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.
some one art or science, — as the making of bridles and other trappings to the art of horsemanship, and this in turn, along with all else that the soldier does, to the art of war, and so on, — then the end of the master-art is always more desired than the ends of the subordinate arts, since these are pursued for its sake. And this is equally true whether the end in view be the mere exercise of a faculty or something beyond that, as in the above instances. thk end is 2. If then in what we do there be some end which lurmhfect is wc wish for ou its own account, choosing all the others this and ^^ means to this, but not every end without exception its science rolitics.
as a means to something else (for so we should go on ad infinitiiTYh, and desire would be left void and objectless), — this evidently will be the good or the best of all things.
And surely from a practical point of view it much 2 concerns us to know this good ; for then, like archers shooting at a definite mark, we shall be more likely to attain what we want.
If this be so, we must try to indicate roughly what 3 it is, and first of all to which of the arts or sciences it belongs.
It would seem to belong to the supreme art or 4 science, that one which most of all deserves the name of master-art or master-science.
Now Politics* seems to answer to this description. 6
* To Aristotle Politics is a much wider term than to us ; it covers the whole field of human life, since man is essentially social (7, 6) ; it has to determine (1) what is the good ? — the question of this treatise (§ 9) — and (2) what can law do to promote this good ? — the question of the sequel, which is specially called " The Politics : " c/. X. 9.
-3, 4.] THE EXD.
I
^^Dr it prescribes wliich of the sciences a state needs, and which each man shall study, and up to what point ; and to it we see subordinated even the highest arts, such as economy, rhetoric, and the art of war.
Since then it makes use of the other practical sciences, and since it further ordains what men are to do and from what to refrain, its end must include the ends of the others, and must be the proper good of man.
For though this good is the same for the individual and the state, yet the good of the state seems a grander and more perfect thing both to attain and to secure ; and glad as one would be to do this service for a single individual, to do it for a people and for a number of states is nobler and more divine.
This then is the aim of the present inquir}-, which is a sort of political inquiry.*
3. We must be content if we can attain to so much Btaetnets
... -I 1 • 1 /• not perprecision m our statement as the subject before us muted by
. . fubject nor to admits of : for the same decnree of accui^acy is no more ^ expected
. . ° . "^ . byttudent, to be expected in all kinds of reasonincj than in all '^ao «««** kinds of manufacture, <""* .
*■ "-' experience
tratntng.
Now what is noble and just (with which Politics deals) is so various and so uncertain, that some think these are merely conventional and not natural distinctions.
There is a similar uncertainty also about what is good, because good things often do people harm : men have before now been ruined by wealth, and have lost their lives through courage.
Our subject, then, and our data being of thisp. 4 nature, we must be content if we can indicate the truth roughly and in outline, and if, in dealing with matters that are not amenable to immutable laws, and reasoning from premises that are but probable, we can arrive at probable conclusions.*
* i.e. covers a part of the grotmd only : see preceding note.
The reader, on his part, should take each of my statements in the same spirit ; for it is the mark of an educated man to require, in each kind of inquiry, just so much exactness as the subject admits of: it is equally absurd to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician, and to demand scientific proof from an orator.