better
\
and far outstripped him in virtue, should the latter treat the
\
former as a friend? Surely he cannot. When the interval is great
\
this becomes most plain, e.g. in the case of childish friendships;
\
if one friend remained a child in intellect while the other became a
\
fully developed man, how could they be friends when they neither
\
approved of the same things nor delighted in and were pained by the
\
same things? For not even with regard to each other will their
\
tastes agree, and without this (as we saw) they cannot be friends; for
\
they cannot live together. But we have discussed these matters.
\

\
  Should he, then, behave no otherwise towards him than he would if he
\
had never been his friend? Surely he should keep a remembrance of
\
their former intimacy, and as we think we ought to oblige friends
\
rather than strangers, so to those who have been our friends we
\
ought to make some allowance for our former friendship, when the
\
breach has not been due to excess of wickedness.
\

\
                                 4
\

\
    Friendly relations with one's neighbours, and the marks by which
\
friendships are defined, seem to have proceeded from a man's relations
\
to himself. For (1) we define a friend as one who wishes and does what
\
is good, or seems so, for the sake of his friend, or (2) as one who
\
wishes his friend to exist and live, for his sake; which mothers do to
\
their children, and friends do who have come into conflict. And (3)
\
others define him as one who lives with and (4) has the same tastes as
\
another, or (5) one who grieves and rejoices with his friend; and this
\
too is found in mothers most of all. It is by some one of these
\
characterstics that friendship too is defined.
\

\
  Now each of these is true of the good man's relation to himself (and
\
of all other men in so far as they think themselves good; virtue and
\
the good man seem, as has been said, to be the measure of every
\
class of things). For his opinions are harmonious, and he desires
\
the same things with all his soul; and therefore he wishes for himself
\
what is good and what seems so, and does it (for it is
\
characteristic of the good man to work out the good), and does so
\
for his own sake (for he does it for the sake of the intellectual
\
element in him, which is thought to be the man himself); and he wishes
\
himself to live and be preserved, and especially the element by virtue
\
of which he thinks. For existence is good to the virtuous man, and
\
each man wishes himself what is good, while no one chooses to
\
possess the whole world if he has first to become some one else (for
\
that matter, even now God possesses the good); he wishes for this only
\
on condition of being whatever he is; and the element that thinks
\
would seem to be the individual man, or to be so more than any other
\
element in him. And such a man wishes to live with himself; for he
\
does so with pleasure, since the memories of his past acts are
\
delightful and his hopes for the future are good, and therefore
\
pleasant. His mind is well stored too with subjects of
\
contemplation. And he grieves and rejoices, more than any other,
\
with himself; for the same thing is always painful, and the same thing
\
always pleasant, and not one thing at one time and another at another;
\
he has, so to speak, nothing to repent of.
\

\
  Therefore, since each of these characteristics belongs to the good
\
man in relation to himself, and he is related to his friend as to
\
himself (for his friend is another self), friendship too is thought to
\
be one of these attributes, and those who have these attributes to
\
be friends. Whether there is or is not friendship between a man and
\
himself is a question we may dismiss for the present; there would seem
\
to be friendship in so far as he is two or more, to judge from the
\
afore-mentioned attributes of friendship, and from the fact that the
\
extreme of friendship is likened to one's love for oneself.
\

\
  But the attributes named seem to belong even to the majority of men,
\
poor creatures though they may be. Are we to say then that in so far
\
as they are satisfied with themselves and think they are good, they
\
share in these attributes? Certainly no one who is thoroughly bad
\
and impious has these attributes, or even seems to do so. They
\
hardly belong even to inferior people; for they are at variance with
\
themselves, and have appetites for some things and rational desires
\
for others. This is true, for instance, of incontinent people; for
\
they choose, instead of the things they themselves think good,
\
things that are pleasant but hurtful; while others again, through
\
cowardice and laziness, shrink from doing what they think best for
\
themselves. And those who have done many terrible deeds and are
\
hated for their wickedness even shrink from life and destroy
\
themselves. And wicked men seek for people with whom to spend their
\
days, and shun themselves; for they remember many a grevious deed, and
\
anticipate others like them, when they are by themselves, but when
\
they are with others they forget. And having nothing lovable in them
\
they have no feeling of love to themselves. Therefore also such men do
\
not rejoice or grieve with themselves; for their soul is rent by
\
faction, and one element in it by reason of its wickedness grieves
\
when it abstains from certain acts, while the other part is pleased,
\
and one draws them this way and the other that, as if they were
\
pulling them in pieces. If a man cannot at the same time be pained and
\
pleased, at all events after a short time he is pained because he
\
was pleased, and he could have wished that these things had not been
\
pleasant to him; for bad men are laden with repentance.
\

\
  Therefore the bad man does not seem to be amicably disposed even
\
to himself, because there is nothing in him to love; so that if to
\
be thus is the height of wretchedness, we should strain every nerve to
\
avoid wickedness and should endeavour to be good; for so and only so
\
can one be either friendly to oneself or a friend to another.
\

\
                                 5
\

\
  Goodwill is a friendly sort of relation, but is not identical with
\
friendship; for one may have goodwill both towards people whom one
\
does not know, and without their knowing it, but not friendship.
\
This has indeed been said already.' But goodwill is not even
\
friendly feeling. For it does not involve intensity or desire, whereas
\
these accompany friendly feeling; and friendly feeling implies
\
intimacy while goodwill may arise of a sudden, as it does towards
\
competitors in a contest; we come to feel goodwill for them and to
\
share in their wishes, but we would not do anything with them; for, as
\
we said, we feel goodwill suddenly and love them only superficially.
\

\
  Goodwill seems, then, to be a beginning of friendship, as the
\
pleasure of the eye is the beginning of love. For no one loves if he
\
has not first been delighted by the form of the beloved, but he who
\
delights in the form of another does not, for all that, love him,
\
but only does so when he also longs for him when absent and craves for
\
his presence; so too it is not possible for people to be friends if
\
they have not come to feel goodwill for each other, but those who feel
\
goodwill are not for all that friends; for they only wish well to
\
those for whom they feel goodwill, and would not do anything with them
\
nor take trouble for them. And so one might by an extension of the
\
term friendship say that goodwill is inactive friendship, though
\
when it is prolonged and reaches the point of intimacy it becomes
\
friendship-not the friendship based on utility nor that based on
\
pleasure; for goodwill too does not arise on those terms. The man
\
who has received a benefit bestows goodwill in return for what has
\
been done to him, but in doing so is only doing what is just; while he
\
who wishes some one to prosper because he hopes for enrichment through
\
him seems to have goodwill not to him but rather to himself, just as a
\
man is not a friend to another if he cherishes him for the sake of
\
some use to be made of him. In general, goodwill arises on account
\
of some excellence and worth, when one man seems to another
\
beautiful or brave or something of the sort, as we pointed out in
\
the case of competitors in a contest.
\

\
                                 6
\

\
  Unanimity also seems to be a friendly relation. For this reason it
\
is not identity of opinion; for that might occur even with people
\
who do not know each other; nor do we say that people who have the
\
same views on any and every subject are unanimous, e.g. those who
\
agree about the heavenly bodies (for unanimity about these is not a
\
friendly relation), but we do say that a city is unanimous when men
\
have the same opinion about what is to their interest, and choose
\
the same actions, and do what they have resolved in common. It is
\
about things to be done, therefore, that people are said to be
\
unanimous, and, among these, about matters of consequence and in which
\
it is possible for both or all parties to get what they want; e.g. a
\
city is unanimous when all its citizens think that the offices in it
\
should be elective, or that they should form an alliance with
\
Sparta, or that Pittacus should be their ruler-at a time when he
\
himself was also willing to rule. But when each of two people wishes
\
himself to have the thing in question, like the captains in the
\
Phoenissae, they are in a state of faction; for it is not unanimity
\
when each of two parties thinks of the same thing, whatever that may
\
be, but only when they think of the same thing in the same hands, e.g.
\
when both the common people and those of the better class wish the
\
best men to rule; for thus and thus alone do all get what they aim at.
\
Unanimity seems, then, to be political friendship, as indeed it is
\
commonly said to be; for it is concerned with things that are to our
\
interest and have an influence on our life.
\

\
  Now such unanimity is found among good men; for they are unanimous
\
both in themselves and with one another, being, so to say, of one mind
\
(for the wishes of such men are constant and not at the mercy of
\
opposing currents like a strait of the sea), and they wish for what is
\
just and what is advantageous, and these are the objects of their
\
common endeavour as well. But bad men cannot be unanimous except to
\
a small extent, any more than they can be friends, since they aim at
\
getting more than their share of advantages, while in labour and
\
public service they fall short of their share; and each man wishing
\
for advantage to himself criticizes his neighbour and stands in his
\
way; for if people do not watch it carefully the common weal is soon
\
destroyed. The result is that they are in a state of faction,
\
putting compulsion on each other but unwilling themselves to do what
\
is just.
\

\
                                 7
\

\
  Benefactors are thought to love those they have benefited, more than
\
those who have been well treated love those that have treated them
\
well, and this is discussed as though it were paradoxical. Most people
\
think it is because the latter are in the position of debtors and
\
the former of creditors; and therefore as, in the case of loans,
\
debtors wish their creditors did not exist, while creditors actually
\
take care of the safety of their debtors, so it is thought that
\
benefactors wish the objects of their action to exist since they
\
will then get their gratitude, while the beneficiaries take no
\
interest in making this return. Epicharmus would perhaps declare
\
that they say this because they 'look at things on their bad side',
\
but it is quite like human nature; for most people are forgetful,
\
and are more anxious to be well treated than to treat others well. But
\
the cause would seem to be more deeply rooted in the nature of things;
\
the case of those who have lent money is not even analogous. For
\
they have no friendly feeling to their debtors, but only a wish that
\
they may kept safe with a view to what is to be got from them; while
\
those who have done a service to others feel friendship and love for
\
those they have served even if these are not of any use to them and
\
never will be. This is what happens with craftsmen too; every man
\
loves his own handiwork better than he would be loved by it if it came
\
alive; and this happens perhaps most of all with poets; for they
\
have an excessive love for their own poems, doting on them as if
\
they were their children. This is what the position of benefactors
\
is like; for that which they have treated well is their handiwork, and
\
therefore they love this more than the handiwork does its maker. The
\
cause of this is that existence is to all men a thing to be chosen and
\
loved, and that we exist by virtue of activity (i.e. by living and
\
acting), and that the handiwork is in a sense, the producer in
\
activity; he loves his handiwork, therefore, because he loves
\
existence. And this is rooted in the nature of things; for what he
\
is in potentiality, his handiwork manifests in activity.
\

\
  At the same time to the benefactor that is noble which depends on
\
his action, so that he delights in the object of his action, whereas
\
to the patient there is nothing noble in the agent, but at most
\
something advantageous, and this is less pleasant and lovable. What is
\
pleasant is the activity of the present, the hope of the future, the
\
memory of the past; but most pleasant is that which depends on
\
activity, and similarly this is most lovable. Now for a man who has
\
made something his work remains (for the noble is lasting), but for
\
the person acted on the utility passes away. And the memory of noble
\
things is pleasant, but that of useful things is not likely to be
\
pleasant, or is less so; though the reverse seems true of expectation.
\

\
  Further, love is like activity, being loved like passivity; and
\
loving and its concomitants are attributes of those who are the more
\
active.
\

\
  Again, all men love more what they have won by labour; e.g. those
\
who have made their money love it more than those who have inherited
\
it; and to be well treated seems to involve no labour, while to
\
treat others well is a laborious task. These are the reasons, too, why
\
mothers are fonder of their children than fathers; bringing them
\
into the world costs them more pains, and they know better that the
\
children are their own. This last point, too, would seem to apply to
\
benefactors.
\

\
                                 8
\

\
  The question is also debated, whether a man should love himself
\
most, or some one else. People criticize those who love themselves
\
most, and call them self-lovers, using this as an epithet of disgrace,
\
and a bad man seems to do everything for his own sake, and the more so
\
the more wicked he is-and so men reproach him, for instance, with
\
doing nothing of his own accord-while the good man acts for honour's
\
sake, and the more so the better he is, and acts for his friend's
\
sake, and sacrifices his own interest.
\

\
  But the facts clash with these arguments, and this is not
\
surprising. For men say that one ought to love best one's best friend,
\
and man's best friend is one who wishes well to the object of his wish
\
for his sake, even if no one is to know of it; and these attributes
\
are found most of all in a man's attitude towards himself, and so
\
are all the other attributes by which a friend is defined; for, as
\
we have said, it is from this relation that all the characteristics of
\
friendship have extended to our neighbours. All the proverbs, too,
\
agree with this, e.g. 'a single soul', and 'what friends have is
\
common property', and 'friendship is equality', and 'charity begins at
\
home'; for all these marks will be found most in a man's relation to
\
himself; he is his own best friend and therefore ought to love himself
\
best. It is therefore a reasonable question, which of the two views we
\
should follow; for both are plausible.
\

\
  Perhaps we ought to mark off such arguments from each other and
\
determine how far and in what respects each view is right. Now if we
\
grasp the sense in which each school uses the phrase 'lover of
\
self', the truth may become evident. Those who use the term as one
\
of reproach ascribe self-love to people who assign to themselves the
\
greater share of wealth, honours, and bodily pleasures; for these
\
are what most people desire, and busy themselves about as though
\
they were the best of all things, which is the reason, too, why they
\
become objects of competition. So those who are grasping with regard
\
to these things gratify their appetites and in general their
\
feelings and the irrational element of the soul; and most men are of
\
this nature (which is the reason why the epithet has come to be used
\
as it is-it takes its meaning from the prevailing type of self-love,
\
which is a bad one); it is just, therefore, that men who are lovers of
\
self in this way are reproached for being so. That it is those who
\
give themselves the preference in regard to objects of this sort
\
that most people usually call lovers of self is plain; for if a man
\
were always anxious that he himself, above all things, should act
\
justly, temperately, or in accordance with any other of the virtues,
\
and in general were always to try to secure for himself the honourable
\
course, no one will call such a man a lover of self or blame him.
\

\
  But such a man would seem more than the other a lover of self; at
\
all events he assigns to himself the things that are noblest and best,
\
and gratifies the most authoritative element in and in all things
\
obeys this; and just as a city or any other systematic whole is most
\
properly identified with the most authoritative element in it, so is a
\
man; and therefore the man who loves this and gratifies it is most
\
of all a lover of self. Besides, a man is said to have or not to
\
have self-control according as his reason has or has not the
\
control, on the assumption that this is the man himself; and the
\
things men have done on a rational principle are thought most properly
\
their own acts and voluntary acts. That this is the man himself, then,
\
or is so more than anything else, is plain, and also that the good man
\
loves most this part of him. Whence it follows that he is most truly a
\
lover of self, of another type than that which is a matter of
\
reproach, and as different from that as living according to a rational
\
principle is from living as passion dictates, and desiring what is
\
noble from desiring what seems advantageous. Those, then, who busy
\
themselves in an exceptional degree with noble actions all men approve
\
and praise; and if all were to strive towards what is noble and strain
\
every nerve to do the noblest deeds, everything would be as it
\
should be for the common weal, and every one would secure for
\
himself the goods that are greatest, since virtue is the greatest of
\
goods.
\

\
  Therefore the good man should be a lover of self (for he will both
\
himself profit by doing noble acts, and will benefit his fellows), but
\
the wicked man should not; for he will hurt both himself and his
\
neighbours, following as he does evil passions. For the wicked man,
\
what he does clashes with what he ought to do, but what the good man
\
ought to do he does; for reason in each of its possessors chooses what
\
is best for itself, and the good man obeys his reason. It is true of
\
the good man too that he does many acts for the sake of his friends
\
and his country, and if necessary dies for them; for he will throw
\
away both wealth and honours and in general the goods that are objects
\
of competition, gaining for himself nobility; since he would prefer
\
a short period of intense pleasure to a long one of mild enjoyment,
\
a twelvemonth of noble life to many years of humdrum existence, and
\
one great and noble action to many trivial ones. Now those who die for
\
others doubtless attain this result; it is therefore a great prize
\
that they choose for themselves. They will throw away wealth too on
\
condition that their friends will gain more; for while a man's
\
friend gains wealth he himself achieves nobility; he is therefore
\
assigning the greater good to himself. The same too is true of
\
honour and office; all these things he will sacrifice to his friend;
\
for this is noble and laudable for himself. Rightly then is he thought
\
to be good, since he chooses nobility before all else. But he may even
\
give up actions to his friend; it may be nobler to become the cause of
\
his friend's acting than to act himself. In all the actions,
\
therefore, that men are praised for, the good man is seen to assign to
\
himself the greater share in what is noble. In this sense, then, as
\
has been said, a man should be a lover of self; but in the sense in
\
which most men are so, he ought not.
\

\
                                 9
\

\
  It is also disputed whether the happy man will need friends or
\
not. It is said that those who are supremely happy and self-sufficient
\
have no need of friends; for they have the things that are good, and
\
therefore being self-sufficient they need nothing further, while a
\
friend, being another self, furnishes what a man cannot provide by his
\
own effort; whence the saying 'when fortune is kind, what need of
\
friends?' But it seems strange, when one assigns all good things to
\
the happy man, not to assign friends, who are thought the greatest
\
of external goods. And if it is more characteristic of a friend to
\
do well by another than to be well done by, and to confer benefits
\
is characteristic of the good man and of virtue, and it is nobler to
\
do well by friends than by strangers, the good man will need people to
\
do well by. This is why the question is asked whether we need
\
friends more in prosperity or in adversity, on the assumption that not
\
only does a man in adversity need people to confer benefits on him,
\
but also those who are prospering need people to do well by. Surely it
\
is strange, too, to make the supremely happy man a solitary; for no
\
one would choose the whole world on condition of being alone, since
\
man is a political creature and one whose nature is to live with
\
others. Therefore even the happy man lives with others; for he has the
\
things that are by nature good. And plainly it is better to spend
\
his days with friends and good men than with strangers or any chance
\
persons. Therefore the happy man needs friends.
\

\
  What then is it that the first school means, and in what respect
\
is it right? Is it that most identify friends with useful people? Of
\
such friends indeed the supremely happy man will have no need, since
\
he already has the things that are good; nor will he need those whom
\
one makes one's friends because of their pleasantness, or he will need
\
them only to a small extent (for his life, being pleasant, has no need
\
of adventitious pleasure); and because he does not need such friends
\
he is thought not to need friends.
\

\
  But that is surely not true. For we have said at the outset that
\
happiness is an activity; and activity plainly comes into being and is
\
not present at the start like a piece of property. If (1) happiness
\
lies in living and being active, and the good man's activity is
\
virtuous and pleasant in itself, as we have said at the outset, and
\
(2) a thing's being one's own is one of the attributes that make it
\
pleasant, and (3) we can contemplate our neighbours better than
\
ourselves and their actions better than our own, and if the actions of
\
virtuous men who are their friends are pleasant to good men (since
\
these have both the attributes that are naturally pleasant),-if this
\
be so, the supremely happy man will need friends of this sort, since
\
his purpose is to contemplate worthy actions and actions that are
\
his own, and the actions of a good man who is his friend have both
\
these qualities.
\

\
  Further, men think that the happy man ought to live pleasantly.
\
Now if he were a solitary, life would be hard for him; for by
\
oneself it is not easy to be continuously active; but with others
\
and towards others it is easier. With others therefore his activity
\
will be more continuous, and it is in itself pleasant, as it ought
\
to be for the man who is supremely happy; for a good man qua good
\
delights in virtuous actions and is vexed at vicious ones, as a
\
musical man enjoys beautiful tunes but is pained at bad ones. A
\
certain training in virtue arises also from the company of the good,
\
as Theognis has said before us.
\

\
  If we look deeper into the nature of things, a virtuous friend seems
\
to be naturally desirable for a virtuous man. For that which is good
\
by nature, we have said, is for the virtuous man good and pleasant
\
in itself. Now life is defined in the case of animals by the power
\
of perception in that of man by the power of perception or thought;
\
and a power is defined by reference to the corresponding activity,
\
which is the essential thing; therefore life seems to be essentially
\
the act of perceiving or thinking. And life is among the things that
\
are good and pleasant in themselves, since it is determinate and the
\
determinate is of the nature of the good; and that which is good by
\
nature is also good for the virtuous man (which is the reason why life
\
seems pleasant to all men); but we must not apply this to a wicked and
\
corrupt life nor to a life spent in pain; for such a life is
\
indeterminate, as are its attributes. The nature of pain will become
\
plainer in what follows. But if life itself is good and pleasant
\
(which it seems to be, from the very fact that all men desire it,
\
and particularly those who are good and supremely happy; for to such
\
men life is most desirable, and their existence is the most
\
supremely happy) and if he who sees perceives that he sees, and he who
\
hears, that he hears, and he who walks, that he walks, and in the case
\
of all other activities similarly there is something which perceives
\
that we are active, so that if we perceive, we perceive that we
\
perceive, and if we think, that we think; and if to perceive that we
\
perceive or think is to perceive that we exist (for existence was
\
defined as perceiving or thinking); and if perceiving that one lives
\
is in itself one of the things that are pleasant (for life is by
\
nature good, and to perceive what is good present in oneself is
\
pleasant); and if life is desirable, and particularly so for good men,
\
because to them existence is good and pleasant for they are pleased at
\
the consciousness of the presence in them of what is in itself
\
good); and if as the virtuous man is to himself, he is to his friend
\
also (for his friend is another self):-if all this be true, as his own
\
being is desirable for each man, so, or almost so, is that of his
\
friend. Now his being was seen to be desirable because he perceived
\
his own goodness, and such perception is pleasant in itself. He needs,
\
therefore, to be conscious of the existence of his friend as well, and
\
this will be realized in their living together and sharing in
\
discussion and thought; for this is what living together would seem to
\
mean in the case of man, and not, as in the case of cattle, feeding in
\
the same place.
\

\
  If, then, being is in itself desirable for the supremely happy man
\
(since it is by its nature good and pleasant), and that of his
\
friend is very much the same, a friend will be one of the things
\
that are desirable. Now that which is desirable for him he must
\
have, or he will be deficient in this respect. The man who is to be
\
happy will therefore need virtuous friends.
\

\
                                10
\

\
  Should we, then, make as many friends as possible, or-as in the case
\
of hospitality it is thought to be suitable advice, that one should be
\
'neither a man of many guests nor a man with none'-will that apply
\
to friendship as well; should a man neither be friendless nor have
\
an excessive number of friends?
\

\
  To friends made with a view to utility this saying would seem
\
thoroughly applicable; for to do services to many people in return
\
is a laborious task and life is not long enough for its performance.
\
Therefore friends in excess of those who are sufficient for our own
\
life are superfluous, and hindrances to the noble life; so that we
\
have no need of them. Of friends made with a view to pleasure, also,
\
few are enough, as a little seasoning in food is enough.
\

\
  But as regards good friends, should we have as many as possible,
\
or is there a limit to the number of one's friends, as there is to the
\
size of a city? You cannot make a city of ten men, and if there are
\
a hundred thousand it is a city no longer. But the proper number is
\
presumably not a single number, but anything that falls between
\
certain fixed points. So for friends too there is a fixed number
\
perhaps the largest number with whom one can live together (for
\
that, we found, thought to be very characteristic of friendship);
\
and that one cannot live with many people and divide oneself up
\
among them is plain. Further, they too must be friends of one another,
\
if they are all to spend their days together; and it is a hard
\
business for this condition to be fulfilled with a large number. It is
\
found difficult, too, to rejoice and to grieve in an intimate way with
\
many people, for it may likely happen that one has at once to be happy
\
with one friend and to mourn with another. Presumably, then, it is
\
well not to seek to have as many friends as possible, but as many as
\
are enough for the purpose of living together; for it would seem
\
actually impossible to be a great friend to many people. This is why
\
one cannot love several people; love is ideally a sort of excess of
\
friendship, and that can only be felt towards one person; therefore
\
great friendship too can only be felt towards a few people. This seems
\
to be confirmed in practice; for we do not find many people who are
\
friends in the comradely way of friendship, and the famous friendships
\
of this sort are always between two people. Those who have many
\
friends and mix intimately with them all are thought to be no one's
\
friend, except in the way proper to fellow-citizens, and such people
\
are also called obsequious. In the way proper to fellow-citizens,
\
indeed, it is possible to be the friend of many and yet not be
\
obsequious but a genuinely good man; but one cannot have with many
\
people the friendship based on virtue and on the character of our
\
friends themselves, and we must be content if we find even a few such.
\

\
                                11
\

\
  Do we need friends more in good fortune or in bad? They are sought
\
after in both; for while men in adversity need help, in prosperity
\
they need people to live with and to make the objects of their
\
beneficence; for they wish to do well by others. Friendship, then,
\
is more necessary in bad fortune, and so it is useful friends that one
\
wants in this case; but it is more noble in good fortune, and so we
\
also seek for good men as our friends, since it is more desirable to
\
confer benefits on these and to live with these. For the very presence
\
of friends is pleasant both in good fortune and also in bad, since
\
grief is lightened when friends sorrow with us. Hence one might ask
\
whether they share as it were our burden, or-without that
\
happening-their presence by its pleasantness, and the thought of their
\
grieving with us, make our pain less. Whether it is for these
\
reasons or for some other that our grief is lightened, is a question
\
that may be dismissed; at all events what we have described appears to
\
take place.
\

\
  But their presence seems to contain a mixture of various factors.
\
The very seeing of one's friends is pleasant, especially if one is
\
in adversity, and becomes a safeguard against grief (for a friend
\
tends to comfort us both by the sight of him and by his words, if he
\
is tactful, since he knows our character and the things that please or
\
pain us); but to see him pained at our misfortunes is painful; for
\
every one shuns being a cause of pain to his friends. For this
\
reason people of a manly nature guard against making their friends
\
grieve with them, and, unless he be exceptionally insensible to
\
pain, such a man cannot stand the pain that ensues for his friends,
\
and in general does not admit fellow-mourners because he is not
\
himself given to mourning; but women and womanly men enjoy
\
sympathisers in their grief, and love them as friends and companions
\
in sorrow. But in all things one obviously ought to imitate the better
\
type of person.
\

\
  On the other hand, the presence of friends in our prosperity implies
\
both a pleasant passing of our time and the pleasant thought of
\
their pleasure at our own good fortune. For this cause it would seem
\
that we ought to summon our friends readily to share our good fortunes
\
(for the beneficent character is a noble one), but summon them to
\
our bad fortunes with hesitation; for we ought to give them as
\
little a share as possible in our evils whence the saying 'enough is
\
my misfortune'. We should summon friends to us most of all when they
\
are likely by suffering a few inconveniences to do us a great service.
\

\
  Conversely, it is fitting to go unasked and readily to the aid of
\
those in adversity (for it is characteristic of a friend to render
\
services, and especially to those who are in need and have not
\
demanded them; such action is nobler and pleasanter for both persons);
\
but when our friends are prosperous we should join readily in their
\
activities (for they need friends for these too), but be tardy in
\
coming forward to be the objects of their kindness; for it is not
\
noble to be keen to receive benefits. Still, we must no doubt avoid
\
getting the reputation of kill-joys by repulsing them; for that
\
sometimes happens.
\

\
  The presence of friends, then, seems desirable in all circumstances.
\

\
                                12
\

\
  Does it not follow, then, that, as for lovers the sight of the
\
beloved is the thing they love most, and they prefer this sense to the
\
others because on it love depends most for its being and for its
\
origin, so for friends the most desirable thing is living together?
\
For friendship is a partnership, and as a man is to himself, so is
\
he to his friend; now in his own case the consciousness of his being
\
is desirable, and so therefore is the consciousness of his friend's
\
being, and the activity of this consciousness is produced when they
\
live together, so that it is natural that they aim at this. And
\
whatever existence means for each class of men, whatever it is for
\
whose sake they value life, in that they wish to occupy themselves
\
with their friends; and so some drink together, others dice
\
together, others join in athletic exercises and hunting, or in the
\
study of philosophy, each class spending their days together in
\
whatever they love most in life; for since they wish to live with
\
their friends, they do and share in those things which give them the
\
sense of living together. Thus the friendship of bad men turns out
\
an evil thing (for because of their instability they unite in bad
\
pursuits, and besides they become evil by becoming like each other),
\
while the friendship of good men is good, being augmented by their
\
companionship; and they are thought to become better too by their
\
activities and by improving each other; for from each other they
\
take the mould of the characteristics they approve-whence the saying
\
'noble deeds from noble men'.-So much, then, for friendship; our
\
next task must be to discuss pleasure.
\

\
                              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
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is base.
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  But it is difficult to get from youth up a right training for virtue
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if one has not been brought up under right laws; for to live
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temperately and hardily is not pleasant to most people, especially
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when they are young. For this reason their nurture and occupations
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should be fixed by law; for they will not be painful when they have
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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
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need laws for this as well, and generally speaking to cover the
\
whole of life; for most people obey necessity rather than argument,
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and punishments rather than the sense of what is noble.
\

\
  This is why some think that legislators ought to stimulate men to
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virtue and urge them forward by the motive of the noble, on the
\
assumption that those who have been well advanced by the formation
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of habits will attend to such influences; and that punishments and
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penalties should be imposed on those who disobey and are of inferior
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nature, while the incurably bad should be completely banished. A
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good man (they think), since he lives with his mind fixed on what is
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noble, will submit to argument, while a bad man, whose desire is for
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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
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good must be well trained and habituated, and go on to spend his
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time in worthy occupations and neither willingly nor unwillingly do
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bad actions, and if this can be brought about if men live in
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accordance with a sort of reason and right order, provided this has
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force,-if this be so, the paternal command indeed has not the required
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force or compulsive power (nor in general has the command of one
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man, unless he be a king or something similar), but the law has
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compulsive power, while it is at the same time a rule proceeding
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from a sort of practical wisdom and reason. And while people hate
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men who oppose their impulses, even if they oppose them rightly, the
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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
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states such matters have been neglected, and each man lives as he
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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,
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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
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written or unwritten would seem to make no difference, nor whether
\
they are laws providing for the education of individuals or of
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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
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character have force, so in households do the injunctions and the
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habits of the father, and these have even more because of the tie of
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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
\
.
\

\

\
}