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

motion requires time and implies an end; e.g. t motion or process of building is complete when the required structure is. made — either in the whole time therefore, or in this final moment of it. But in the several portions of this time all the motions are incomplete, and specifically difierent from the whole motion and from each other ; the fitting together oi the stones is different from the fluting of the pillar and both from the building of the temple. The building of the temple is complete ; nothing more is required for the execution of the plan. But the building of the foundation and of the triglyph are incomplete; for each is the building of a part only. These motions, then, are specifically different from one another, and it is impossible to find a motion whose nature is complete at any moment — it is complete, if at all, only in the whole time.

It is the same also with walking and the othei kinds of locomotion. For though all locomotion is a motion from one place to another, yet there are distinct kinds of locomotion, as flying, walking, leaping, etc. Nay, not only so, but even in walking itseli there are differences, for the whence and whither are not the same in the entire course and in a portion of the course, or in this portion and in that, nor is crossing this line the same as crossing that ; for you do not cross a line simply, but a line that is in a given place, and this line is in a different place from that. I must refer to my other works * for a detailed dis-

* Physics, Book iii. f. : cf. especially vjii. 8, 264 h, 27, quoted by Eamsauer, who founds on it an ingenious emendation of tb passage.

4. 3-5.] PLEASURE. 327

cussion of motion; but it seems that it is not complete at any moment, but that most motions are incomplete, and that they are specifically different fix)m one another, the whence and whither being a specific difference.

Pleasure, on the other hand, is complete in its nature at any moment. It is evident, therefore, that these two must be distinct from each other, and that pleasure must be one of the class of whole and complete things. And this would also seem to follow from the fact that though duration is necessary for motion, it is not necessary for pleasure — for a momentary pleasure is something whole and entire.

From these considerations it is plain that they are wrong in saying that pleasure is a motion or a coming into being. For these terms are not applied to every thing, but only to those things that are divisible into parts and are not wholes. We cannot speak of the coming into being of vision, or of a mathematical point, or of unity ; nor is any one of them a motion or a coming into being. And these terms are equally inapplicable to pleasure; for it is something whole and entire.

Each sense exercises itself upon its proper object, and exercises itself completely when it is in good condition and the object is the noblest of those that fall within its scope : for the complete exercise of a : faculty seems to mean this ; and we may assume that it makes no difference whether we speak of the sense, or of the sensitive subject as exercising itself: in either case, then, we may say that the exercise is best when on the one side you have the finest condition.

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and on the other the highest of the objects that fall within the scope of this faculty.

But this exercise of the faculty -will be not only the most complete, but also the pleasantest : for the exercise of every sense is attended with pleasure, and so is the exercise of reason and the speculative faculty; and it is pleasantest when it is most complete, and it is most complete when the faculty is well-trained and the object is the best of those that fall under this faculty.

And, further, the pleasure completes the exercise of the faculty. But the pleasure completes it in a different way from that in which the object and the faculty of sense complete it, when both are as they should be ; just as health causes healthy activities in a different way from that in which the physician causes them.

(That the exercise of every sense is accompanied by pleasure is evident: we speak of pleasant sights and pleasant sounds.