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

It is evident also that the pleasure is greatest when both the faculty and that upon which it is exercised are as good as they can be: when this is the case both with the object of sense and the sentient subject, there will always be pleasure, so long, that is, as you have the subject to act and the object to be acted upon.)

Now, the pleasure makes the exercise complete not as the habit or trained faculty* does, beingp. 329 already present in the subject, but as a sort of superadded completeness, like the grace of youth.*

* As already remarked, there is no one English word which includes these various senses of e^is, (1) habit of body, (2) moral' habit or character, (3) intellectual habit or trained faculty.

So long, then, as both the object of thought or of sense and the perceptive or contemplative subject are as they ought to be, so long -will there be pleasure in the exercise ; for so long as the object to be acted upon and the subject that is able to act remain the same, and maintain the same relation to each other, the result must be the same.

How is it, then, that we are incapable of continuous pleasure ? Perhaps the reason is that we become exhausted; for no human faculty is capable of continuous exercise. Pleasure, then, also cannot be continuous; for it is an accompaniment of the exercise of faculty. And for the same reason some things please us when new, but afterwards please us less. For at first the intellect is stimulated and exercises itself upon them strenuously, just as we strain our eyes to look hard at something ; but after a time the exertion ceases to be so intense, and becomes relaxed; and so the pleasure also loses its keenness.

The desire for pleasure we should expect to be shared by all men, seeing that all desire to live.

But life is an exercise of faculties, and each man exercises the faculties he most loves upon the things lie most loves ; e.g. the musical man exercises his hearing upon melodies, and the studious man exer-

* At other periods of life the varions organs of the body may perform their functions completely, but in youth this is accompanied ' an inexpressible charm which all other ages lack.

The only analogy between pleasure and the doctor is that both mplete the activity " from outside : medicines alter the functions;

asure, like beauty, does not alter them, but is an added perfection.

330 NIOOMACHEAN ETHICS OF ARISTOTLE. [Bk. X.

cises his intellect upon matters of speculation, and so on with the rest.

And pleasure completes the exercise of faculties, and therefore life, which men desire.

Naturally, therefore, men desire pleasure too ; for each man finds in it the completion of his life, which is desirable.

But whether we desire life for the sake of pleasure, or pleasure for the sake of life, is a question which we may dismiss for the present. For the two seem to be joined together, and not to admit of separation : without exercise of faculties there is no pleasure, and every such exercise is completed by pleasure. Pleasures 5. And from this it seems to follow that pleasures corTii^'to differ in kind, since specifically different things we The standard bclieve to bc Completed by specifically different things. man. For this sccms to be the case with the products both of nature and of art, as animals and trees, paintings, sculptures, houses, and furniture. Similarly, then, we believe that exercises of faculty which differ in kind are completed by things different in kind.

But the exercises of the intellectual faculties are specifically different from the exercises of the senses, and the several kinds of each from one another; therefore the pleasures which complete them are also different.

The same conclusion would seem to follow from the close connection that exists between each pleasure and the exercise of faculty which it completes. Foi' the exercise is increased by its proper pleasure ; e.g. people are more likely to understand any matter, and

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