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.
* fdos, cnstom ; ^dos, character j i]6iKii aperiij, moral excellence : we have no similar sequence, but the Latin 7nos, mores, from which "morality" comes, covers both edos and ^dos.
t It is with the moral virtues that this and the three following books are exclusively concerned, the discussion of the intellectual virtues being postponed to Book VI. dperai is often used in these books, without any epithet, for " moral virtues," and perhaps is so used here.
pp. 35 against nature, but nature gives the capacity for acquiring them, and this is developed by training.
Again, where we do things by nature we get the power first, and put this power forth in act afterwards : as we plainly see in the case of the senses ; for it is not by constantlj" seeing and hearing that we acquire those faculties, but, on the contrary, we had the power first and then used it, instead of acquiring the power by the use. But the virtues we acquire by doing the acts, as is the case with the arts too. We learn an art by doing that which we wish to do when we have learned it; we become builders by building, and harpers by harping. And so by doing just acts we become just, and by doing acts of temperance and courage we become temperate and courageous.
This is attested, too, by what occurs in states ; for he legislators make their citizens good by training;
i.e. this is the wish of all legislators, and those who do not succeed in this miss their aim, and it is this that distinguishes a good from a bad constitution.
Again, both virtues and vices result from and are formed by the same acts in which they manifest themselves, as is the case with the arts also. It is by harping that good harpers and bad harpers alike are produced : and so with builders and the rest ; by building well they will become good builders, and bad ^builders by building badly. Indeed, if it were not so, ley would not want anybody to teach them, but rould all be bom either good or bad at their trades, id it is just the same with the virtues also. It is our conduct in our intercourse with other men lat we become just or unjust, and by acting in cir-
\p. 36 cumstances of danger, and training ourselves to feel fear or confidence, that we become courageous or cowardly. So, too, with our animal appetites and the passion of anger ; for by behaving in this way or in that on the occasions with which these passions are concerned, some become temperate and gentle, and others profligate and ill-tempered. In a word, the several habits or characters are formed by the same kind of acts as those which they produce.
Hence we ought to make sure that our acts be of 8 a certain kind ; for the resulting character varies as they vary. It makes no small difference, therefore, whether a man be trained from his youth up in this way or in that, but a great difference, or rather all the difference. These acts 2. But our present inquiry has not, like the rest, 1 as reason a merely speculative aim ; we are not inquiring merely prescribes; • -, ^ i n . . , .
they can't be in ordcr to know what excellence or virtue is, but m defined i p i • • exactly, hut order to become good: for otherwise it would profit must 6e _ ° ■■■ neither too US nothing. We must ask therefore about these much nor '^ too little, acts, and see of what kind they are to be; for, as we said, it is they that determine our habits or character.
First of all, then, that they must be in accordance 2 with right reason is a common characteristic of them, which we shall here take for granted, reserving for future discussion * the question what this right reason is, and how it is related to the other excellences.
But let it be understood, before we go on, that all 3 reasoning on matters of practice must be in outline merely, and not scientifically exact : for, as we said at
* In Book VI.
p. 37
starting, the kind of reasoning to be demanded varies with the subject in hand; and in practical matteiv and questions of expediency there are no invai'iable laws, any more than in questions of health.
And if our general conclusions are thus inexact, still more inexact is all reasoning about particulaicases ; for these fall under no system of scientifically established rules or traditional maxims, but the agent must always consider for himself what the special occasion requires, just as in medicine or navigation.
But though this is the case we must try to render what help we can.