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.
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■Fof other goods must make it more desirable ; for the ^ addition becomes a surplus of good, and of two goods the greater is always more desirable.
Thus it seems that happiness is something final and self-sufiicing, and is the end of all that man does.
But perhaps the reader thinks that though no one ttfind u m: wiU dispute the statement that happiness is the best mans thmg m the world, yet a still more precise dennition of it is needed. I This will best be gained, I think, by asking, What is the function of man ? For as the groodness and the excellence of a piper or a sculptor, or the practiser of any art, and generally of those who have any function or business to do, lies in that function, so man's good would seem to lie in his function, if he has one.
But can we suppose that, while a cai'penter and a cobbler has a function and a business of his own, man has no business and no function assigned him by nature ? Nay, surely as his several members, eye and hand and foot, plainly have each his own function, so we must suppose that man also has some function over and above all these.
What then is it ?
Life evidently he has in common even with the
I plants, but we want that which is peculiar to him. We must exclude, therefore, the life of mere nutrition and growth. Next to this comes the life of sense ; but this too he plainly shares with horses and cattle and aU kinds of animals. 13 There remains then the life whereby he acts — the
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life of his rational nature,* with its two sides or divisions, one rational as obeying reason, the other rational as having and exercising reason.
But as this expression is ambiguous,-|- we must be understood to mean thereby the life that consists in the exercise of the faculties ; for this seems to be more properly entitled to the name.
The function of man, then, is exercise of his vital 14 faculties [or soul] on one side in obedience to reason, and on the side with reason.
But what is called the function of a man of any profession and the function of a man who is good in that profession are generically the same, e.g. of a harper and of a good harper ; and this holds in all cases without exception, only that in the case of the latter his superior excellence at his work is added ; for we say a harper's function is to harp, and a good harper's to harp well.
Man's function then being, as we say, a kind of life — that is to say, exercise of his faculties and action of various kinds with reason — the good man's function is to do this well and beautifully.
But the function of anything is done well when it U is done in accordance with the proper excellence of that thing. jiesuiting Putting all this together, then, we find that the f For it might mean either the mere possession of the vital faculties, or their exercise.
* irpoKTiK-f) ris TOW \6yov 6x<""''os. Aristotle frequently nses the terms irpa^ts, Trpa/cT^s, irpaKTiK6s in this wide sense, covering all that man does, i.e. all that part of man's life that is within the control of his will, or that is consciously directed to an end, including therefore speculation as well as action.
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_< >od of man is exercise of his faculties in accordance definition of ^vith excellence or virtue, or, if there be more than ne, in accordance with the best and most complete virtue.*
16 But to this we must add that the external circumstances of his life must also be perfect and complete : t if one swallow or one fine day does not make a spring, neither does one day or any small space of time make a blessed or happy man.
This, then, may be taken as a rough outline of the
_v)od ; for this, I think, is the proper' method, — first to ket<?h the outline, and then to fiU in the details. But it would seem that, the outline once fairly drawn, any
K one can carry on the work and fit in the several items
B which time reveals to us or helps us to find. And this indeed is the way in which the arts and sciences have grown ; for it requires no extraordinarj' genius to fill up the gaps.