4. If man be capable of possessing perfect Life, he is happy as soon as
he possesses it. If it were otherwise, if the perfect life pertained
to the divinities alone, to them alone also would happiness belong.
But since we attribute happiness to men, we shall have to set forth
in what that which procures it consists. I repeat, what results from
our former considerations, namely, that man has perfect Life when,
besides the sense-life, he possesses reason and true intelligence.
But is man as such stranger to the perfect Life, and does he possess
it as something alien (to his essential being)? No, for no man lacks
happiness entirely, either actually or even potentially. But shall we
consider happiness as a part of the man, and that he in himself is the
perfect form of life? We had better think that he who is a stranger to
the perfect Life possesses only a part of happiness, as he possesses
happiness only potentially; but that he who possesses the perfect Life
in actuality, and he who has succeeded in identifying himself with it,
alone is happy. All the other things, no more than envelope him (as
the Stoics would say), and could not be considered as parts of him,
since they surround him in spite of himself. They would belong to him
as parts of himself, if they were joined to him by the result of his
will. What is the Good for a man who finds himself in this condition?
By the perfect life which he possesses, he himself is his own good. The
principle (the Good in itself) which is superior (to the perfect Life)
is the cause of the good which is in him; for we must not confuse the
Good in itself--and the good in man.