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

As to men's notions of the good or happiness, it seems (to judge, as we reasonably may, from theii* lives) that the masses, who are the least refined, hold it to be pleasure, and so accept the life of enjoyment as their ideal.

For the most conspicuous kinds of life are three : this life of enjoyment, the life of the statesman, and, thirdly, the contemplative life.

The mass of men show themselves utterly slavish in their preference for the life of brute beasts, but their views receive consideration because many of those in high places have the tastes of Sardanapalus.

Men of refinement with a practical turn prefer honour ; for I suppose we may say that honour is the aim of the statesman's life.

But this seems too superficial to be the good we are seeking : for it appears to depend upon those who give rather than upon those who receive it ; while we have a presentiment that the good is something that is peculiarly a man's own and can scarce be taken away from him.

Moreover, these men seem to pursue honour in order that they may be assured of their own excellence, — at least, they wish to be honoured by men of sense, and by those who know them, and on the ground of their virtue or excellence. It is plain, then, that in their view, at any rate, virtue or excellence is better than honour ; and perhaps we should take this to be the end of the statesman's life, rather than honour.

But virtue or excellence also appears too incomplete to be what we want ; for it seems that a man

8 ^ NICOMACHEAN ETHICS OP ARISTOTLE. [Bk. I.

might have virtue and yet be asleep or be inactive all his life, and, moreover, might meet with the greatest disasters and misfortunes ; and no one would maintain that such a man is happy, except for argument's sake. But we will not dwell on these matters now, for they are sufficiently discussed in the popular treatises.

The third kind of life is the life of contemplation : 7 we will treat of it further on.*

As for the money-making life, it is something 8 quite contrary to nature ; and wealth evidently is not the good of which we are in search, for it is merely useful as a means to something else. So we might rather take pleasure and virtue or excellence to be ends than wealth; for they are chosen on their own account. But it seems that not even they are the end, though much breath has been wasted in attempts to show that they are. Various 6- Dismissing these views, then, we have now to l

Z^wZ^Jn^t consider the " universal good," and to state the diffinists that culties which it presents ; though such an inquiry is | there can't be , ■. iii' • /> n • ii-r-iil one universal not a plcasaut task m view 01 our iriendship lor the authors of the doctrine of ideas. But we venture to 1 ^ think that this is the right course, and that in the interests of truth we ought to sacrifice even what is nearest to us, especially as we call ourselves philosophers. Both are dear to us, but it is a sacred duty to give the preference to truth.

In the first place, the authors of this theory them- 2 selves did not assert a common idea in the case of things of which on& is prior to the other ; and for this * Cf. VI. and X. 7.

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reason they did not hold one common idea of numbers. Now the predicate good is applied to substances and also to qualities and relations. But that which has independent existence, what we call " substance," is logicall}' prior to that which is relative ; for the latter is an oflshoot as it were, or [in logical language] an accident of a thing or substance. So [by their own showing] there cannot be one common idea of these joods.

Secondly, the term good is used in as many afferent ways as the term "is" or 'being :" we apply the term to substances or independent existences, as

God, reason ; to qualities, as the virtues ; to quantity, as the moderate or due amount ; to relatives, as the useful ; to time, as opportunity ; to place, as habitation, and so on. It is evident, therefore, that the word good innot stand for one and the same notion in all these arious applications ; for if it did, the term could not

L' applied in all the categories, but in one only.

Thirdly, if the notion were one, since there is but one science of all the things that come under one idea, there would be but one science of all goods ; but as it is, there are many sciences even of the goods that come under one category ; as, for instance, the science which deals with opportunity in war is strategy, but