3. Dismissing these theories, we return to our own definition of
happiness. We do not necessarily make life synonymous with happiness
by attributing happiness to a living being. Otherwise, we would be
implying that all living beings can achieve it, and we would be
admitting to real complete enjoyment thereof all those who possessed
that union and identity which all living beings are naturally capable
of possessing. Finally, it would be difficult to grant this privilege
to the reasonable being, while refusing it to the brute; for both
equally possess life. They should, therefore, be capable of achieving
happiness--for, on this hypothesis, happiness could be no more than a
kind of life. Consequently, the philosophers who make it consist in the
rational life, not in the life common to all beings, do not perceive
that they implicitly suppose that happiness is something different
from life. They are then obliged to say that happiness resides in a
pure quality, in the rational faculty. But the subject (to which they
should refer happiness) is the rational life, since happiness can
belong only to the totality (of life joined to reason). They therefore,
really limit the life they speak of to a certain kind of life; not
that they have the right to consider these two kinds of life (life in
general, and rational life) as being ranked alike, as both members of
a single division would be, but another kind of distinction might be
established between them, such as when we say that one thing is prior,
and the other posterior. Since "life" may be understood in different
senses, and as it possesses different degrees, and since by mere verbal
similarity life may be equally predicated of plants and of irrational
animals, and since its differences consist in being more or less
complete, analogy demands a similar treatment of "living well." If, by
its life, a being be the image of some other being, by its happiness
it will also be the image of the happiness of this other being. If
happiness be the privilege of complete life, the being that possesses a
complete life will also alone possess happiness; for it possesses what
is best since, in the order of these existences, the best is possession
of the essence (being) and perfection of life. Consequently, the Good
is not anything incidental, for no subject could owe its good to a
quality that would be derived from elsewhere. What indeed could be
added to complete life, to render it excellent?