The Nicomachean Ethics — trans. F. H. Peters (1881)
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The translator’s English as printed (F. H. Peters). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
possession of something, or as its use — as a mere habit or trained faculty, or as the exercise of that faculty. For the habit or faculty may be present, and yet issue in no good result, as when a man is asleep, or in any other way hindered from his function ; but with its exercise this is not possible, for it must show itself in acts and in good acts. And as at the Olympic games it is not the fairest and strongest who receive the crown, but those who contend (for among these are the victors), so in life, too, the winners are those who not only have all the excellences, but manifest these in deed.
And, further, the life of these men is in itself 10 pleasant. For pleasure is an affection of the soul, and each man takes pleasure in that which he is said to love, — he who loves horses in horses, he who loves sight-seeing in sight-seeing, and in the same way he who loves justice in acts of justice, and generally the lover of excellence or virtue in virtuous acts or the manifestation of excellence.
And while with most men there is a perpetual 11 conflict between the several things in which they find pleasure, since these are not naturally pleasant, those who love what is noble take pleasure in that which is naturally pleasant. For the manifestations of excellence are naturally pleasant, so that they are both pleasant to them and pleasant to themselves.
Their life, then, does not need pleasure to be added to it as an appendage, but contains pleasure in itself.
Indeed, in addition to what we have said, a man is not good at all unless he takes pleasure in noble deeds. No one would call a man just who did notp. 21 take pleasure in doing justice, nor generous who took no pleasure in acts of generosity, and so on.
13 If this be so, the manifestations of excellence will be pleasant in themselves. But they are also both good and noble, and that in the highest degree — at least, if the good man's judgment about them is right, for this is his judgment.
14 Happiness, then, is at once the best and noblest and pleasantest thing in the world, and these are not separated, as the Delian inscription would have them to be: —
" WLat is most jast is noblest, health is best,
Pleasantest is to get your heart's desire."
For all these characteristics are united in the best exercises of our faculties ; and these, or some one of them that is better than all the othei-s, we identify with happiness.
15 But nevertheless happiness plainly requires external goods too, as we said ; for it is impossible, or at least not easy, to act nobly without some furniture of fortune. There are many things that can only be done through instruments, so to speak, such as friends
16 and wealth and political influence : and there are some things whose absence takes the bloom off our happiness, as good birth, the blessing of children, personal beauty ; for a man is not very likely to be happy if he is very ugly in person, or of low birth, or alone in the world, or childless, and perhaps still less if he has worthless children or friends, or has lost good ones that he had.
As we said, then, happiness seems to stand in need of this kind of prosperity ; and so some identify itp. 22 with good fortune, just as others identify it with excellence. Is happiness 9. This has led people to ask whether happiness i acquired, or ^ •tii- in • f -i -i '
the gift of IS attained by learning, or the lormation of habits, or
Gods or . , . .
chance? any othcr kind of training, or comes by some divine dispensation or even by chance.
Well, if the Gods do give gifts to men, happiness 2 is likely to be among the number, more likely, indeed, than anything else, in proportion as it is better than all other human things.
This belongs more properly to another branch of in- 3 quiry ; but we may say that even if it is not heavensent, but comes as a consequence of virtue or some kind of learning or training, still it seems to be one of the most divine things in the world ; for the prize and aim of virtue would appear to be better than anything else and something divine and blessed.