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

There certainly is some plausibility in this argument, but it seems to be at variance with the existing sciences ; for though they are all aiming at some good and striving to make up their deficiencies, they neglect to inquire about this universal good. And yet it is scarce likely that the professors of the several arts and sciences should not know, nor even look for, what would help them so much.

And indeed I am at a loss to know how the weaver or €he carpenter would be furthered in his art by a knowledge of the absolute good, or how a man would be rendered more able to heal the sick or to command an army by contemplation of the pure form or idea. For it seems to me that the physician does not even seek for health in this abstract way, but seeks for the health of man, or rather of some particular man, for it is individuals that he has to heal. The good is 7. Leaving these matters, then, let us return oncep. 13 more to the question, what this good can be of which oefinca end,

, *~ and happiwe are m search. ne$*istA,t.

It seems to be different in different kinds of action and in different arts, — one thing in medicine and another in war, and so on. What then is the good in each of these cases ? Surely that for the sake of which all else is done. And that in medicine is health, in war is victory, in building is a house, — a different thing in each different case, but always, in whatever we do and in whatever we choose, the end. For it is always *for the sake of the end that all else is done.

K then there be one end of all that man does, this end will be tiie realizable good, — or these ends, if there be more than one.

2 Our argument has thus come round by a different path to the same point as before.* This point we must try to explain more clearly.

3 We see that there are many ends. But some of these are chosen only as means, as wealth, flutes, and the whole class of instruments. And so it is plain that not all ends are finaL

But the best of all things must, we conceive, be something final.

If then there be only one final end, this will be what we are seeking, — or if there be more than one, then the most final of them.

4 Now that which is pursued as an end in itself is more final than that which is pursued as means to something else, and that which is never chosen as means than that which is chosen both as an end in itself and as means, and that is strictly final which

* 2,1.

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is always chosen as an end in itself and never as means.

Happiness seems more than anything else to answer 5 to this description : for we always choose it for itself, and nevefTor the sake of something else ; while honour and pleasure and reason, and all virtue or excellence, we choose partly indeed for themselves (for, apart from any result, we should choose each of them), but partly also for the sake of happiness, supposing that they will help to make us happy. But no one chooses happiness for the sake of these things, or as a means to anything else at all.

We seem to be led to the same conclusion when we 6 start from the notion of self-sufficiency.

The final good is thought to be self-sufiicing [or all-sufficing]. In applying this term we do not regard a man as an individual leading a solitary life, but we also take account of parents, children, wife, and, in short, friends and fellow-citizens generally, since man is naturally a social being. Some limit must indeed 7 be set to this ; for if you go on to parents and descendants and friends of friends, you will never come to a stop. But this we will consider further on : for the present we will take self-sufficing to mean what by itself makes life desirable and in want of nothinsf. Now happiness is believed to answer to this description.

And further, happiness is believed to be the most 8 desirable thing in the world, and that not merely as one among other good things : if it were merely one among other good things [so that other things could be added to it], it is plain that the addition of the least

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