The Nicomachean Ethics — trans. F. H. Peters (1881)

Again, if it is thus acquired it will be widely 4 accessible; for it will then be in the power of all except those who have lost the capacity for excellence to acquire it by study and diligence.

And if it be better that men should attain happi- 5 ness in this way rather than by chance, it is reasonable to suppose that it is so, since in the sphere of nature all things are arranged in the best possible way, and likewise in the sphere of art, and of each mode of 6 causation, and most of all in the sphere of the noblest mode of causation. And indeed it would be too absurd to leave what is noblest and fairest to the dispensation of chance.

But our definition itself clears up the difficulty;* 7 * Cf. supra, 7, 21.

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for happiness was defined as a certain kind of exercise of the vital faculties in accordance with excellence or virtue. And of the remaining goods [other than goods of the soul], some must be present as necessary conditions, while others are aids and useful instruments 8 to happiness. And this agrees with what we said at starting. We then laid down that the end of the art political is the best of all ends ; but the chief business of that art is to make the citizens of a certain character — that is, good and apt to do what is noble. It is not without reason, then, that we do not call an ox, or a horse, or any brute happy ; for none of them is able to share in this kind of activity.

10 For the same reason also a child is not happy; he is as yet, because of his age, unable to do such things. If we ever call a child happy, it is because we hope he will one day do them.

As we said, both perfect excellence or virtue and perfection of external circumstances are needed for

11 happiness. For our circumstances are liable to many changes and to all S9rts of chances, and it is possible that he who is now most prosperous will in his old age meet with great disasters, as is told of Priam in the tales of the heroes; and a man who is thus used by fortune and comes to a miserable end cannot be caUed happy.

1 10. Are we, then, to call no man happy as long as ^^ JJIT"'* he lives, but to wait for the end, as Solon said ? ^ppv ,.^ .

' during Ixfe T

2 And, supposing we have to allow this, do we mean that he actually is happy after he is dead ? Surely that is absurd, especially for us who say that happiness is a kind of activity or life.

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But if we do not call the dead man happy, and if 3 Solon meant not this, but that only then could we safely apply the term to a man, as being now beyond the reach of evil and calamity, then here too we find some ground for objection. For it is thought that both good and evil may in some sort befall a dead man (just as they may befall a living man, although he is unconscious of them), e.g. honours rendered to him, or the reverse of these, and again the prosperity or the misfortune of his children and all his descendants.

But this, too, has its difficulties ; for after a man has lived happily to a good old age, and ended as he lived, it is possible that many changes may befall him in the persons of his descendants, and that some of them may turn out good and meet with the good fortune they deserve, and others the reverse. It is evident too that the degree in which the descendants are related to their ancestors may vary to any extent. And it would be a strange thing if the dead man were 5 to change with these changes and become happy and miserable by turns. But it would also be strange to suppose that the dead are not affected at all, even for a limited time, by the fortunes of their posterity.

But let us return to our former question ; for its 6 solution will, perhaps, clear up this other difficulty.

The saying of Solon may mean that we ought to 7 look for the end and then call a man happy, not because he now is, but because he once was happy.