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

On these grounds Eudoxus is thought to have based a strong argument for the claims of pleasure to the first prize : for he maintained that the fact that it is not pi-aised, though it is a good thing, shows that it is higher than the goods we praise, as God and the o-ood are higher ; for these are the standards by reference to which we judge all other things, — gi%Tng praise to excellence or virtue, since it makes us apt to do what is noble, and passing encomiums on the results of virtue, whether these be bodily or psychical.

But to refine on these points belongs more properly to those who have made a study of the subject of encomiums ; for us it is plain from what has been said that happiness is one of the goods which we revere and count as final.

virtues.

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And this further seems to follow from the fact that 8 it is a starting-point or principle : for everything we do is always done for its sake ; but the principle and cause of all good we hold to be something divine and worthy of reverence. Division of 13. Since happiness is an exercise of the vital 1 the faculties p ■. , . . -, - ,-, p i • l ^ and result- faculties m accordance with periect virtue or exceling division ••!.•. n of the lence, we will now inquire about virtue or excellence ;

for this will probably help us in our inquiry about happiness.

And indeed the true statesman seems to be espe- 2 cially concerned with virtue, for he wishes to make the citizens good and obedient to the laws. Of this 3 we have an example in the Cretan and the Lacedaemonian lawgivers, and any others who have resembled them. But if the inquiry belongs to Politics or the 4 science of the state, it is plain that it will be in accordance with our original purpose to pursue it.

The virtue or excellence that we are to consider is, 5 of course, the excellence of man ; for it is the good of man and the happiness of man that we started to seek. And by the excellence of man I mean excel- 6 lence not of body, but of soul ; for happiness we take to be an activity of the soul.

If this be so, then it is evident that the statesman 7 must have some knowledge of the soul, just as the man who is to heal the eye or the whole body must have some knowledge of them, and that the more in proportion as the science of the state is higher and better than medicine. But all educated physicians take much pains to know about the body.

As statesmen [or students of Politics], then, we 8

12, 8-13, 13] DrV'ISION OF THE FACULTIES. 31 must inquire into the nature of the soul, but in so loing we must keep our special pui-pose in view and go only so far as that requires ; for to go into minuter detail would be too laborious for the present undertaking.

Now, there are certain points which are stated with sufficient precision even in the popular accounts of the soul, and these we will adopt.

For instance, they distinguish an irrational and a rational part.

Whether these are separated as are the parts of the body or any divisible thing, or whether they are only distinguishable in thought but in fact inseparable, like concave and convex in the circumference of a circle, makes no diflference for our present purpose.

Of the iiTational part, again, one division seems to be common to all things that live, and to be possessed by plants — I mean that which causes nutrition and gi-owth ; for we must assume that all things that take nourishment have a faculty of this kind, even when they are embryos, and have the same faculty when they are fuU grown ; at least, this is more reasonable than to suppose that they then have a different one.

The excellence of this faculty, then, is plainly one that man shares with other beings, and not specifically human.

And this is confirmed by the fact that this part of le soul, or this faculty, is thought to be most active sleep, while the distinction between the good and le bad man shows itself least in sleep — whence le saying that for half their lives there is no differice between the happy and the miserable. This

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