The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle
By Aristotle
Introduction by J. A. Smith
Contents
INTRODUCTION
ARISTOTLE’S ETHICS
BOOK I
BOOK II
BOOK III
BOOK IV
BOOK V
BOOK VI
BOOK VII
BOOK VIII
BOOK IX
BOOK X
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
The _Ethics_ of Aristotle is one half of a single treatise of which his
_Politics_ is the other half. Both deal with one and the same subject.
This subject is what Aristotle calls in one place the “philosophy of
human affairs;” but more frequently Political or Social Science. In the
two works taken together we have their author’s whole theory of human
conduct or practical activity, that is, of all human activity which is
not directed merely to knowledge or truth. The two parts of this
treatise are mutually complementary, but in a literary sense each is
independent and self-contained. The proem to the _Ethics_ is an
introduction to the whole subject, not merely to the first part; the
last chapter of the _Ethics_ points forward to the _Politics_, and
sketches for that part of the treatise the order of enquiry to be
pursued (an order which in the actual treatise is not adhered to).
The principle of distribution of the subject-matter between the two
works is far from obvious, and has been much debated. Not much can be
gathered from their titles, which in any case were not given to them by
their author. Nor do these titles suggest any very compact unity in the
works to which they are applied: the plural forms, which survive so
oddly in English (Ethic_s_, Politic_s_), were intended to indicate the
treatment within a single work of a _group_ of connected questions. The
unity of the first group arises from their centring round the topic of
character, that of the second from their connection with the existence
and life of the city or state. We have thus to regard the _Ethics_ as
dealing with one group of problems and the _Politics_ with a second,
both falling within the wide compass of Political Science. Each of
these groups falls into sub-groups which roughly correspond to the
several books in each work. The tendency to take up one by one the
various problems which had suggested themselves in the wide field
obscures both the unity of the subject-matter and its proper
articulation. But it is to be remembered that what is offered us is
avowedly rather an enquiry than an exposition of hard and fast
doctrine.
Nevertheless each work aims at a relative completeness, and it is
important to observe the relation of each to the other. The distinction
is not that the one treats of Moral and the other of Political
Philosophy, nor again that the one deals with the moral activity of the
individual and the other with that of the State, nor once more that the
one gives us the theory of human conduct, while the other discusses its
application in practice, though not all of these misinterpretations are
equally erroneous. The clue to the right interpretation is given by
Aristotle himself, where in the last chapter of the _Ethics_ he is
paving the way for the _Politics_. In the _Ethics_ he has not confined
himself to the abstract or isolated individual, but has always thought
of him, or we might say, in his social and political context, with a
given nature due to race and heredity and in certain surroundings. So
viewing him he has studied the nature and formation of his
character—all that he can make himself or be made by others to be.
Especially he has investigated the various admirable forms of human
character and the mode of their production. But all this, though it
brings more clearly before us what goodness or virtue is, and how it is
to be reached, remains mere theory or talk. By itself it does not
enable us to become, or to help others to become, good. For this it is
necessary to bring into play the great force of the Political Community
or State, of which the main instrument is Law. Hence arises the demand
for the necessary complement to the _Ethics, i.e._, a treatise devoted
to the questions which centre round the enquiry; by what organisation
of social or political forces, by what laws or institutions can we best
secure the greatest amount of good character?
We must, however, remember that the production of good character is not
the end of either individual or state action: that is the aim of the
one and the other because good character is the indispensable condition
and chief determinant of happiness, itself the goal of all human doing.
The end of all action, individual or collective, is the greatest
happiness of the greatest number. There is, Aristotle insists, no
difference of kind between the good of one and the good of many or all.
The sole difference is one of amount or scale. This does not mean
simply that the State exists to secure in larger measure the objects of
degree which the isolated individual attempts, but is too feeble, to
secure without it. On the contrary, it rather insists that whatever
goods society alone enables a man to secure have always had to the
individual—whether he realised it or not—the value which, when so
secured, he recognises them to possess. The best and happiest life for
the individual is that which the State renders possible, and this it
does mainly by revealing to him the value of new objects of desire and
educating him to appreciate them. To Aristotle or to Plato the State
is, above all, a large and powerful educative agency which gives the
individual increased opportunities of self-development and greater
capacities for the enjoyment of life.
Looking forward, then, to the life of the State as that which aids
support, and combines the efforts of the individual to obtain
happiness, Aristotle draws no hard and fast distinction between the
spheres of action of Man as individual and Man as citizen. Nor does the
division of his discussion into the _Ethics_ and the _Politics_ rest
upon any such distinction. The distinction implied is rather between
two stages in the life of the civilised man—the stage of preparation
for the full life of the adult citizen, and the stage of the actual
exercise or enjoyment of citizenship. Hence the _Ethics_, where his
attention is directed upon the formation of character, is largely and
centrally a treatise on Moral Education. It discusses especially those
admirable human qualities which fit a man for life in an organised
civic community, which makes him “a good citizen,” and considers how
they can be fostered or created and their opposites prevented.
This is the kernel of the _Ethics_, and all the rest is subordinate to
this main interest and purpose. Yet “the rest” is not irrelevant; the
whole situation in which character grows and operates is concretely
conceived. There is a basis of what we should call Psychology, sketched
in firm outlines, the deeper presuppositions and the wider issues of
human character and conduct are not ignored, and there is no little of
what we should call Metaphysics. But neither the Psychology nor the
Metaphysics is elaborated, and only so much is brought forward as
appears necessary to put the main facts in their proper perspective and
setting. It is this combination of width of outlook with close
observation of the concrete facts of conduct which gives its abiding
value to the work, and justifies the view of it as containing
Aristotle’s Moral Philosophy. Nor is it important merely as summing up
the moral judgments and speculations of an age now long past. It seizes
and dwells upon those elements and features in human practice which are
most essential and permanent, and it is small wonder that so much in it
survives in our own ways of regarding conduct and speaking of it. Thus
it still remains one of the classics of Moral Philosophy, nor is its
value likely soon to be exhausted.
As was pointed out above, the proem (Book I., cc. i-iii.) is a prelude
to the treatment of the whole subject covered by the _Ethics_ and the
_Politics_ together. It sets forth the purpose of the enquiry,
describes the spirit in which it is to be undertaken and what ought to
be the expectation of the reader, and lastly states the necessary
conditions of studying it with profit. The aim of it is the acquisition
and propagation of a certain kind of knowledge (science), but this
knowledge and the thinking which brings it about are subsidiary to a
practical end. The knowledge aimed at is of what is best for man and of
the conditions of its realisation. Such knowledge is that which in its
consumate form we find in great statesmen, enabling them to organise
and administer their states and regulate by law the life of the
citizens to their advantage and happiness, but it is the same kind of
knowledge which on a smaller scale secures success in the management of
the family or of private life.
It is characteristic of such knowledge that it should be deficient in
“exactness,” in precision of statement, and closeness of logical
concatenation. We must not look for a mathematics of conduct. The
subject-matter of Human Conduct is not governed by necessary and
uniform laws. But this does not mean that it is subject to no laws.
There are general principles at work in it, and these can be formulated
in “rules,” which rules can be systematised or unified. It is
all-important to remember that practical or moral rules are only
general and always admit of exceptions, and that they arise not from
the mere complexity of the facts, but from the liability of the facts
to a certain unpredictable variation. At their very best, practical
rules state probabilities, not certainties; a relative constancy of
connection is all that exists, but it is enough to serve as a guide in
life. Aristotle here holds the balance between a misleading hope of
reducing the subject-matter of conduct to a few simple rigorous
abstract principles, with conclusions necessarily issuing from them,
and the view that it is the field of operation of inscrutable forces
acting without predictable regularity. He does not pretend to find in
it absolute uniformities, or to deduce the details from his principles.
Hence, too, he insists on the necessity of experience as the source or
test of all that he has to say. Moral experience—the actual possession
and exercise of good character—is necessary truly to understand moral
principles and profitably to apply them. The mere intellectual
apprehension of them is not possible, or if possible, profitless.
The _Ethics_ is addressed to students who are presumed both to have
enough general education to appreciate these points, and also to have a
solid foundation of good habits. More than that is not required for the
profitable study of it.
If the discussion of the nature and formation of character be regarded
as the central topic of the _Ethics_, the contents of Book I., cc.
iv.-xii. may be considered as still belonging to the introduction and
setting, but these chapters contain matter of profound importance and
have exercised an enormous influence upon subsequent thought. They lay
down a principle which governs all Greek thought about human life, viz.
that it is only intelligible when viewed as directed towards some end
or good. This is the Greek way of expressing that all human life
involves an ideal element—something which it is not yet and which under
certain conditions it is to be. In that sense Greek Moral Philosophy is
essentially idealistic. Further it is always assumed that all human
practical activity is directed or “oriented” to a _single_ end, and
that that end is knowable or definable in advance of its realisation.
To know it is not merely a matter of speculative interest, it is of the
highest practical moment for only in the light of it can life be duly
guided, and particularly only so can the state be properly organised
and administered. This explains the stress laid throughout by Greek
Moral Philosophy upon the necessity of knowledge as a condition of the
best life. This knowledge is not, though it includes knowledge of the
nature of man and his circumstances, it is knowledge of what is best—of
man’s supreme end or good.
But this end is not conceived as presented to him by a superior power
nor even as something which _ought_ to be. The presentation of the
Moral Ideal as Duty is almost absent. From the outset it is identified
with the object of desire, of what we not merely judge desirable but
actually do desire, or that which would, if realised, satisfy human
desire. In fact it is what we all, wise and simple, agree in naming
“Happiness” (Welfare or Well-being)
In what then does happiness consist? Aristotle summarily sets aside the
more or less popular identifications of it with abundance of physical
pleasures, with political power and honour, with the mere possession of
such superior gifts or attainments as normally entitle men to these,
with wealth. None of these can constitute the end or good of man as
such. On the other hand, he rejects his master Plato’s conception of a
good which is the end of the whole universe, or at least dismisses it
as irrelevant to his present enquiry. The good towards which all human
desires and practical activities are directed must be one conformable
to man’s special nature and circumstances and attainable by his
efforts. There is in Aristotle’s theory of human conduct no trace of
Plato’s “other worldliness”, he brings the moral ideal in Bacon’s
phrase down to “right earth”—and so closer to the facts and problems of
actual human living. Turning from criticism of others he states his own
positive view of Happiness, and, though he avowedly states it merely in
outline his account is pregnant with significance. Human Happiness lies
in activity or energising, and that in a way peculiar to man with his
given nature and his given circumstances, it is not theoretical, but
practical: it is the activity not of reason but still of a being who
possesses reason and applies it, and it presupposes in that being the
development, and not merely the natural possession, of certain relevant
powers and capacities. The last is the prime condition of successful
living and therefore of satisfaction, but Aristotle does not ignore
other conditions, such as length of life, wealth and good luck, the
absence or diminution of which render happiness not impossible, but
difficult of attainment.
It is interesting to compare this account of Happiness with Mill’s in
_Utilitarianism_. Mill’s is much the less consistent: at times he
distinguishes and at times he identifies, happiness, pleasure,
contentment, and satisfaction. He wavers between belief in its general
attainability and an absence of hopefulness. He mixes up in an
arbitrary way such ingredients as “not expecting more from life than it
is capable of bestowing,” “mental cultivation,” “improved laws,” etc.,
and in fact leaves the whole conception vague, blurred, and uncertain.
Aristotle draws the outline with a firmer hand and presents a more
definite ideal. He allows for the influence on happiness of conditions
only partly, if at all, within the control of man, but he clearly makes
the man positive determinant of man’s happiness he in himself, and more
particularly in what he makes directly of his own nature, and so
indirectly of his circumstances. “‘Tis in ourselves that we are thus or
thus” But once more this does not involve an artificial or abstract
isolation of the individual moral agent from his relation to other
persons or things from his context in society and nature, nor ignore
the relative dependence of his life upon a favourable environment.
The main factor which determines success or failure in human life is
the acquisition of certain powers, for Happiness is just the exercise
or putting forth of these in actual living, everything else is
secondary and subordinate. These powers arise from the due development
of certain natural aptitudes which belong (in various degrees) to human
nature as such and therefore to all normal human beings. In their
developed form they are known as virtues (the Greek means simply
“goodnesses,” “perfections,” “excellences,” or “fitnesses”), some of
them are physical, but others are psychical, and among the latter some,
and these distinctively or peculiarly human, are “rational,” _i e_,
presuppose the possession and exercise of mind or intelligence. These
last fall into two groups, which Aristotle distinguishes as Goodnesses
of Intellect and Goodnesses of Character. They have in common that they
all excite in us admiration and praise of their possessors, and that
they are not natural endowments, but acquired characteristics But they
differ in important ways. (1) the former are excellences or developed
powers of the reason as such—of that in us which sees and formulates
laws, rules, regularities systems, and is content in the vision of
them, while the latter involve a submission or obedience to such rules
of something in us which is in itself capricious and irregular, but
capable of regulation, viz our instincts and feelings, (2) the former
are acquired by study and instruction, the latter by discipline. The
latter constitute “character,” each of them as a “moral virtue”
(literally “a goodness of character”), and upon them primarily depends
the realisation of happiness. This is the case at least for the great
majority of men, and for all men their possession is an indispensable
basis of the best, _i e_, the most desirable life. They form the chief
or central subject-matter of the _Ethics_.
Perhaps the truest way of conceiving Aristotle’s meaning here is to
regard a moral virtue as a form of obedience to a maxim or rule of
conduct accepted by the agent as valid for a class of recurrent
situations in human life. Such obedience requires knowledge of the rule
and acceptance of it _as the rule_ of the agent’s own actions, but not
necessarily knowledge of its ground or of its systematic connexion with
other similarly known and similarly accepted rules (It may be remarked
that the Greek word usually translated “reason,” means in almost all
cases in the _Ethics_ such a rule, and not the faculty which
apprehends, formulates, considers them).
The “moral virtues and vices” make up what we call character, and the
important questions arise: (1) What is character? and (2) How is it
formed? (for character in this sense is not a natural endowment; it is
formed or produced). Aristotle deals with these questions in the
reverse order. His answers are peculiar and distinctive—not that they
are absolutely novel (for they are anticipated in Plato), but that by
him they are for the first time distinctly and clearly formulated.
(1.) Character, good or bad, is produced by what Aristotle calls
“habituation,” that is, it is the result of the repeated doing of acts
which have a similar or common quality. Such repetition acting upon
natural aptitudes or propensities gradually fixes them in one or other
of two opposite directions, giving them a bias towards good or evil.
Hence the several acts which determine goodness or badness of character
must be done in a certain way, and thus the formation of good character
requires discipline and direction from without. Not that the agent
himself contributes nothing to the formation of his character, but that
at first he needs guidance. The point is not so much that the process
cannot be safely left to Nature, but that it cannot be entrusted to
merely intellectual instruction. The process is one of assimilation,
largely by imitation and under direction and control. The result is a
growing understanding of what is done, a choice of it for its own sake,
a fixity and steadiness of purpose. Right acts and feelings become,
through habit, easier and more pleasant, and the doing of them a
“second nature.” The agent acquires the power of doing them freely,
willingly, more and more “of himself.”
But what are “right” acts? In the first place, they are those that
conform to a rule—to the right rule, and ultimately to reason. The
Greeks never waver from the conviction that in the end moral conduct is
essentially reasonable conduct. But there is a more significant way of
describing their “rightness,” and here for the first time Aristotle
introduces his famous “Doctrine of the Mean.” Reasoning from the
analogy of “right” physical acts, he pronounces that rightness always
means adaptation or adjustment to the special requirements of a
situation. To this adjustment he gives a quantitative interpretation.
To do (or to feel) what is right in a given situation is to do or to
feel just the amount required—neither more nor less: to do wrong is to
do or to feel too much or too little—to fall short of or over-shoot, “a
mean” determined by the situation. The repetition of acts which lie in
the mean is the cause of the formation of each and every “goodness of
character,” and for this “rules” can be given.
(2) What then is a “moral virtue,” the result of such a process duly
directed? It is no mere mood of feeling, no mere liability to emotion,
no mere natural aptitude or endowment, it is a permanent _state_ of the
agent’s self, or, as we might in modern phrase put it, of his will, it
consists in a steady self-imposed obedience to a rule of action in
certain situations which frequently recur in human life. The rule
prescribes the control and regulation within limits of the agent’s
natural impulses to act and feel thus and thus. The situations fall
into groups which constitute the “fields” of the several “moral
virtues”, for each there is a rule, conformity to which secures
rightness in the individual acts. Thus the moral ideal appears as a
code of rules, accepted by the agent, but as yet _to him_ without
rational justification and without system or unity. But the rules
prescribe no mechanical uniformity: each within its limits permits
variety, and the exactly right amount adopted to the requirements of
the individual situation (and every actual situation is individual)
must be determined by the intuition of the moment. There is no attempt
to reduce the rich possibilities of right action to a single monotonous
type. On the contrary, there are acknowledged to be many forms of moral
virtue, and there is a long list of them, with their correlative vices
enumerated.
The Doctrine of the Mean here takes a form in which it has impressed
subsequent thinkers, but which has less importance than is usually
ascribed to it. In the “Table of the Virtues and Vices,” each of the
virtues is flanked by two opposite vices, which are respectively the
excess and defect of that which in due measure constitutes the virtue.
Aristotle tries to show that this is the case in regard to every virtue
named and recognised as such, but his treatment is often forced and the
endeavour is not very successful. Except as a convenient principle of
arrangement of the various forms of praiseworthy or blameworthy
characters, generally acknowledged as such by Greek opinion, this form
of the doctrine is of no great significance.
Books III-V are occupied with a survey of the moral virtues and vices.
These seem to have been undertaken in order to verify in detail the
general account, but this aim is not kept steadily in view. Nor is
there any well-considered principle of classification. What we find is
a sort of portrait-gallery of the various types of moral excellence
which the Greeks of the author’s age admired and strove to encourage.
The discussion is full of acute, interesting and sometimes profound
observations. Some of the types are those which are and will be admired
at all times, but others are connected with peculiar features of Greek
life which have now passed away. The most important is that of Justice
or the Just Man, to which we may later return. But the discussion is
preceded by an attempt to elucidate some difficult and obscure points
in the general account of moral virtue and action (Book III, cc i-v).
This section is concerned with the notion of Responsibility. The
discussion designedly excludes what we may call the metaphysical issues
of the problem, which here present themselves, it moves on the level of
thought of the practical man, the statesman, and the legislator.
Coercion and ignorance of relevant circumstances render acts
involuntary and exempt their doer from responsibility, otherwise the
act is voluntary and the agent responsible, choice or preference of
what is done, and inner consent to the deed, are to be presumed.
Neither passion nor ignorance of the right rule can extenuate
responsibility. But there is a difference between acts done voluntarily
and acts done of _set_ choice or purpose. The latter imply
Deliberation. Deliberation involves thinking, thinking out means to
ends: in deliberate acts the whole nature of the agent consents to and
enters into the act, and in a peculiar sense they are his, they _are_
him in action, and the most significant evidence of what he is.
Aristotle is unable wholly to avoid allusion to the metaphysical
difficulties and what he does here say upon them is obscure and
unsatisfactory. But he insists upon the importance in moral action of
the agent’s inner consent, and on the reality of his individual
responsibility. For his present purpose the metaphysical difficulties
are irrelevant.
The treatment of Justice in Book V has always been a source of great
difficulty to students of the _Ethics_. Almost more than any other part
of the work it has exercised influence upon mediaeval and modern
thought upon the subject. The distinctions and divisions have become
part of the stock-in-trade of would be philosophic jurists. And yet,
oddly enough, most of these distinctions have been misunderstood and
the whole purport of the discussion misconceived. Aristotle is here
dealing with justice in a restricted sense viz as that special goodness
of character which is required of every adult citizen and which can be
produced by early discipline or habituation. It is the temper or
habitual attitude demanded of the citizen for the due exercise of his
functions as taking part in the administration of the civic
community—as a member of the judicature and executive. The Greek
citizen was only exceptionally, and at rare intervals if ever, a
law-maker while at any moment he might be called upon to act as a judge
(juryman or arbitrator) or as an administrator. For the work of a
legislator far more than the moral virtue of justice or fairmindedness
was necessary, these were requisite to the rarer and higher
“intellectual virtue” of practical wisdom. Then here, too, the
discussion moves on a low level, and the raising of fundamental
problems is excluded. Hence “distributive justice” is concerned not
with the large question of the distribution of political power and
privileges among the constituent members or classes of the state but
with the smaller questions of the distribution among those of casual
gains and even with the division among private claimants of a common
fund or inheritance, while “corrective justice” is concerned solely
with the management of legal redress. The whole treatment is confused
by the unhappy attempt to give a precise mathematical form to the
principles of justice in the various fields distinguished. Still it
remains an interesting first endeavour to give greater exactness to
some of the leading conceptions of jurisprudence.
Book VI appears to have in view two aims: (1) to describe goodness of
intellect and discover its highest form or forms; (2) to show how this
is related to goodness of character, and so to conduct generally. As
all thinking is either theoretical or practical, goodness of intellect
has _two_ supreme forms—Theoretical and Practical Wisdom. The first,
which apprehends the eternal laws of the universe, has no direct
relation to human conduct: the second is identical with that master
science of human life of which the whole treatise, consisting of the
_Ethics_ and the _Politics_, is an exposition. It is this science which
supplies the right rules of conduct Taking them as they emerge in and
from practical experience, it formulates them more precisely and
organises them into a system where they are all seen to converge upon
happiness. The mode in which such knowledge manifests itself is in the
power to show that such and such rules of action follow from the very
nature of the end or good for man. It presupposes and starts from a
clear conception of the end and the wish for it as conceived, and it
proceeds by a deduction which is dehberation writ large. In the man of
practical wisdom this process has reached its perfect result, and the
code of right rules is apprehended as a system with a single principle
and so as something wholly rational or reasonable He has not on each
occasion to seek and find the right rule applicable to the situation,
he produces it at once from within himself, and can at need justify it
by exhibiting its rationale, _i.e._ , its connection with the end. This
is the consummate form of reason applied to conduct, but there are
minor forms of it, less independent or original, but nevertheless of
great value, such as the power to think out the proper cause of policy
in novel circumstances or the power to see the proper line of treatment
to follow in a court of law.
The form of the thinking which enters into conduct is that which
terminates in the production of a rule which declares some means to the
end of life. The process presupposes _(a)_ a clear and just
apprehension of the nature of that end—such as the _Ethics_ itself
endeavours to supply; _(b)_ a correct perception of the conditions of
action, _(a)_ at least is impossible except to a man whose character
has been duly formed by discipline; it arises only in a man who has
acquired moral virtue. For such action and feeling as forms bad
character, blinds the eye of the soul and corrupts the moral principle,
and the place of practical wisdom is taken by that parody of itself
which Aristotle calls “cleverness”—the “wisdom” of the unscrupulous man
of the world. Thus true practical wisdom and true goodness of character
are interdependent; neither is genuinely possible or “completely”
present without the other. This is Aristotle’s contribution to the
discussion of the question, so central in Greek Moral Philosophy, of
the relation of the intellectual and the passionate factors in conduct.
Aristotle is not an intuitionist, but he recognises the implication in
conduct of a direct and immediate apprehension both of the end and of
the character of his circumstances under which it is from moment to
moment realised. The directness of such apprehension makes it analogous
to sensation or sense-perception; but it is on his view in the end due
to the existence or activity in man of that power in him which is the
highest thing in his nature, and akin to or identical with the divine
nature—mind, or intelligence. It is this which reveals to us what is
best for us—the ideal of a happiness which is the object of our real
wish and the goal of all our efforts. But beyond and above the
practical ideal of what is best _for man_ begins to show itself another
and still higher ideal—that of a life not distinctively human or in a
narrow sense practical, yet capable of being participated in by man
even under the actual circumstances of this world. For a time, however,
this further and higher ideal is ignored.
The next book (Book VII.), is concerned partly with moral conditions,
in which the agent seems to rise above the level of moral virtue or
fall below that of moral vice, but partly and more largely with
conditions in which the agent occupies a middle position between the
two. Aristotle’s attention is here directed chiefly towards the
phenomena of “Incontinence,” weakness of will or imperfect
self-control. This condition was to the Greeks a matter of only too
frequent experience, but it appeared to them peculiarly difficult to
understand. How can a man know what is good or best for him, and yet
chronically fail to act upon his knowledge? Socrates was driven to the
paradox of denying the possibility, but the facts are too strong for
him. Knowledge of the right rule may be present, nay the rightfulness
of its authority may be acknowledged, and yet time after time it may be
disobeyed; the will may be good and yet overmastered by the force of
desire, so that the act done is contrary to the agent’s will.
Nevertheless the act may be the agent’s, and the will therefore divided
against itself. Aristotle is aware of the seriousness and difficulty of
the problem, but in spite of the vividness with which he pictures, and
the acuteness with which he analyses, the situation in which such
action occurs, it cannot be said that he solves the problem. It is time
that he rises above the abstract view of it as a conflict between
reason and passion, recognising that passion is involved in the
knowledge which in conduct prevails or is overborne, and that the force
which leads to the wrong act is not blind or ignorant passion, but
always has some reason in it. But he tends to lapse back into the
abstraction, and his final account is perplexed and obscure. He finds
the source of the phenomenon in the nature of the desire for bodily
pleasures, which is not irrational but has something rational in it.
Such pleasures are not necessarily or inherently bad, as has sometimes
been maintained; on the contrary, they are good, but only in certain
amounts or under certain conditions, so that the will is often misled,
hesitates, and is lost.
Books VIII. and IX. (on Friendship) are almost an interruption of the
argument. The subject-matter of them was a favourite topic of ancient
writers, and the treatment is smoother and more orderly than elsewhere
in the _Ethics_. The argument is clear, and may be left without comment
to the readers. These books contain a necessary and attractive
complement to the somewhat dry account of Greek morality in the
preceding books, and there are in them profound reflections on what may
be called the metaphysics of friendship or love.
At the beginning of Book X. we return to the topic of Pleasure, which
is now regarded from a different point of view. In Book VII. the
antagonists were those who over-emphasised the irrationality or badness
of Pleasure: here it is rather those who so exaggerate its value as to
confuse or identify it with the good or Happiness. But there is offered
us in this section much more than criticism of the errors of others.
Answers are given both to the psychological question, “What is
Pleasure?” and to the ethical question, “What is its value?” Pleasure,
we are told, is the natural concomitant and index of perfect activity,
distinguishable but inseparable from it—“the activity of a subject at
its best acting upon an object at its best.” It is therefore always and
in itself a good, but its value rises and falls with that of the
activity with which it is conjoined, and which it intensifies and
perfects. Hence it follows that the highest and best pleasures are
those which accompany the highest and best activity.
Pleasure is, therefore, a necessary element in the best life, but it is
not the whole of it nor the principal ingredient. The value of a life
depends upon the nature and worth of the activity which it involves;
given the maximum of full free action, the maximum of pleasure
necessary follows. But on what sort of life is such activity possible?
This leads us back to the question, What is happiness? In what life can
man find the fullest satisfaction for his desires? To this question
Aristotle gives an answer which cannot but surprise us after what has
preceded. True Happiness, great satisfaction, cannot be found by man in
any form of “practical” life, no, not in the fullest and freest
exercise possible of the “moral virtues,” not in the life of the
citizen or of the great soldier or statesman. To seek it there is to
court failure and disappointment. It is to be found in the life of the
onlooker, the disinterested spectator; or, to put it more distinctly,
“in the life of the philosopher, the life of scientific and philosophic
contemplation.” The highest and most satisfying form of life possible
to man is “the contemplative life”; it is only in a secondary sense and
for those incapable of their life, that the practical or moral ideal is
the best. It is time that such a life is not distinctively human, but
it is the privilege of man to partake in it, and such participation, at
however rare intervals and for however short a period, is the highest
Happiness which human life can offer. All other activities have value
only because and in so far as they render _this_ life possible.
But it must not be forgotten that Aristotle conceives of this life as
one of intense activity or energising: it is just this which gives it
its supremacy. In spite of the almost religious fervour with which he
speaks of it (“the most orthodox of his disciples” paraphrases his
meaning by describing its content as “the service and vision of God”),
it is clear that he identified it with the life of the philosopher, as
he understood it, a life of ceaseless intellectual activity in which at
least at times all the distractions and disturbances inseparable from
practical life seemed to disappear and become as nothing. This ideal
was partly an inheritance from the more ardent idealism of his master
Plato, but partly it was the expression of personal experience.
The nobility of this ideal cannot be questioned; the conception of the
end of man or a life lived for truth—of a life blissfully absorbed in
the vision of truth—is a lofty and inspiring one. But we cannot resist
certain criticisms upon its presentation by Aristotle: (1) the relation
of it to the lower ideal of practice is left somewhat obscure; (2) it
is described in such a way as renders its realisation possible only to
a gifted few, and under exceptional circumstances; (3) it seems in
various ways, as regards its content, to be unnecessarily and
unjustifiably limited. But it must be borne in mind that this is a
first endeavour to determine its principle, and that similar failures
have attended the attempts to describe the “religious” or the
“spiritual” ideals of life, which have continually been suggested by
the apparently inherent limitations of the “practical” or “moral” life,
which is the subject of Moral Philosophy.
The Moral Ideal to those who have most deeply reflected on it leads to
the thought of an Ideal beyond and above it, which alone gives it
meaning, but which seems to escape from definite conception by man. The
richness and variety of this Ideal ceaselessly invite, but as
ceaselessly defy, our attempts to imprison it in a definite formula or
portray it in detailed imagination. Yet the thought of it is and
remains inexpungable from our minds.
This conception of the best life is not forgotten in the _Politics_ The
end of life in the state is itself well-living and well-doing—a life
which helps to produce the best life The great agency in the production
of such life is the State operating through Law, which is Reason backed
by Force. For its greatest efficiency there is required the development
of a science of legislation. The main drift of what he says here is
that the most desirable thing would be that the best reason of the
community should be embodied in its laws. But so far as that is not
possible, it still is true that anyone who would make himself and
others better must become a miniature legislator—must study the general
principles of law, morality, and education. The conception of πολιτικὴ
with which he opened the _Ethics_ would serve as a guide to a father
educating his children as well as to the legislator legislating for the
state. Finding in his predecessors no developed doctrine on this
subject, Aristotle proposes himself to undertake the construction of
it, and sketches in advance the programme of the _Politics_ in the
concluding sentence of the _Ethics_ His ultimate object is to answer
the questions, What is the best form of Polity, how should each be
constituted, and what laws and customs should it adopt and employ? Not
till this answer is given will “the philosophy of human affairs” be
complete.
On looking back it will be seen that the discussion of the central
topic of the nature and formation of character has expanded into a
Philosophy of Human Conduct, merging at its beginning and end into
metaphysics The result is a Moral Philosophy set against a background
of Political Theory and general Philosophy. The most characteristic
features of this Moral Philosophy are due to the fact of its
essentially teleological view of human life and action: (1) Every human
activity, but especially every human practical activity, is directed
towards a simple End discoverable by reflection, and this End is
conceived of as the object of universal human desire, as something to
be enjoyed, not as something which ought to be done or enacted.
Anstotle’s Moral Philosophy is not hedonistic but it is eudæmomstic,
the end is the enjoyment of Happiness, not the fulfilment of Duty. (2)
Every human practical activity derives its value from its efficiency as
a means to that end, it is good or bad, right or wrong, as it conduces
or fails to conduce to Happiness Thus his Moral Philosophy is
essentially utilitarian or prudential Right action presupposes Thought
or Thinking, partly on the development of a clearer and distincter
conception of the end of desire, partly as the deduction from that of
rules which state the normally effective conditions of its realisation.
The thinking involved in right conduct is calculation—calculation of
means to an end fixed by nature and foreknowable Action itself is at
its best just the realisation of a scheme preconceived and thought out
beforehand, commending itself by its inherent attractiveness or promise
of enjoyment.
This view has the great advantage of exhibiting morality as essentially
reasonable, but the accompanying disadvantage of lowering it into a
somewhat prosaic and unideal Prudentialism, nor is it saved from this
by the tacking on to it, by a sort of after-thought, of the second and
higher Ideal—an addition which ruins the coherence of the account
without really transmuting its substance The source of our
dissatisfaction with the whole theory lies deeper than in its tendency
to identify the end with the maximum of enjoyment or satisfaction, or
to regard the goodness or badness of acts and feelings as lying solely
in their efficacy to produce such a result It arises from the
application to morality of the distinction of means and end For this
distinction, for all its plausibility and usefulness in ordinary
thought and speech, cannot finally be maintained In morality—and this
is vital to its character—everything is both means and end, and so
neither in distinction or separation, and all thinking about it which
presupposes the finality of this distinction wanders into misconception
and error. The thinking which really matters in conduct is not a
thinking which imaginatively forecasts ideals which promise to fulfil
desire, or calculates means to their attainment—that is sometimes
useful, sometimes harmful, and always subordinate, but thinking which
reveals to the agent the situation in which he is to act, both, that
is, the universal situation on which as man he always and everywhere
stands, and the ever-varying and ever-novel situation in which he as
this individual, here and now, finds himself. In such knowledge of
given or historic fact lie the natural determinants of his conduct, in
such knowledge alone lies the condition of his freedom and his good.
But this does not mean that Moral Philosophy has not still much to
learn from Aristotle’s _Ethics_. The work still remains one of the best
introductions to a study of its important subject-matter, it spreads
before us a view of the relevant facts, it reduces them to manageable
compass and order, it raises some of the central problems, and makes
acute and valuable suggestions towards their solution. Above all, it
perpetually incites to renewed and independent reflection upon them.
J. A. SMITH
The following is a list of the works of Aristotle:—
First edition of works (with omission of Rhetorica, Poetica, and second
book of Economica), 5 vols by Aldus Manutius, Venice, 1495 8, re
impression supervised by Erasmus and with certain corrections by
Grynaeus (including Rhetorica and Poetica), 1531, 1539, revised 1550,
later editions were followed by that of Immanuel Bekker and Brandis
(Greek and Latin), 5 vols. The 5th vol contains the Index by Bomtz,
1831-70, Didot edition (Greek and Latin), 5 vols 1848 74
ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS Edited by T Taylor, with Porphyry’s Introduction,
9 vols, 1812, under editorship of J A Smith and W D Ross, II vols,
1908-31, Loeb editions Ethica, Rhetorica, Poetica, Physica, Politica,
Metaphysica, 1926-33
Later editions of separate works _De Anima_ Torstrik, 1862,
Trendelenburg, 2nd edition, 1877, with English translation, L Wallace,
1882, Biehl, 1884, 1896, with English, R D Hicks, 1907 _Ethica_ J S
Brewer (Nicomachean), 1836, W E Jelf, 1856, J F T Rogers, 1865, A
Grant, 1857 8, 1866, 1874, 1885, E Moore, 1871, 1878, 4th edition,
1890, Ramsauer (Nicomachean), 1878, Susemihl, 1878, 1880, revised by O
Apelt, 1903, A Grant, 1885, I Bywater (Nicomachean), 1890, J Burnet,
1900
_Historia Animalium_ Schneider, 1812, Aubert and Wimmer, 1860;
Dittmeyer, 1907
_Metaphysica_ Schwegler, 1848, W Christ, 1899
_Organon_ Waitz, 1844 6
_Poetica_ Vahlen, 1867, 1874, with Notes by E Moore, 1875, with English
translation by E R Wharton, 1883, 1885, Uberweg, 1870, 1875, with
German translation, Susemihl, 1874, Schmidt, 1875, Christ, 1878, I
Bywater, 1898, T G Tucker, 1899
_De Republica Athenientium_ Text and facsimile of Papyrus, F G Kenyon,
1891, 3rd edition, 1892, Kaibel and Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, 1891, 3rd
edition, 1898, Van Herwerden and Leeuwen (from Kenyon’s text), 1891,
Blass, 1892, 1895, 1898, 1903, J E Sandys, 1893
_Politica_ Susemihl, 1872, with German, 1878, 3rd edition, 1882,
Susemihl and Hicks, 1894, etc, O Immisch, 1909
_Physica_ C Prantl, 1879
_Rhetorica_ Stahr, 1862, Sprengel (with Latin text), 1867, Cope and
Sandys, 1877, Roemer, 1885, 1898
ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF ONE OR MORE WORKS De Anima (with Parva
Naturalia), by W A Hammond, 1902 Ethica Of Morals to Nicomachus, by E
Pargiter, 1745, with Politica by J Gillies, 1797, 1804, 1813, with
Rhetorica and Poetica, by T Taylor, 1818, and later editions
Nicomachean Ethics, 1819, mainly from text of Bekker by D P Chase,
1847, revised 1861, and later editions, with an introductory essay by G
H Lewes (Camelot Classics) 1890, re-edited by J M Mitchell (New
Universal Library), 1906, 1910, by R W Browne (Bohn’s Classical
Library), 1848, etc, by R Williams, 1869, 1876, by W M Hatch and others
(with translation of paraphrase attributed to Andronicus of Rhodes),
edited by E Hatch, 1879 by F H Peters, 1881, J E C Welldon, 1892, J
Gillies (Lubbock’s Hundred Books) 1893 Historia Animalium, by R
Creswell (Bonn’s Classical Library) 1848, with Treatise on Physiognomy,
by T Taylor, 1809 Metaphysica, by T Taylor, 1801, by J H M Mahon
(Bohn’s Classical Library), 1848 Organon, with Porphyry’s Introduction,
by O F Owen (Bohn’s Classical Library), 1848 Posterior Analytics, E
Poste, 1850, E S Bourchier, 1901, On Fallacies, E Poste, 1866 Parva
Naturaha (Greek and English), by G R T Ross, 1906, with De Anima, by W
A Hammond, 1902 Youth and Old Age, Life and Death and Respiration, W
Ogle 1897 Poetica, with Notes from the French of D Acier, 1705, by H J
Pye, 1788, 1792, T Twining, 1789, 1812, with Preface and Notes by H
Hamilton, 1851, Treatise on Rhetorica and Poetica, by T Hobbes (Bohn’s
Classical Library), 1850, by Wharton, 1883 (see Greek version), S H
Butcher, 1895, 1898, 3rd edition, 1902, E S Bourchier, 1907, by Ingram
Bywater, 1909 De Partibus Animalium, W Ogle, 1882 De Republica
Athenientium, by E Poste, 1891, F G Kenyon, 1891, T J Dymes, 1891 De
Virtutibus et Vitus, by W Bridgman, 1804 Politica, from the French of
Regius, 1598, by W Ellis, 1776, 1778, 1888 (Morley’s Universal
Library), 1893 (Lubbock’s Hundred Books) by E Walford (with Æconomics,
and Life by Dr Gillies), (Bohn’s Classical Library), 1848, J E. C.
Welldon, 1883, B Jowett, 1885, with Introduction and Index by H W C
Davis, 1905, Books i iii iv (vii) from Bekker’s text by W E Bolland,
with Introduction by A Lang, 1877. Problemata (with writings of other
philosophers), 1597, 1607, 1680, 1684, etc. Rhetorica, A summary by T
Hobbes, 1655 (?), new edition, 1759, by the translators of the Art of
Thinking, 1686, 1816, by D M Crimmin, 1812, J Gillies, 1823, Anon 1847,
J E C Welldon, 1886, R C Jebb, with Introduction and Supplementary
Notes by J E Sandys, 1909 (see under Poetica and Ethica). Secreta
Secretorum (supposititious work), Anon 1702, from the Hebrew version by
M Gaster, 1907, 1908. Version by Lydgate and Burgh, edited by R Steele
(E E T S), 1894, 1898.
LIFE, ETC J W Blakesley, 1839, A Crichton (Jardine’s Naturalist’s
Library), 1843, JS Blackie, Four Phases of Morals, Socrates, Aristotle,
etc, 1871, G Grote, Aristotle, edited by A Bain and G C Robertson,
1872, 1880, E Wallace, Outlines of the Philosophy of Aristotle, 1875,
1880, A Grant (Ancient Classics for English readers), 1877, T Davidson,
Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideals (Great Educators), 1892, F
Sewall, Swedenborg and Aristotle, 1895, W A Heidel, The Necessary and
the Contingent of the Aristotelian System (University of Chicago
Contributions to Philosophy), 1896, F W Bain, On the Realisation of the
Possible, and the Spirit of Aristotle, 1899, J H Hyslop, The Ethics of
the Greek Philosophers, etc (Evolution of Ethics), 1903, M V Williams,
Six Essays on the Platonic Theory of Knowledge as expounded in the
later dialogues and reviewed by Aristotle, 1908, J M Watson,
Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato, 1909 A E Taylor, Aristotle, 1919, W D
Ross, Aristotle, 1923.
ARISTOTLE’S ETHICS
BOOK I
Chapter I.
Every art, and every science reduced to a teachable form, and in like
manner every action and moral choice, aims, it is thought, at some
good: for which reason a common and by no means a bad description of
the Chief Good is, “that which all things aim at.”
Now there plainly is a difference in the Ends proposed: for in some
cases they are acts of working, and in others certain works or tangible
results beyond and beside the acts of working: and where there are
certain Ends beyond and beside the actions, the works are in their
nature better than the acts of working. Again, since actions and arts
and sciences are many, the Ends likewise come to be many: of the
healing art, for instance, health; of the ship-building art, a vessel;
of the military art, victory; and of domestic management, wealth; are
respectively the Ends.
And whatever of such actions, arts, or sciences range under some one
faculty (as under that of horsemanship the art of making bridles, and
all that are connected with the manufacture of horse-furniture in
general; this itself again, and every action connected with war, under
the military art; and in the same way others under others), in all
such, the Ends of the master-arts are more choice-worthy than those
ranging under them, because it is with a view to the former that the
latter are pursued.
(And in this comparison it makes no difference whether the acts of
working are themselves the Ends of the actions, or something further
beside them, as is the case in the arts and sciences we have been just
speaking of.)
Since then of all things which may be done there is some one End which
we desire for its own sake, and with a view to which we desire
everything else; and since we do not choose in all instances with a
further End in view (for then men would go on without limit, and so the
desire would be unsatisfied and fruitless), this plainly must be the
Chief Good, _i.e._ the best thing of all.
Surely then, even with reference to actual life and conduct, the
knowledge of it must have great weight; and like archers, with a mark
in view, we shall be more likely to hit upon what is right: and if so,
we ought to try to describe, in outline at least, what it is and of
which of the sciences and faculties it is the End.
Now one would naturally suppose it to be the End of that which is most
commanding and most inclusive: and to this description, πολιτικὴ[1]
plainly answers: for this it is that determines which of the sciences
should be in the communities, and which kind individuals are to learn,
and what degree of proficiency is to be required. Again; we see also
ranging under this the most highly esteemed faculties, such as the art
military, and that of domestic management, and Rhetoric. Well then,
since this uses all the other practical sciences, and moreover lays
down rules as to what men are to do, and from what to abstain, the End
of this must include the Ends of the rest, and so must be The Good of
Man. And grant that this is the same to the individual and to the
community, yet surely that of the latter is plainly greater and more
perfect to discover and preserve: for to do this even for a single
individual were a matter for contentment; but to do it for a whole
nation, and for communities generally, were more noble and godlike.
Such then are the objects proposed by our treatise, which is of the
nature of πολιτικὴ: and I conceive I shall have spoken on them
satisfactorily, if they be made as distinctly clear as the nature of
the subject-matter will admit: for exactness must not be looked for in
all discussions alike, any more than in all works of handicraft. Now
the notions of nobleness and justice, with the examination of which
πολιτικὴ is concerned, admit of variation and error to such a degree,
that they are supposed by some to exist conventionally only, and not in
the nature of things: but then, again, the things which are allowed to
be goods admit of a similar error, because harm comes to many from
them: for before now some have perished through wealth, and others
through valour.
We must be content then, in speaking of such things and from such data,
to set forth the truth roughly and in outline; in other words, since we
are speaking of general matter and from general data, to draw also
conclusions merely general. And in the same spirit should each person
receive what we say: for the man of education will seek exactness so
far in each subject as the nature of the thing admits, it being plainly
much the same absurdity to put up with a mathematician who tries to
persuade instead of proving, and to demand strict demonstrative
reasoning of a Rhetorician.
Now each man judges well what he knows, and of these things he is a
good judge: on each particular matter then he is a good judge who has
been instructed in _it_, and in a general way the man of general mental
cultivation.[2]
Hence the young man is not a fit student of Moral Philosophy, for he
has no experience in the actions of life, while all that is said
presupposes and is concerned with these: and in the next place, since
he is apt to follow the impulses of his passions, he will hear as
though he heard not, and to no profit, the end in view being practice
and not mere knowledge.
And I draw no distinction between young in years, and youthful in
temper and disposition: the defect to which I allude being no direct
result of the time, but of living at the beck and call of passion, and
following each object as it rises.[3] For to them that are such the
knowledge comes to be unprofitable, as to those of imperfect
self-control: but, to those who form their desires and act in
accordance with reason, to have knowledge on these points must be very
profitable.
Let thus much suffice by way of preface on these three points, the
student, the spirit in which our observations should be received, and
the object which we propose.
Chapter II.
And now, resuming the statement with which we commenced, since all
knowledge and moral choice grasps at good of some kind or another, what
good is that which we say πολιτικὴ aims at? or, in other words, what is
the highest of all the goods which are the objects of action?
So far as name goes, there is a pretty general agreement: for HAPPINESS
both the multitude and the refined few call it, and “living well” and
“doing well” they conceive to be the same with “being happy;” but about
the Nature of this Happiness, men dispute, and the multitude do not in
their account of it agree with the wise. For some say it is some one of
those things which are palpable and apparent, as pleasure or wealth or
honour; in fact, some one thing, some another; nay, oftentimes the same
man gives a different account of it; for when ill, he calls it health;
when poor, wealth: and conscious of their own ignorance, men admire
those who talk grandly and above their comprehension. Some again held
it to be something by itself, other than and beside these many good
things, which is in fact to all these the cause of their being good.
Now to sift all the opinions would be perhaps rather a fruitless task;
so it shall suffice to sift those which are most generally current, or
are thought to have some reason in them.
And here we must not forget the difference between reasoning from
principles, and reasoning to principles: for with good cause did Plato
too doubt about this, and enquire whether the right road is from
principles or to principles, just as in the racecourse from the judges
to the further end, or _vice versâ_.
Of course, we must begin with what is known; but then this is of two
kinds, what we _do_ know, and what we _may_ know:[5] perhaps then as
individuals we must begin with what we _do_ know. Hence the necessity
that he should have been well trained in habits, who is to study, with
any tolerable chance of profit, the principles of nobleness and justice
and moral philosophy generally. For a principle is a matter of fact,
and if the fact is sufficiently clear to a man there will be no need in
addition of the reason for the fact. And he that has been thus trained
either has principles already, or can receive them easily: as for him
who neither has nor can receive them, let him hear his sentence from
Hesiod:
He is best of all who of himself conceiveth all things;
Good again is he too who can adopt a good suggestion;
But whoso neither of himself conceiveth nor hearing from another
Layeth it to heart;—he is a useless man.
Chapter III.
But to return from this digression.
Now of the Chief Good (_i.e._ of Happiness) men seem to form their
notions from the different modes of life, as we might naturally expect:
the many and most low conceive it to be pleasure, and hence they are
content with the life of sensual enjoyment. For there are three lines
of life which stand out prominently to view: that just mentioned, and
the life in society, and, thirdly, the life of contemplation.
Now the many are plainly quite slavish, choosing a life like that of
brute animals: yet they obtain some consideration, because many of the
great share the tastes of Sardanapalus. The refined and active again
conceive it to be honour: for this may be said to be the end of the
life in society: yet it is plainly too superficial for the object of
our search, because it is thought to rest with those who pay rather
than with him who receives it, whereas the Chief Good we feel
instinctively must be something which is our own, and not easily to be
taken from us.
And besides, men seem to pursue honour, that they may believe
themselves to be good:[6] for instance, they seek to be honoured by the
wise, and by those among whom they are known, and for virtue: clearly
then, in the opinion at least of these men, virtue is higher than
honour. In truth, one would be much more inclined to think this to be
the end of the life in society; yet this itself is plainly not
sufficiently final: for it is conceived possible, that a man possessed
of virtue might sleep or be inactive all through his life, or, as a
third case, suffer the greatest evils and misfortunes: and the man who
should live thus no one would call happy, except for mere disputation’s
sake.[7]
And for these let thus much suffice, for they have been treated of at
sufficient length in my Encyclia.[8]
A third line of life is that of contemplation, concerning which we
shall make our examination in the following pages.[9]
As for the life of money-making, it is one of constraint, and wealth
manifestly is not the good we are seeking, because it is for use, that
is, for the sake of something further: and hence one would rather
conceive the forementioned ends to be the right ones, for men rest
content with them for their own sakes. Yet, clearly, they are not the
objects of our search either, though many words have been wasted on
them.[10] So much then for these.
Again, the notion of one Universal Good (the same, that is, in all
things), it is better perhaps we should examine, and discuss the
meaning of it, though such an enquiry is unpleasant, because they are
friends of ours who have introduced these εἴδη.[11] Still perhaps it
may appear better, nay to be our duty where the safety of the truth is
concerned, to upset if need be even our own theories, specially as we
are lovers of wisdom: for since both are dear to us, we are bound to
prefer the truth. Now they who invented this doctrine of εἴδη, did not
apply it to those things in which they spoke of priority and
posteriority, and so they never made any ἰδέα of numbers; but good is
predicated in the categories of Substance, Quality, and Relation; now
that which exists of itself, i.e. Substance, is prior in the nature of
things to that which is relative, because this latter is an off-shoot,
as it were, and result of that which is; on their own principle then
there cannot be a common ἰδέα in the case of these.
In the next place, since good is predicated in as many ways as there
are modes of existence [for it is predicated in the category of
Substance, as God, Intellect—and in that of Quality, as The Virtues—and
in that of Quantity, as The Mean—and in that of Relation, as The
Useful—and in that of Time, as Opportunity—and in that of Place, as
Abode; and other such like things], it manifestly cannot be something
common and universal and one in all: else it would not have been
predicated in all the categories, but in one only.
Thirdly, since those things which range under one ἰδέα are also under
the cognisance of one science, there would have been, on their theory,
only one science taking cognisance of all goods collectively: but in
fact there are many even for those which range under one category: for
instance, of Opportunity or Seasonableness (which I have before
mentioned as being in the category of Time), the science is, in war,
generalship; in disease, medical science; and of the Mean (which I
quoted before as being in the category of Quantity), in food, the
medical science; and in labour or exercise, the gymnastic science. A
person might fairly doubt also what in the world they mean by very-this
that or the other, since, as they would themselves allow, the account
of the humanity is one and the same in the very-Man, and in any
individual Man: for so far as the individual and the very-Man are both
Man, they will not differ at all: and if so, then very-good and any
particular good will not differ, in so far as both are good. Nor will
it do to say, that the eternity of the very-good makes it to be more
good; for what has lasted white ever so long, is no whiter than what
lasts but for a day.
No. The Pythagoreans do seem to give a more credible account of the
matter, who place “One” among the goods in their double list of goods
and bads:[12] which philosophers, in fact, Speusippus[13] seems to have
followed.
But of these matters let us speak at some other time. Now there is
plainly a loophole to object to what has been advanced, on the plea
that the theory I have attacked is not by its advocates applied to all
good: but those goods only are spoken of as being under one ἰδέα, which
are pursued, and with which men rest content simply for their own
sakes: whereas those things which have a tendency to produce or
preserve them in any way, or to hinder their contraries, are called
good because of these other goods, and after another fashion. It is
manifest then that the goods may be so called in two senses, the one
class for their own sakes, the other because of these.
Very well then, let us separate the independent goods from the
instrumental, and see whether they are spoken of as under one ἰδέα.
But the question next arises, what kind of goods are we to call
independent? All such as are pursued even when separated from other
goods, as, for instance, being wise, seeing, and certain pleasures and
honours (for these, though we do pursue them with some further end in
view, one would still place among the independent goods)? or does it
come in fact to this, that we can call nothing independent good except
the ἰδέα, and so the concrete of it will be nought?
If, on the other hand, these are independent goods, then we shall
require that the account of the goodness be the same clearly in all,
just as that of the whiteness is in snow and white lead. But how stands
the fact? Why of honour and wisdom and pleasure the accounts are
distinct and different in so far as they are good. The Chief Good then
is not something common, and after one ἰδέα.
But then, how does the name come to be common (for it is not seemingly
a case of fortuitous equivocation)? Are different individual things
called good by virtue of being from one source, or all conducing to one
end, or rather by way of analogy, for that intellect is to the soul as
sight to the body, and so on? However, perhaps we ought to leave these
questions now, for an accurate investigation of them is more properly
the business of a different philosophy. And likewise respecting the
ἰδέα: for even if there is some one good predicated in common of all
things that are good, or separable and capable of existing
independently, manifestly it cannot be the object of human action or
attainable by Man; but we are in search now of something that is
so.[14]
It may readily occur to any one, that it would be better to attain a
knowledge of it with a view to such concrete goods as are attainable
and practical, because, with this as a kind of model in our hands, we
shall the better know what things are good for us individually, and
when we know them, we shall attain them.
Some plausibility, it is true, this argument possesses, but it is
contradicted by the facts of the Arts and Sciences; for all these,
though aiming at some good, and seeking that which is deficient, yet
pretermit the knowledge of it: now it is not exactly probable that all
artisans without exception should be ignorant of so great a help as
this would be, and not even look after it; neither is it easy to see
wherein a weaver or a carpenter will be profited in respect of his
craft by knowing the very-good, or how a man will be the more apt to
effect cures or to command an army for having seen the ἰδέα itself. For
manifestly it is not health after this general and abstract fashion
which is the subject of the physician’s investigation, but the health
of Man, or rather perhaps of this or that man; for he has to heal
individuals.—Thus much on these points.
Chapter IV.
And now let us revert to the Good of which we are in search: what can
it be? for manifestly it is different in different actions and arts:
for it is different in the healing art and in the art military, and
similarly in the rest. What then is the Chief Good in each? Is it not
“that for the sake of which the other things are done?” and this in the
healing art is health, and in the art military victory, and in that of
house-building a house, and in any other thing something else; in
short, in every action and moral choice the End, because in all cases
men do everything else with a view to this. So that if there is some
one End of all things which are and may be done, this must be the Good
proposed by doing, or if more than one, then these.
Thus our discussion after some traversing about has come to the same
point which we reached before. And this we must try yet more to clear
up.
Now since the ends are plainly many, and of these we choose some with a
view to others (wealth, for instance, musical instruments, and, in
general, all instruments), it is clear that all are not final: but the
Chief Good is manifestly something final; and so, if there is some one
only which is final, this must be the object of our search: but if
several, then the most final of them will be it.
Now that which is an object of pursuit in itself we call more final
than that which is so with a view to something else; that again which
is never an object of choice with a view to something else than those
which are so both in themselves and with a view to this ulterior
object: and so by the term “absolutely final,” we denote that which is
an object of choice always in itself, and never with a view to any
other.
And of this nature Happiness is mostly thought to be, for this we
choose always for its own sake, and never with a view to anything
further: whereas honour, pleasure, intellect, in fact every excellence
we choose for their own sakes, it is true (because we would choose each
of these even if no result were to follow), but we choose them also
with a view to happiness, conceiving that through their instrumentality
we shall be happy: but no man chooses happiness with a view to them,
nor in fact with a view to any other thing whatsoever.
The same result[15] is seen to follow also from the notion of
self-sufficiency, a quality thought to belong to the final good. Now by
sufficient for Self, we mean not for a single individual living a
solitary life, but for his parents also and children and wife, and, in
general, friends and countrymen; for man is by nature adapted to a
social existence. But of these, of course, some limit must be fixed:
for if one extends it to parents and descendants and friends’ friends,
there is no end to it. This point, however, must be left for future
investigation: for the present we define that to be self-sufficient
“which taken alone makes life choice-worthy, and to be in want of
nothing;” now of such kind we think Happiness to be: and further, to be
most choice-worthy of all things; not being reckoned with any other
thing,[16] for if it were so reckoned, it is plain we must then allow
it, with the addition of ever so small a good, to be more choice-worthy
than it was before:[17] because what is put to it becomes an addition of so
much more good, and of goods the greater is ever the more
choice-worthy.
So then Happiness is manifestly something final and self-sufficient,
being the end of all things which are and may be done.
Chapter V.
But, it may be, to call Happiness the Chief Good is a mere truism, and
what is wanted is some clearer account of its real nature. Now this
object may be easily attained, when we have discovered what is the work
of man; for as in the case of flute-player, statuary, or artisan of any
kind, or, more generally, all who have any work or course of action,
their Chief Good and Excellence is thought to reside in their work, so
it would seem to be with man, if there is any work belonging to him.
Are we then to suppose, that while carpenter and cobbler have certain
works and courses of action, Man as Man has none, but is left by Nature
without a work? or would not one rather hold, that as eye, hand, and
foot, and generally each of his members, has manifestly some special
work; so too the whole Man, as distinct from all these, has some work
of his own?[18]
What then can this be? not mere life, because that plainly is shared
with him even by vegetables, and we want what is peculiar to him. We
must separate off then the life of mere nourishment and growth, and
next will come the life of sensation: but this again manifestly is
common to horses, oxen, and every animal. There remains then a kind of
life of the Rational Nature apt to act: and of this Nature there are
two parts denominated Rational, the one as being obedient to Reason,
the other as having and exerting it. Again, as this life is also spoken
of in two ways,[19] we must take that which is in the way of actual
working, because this is thought to be most properly entitled to the
name. If then the work of Man is a working of the soul in accordance
with reason, or at least not independently of reason, and we say that
the work of any given subject, and of that subject good of its kind,
are the same in kind (as, for instance, of a harp-player and a good
harp-player, and so on in every case, adding to the work eminence in
the way of excellence; I mean, the work of a harp-player is to play the
harp, and of a good harp-player to play it well); if, I say, this is
so, and we assume the work of Man to be life of a certain kind, that is
to say a working of the soul, and actions with reason, and of a good
man to do these things well and nobly, and in fact everything is
finished off well in the way of the excellence which peculiarly belongs
to it: if all this is so, then the Good of Man comes to be “a working
of the Soul in the way of Excellence,” or, if Excellence admits of
degrees, in the way of the best and most perfect Excellence.
And we must add, ἐν βίῳ τελείῳ;[20] for as it is not one swallow or one
fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that
makes a man blessed and happy.
Let this then be taken for a rough sketch of the Chief Good: since it
is probably the right way to give first the outline, and fill it in
afterwards. And it would seem that any man may improve and connect what
is good in the sketch, and that time is a good discoverer and
co-operator in such matters: it is thus in fact that all improvements
in the various arts have been brought about, for any man may fill up a
deficiency.
You must remember also what has been already stated, and not seek for
exactness in all matters alike, but in each according to the
subject-matter, and so far as properly belongs to the system. The
carpenter and geometrician, for instance, enquire into the right line
in different fashion: the former so far as he wants it for his work,
the latter enquires into its nature and properties, because he is
concerned with the truth.
So then should one do in other matters, that the incidental matters may
not exceed the direct ones.
And again, you must not demand the reason either in all things
alike,[21] because in some it is sufficient that the fact has been well
demonstrated, which is the case with first principles; and the fact is
the first step, _i.e._ starting-point or principle.
And of these first principles some are obtained by induction, some by
perception,[22] some by a course of habituation, others in other
different ways. And we must try to trace up each in their own nature,
and take pains to secure their being well defined, because they have
great influence on what follows: it is thought, I mean, that the
starting-point or principle is more than half the whole matter, and
that many of the points of enquiry come simultaneously into view
thereby.
Chapter VI.
We must now enquire concerning Happiness, not only from our conclusion
and the data on which our reasoning proceeds, but likewise from what is
commonly said about it: because with what is true all things which
really are are in harmony, but with that which is false the true very
soon jars.
Now there is a common division of goods into three classes; one being
called external, the other two those of the soul and body respectively,
and those belonging to the soul we call most properly and specially
good. Well, in our definition we assume that the actions and workings
of the soul constitute Happiness, and these of course belong to the
soul. And so our account is a good one, at least according to this
opinion, which is of ancient date, and accepted by those who profess
philosophy. Rightly too are certain actions and workings said to be the
end, for thus it is brought into the number of the goods of the soul
instead of the external. Agreeing also with our definition is the
common notion, that the happy man lives well and does well, for it has
been stated by us to be pretty much a kind of living well and doing
well.
And further, the points required in Happiness are found in combination
in our account of it.
For some think it is virtue, others practical wisdom, others a kind of
scientific philosophy; others that it is these, or else some one of
them, in combination with pleasure, or at least not independently of
it; while others again take in external prosperity.
Of these opinions, some rest on the authority of numbers or antiquity,
others on that of few, and those men of note: and it is not likely that
either of these classes should be wrong in all points, but be right at
least in some one, or even in most.
Now with those who assert it to be Virtue (Excellence), or some kind of
Virtue, our account agrees: for working in the way of Excellence surely
belongs to Excellence.
And there is perhaps no unimportant difference between conceiving of
the Chief Good as in possession or as in use, in other words, as a mere
state or as a working. For the state or habit[23] may possibly exist in
a subject without effecting any good, as, for instance, in him who is
asleep, or in any other way inactive; but the working cannot so, for it
will of necessity act, and act well. And as at the Olympic games it is
not the finest and strongest men who are crowned, but they who enter
the lists, for out of these the prize-men are selected; so too in life,
of the honourable and the good, it is they who act who rightly win the
prizes.[24]
Their life too is in itself pleasant: for the feeling of pleasure is a
mental sensation, and that is to each pleasant of which he is said to
be fond: a horse, for instance, to him who is fond of horses, and a
sight to him who is fond of sights: and so in like manner just acts to
him who is fond of justice, and more generally the things in accordance
with virtue to him who is fond of virtue. Now in the case of the
multitude of men the things which they individually esteem pleasant
clash, because they are not such by nature, whereas to the lovers of
nobleness those things are pleasant which are such by nature: but the
actions in accordance with virtue are of this kind, so that they are
pleasant both to the individuals and also in themselves.
So then their life has no need of pleasure as a kind of additional
appendage, but involves pleasure in itself. For, besides what I have
just mentioned, a man is not a good man at all who feels no pleasure in
noble actions,[25] just as no one would call that man just who does not
feel pleasure in acting justly, or liberal who does not in liberal
actions, and similarly in the case of the other virtues which might be
enumerated: and if this be so, then the actions in accordance with
virtue must be in themselves pleasurable. Then again they are certainly
good and noble, and each of these in the highest degree; if we are to
take as right the judgment of the good man, for he judges as we have
said.
Thus then Happiness is most excellent, most noble, and most pleasant,
and these attributes are not separated as in the well-known Delian
inscription—
“Most noble is that which is most just, but best is health;
And naturally most pleasant is the obtaining one’s desires.”
For all these co-exist in the best acts of working: and we say that
Happiness is these, or one, that is, the best of them.
Still[26] it is quite plain that it does require the addition of
external goods, as we have said: because without appliances it is
impossible, or at all events not easy, to do noble actions: for
friends, money, and political influence are in a manner instruments
whereby many things are done: some things there are again a deficiency
in which mars blessedness; good birth, for instance, or fine offspring,
or even personal beauty: for he is not at all capable of Happiness who
is very ugly, or is ill-born, or solitary and childless; and still less
perhaps supposing him to have very bad children or friends, or to have
lost good ones by death. As we have said already, the addition of
prosperity of this kind does seem necessary to complete the idea of
Happiness; hence some rank good fortune, and others virtue, with
Happiness.
Chapter VII.
And hence too a question is raised, whether it is a thing that can be
learned, or acquired by habituation or discipline of some other kind,
or whether it comes in the way of divine dispensation, or even in the
way of chance.
Now to be sure, if anything else is a gift of the Gods to men, it is
probable that Happiness is a gift of theirs too, and specially because
of all human goods it is the highest. But this, it may be, is a
question belonging more properly to an investigation different from
ours:[27] and it is quite clear, that on the supposition of its not
being sent from the Gods direct, but coming to us by reason of virtue
and learning of a certain kind, or discipline, it is yet one of the
most Godlike things; because the prize and End of virtue is manifestly
somewhat most excellent, nay divine and blessed.
It will also on this supposition be widely participated, for it may
through learning and diligence of a certain kind exist in all who have
not been maimed[28] for virtue.
And if it is better we should be happy thus than as a result of chance,
this is in itself an argument that the case is so; because those things
which are in the way of nature, and in like manner of art, and of every
cause, and specially the best cause, are by nature in the best way
possible: to leave them to chance what is greatest and most noble would
be very much out of harmony with all these facts.[29]
The question may be determined also by a reference to our definition of
Happiness, that it is a working of the soul in the way of excellence or
virtue of a certain kind: and of the other goods, some we must have to
begin with, and those which are co-operative and useful are given by
nature as instruments.[30]
These considerations will harmonise also with what we said at the
commencement: for we assumed the End of πολιτικὴ to be most excellent:
now this bestows most care on making the members of the community of a
certain character; good that is and apt to do what is honourable.
With good reason then neither ox nor horse nor any other brute animal
do we call happy, for none of them can partake in such working: and for
this same reason a child is not happy either, because by reason of his
tender age he cannot yet perform such actions: if the term is applied,
it is by way of anticipation.
For to constitute Happiness, there must be, as we have said, complete
virtue and a complete life: for many changes and chances of all kinds
arise during a life, and he who is most prosperous may become involved
in great misfortunes in his old age, as in the heroic poems the tale is
told of Priam: but the man who has experienced such fortune and died in
wretchedness, no man calls happy.
Chapter VIII.
Are we then to call no man happy while he lives, and, as Solon would
have us, look to the end? And again, if we are to maintain this
position, is a man then happy when he is dead? or is not this a
complete absurdity, specially in us who say Happiness is a working of a
certain kind?
If on the other hand we do not assert that the dead man is happy, and
Solon does not mean this, but only that one would then be safe in
pronouncing a man happy, as being thenceforward out of the reach of
evils and misfortunes, this too admits of some dispute, since it is
thought that the dead has somewhat both of good and evil (if, as we
must allow, a man may have when alive but not aware of the
circumstances), as honour and dishonour, and good and bad fortune of
children and descendants generally.
Nor is this view again without its difficulties: for, after a man has
lived in blessedness to old age and died accordingly, many changes may
befall him in right of his descendants; some of them may be good and
obtain positions in life accordant to their merits, others again quite
the contrary: it is plain too that the descendants may at different
intervals or grades stand in all manner of relations to the
ancestors.[31] Absurd indeed would be the position that even the dead
man is to change about with them and become at one time happy and at
another miserable. Absurd however it is on the other hand that the
affairs of the descendants should in no degree and during no time
affect the ancestors.
But we must revert to the point first raised,[32] since the present
question will be easily determined from that.
If then we are to look to the end and then pronounce the man blessed,
not as being so but as having been so at some previous time, surely it
is absurd that when he _is_ happy the truth is not to be asserted of
him, because we are unwilling to pronounce the living happy by reason
of their liability to changes, and because, whereas we have conceived
of happiness as something stable and no way easily changeable, the fact
is that good and bad fortune are constantly circling about the same
people: for it is quite plain, that if we are to depend upon the
fortunes of men, we shall often have to call the same man happy, and a
little while after miserable, thus representing our happy man,
“Chameleon-like, and based on rottenness.”
Is not this the solution? that to make our sentence dependent on the
changes of fortune, is no way right: for not in them stands the well,
or the ill, but though human life needs these as accessories (which we
have allowed already), the workings in the way of virtue are what
determine Happiness, and the contrary the contrary.
And, by the way, the question which has been here discussed, testifies
incidentally to the truth of our account of Happiness.[33] For to
nothing does a stability of human results attach so much as it does to
the workings in the way of virtue, since these are held to be more
abiding even than the sciences: and of these last again[34] the most
precious are the most abiding, because the blessed live in them most
and most continuously, which seems to be the reason why they are not
forgotten. So then this stability which is sought will be in the happy
man, and he will be such through life, since always, or most of all, he
will be doing and contemplating the things which are in the way of
virtue: and the various chances of life he will bear most nobly, and at
all times and in all ways harmoniously, since he is the truly good man,
or in the terms of our proverb “a faultless cube.”
And whereas the incidents of chance are many, and differ in greatness
and smallness, the small pieces of good or ill fortune evidently do not
affect the balance of life, but the great and numerous, if happening
for good, will make life more blessed (for it is their nature to
contribute to ornament, and the using of them comes to be noble and
excellent), but if for ill, they bruise as it were and maim the
blessedness: for they bring in positive pain, and hinder many acts of
working. But still, even in these, nobleness shines through when a man
bears contentedly many and great mischances not from insensibility to
pain but because he is noble and high-spirited.
And if, as we have said, the acts of working are what determine the
character of the life, no one of the blessed can ever become wretched,
because he will never do those things which are hateful and mean. For
the man who is truly good and sensible bears all fortunes, we presume,
becomingly, and always does what is noblest under the circumstances,
just as a good general employs to the best advantage the force he has
with him; or a good shoemaker makes the handsomest shoe he can out of
the leather which has been given him; and all other good artisans
likewise. And if this be so, wretched never can the happy man come to
be: I do not mean to say he will be blessed should he fall into
fortunes like those of Priam.
Nor, in truth, is he shifting and easily changeable, for on the one
hand from his happiness he will not be shaken easily nor by ordinary
mischances, but, if at all, by those which are great and numerous; and,
on the other, after such mischances he cannot regain his happiness in a
little time; but, if at all, in a long and complete period, during
which he has made himself master of great and noble things.
Why then should we not call happy the man who works in the way of
perfect virtue, and is furnished with external goods sufficient for
acting his part in the drama of life:[35] and this during no ordinary
period but such as constitutes a complete life as we have been
describing it.
Or we must add, that not only is he to live so, but his death must be
in keeping with such life, since the future is dark to us, and
Happiness we assume to be in every way an end and complete. And, if
this be so, we shall call them among the living blessed who have and
will have the things specified, but blessed _as Men_.[36]
On these points then let it suffice to have denned thus much.
Chapter IX.
Now that the fortunes of their descendants, and friends generally,
contribute nothing towards forming the condition of the dead, is
plainly a very heartless notion, and contrary to the current opinions.
But since things which befall are many, and differ in all kinds of
ways, and some touch more nearly, others less, to go into minute
particular distinctions would evidently be a long and endless task: and
so it may suffice to speak generally and in outline.
If then, as of the misfortunes which happen to one’s self, some have a
certain weight and turn the balance of life, while others are, so to
speak, lighter; so it is likewise with those which befall all our
friends alike; if further, whether they whom each suffering befalls be
alive or dead makes much more difference than in a tragedy the
presupposing or actual perpetration of the various crimes and horrors,
we must take into our account this difference also, and still more
perhaps the doubt concerning the dead whether they really partake of
any good or evil; it seems to result from all these considerations,
that if anything does pierce the veil and reach them, be the same good
or bad, it must be something trivial and small, either in itself or to
them; or at least of such a magnitude or such a kind as neither to make
happy them that are not so otherwise, nor to deprive of their
blessedness them that are.[37]
It is plain then that the good or ill fortunes of their friends do
affect the dead somewhat: but in such kind and degree as neither to
make the happy unhappy nor produce any other such effect.
Chapter X.
Having determined these points, let us examine with respect to
Happiness, whether it belongs to the class of things praiseworthy or
things precious; for to that of faculties[38] it evidently does not.
Now it is plain that everything which is a subject of praise is praised
for being of a certain kind and bearing a certain relation to something
else: for instance, the just, and the valiant, and generally the good
man, and virtue itself, we praise because of the actions and the
results: and the strong man, and the quick runner, and so forth, we
praise for being of a certain nature and bearing a certain relation to
something good and excellent (and this is illustrated by attempts to
praise the gods; for they are presented in a ludicrous aspect[39] by
being referred to our standard, and this results from the fact, that
all praise does, as we have said, imply reference to a standard). Now
if it is to such objects that praise belongs, it is evident that what
is applicable to the best objects is not praise, but something higher
and better: which is plain matter of fact, for not only do we call the
gods blessed and happy, but of men also we pronounce those blessed who
most nearly resemble the gods. And in like manner in respect of goods;
no man thinks of praising Happiness as he does the principle of
justice, but calls it blessed, as being somewhat more godlike and more
excellent.
Eudoxus[40] too is thought to have advanced a sound argument in support
of the claim of pleasure to the highest prize: for the fact that,
though it is one of the good things, it is not praised, he took for an
indication of its superiority to those which are subjects of praise: a
superiority he attributed also to a god and the Chief Good, on the
ground that they form the standard to which everything besides is
referred. For praise applies to virtue, because it makes men apt to do
what is noble; but encomia to definite works of body or mind.[41]
However, it is perhaps more suitable to a regular treatise on encomia
to pursue this topic with exactness: it is enough for our purpose that
from what has been said it is evident that Happiness belongs to the
class of things precious and final. And it seems to be so also because
of its being a starting-point; which it is, in that with a view to it
we all do everything else that is done; now the starting-point and
cause of good things we assume to be something precious and divine.
Chapter XI.
Moreover, since Happiness is a kind of working of the soul in the way
of perfect Excellence, we must enquire concerning Excellence: for so
probably shall we have a clearer view concerning Happiness; and again,
he who is really a statesman is generally thought to have spent most
pains on this, for he wishes to make the citizens good and obedient to
the laws. (For examples of this class we have the lawgivers of the
Cretans and Lacedæmonians and whatever other such there have been.)
But if this investigation belongs properly to πολιτικὴ, then clearly
the enquiry will be in accordance with our original design.
Well, we are to enquire concerning Excellence, _i.e._ Human Excellence
of course, because it was the Chief Good of Man and the Happiness of
Man that we were enquiring of just now.
And by Human Excellence we mean not that of man’s body but that of his
soul; for we call Happiness a working of the Soul.
And if this is so, it is plain that some knowledge of the nature of the
Soul is necessary for the statesman, just as for the oculist a
knowledge of the whole body, and the more so in proportion as πολιτικὴ
is more precious and higher than the healing art: and in fact
physicians of the higher class do busy themselves much with the
knowledge of the body.
So then the statesman is to consider the nature of the Soul: but he
must do so with these objects in view, and so far only as may suffice
for the objects of his special enquiry: for to carry his speculations
to a greater exactness is perhaps a task more laborious than falls
within his province.
In fact, the few statements made on the subject in my popular treatises
are quite enough, and accordingly we will adopt them here: as, that the
Soul consists of two parts, the Irrational and the Rational (as to
whether these are actually divided, as are the parts of the body, and
everything that is capable of division; or are only metaphysically
speaking two, being by nature inseparable, as are convex and concave
circumferences, matters not in respect of our present purpose). And of
the Irrational, the one part seems common to other objects, and in fact
vegetative; I mean the cause of nourishment and growth (for such a
faculty of the Soul one would assume to exist in all things that
receive nourishment, even in embryos, and this the same as in the
perfect creatures; for this is more likely than that it should be a
different one).
Now the Excellence of this manifestly is not peculiar to the human
species but common to others: for this part and this faculty is thought
to work most in time of sleep, and the good and bad man are least
distinguishable while asleep; whence it is a common saying that during
one half of life there is no difference between the happy and the
wretched; and this accords with our anticipations, for sleep is an
inactivity of the soul, in so far as it is denominated good or bad,
except that in some wise some of its movements find their way through
the veil and so the good come to have better dreams than ordinary men.
But enough of this: we must forego any further mention of the nutritive
part, since it is not naturally capable of the Excellence which is
peculiarly human.
And there seems to be another Irrational Nature of the Soul, which yet
in a way partakes of Reason. For in the man who controls his appetites,
and in him who resolves to do so and fails, we praise the Reason or
Rational part of the Soul, because it exhorts aright and to the best
course: but clearly there is in them, beside the Reason, some other
natural principle which fights with and strains against the Reason.
(For in plain terms, just as paralysed limbs of the body when their
owners would move them to the right are borne aside in a contrary
direction to the left, so is it in the case of the Soul, for the
impulses of men who cannot control their appetites are to contrary
points: the difference is that in the case of the body we do see what
is borne aside but in the case of the soul we do not. But, it may be,
not the less[42] on that account are we to suppose that there is in the
Soul also somewhat besides the Reason, which is opposed to this and
goes against it; as to _how_ it is different, that is irrelevant.)
But of Reason this too does evidently partake, as we have said: for
instance, in the man of self-control it obeys Reason: and perhaps in
the man of perfected self-mastery,[43] or the brave man, it is yet
more obedient; in them it agrees entirely with the Reason.
So then the Irrational is plainly twofold: the one part, the merely
vegetative, has no share of Reason, but that of desire, or appetition
generally, does partake of it in a sense, in so far as it is obedient
to it and capable of submitting to its rule. (So too in common phrase
we say we have λόγος of our father or friends, and this in a different
sense from that in which we say we have λόγος of mathematics.)[44]
Now that the Irrational is in some way persuaded by the Reason,
admonition, and every act of rebuke and exhortation indicate. If then
we are to say that this also has Reason, then the Rational, as well as
the Irrational, will be twofold, the one supremely and in itself, the
other paying it a kind of filial regard.
The Excellence of Man then is divided in accordance with this
difference: we make two classes, calling the one Intellectual, and the
other Moral; pure science, intelligence, and practical
wisdom—Intellectual: liberality, and perfected self-mastery—Moral: in
speaking of a man’s Moral character, we do not say he is a scientific
or intelligent but a meek man, or one of perfected self-mastery: and we
praise the man of science in right of his mental state;[45] and of
these such as are praiseworthy we call Excellences.
BOOK II
Chapter I.
Well: human Excellence is of two kinds, Intellectual and Moral:[1] now
the Intellectual springs originally, and is increased subsequently,
from teaching (for the most part that is[2]), and needs therefore
experience and time; whereas the Moral comes from custom, and so the
Greek term denoting it is but a slight deflection from the term
denoting custom in that language.
From this fact it is plain that not one of the Moral Virtues comes to
be in us merely by nature: because of such things as exist by nature,
none can be changed by custom: a stone, for instance, by nature
gravitating downwards, could never by custom be brought to ascend, not
even if one were to try and accustom it by throwing it up ten thousand
times; nor could file again be brought to descend, nor in fact could
anything whose nature is in one way be brought by custom to be in
another. The Virtues then come to be in us neither by nature, nor in
despite of nature,[3] but we are furnished by nature with a capacity
for receiving themu and are perfected in them through custom.
Again, in whatever cases we get things by nature, we get the faculties
first and perform the acts of working afterwards; an illustration of
which is afforded by the case of our bodily senses, for it was not from
having often seen or heard that we got these senses, but just the
reverse: we had them and so exercised them, but did not have them
because we had exercised them. But the Virtues we get by first
performing single acts of working, which, again, is the case of other
things, as the arts for instance; for what we have to make when we have
learned how, these we learn how to make by making: men come to be
builders, for instance, by building; harp-players, by playing on the
harp: exactly so, by doing just actions we come to be just; by doing
the actions of self-mastery we come to be perfected in self-mastery;
and by doing brave actions brave.
And to the truth of this testimony is borne by what takes place in
communities: because the law-givers make the individual members good
men by habituation, and this is the intention certainly of every
law-giver, and all who do not effect it well fail of their intent; and
herein consists the difference between a good Constitution and a bad.
Again, every Virtue is either produced or destroyed from and by the
very same circumstances: art too in like manner; I mean it is by
playing the harp that both the good and the bad harp-players are
formed: and similarly builders and all the rest; by building well men
will become good builders; by doing it badly bad ones: in fact, if this
had not been so, there would have been no need of instructors, but all
men would have been at once good or bad in their several arts without
them.
So too then is it with the Virtues: for by acting in the various
relations in which we are thrown with our fellow men, we come to be,
some just, some unjust: and by acting in dangerous positions and being
habituated to feel fear or confidence, we come to be, some brave,
others cowards.
Similarly is it also with respect to the occasions of lust and anger:
for some men come to be perfected in self-mastery and mild, others
destitute of all self-control and passionate; the one class by behaving
in one way under them, the other by behaving in another. Or, in one
word, the habits are produced from the acts of working like to them:
and so what we have to do is to give a certain character to these
particular acts, because the habits formed correspond to the
differences of these.
So then, whether we are accustomed this way or that straight from
childhood, makes not a small but an important difference, or rather I
would say it makes all the difference.
Chapter II.
Since then the object of the present treatise is not mere speculation,
as it is of some others (for we are enquiring not merely that we may
know what virtue is but that we may become virtuous, else it would have
been useless), we must consider as to the particular actions how we are
to do them, because, as we have just said, the quality of the habits
that shall be formed depends on these.
Now, that we are to act in accordance with Right Reason is a general
maxim, and may for the present be taken for granted: we will speak of
it hereafter, and say both what Right Reason is, and what are its
relations to the other virtues.[4]
But let this point be first thoroughly understood between us, that all
which can be said on moral action must be said in outline, as it were,
and not exactly: for as we remarked at the commencement, such reasoning
only must be required as the nature of the subject-matter admits of,
and matters of moral action and expediency have no fixedness any more
than matters of health. And if the subject in its general maxims is
such, still less in its application to particular cases is exactness
attainable:[5] because these fall not under any art or system of rules,
but it must be left in each instance to the individual agents to look
to the exigencies of the particular case, as it is in the art of
healing, or that of navigating a ship. Still, though the present
subject is confessedly such, we must try and do what we can for it.
First then this must be noted, that it is the nature of such things to
be spoiled by defect and excess; as we see in the case of health and
strength (since for the illustration of things which cannot be seen we
must use those that can), for excessive training impairs the strength
as well as deficient: meat and drink, in like manner, in too great or
too small quantities, impair the health: while in due proportion they
cause, increase, and preserve it.
Thus it is therefore with the habits of perfected Self-Mastery and
Courage and the rest of the Virtues: for the man who flies from and
fears all things, and never stands up against anything, comes to be a
coward; and he who fears nothing, but goes at everything, comes to be
rash. In like manner too, he that tastes of every pleasure and abstains
from none comes to lose all self-control; while he who avoids all, as
do the dull and clownish, comes as it were to lose his faculties of
perception: that is to say, the habits of perfected Self-Mastery and
Courage are spoiled by the excess and defect, but by the mean state are
preserved.
Furthermore, not only do the origination, growth, and marring of the
habits come from and by the same circumstances, but also the acts of
working after the habits are formed will be exercised on the same: for
so it is also with those other things which are more directly matters
of sight, strength for instance: for this comes by taking plenty of
food and doing plenty of work, and the man who has attained strength is
best able to do these: and so it is with the Virtues, for not only do
we by abstaining from pleasures come to be perfected in Self-Mastery,
but when we have come to be so we can best abstain from them: similarly
too with Courage: for it is by accustoming ourselves to despise objects
of fear and stand up against them that we come to be brave; and after
we have come to be so we shall be best able to stand up against such
objects.
And for a test of the formation of the habits we must take the pleasure
or pain which succeeds the acts; for he is perfected in Self-Mastery
who not only abstains from the bodily pleasures but is glad to do so;
whereas he who abstains but is sorry to do it has not Self-Mastery: he
again is brave who stands up against danger, either with positive
pleasure or at least without any pain; whereas he who does it with pain
is not brave.[6]
For Moral Virtue has for its object-matter pleasures and pains, because
by reason of pleasure we do what is bad, and by reason of pain decline
doing what is right (for which cause, as Plato observes, men should
have been trained straight from their childhood to receive pleasure and
pain from proper objects, for this is the right education). Again:
since Virtues have to do with actions and feelings, and on every
feeling and every action pleasure and pain follow, here again is
another proof that Virtue has for its object-matter pleasure and pain.
The same is shown also by the fact that punishments are effected
through the instrumentality of these; because they are of the nature of
remedies, and it is the nature of remedies to be the contraries of the
ills they cure. Again, to quote what we said before: every habit of the
Soul by its very nature has relation to, and exerts itself upon, things
of the same kind as those by which it is naturally deteriorated or
improved: now such habits do come to be vicious by reason of pleasures
and pains, that is, by men pursuing or avoiding respectively, either
such as they ought not, or at wrong times, or in wrong manner, and so
forth (for which reason, by the way, some people define the Virtues as
certain states of impassibility and utter quietude,[7] but they are
wrong because they speak without modification, instead of adding “as
they ought,” “as they ought not,” and “when,” and so on). Virtue then
is assumed to be that habit which is such, in relation to pleasures and
pains, as to effect the best results, and Vice the contrary.
The following considerations may also serve to set this in a clear
light. There are principally three things moving us to choice and three
to avoidance, the honourable, the expedient, the pleasant; and their
three contraries, the dishonourable, the hurtful, and the painful: now
the good man is apt to go right, and the bad man wrong, with respect to
all these of course, but most specially with respect to pleasure:
because not only is this common to him with all animals but also it is
a concomitant of all those things which move to choice, since both the
honourable and the expedient give an impression of pleasure.
Again, it grows up with us all from infancy, and so it is a hard matter
to remove from ourselves this feeling, engrained as it is into our very
life.
Again, we adopt pleasure and pain (some of us more, and some less) as
the measure even of actions: for this cause then our whole business
must be with them, since to receive right or wrong impressions of
pleasure and pain is a thing of no little importance in respect of the
actions. Once more; it is harder, as Heraclitus says, to fight against
pleasure than against anger: now it is about that which is more than
commonly difficult that art comes into being, and virtue too, because
in that which is difficult the good is of a higher order: and so for
this reason too both virtue and moral philosophy generally must wholly
busy themselves respecting pleasures and pains, because he that uses
these well will be good, he that does so ill will be bad.
Let us then be understood to have stated, that Virtue has for its
object-matter pleasures and pains, and that it is either increased or
marred by the same circumstances (differently used) by which it is
originally generated, and that it exerts itself on the same
circumstances out of which it was generated.
Chapter III.
Now I can conceive a person perplexed as to the meaning of our
statement, that men must do just actions to become just, and those of
self-mastery to acquire the habit of self-mastery; “for,” he would say,
“if men are doing the actions they have the respective virtues already,
just as men are grammarians or musicians when they do the actions of
either art.” May we not reply by saying that it is not so even in the
case of the arts referred to: because a man may produce something
grammatical either by chance or the suggestion of another; but then
only will he be a grammarian when he not only produces something
grammatical but does so grammarian-wise, _i.e._ in virtue of the
grammatical knowledge he himself possesses.
Again, the cases of the arts and the virtues are not parallel: because
those things which are produced by the arts have their excellence in
themselves, and it is sufficient therefore that these when produced
should be in a certain state: but those which are produced in the way
of the virtues, are, strictly speaking, actions of a certain kind (say
of Justice or perfected Self-Mastery), not merely if in themselves they
are in a certain state but if also he who does them does them being
himself in a certain state, first if knowing what he is doing, next if
with deliberate preference, and with such preference for the things’
own sake; and thirdly if being himself stable and unapt to change. Now
to constitute possession of the arts these requisites are not reckoned
in, excepting the one point of knowledge: whereas for possession of the
virtues knowledge avails little or nothing, but the other requisites
avail not a little, but, in fact, are all in all, and these requisites
as a matter of fact do come from oftentimes doing the actions of
Justice and perfected Self-Mastery.
The facts,[8] it is true, are called by the names of these habits when
they are such as the just or perfectly self-mastering man would do; but
he is not in possession of the virtues who merely does these facts, but
he who also so does them as the just and self-mastering do them.
We are right then in saying, that these virtues are formed in a man by
his doing the actions; but no one, if he should leave them undone,
would be even in the way to become a good man. Yet people in general do
not perform these actions, but taking refuge in talk they flatter
themselves they are philosophising, and that they will so be good men:
acting in truth very like those sick people who listen to the doctor
with great attention but do nothing that he tells them: just as these
then cannot be well bodily under such a course of treatment, so neither
can those be mentally by such philosophising.
Chapter IV.
Next, we must examine what Virtue is.[9] Well, since the things which
come to be in the mind are, in all, of three kinds, Feelings,
Capacities, States, Virtue of course must belong to one of the three
classes.
By Feelings, I mean such as lust, anger, fear, confidence, envy, joy,
friendship, hatred, longing, emulation, compassion, in short all such
as are followed by pleasure or pain: by Capacities, those in right of
which we are said to be capable of these feelings; as by virtue of
which we are able to have been made angry, or grieved, or to have
compassionated; by States, those in right of which we are in a certain
relation good or bad to the aforementioned feelings; to having been
made angry, for instance, we are in a wrong relation if in our anger we
were too violent or too slack, but if we were in the happy medium we
are in a right relation to the feeling. And so on of the rest.
Now Feelings neither the virtues nor vices are, because in right of the
Feelings we are not denominated either good or bad, but in right of the
virtues and vices we are.
Again, in right of the Feelings we are neither praised nor blamed,[10]
(for a man is not commended for being afraid or being angry, nor blamed
for being angry merely but for being so in a particular way), but in
right of the virtues and vices we are.
Again, both anger and fear we feel without moral choice, whereas the
virtues are acts of moral choice, or at least certainly not independent
of it.
Moreover, in right of the Feelings we are said to be moved, but in
right of the virtues and vices not to be moved, but disposed, in a
certain way.
And for these same reasons they are not Capacities, for we are not
called good or bad merely because we are able to feel, nor are we
praised or blamed.
And again, Capacities we have by nature, but we do not come to be good
or bad by nature, as we have said before.
Since then the virtues are neither Feelings nor Capacities, it remains
that they must be States.
Chapter V.
Now what the genus of Virtue is has been said; but we must not merely
speak of it thus, that it is a state but say also what kind of a state
it is.
We must observe then that all excellence makes that whereof it is the
excellence both to be itself in a good state and to perform its work
well. The excellence of the eye, for instance, makes both the eye good
and its work also: for by the excellence of the eye we see well. So too
the excellence of the horse makes a horse good, and good in speed, and
in carrying his rider, and standing up against the enemy. If then this
is universally the case, the excellence of Man, i.e. Virtue, must be a
state whereby Man comes to be good and whereby he will perform well his
proper work. Now how this shall be it is true we have said already, but
still perhaps it may throw light on the subject to see what is its
characteristic nature.
In all quantity then, whether continuous or discrete,[11] one may take
the greater part, the less, or the exactly equal, and these either with
reference to the thing itself, or relatively to us: and the exactly
equal is a mean between excess and defect. Now by the mean of the
thing, _i.e._ absolute mean, I denote that which is equidistant from
either extreme (which of course is one and the same to all), and by the
mean relatively to ourselves, that which is neither too much nor too
little for the particular individual. This of course is not one nor the
same to all: for instance, suppose ten is too much and two too little,
people take six for the absolute mean; because it exceeds the smaller
sum by exactly as much as it is itself exceeded by the larger, and this
mean is according to arithmetical proportion.[12]
But the mean relatively to ourselves must not be so found ; for it does
not follow, supposing ten minæ[13] is too large a quantity to eat and
two too small, that the trainer will order his man six; because for the
person who is to take it this also may be too much or too little: for
Milo it would be too little, but for a man just commencing his athletic
exercises too much: similarly too of the exercises themselves, as
running or wrestling.
So then it seems every one possessed of skill avoids excess and defect,
but seeks for and chooses the mean, not the absolute but the relative.
Now if all skill thus accomplishes well its work by keeping an eye on
the mean, and bringing the works to this point (whence it is common
enough to say of such works as are in a good state, “one cannot add to
or take ought from them,” under the notion of excess or defect
destroying goodness but the mean state preserving it), and good
artisans, as we say, work with their eye on this, and excellence, like
nature, is more exact and better than any art in the world, it must
have an aptitude to aim at the mean.
It is moral excellence, _i.e._ Virtue, of course which I mean, because
this it is which is concerned with feelings and actions, and in these
there can be excess and defect and the mean: it is possible, for
instance, to feel the emotions of fear, confidence, lust, anger,
compassion, and pleasure and pain generally, too much or too little,
and in either case wrongly; but to feel them when we ought, on what
occasions, towards whom, why, and as, we should do, is the mean, or in
other words the best state, and this is the property of Virtue.
In like manner too with respect to the actions, there may be excess and
defect and the mean. Now Virtue is concerned with feelings and actions,
in which the excess is wrong and the defect is blamed but the mean is
praised and goes right; and both these circumstances belong to Virtue.
Virtue then is in a sense a mean state, since it certainly has an
aptitude for aiming at the mean.
Again, one may go wrong in many different ways (because, as the
Pythagoreans expressed it, evil is of the class of the infinite, good
of the finite), but right only in one; and so the former is easy, the
latter difficult; easy to miss the mark, but hard to hit it: and for
these reasons, therefore, both the excess and defect belong to Vice,
and the mean state to Virtue; for, as the poet has it,
“Men may be bad in many ways,
But good in one alone.”
Chapter VI.
Virtue then is “a state apt to exercise deliberate choice, being in the
relative mean, determined by reason, and[14] as the man of practical
wisdom would determine.”
It is a middle state between too faulty ones, in the way of excess on
one side and of defect on the other: and it is so moreover, because the
faulty states on one side fall short of, and those on the other exceed,
what is right, both in the case of the feelings and the actions; but
Virtue finds, and when found adopts, the mean.
And so, viewing it in respect of its essence and definition, Virtue is
a mean state; but in reference to the chief good and to excellence it
is the highest state possible.
But it must not be supposed that every action or every feeling is
capable of subsisting in this mean state, because some there are which
are so named as immediately to convey the notion of badness, as
malevolence, shamelessness, envy; or, to instance in actions, adultery,
theft, homicide; for all these and suchlike are blamed because they are
in themselves bad, not the having too much or too little of them.
In these then you never can go right, but must always be wrong: nor in
such does the right or wrong depend on the selection of a proper
person, time, or manner (take adultery for instance), but simply doing
any one soever of those things is being wrong.
You might as well require that there should be determined a mean state,
an excess and a defect in respect of acting unjustly, being cowardly,
or giving up all control of the passions: for at this rate there will
be of excess and defect a mean state; of excess, excess; and of defect,
defect.
But just as of perfected self-mastery and courage there is no excess
and defect, because the mean is in one point of view the highest
possible state, so neither of those faulty states can you have a mean
state, excess, or defect, but howsoever done they are wrong: you
cannot, in short, have of excess and defect a mean state, nor of a mean
state excess and defect.
Chapter VII.
It is not enough, however, to state this in general terms, we must also
apply it to particular instances, because in treatises on moral conduct
general statements have an air of vagueness, but those which go into
detail one of greater reality: for the actions after all must be in
detail, and the general statements, to be worth anything, must hold
good here.
We must take these details then from the well-known scheme.[15]
I. In respect of fears and confidence or boldness:
The Mean state is Courage: men may exceed, of course, either in absence
of fear or in positive confidence: the former has no name (which is a
common case), the latter is called rash: again, the man who has too
much fear and too little confidence is called a coward.
II. In respect of pleasures and pains (but not all, and perhaps fewer
pains than pleasures):
The Mean state here is perfected Self-Mastery, the defect total absence
of Self-control. As for defect in respect of pleasure, there are really
no people who are chargeable with it, so, of course, there is really no
name for such characters, but, as they are conceivable, we will give
them one and call them insensible.
III. In respect of giving and taking wealth[16] (_a_):
The mean state is Liberality, the excess Prodigality, the defect
Stinginess: here each of the extremes involves really an excess and
defect contrary to each other: I mean, the prodigal gives out too much
and takes in too little, while the stingy man takes in too much and
gives out too little. (It must be understood that we are now giving
merely an outline and summary, intentionally: and we will, in a later
part of the treatise, draw out the distinctions with greater
exactness.)
IV. In respect of wealth (b):
There are other dispositions besides these just mentioned; a mean state
called Munificence (for the munificent man differs from the liberal,
the former having necessarily to do with great wealth, the latter with
but small); the excess called by the names either of Want of taste or
Vulgar Profusion, and the defect Paltriness (these also differ from the
extremes connected with liberality, and the manner of their difference
shall also be spoken of later).
V. In respect of honour and dishonour (a):
The mean state Greatness of Soul, the excess which may be called
χαυνότης,[17] and the defect Littleness of Soul.
VI. In respect of honour and dishonour (b):
Now there is a state bearing the same relation to Greatness of Soul as
we said just now Liberality does to Munificence, with the difference
that is of being about a small amount of the same thing: this state
having reference to small honour, as Greatness of Soul to great honour;
a man may, of course, grasp at honour either more than he should or
less; now he that exceeds in his grasping at it is called ambitious, he
that falls short unambitious, he that is just as he should be has no
proper name: nor in fact have the states, except that the disposition
of the ambitious man is called ambition. For this reason those who are
in either extreme lay claim to the mean as a debateable land, and we
call the virtuous character sometimes by the name ambitious,[18]
sometimes by that of unambitious, and we commend sometimes the one and
sometimes the other. Why we do it shall be said in the subsequent part
of the treatise; but now we will go on with the rest of the virtues
after the plan we have laid down.
VII. In respect of anger:
Here too there is excess, defect, and a mean state; but since they may
be said to have really no proper names, as we call the virtuous
character Meek, we will call the mean state Meekness, and of the
extremes, let the man who is excessive be denominated Passionate, and
the faulty state Passionateness, and him who is deficient Angerless,
and the defect Angerlessness.
There are also three other mean states, having some mutual resemblance,
but still with differences; they are alike in that they all have for
their object-matter intercourse of words and deeds, and they differ in
that one has respect to truth herein, the other two to what is
pleasant; and this in two ways, the one in relaxation and amusement,
the other in all things which occur in daily life. We must say a word
or two about these also, that we may the better see that in all matters
the mean is praiseworthy, while the extremes are neither right nor
worthy of praise but of blame.
Now of these, it is true, the majority have really no proper names, but
still we must try, as in the other cases, to coin some for them for the
sake of clearness and intelligibleness.
I. In respect of truth:
The man who is in the mean state we will call Truthful, and his state
Truthfulness, and as to the disguise of truth, if it be on the side of
exaggeration, Braggadocia, and him that has it a Braggadocio; if on
that of diminution, Reserve and Reserved shall be the terms.
II. In respect of what is pleasant in the way of relaxation or
amusement.
The mean state shall be called Easy-pleasantry, and the character
accordingly a man of Easy-pleasantry; the excess Buffoonery, and the
man a Buffoon; the man deficient herein a Clown, and his state
Clownishness.
III. In respect of what is pleasant in daily life.
He that is as he should be may be called Friendly, and his mean state
Friendliness: he that exceeds, if it be without any interested motive,
somewhat too Complaisant, if with such motive, a Flatterer: he that is
deficient and in all instances unpleasant, Quarrelsome and Cross.
There are mean states likewise in feelings and matters concerning them.
Shamefacedness, for instance, is no virtue, still a man is praised for
being shamefaced: for in these too the one is denominated the man in
the mean state, the other in the excess; the Dumbfoundered, for
instance, who is overwhelmed with shame on all and any occasions: the
man who is in the defect, _i.e._ who has no shame at all in his
composition, is called Shameless: but the right character Shamefaced.
Indignation against successful vice,[19] again, is a state in the mean
between Envy and Malevolence: they all three have respect to pleasure
and pain produced by what happens to one’s neighbour: for the man who
has this right feeling is annoyed at undeserved success of others,
while the envious man goes beyond him and is annoyed at all success of
others, and the malevolent falls so far short of feeling annoyance that
he even rejoices [at misfortune of others].
But for the discussion of these also there will be another opportunity,
as of Justice too, because the term is used in more senses than one. So
after this we will go accurately into each and say how they are mean
states: and in like manner also with respect to the Intellectual
Excellences.
Chapter VIII.
Now as there are three states in each case, two faulty either in the
way of excess or defect, and one right, which is the mean state, of
course all are in a way opposed to one another; the extremes, for
instance, not only to the mean but also to one another, and the mean to
the extremes: for just as the half is greater if compared with the less
portion, and less if compared with the greater, so the mean states,
compared with the defects, exceed, whether in feelings or actions, and
_vice versa_. The brave man, for instance, shows as rash when compared
with the coward, and cowardly when compared with the rash; similarly
too the man of perfected self-mastery, viewed in comparison with the
man destitute of all perception, shows like a man of no self-control,
but in comparison with the man who really has no self-control, he looks
like one destitute of all perception: and the liberal man compared with
the stingy seems prodigal, and by the side of the prodigal, stingy.
And so the extreme characters push away, so to speak, towards each
other the man in the mean state; the brave man is called a rash man by
the coward, and a coward by the rash man, and in the other cases
accordingly. And there being this mutual opposition, the contrariety
between the extremes is greater than between either and the mean,
because they are further from one another than from the mean, just as
the greater or less portion differ more from each other than either
from the exact half.
Again, in some cases an extreme will bear a resemblance to the mean;
rashness, for instance, to courage, and prodigality to liberality; but
between the extremes there is the greatest dissimilarity. Now things
which are furthest from one another[20] are defined to be contrary, and
so the further off the more contrary will they be.
Further: of the extremes in some cases the excess, and in others the
defect, is most opposed to the mean: to courage, for instance, not
rashness which is the excess, but cowardice which is the defect;
whereas to perfected self-mastery not insensibility which is the defect
but absence of all self-control which is the excess.
And for this there are two reasons to be given; one from the nature of
the thing itself, because from the one extreme being nearer and more
like the mean, we do not put this against it, but the other; as, for
instance, since rashness is thought to be nearer to courage than
cowardice is, and to resemble it more, we put cowardice against courage
rather than rashness, because those things which are further from the
mean are thought to be more contrary to it. This then is one reason
arising from the thing itself; there is another arising from our own
constitution and make: for in each man’s own case those things give the
impression of being more contrary to the mean to which we individually
have a natural bias. Thus we have a natural bias towards pleasures, for
which reason we are much more inclined to the rejection of all
self-control, than to self-discipline.
These things then to which the bias is, we call more contrary, and so
total want of self-control (the excess) is more contrary than the
defect is to perfected self-mastery.
Chapter IX.
Now that Moral Virtue is a mean state, and how it is so, and that it
lies between two faulty states, one in the way of excess and another in
the way of defect, and that it is so because it has an aptitude to aim
at the mean both in feelings and actions, all this has been set forth
fully and sufficiently.
And so it is hard to be good: for surely hard it is in each instance to
find the mean, just as to find the mean point or centre of a circle is
not what any man can do, but only he who knows how: just so to be
angry, to give money, and be expensive, is what any man can do, and
easy: but to do these to the right person, in due proportion, at the
right time, with a right object, and in the right manner, this is not
as before what any man can do, nor is it easy; and for this cause
goodness is rare, and praiseworthy, and noble.
Therefore he who aims at the mean should make it his first care to keep
away from that extreme which is more contrary than the other to the
mean; just as Calypso in Homer advises Ulysses,
“Clear of this smoke and surge thy barque direct;”
because of the two extremes the one is always more, and the other less,
erroneous; and, therefore, since to hit exactly on the mean is
difficult, one must take the least of the evils as the safest plan;[21]
and this a man will be doing, if he follows this method.
We ought also to take into consideration our own natural bias; which
varies in each man’s case, and will be ascertained from the pleasure
and pain arising in us. Furthermore, we should force ourselves off in
the contrary direction, because we shall find ourselves in the mean
after we have removed ourselves far from the wrong side, exactly as men
do in straightening bent timber.[22]
But in all cases we must guard most carefully against what is pleasant,
and pleasure itself, because we are not impartial judges of it.
We ought to feel in fact towards pleasure as did the old counsellors
towards Helen, and in all cases pronounce a similar sentence; for so by
sending it away from us, we shall err the less.[23]
Well, to speak very briefly, these are the precautions by adopting
which we shall be best able to attain the mean.
Still, perhaps, after all it is a matter of difficulty, and specially
in the particular instances: it is not easy, for instance, to determine
exactly in what manner, with what persons, for what causes, and for
what length of time, one ought to feel anger: for we ourselves
sometimes praise those who are defective in this feeling, and we call
them meek; at another, we term the hot-tempered manly and spirited.
Then, again, he who makes a small deflection from what is right, be it
on the side of too much or too little, is not blamed, only he who makes
a considerable one; for he cannot escape observation. But to what point
or degree a man must err in order to incur blame, it is not easy to
determine exactly in words: nor in fact any of those points which are
matter of perception by the Moral Sense: such questions are matters of
detail, and the decision of them rests with the Moral Sense.[24]
At all events thus much is plain, that the mean state is in all things
praiseworthy, and that practically we must deflect sometimes towards
excess sometimes towards defect, because this will be the easiest
method of hitting on the mean, that is, on what is right.
BOOK III
Chapter I.
Now since Virtue is concerned with the regulation of feelings and
actions, and praise and blame arise upon such as are voluntary, while
for the involuntary allowance is made, and sometimes compassion is
excited, it is perhaps a necessary task for those who are investigating
the nature of Virtue to draw out the distinction between what is
voluntary and what involuntary; and it is certainly useful for
legislators, with respect to the assigning of honours and punishments.
Involuntary actions then are thought to be of two kinds, being done
either on compulsion, or by reason of ignorance. An action is, properly
speaking, compulsory, when the origination is external to the agent,
being such that in it the agent (perhaps we may more properly say the
patient) contributes nothing; as if a wind were to convey you anywhere,
or men having power over your person.
But when actions are done, either from fear of greater evils, or from
some honourable motive, as, for instance, if you were ordered to commit
some base act by a despot who had your parents or children in his
power, and they were to be saved upon your compliance or die upon your
refusal, in such cases there is room for a question whether the actions
are voluntary or involuntary.
A similar question arises with respect to cases of throwing goods
overboard in a storm: abstractedly no man throws away his property
willingly, but with a view to his own and his shipmates’ safety any one
would who had any sense.
The truth is, such actions are of a mixed kind, but are most like
voluntary actions; for they are choice-worthy at the time when they are
being done, and the end or object of the action must be taken with
reference to the actual occasion. Further, we must denominate an action
voluntary or involuntary at the time of doing it: now in the given case
the man acts voluntarily, because the originating of the motion of his
limbs in such actions rests with himself; and where the origination is
in himself it rests with himself to do or not to do.
Such actions then are voluntary, though in the abstract perhaps
involuntary because no one would choose any of such things in and by
itself.
But for such actions men sometimes are even praised, as when they
endure any disgrace or pain to secure great and honourable equivalents;
if _vice versâ_, then they are blamed, because it shows a base mind to
endure things very disgraceful for no honourable object, or for a
trifling one.
For some again no praise is given, but allowance is made; as where a
man does what he should not by reason of such things as overstrain the
powers of human nature, or pass the limits of human endurance.
Some acts perhaps there are for which compulsion cannot be pleaded, but
a man should rather suffer the worst and die; how absurd, for instance,
are the pleas of compulsion with which Alcmaeon in Euripides’ play
excuses his matricide!
But it is difficult sometimes to decide what kind of thing should be
chosen instead of what, or what endured in preference to what, and much
moreso to abide by one’s decisions: for in general the alternatives are
painful, and the actions required are base, and so praise or blame is
awarded according as persons have been compelled or no.
What kind of actions then are to be called compulsory? may we say,
simply and abstractedly whenever the cause is external and the agent
contributes nothing; and that where the acts are in themselves such as
one would not wish but choice-worthy at the present time and in
preference to such and such things, and where the origination rests
with the agent, the actions are in themselves involuntary but at the
given time and in preference to such and such things voluntary; and
they are more like voluntary than involuntary, because the actions
consist of little details, and these are voluntary.
But what kind of things one ought to choose instead of what, it is not
easy to settle, for there are many differences in particular instances.
But suppose a person should say, things pleasant and honourable exert a
compulsive force (for that they are external and do compel); at that
rate every action is on compulsion, because these are universal motives
of action.
Again, they who act on compulsion and against their will do so with
pain; but they who act by reason of what is pleasant or honourable act
with pleasure.
It is truly absurd for a man to attribute his actions to external
things instead of to his own capacity for being easily caught by
them;[1] or, again, to ascribe the honourable to himself, and the base
ones to pleasure.
So then that seems to be compulsory “whose origination is from without,
the party compelled contributing nothing.”
Chapter II.
Now every action of which ignorance is the cause is not-voluntary, but
that only is involuntary which is attended with pain and remorse; for
clearly the man who has done anything by reason of ignorance, but is
not annoyed at his own action, cannot be said to have done it _with_
his will because he did not know he was doing it, nor again _against_
his will because he is not sorry for it.
So then of the class “acting by reason of ignorance,” he who feels
regret afterwards is thought to be an involuntary agent, and him that
has no such feeling, since he certainly is different from the other, we
will call a not-voluntary agent; for as there is a real difference it
is better to have a proper name.
Again, there seems to be a difference between acting _because of_
ignorance and acting _with_ ignorance: for instance, we do not usually
assign ignorance as the cause of the actions of the drunken or angry
man, but either the drunkenness or the anger, yet they act not
knowingly but with ignorance.
Again, every bad man is ignorant what he ought to do and what to leave
undone, and by reason of such error men become unjust and wholly evil.
Again, we do not usually apply the term involuntary when a man is
ignorant of his own true interest;[2] because ignorance which affects
moral choice[3] constitutes depravity but not involuntariness: nor does
any ignorance of principle (because for this men are blamed) but
ignorance in particular details, wherein consists the action and
wherewith it is concerned, for in these there is both compassion and
allowance, because he who acts in ignorance of any of them acts in a
proper sense involuntarily.
It may be as well, therefore, to define these particular details; what
they are, and how many; viz. who acts, what he is doing, with respect
to what or in what, sometimes with what, as with what instrument, and
with what result;[4] as that of preservation, for instance, and how, as
whether softly or violently.
All these particulars, in one and the same case, no man in his senses
could be ignorant of; plainly not of the agent, being himself. But what
he is doing a man may be ignorant, as men in speaking say a thing
escaped them unawares; or as Aeschylus did with respect to the
Mysteries, that he was not aware that it was unlawful to speak of them;
or as in the case of that catapult accident the other day the man said
he discharged it merely to display its operation. Or a person might
suppose a son to be an enemy, as Merope did; or that the spear really
pointed was rounded off; or that the stone was a pumice; or in striking
with a view to save might kill; or might strike when merely wishing to
show another, as people do in sham-fighting.
Now since ignorance is possible in respect to all these details in
which the action consists, he that acted in ignorance of any of them is
thought to have acted involuntarily, and he most so who was in
ignorance as regards the most important, which are thought to be those
in which the action consists, and the result.
Further, not only must the ignorance be of this kind, to constitute an
action involuntary, but it must be also understood that the action is
followed by pain and regret.
Chapter III.
Now since all involuntary action is either upon compulsion or by reason
of ignorance, Voluntary Action would seem to be “that whose origination
is in the agent, he being aware of the particular details in which the
action consists.”
For, it may be, men are not justified by calling those actions
involuntary, which are done by reason of Anger or Lust.
Because, in the first place, if this be so no other animal but man, and
not even children, can be said to act voluntarily. Next, is it meant
that we never act voluntarily when we act from Lust or Anger, or that
we act voluntarily in doing what is right and involuntarily in doing
what is discreditable? The latter supposition is absurd, since the
cause is one and the same. Then as to the former, it is a strange thing
to maintain actions to be involuntary which we are bound to grasp at:
now there are occasions on which anger is a duty,[5] and there are
things which we are bound to lust after,[6] health, for instance, and
learning.
Again, whereas actions strictly involuntary are thought to be attended
with pain, those which are done to gratify lust are thought to be
pleasant.
Again: how does the involuntariness make any difference[7] between
wrong actions done from deliberate calculation, and those done by
reason of anger? for both ought to be avoided, and the irrational
feelings are thought to be just as natural to man as reason, and so of
course must be such actions of the individual as are done from Anger
and Lust. It is absurd then to class these actions among the
involuntary.
Chapter IV.
Having thus drawn out the distinction between voluntary and involuntary
action our next step is to examine into the nature of Moral Choice,
because this seems most intimately connected with Virtue and to be a
more decisive test of moral character than a man’s acts are.
Now Moral Choice is plainly voluntary, but the two are not
co-extensive, voluntary being the more comprehensive term; for first,
children and all other animals share in voluntary action but not in
Moral Choice; and next, sudden actions we call voluntary but do not
ascribe them to Moral Choice.
Nor do they appear to be right who say it is lust or anger, or wish, or
opinion of a certain kind; because, in the first place, Moral Choice is
not shared by the irrational animals while Lust and Anger are. Next;
the man who fails of self-control acts from Lust but not from Moral
Choice; the man of self-control, on the contrary, from Moral Choice,
not from Lust. Again: whereas Lust is frequently opposed to Moral
Choice, Lust is not to Lust.
Lastly: the object-matter of Lust is the pleasant and the painful, but
of Moral Choice neither the one nor the other. Still less can it be
Anger, because actions done from Anger are thought generally to be
least of all consequent on Moral Choice.
Nor is it Wish either, though appearing closely connected with it;
because, in the first place, Moral Choice has not for its objects
impossibilities, and if a man were to say he chose them he would be
thought to be a fool; but Wish may have impossible things for its
objects, immortality for instance.
Wish again may be exercised on things in the accomplishment of which
one’s self could have nothing to do, as the success of any particular
actor or athlete; but no man chooses things of this nature, only such
as he believes he may himself be instrumental in procuring.
Further: Wish has for its object the End rather, but Moral Choice the
means to the End; for instance, we wish to be healthy but we choose the
means which will make us so; or happiness again we wish for, and
commonly say so, but to say we choose is not an appropriate term,
because, in short, the province of Moral Choice seems to be those
things which are in our own power.
Neither can it be Opinion; for Opinion is thought to be unlimited in
its range of objects, and to be exercised as well upon things eternal
and impossible as on those which are in our own power: again, Opinion
is logically divided into true and false, not into good and bad as
Moral Choice is.
However, nobody perhaps maintains its identity with Opinion simply; but
it is not the same with opinion of any kind,[8] because by choosing good
and bad things we are constituted of a certain character, but by having
opinions on them we are not.
Again, we choose to take or avoid, and so on, but we opine what a thing
is, or for what it is serviceable, or how; but we do not opine to take
or avoid.
Further, Moral Choice is commended rather for having a right object
than for being judicious, but Opinion for being formed in accordance
with truth.
Again, we choose such things as we pretty well know to be good, but we
form opinions respecting such as we do not know at all.
And it is not thought that choosing and opining best always go
together, but that some opine the better course and yet by reason of
viciousness choose not the things which they should.
It may be urged, that Opinion always precedes or accompanies Moral
Choice; be it so, this makes no difference, for this is not the point
in question, but whether Moral Choice is the same as Opinion of a
certain kind.
Since then it is none of the aforementioned things, what is it, or how
is it characterised? Voluntary it plainly is, but not all voluntary
action is an object of Moral Choice. May we not say then, it is “that
voluntary which has passed through a stage of previous deliberation?”
because Moral Choice is attended with reasoning and intellectual
process. The etymology of its Greek name seems to give a hint of it,
being when analysed “chosen in preference to somewhat else.”
Chapter V.
Well then; do men deliberate about everything, and is anything soever
the object of Deliberation, or are there some matters with respect to
which there is none? (It may be as well perhaps to say, that by “object
of Deliberation” is meant such matter as a sensible man would
deliberate upon, not what any fool or madman might.)
Well: about eternal things no one deliberates; as, for instance, the
universe, or the incommensurability of the diameter and side of a
square.
Nor again about things which are in motion but which always happen in
the same way either necessarily, or naturally, or from some other
cause, as the solstices or the sunrise.
Nor about those which are variable, as drought and rains; nor
fortuitous matters, as finding of treasure.
Nor in fact even about all human affairs; no Lacedæmonian, for
instance, deliberates as to the best course for the Scythian government
to adopt; because in such cases we have no power over the result.
But we do deliberate respecting such practical matters as are in our
own power (which are what are left after all our exclusions).
I have adopted this division because causes seem to be divisible into
nature, necessity, chance, and moreover intellect, and all human
powers.
And as man in general deliberates about what man in general can effect,
so individuals do about such practical things as can be effected
through their own instrumentality.
Again, we do not deliberate respecting such arts or sciences as are
exact and independent: as, for instance, about written characters,
because we have no doubt how they should be formed; but we do
deliberate on all buch things as are usually done through our own
instrumentality, but not invariably in the same way; as, for instance,
about matters connected with the healing art, or with money-making;
and, again, more about piloting ships than gymnastic exercises, because
the former has been less exactly determined, and so forth; and more
about arts than sciences, because we more frequently doubt respecting
the former.
So then Deliberation takes place in such matters as are under general
laws, but still uncertain how in any given case they will issue, _i.e._
in which there is some indefiniteness; and for great matters we
associate coadjutors in counsel, distrusting our ability to settle them
alone.
Further, we deliberate not about Ends, but Means to Ends. No physician,
for instance, deliberates whether he will cure, nor orator whether he
will persuade, nor statesman whether he will produce a good
constitution, nor in fact any man in any other function about his
particular End; but having set before them a certain End they look how
and through what means it may be accomplished: if there is a choice of
means, they examine further which are easiest and most creditable; or,
if there is but one means of accomplishing the object, then how it may
be through this, this again through what, till they come to the first
cause; and this will be the last found; for a man engaged in a process
of deliberation seems to seek and analyse, as a man, to solve a
problem, analyses the figure given him. And plainly not every search is
Deliberation, those in mathematics to wit, but every Deliberation is a
search, and the last step in the analysis is the first in the
constructive process. And if in the course of their search men come
upon an impossibility, they give it up; if money, for instance, be
necessary, but cannot be got: but if the thing appears possible they
then attempt to do it.
And by possible I mean what may be done through our own instrumentality
(of course what may be done through our friends is through our own
instrumentality in a certain sense, because the origination in such
cases rests with us). And the object of search is sometimes the
necessary instruments, sometimes the method of using them; and
similarly in the rest sometimes through what, and sometimes how or
through what.[9]
So it seems, as has been said, that Man is the originator of his
actions; and Deliberation has for its object whatever may be done
through one’s own instrumentality, and the actions are with a view to
other things; and so it is, not the End, but the Means to Ends on which
Deliberation is employed.
Nor, again, is it employed on matters of detail, as whether the
substance before me is bread, or has been properly cooked; for these
come under the province of sense, and if a man is to be always
deliberating, he may go on _ad infinitum_.
Further, exactly the same matter is the object both of Deliberation and
Moral Choice; but that which is the object of Moral Choice is
thenceforward separated off and definite,[10] because by object of
Moral Choice is denoted that which after Deliberation has been
preferred to something else: for each man leaves off searching how he
shall do a thing when he has brought the origination up to himself,
_i.e_. to the governing principle in himself,[11] because it is this
which makes the choice. A good illustration of this is furnished by the
old regal constitutions which Homer drew from, in which the Kings would
announce to the commonalty what they had determined before.
Now since that which is the object of Moral Choice is something in our
own power, which is the object of deliberation and the grasping of the
Will, Moral Choice must be “a grasping after something in our own power
consequent upon Deliberation:” because after having deliberated we
decide, and then grasp by our Will in accordance with the result of our
deliberation.[12]
Let this be accepted as a sketch of the nature and object of Moral
Choice, that object being “Means to Ends.”
Chapter VI.
That Wish has for its object-matter the End, has been already stated;
but there are two opinions respecting it; some thinking that its object
is real good, others whatever impresses the mind with a notion of good.
Now those who maintain that the object of Wish is real good are beset
by this difficulty, that what is wished for by him who chooses wrongly
is not really an object of Wish (because, on their theory, if it is an
object of wish, it must be good, but it is, in the case supposed,
evil). Those who maintain, on the contrary, that that which impresses
the mind with a notion of good is properly the object of Wish, have to
meet this difficulty, that there is nothing naturally an object of Wish
but to each individual whatever seems good to him; now different people
have different notions, and it may chance contrary ones.
But, if these opinions do not satisfy us, may we not say that,
abstractedly and as a matter of objective truth, the really good is the
object of Wish, but to each individual whatever impresses his mind with
the notion of good.[13] And so to the good man that is an object of
Wish which is really and truly so, but to the bad man anything may be;
just as physically those things are wholesome to the healthy which are
really so, but other things to the sick. And so too of bitter and
sweet, and hot and heavy, and so on. For the good man judges in every
instance correctly, and in every instance the notion conveyed to his
mind is the true one.
For there are fair and pleasant things peculiar to, and so varying
with, each state; and perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of
the good man is his seeing the truth in every instance, he being, in
fact, the rule and measure of these matters.
The multitude of men seem to be deceived by reason of pleasure, because
though it is not really a good it impresses their minds with the notion
of goodness, so they choose what is pleasant as good and avoid pain as
an evil.
Chapter VII.
Now since the End is the object of Wish, and the means to the End of
Deliberation and Moral Choice, the actions regarding these matters must
be in the way of Moral Choice, _i.e._ voluntary: but the acts of
working out the virtues are such actions, and therefore Virtue is in
our power.
And so too is Vice: because wherever it is in our power to do it is
also in our power to forbear doing, and _vice versâ_: therefore if the
doing (being in a given case creditable) is in our power, so too is the
forbearing (which is in the same case discreditable), and _vice versâ_.
But if it is in our power to do and to forbear doing what is creditable
or the contrary, and these respectively constitute the being good or
bad, then the being good or vicious characters is in our power.
As for the well-known saying, “No man voluntarily is wicked or
involuntarily happy,” it is partly true, partly false; for no man is
happy against his will, of course, but wickedness is voluntary. Or must
we dispute the statements lately made, and not say that Man is the
originator or generator of his actions as much as of his children?
But if this is matter of plain manifest fact, and we cannot refer our
actions to any other originations beside those in our own power, those
things must be in our own power, and so voluntary, the originations of
which are in ourselves.
Moreover, testimony seems to be borne to these positions both privately
by individuals, and by law-givers too, in that they chastise and punish
those who do wrong (unless they do so on compulsion, or by reason of
ignorance which is not self-caused), while they honour those who act
rightly, under the notion of being likely to encourage the latter and
restrain the former. But such things as are not in our own power,
_i.e._ not voluntary, no one thinks of encouraging us to do, knowing it
to be of no avail for one to have been persuaded not to be hot (for
instance), or feel pain, or be hungry, and so forth, because we shall
have those sensations all the same.
And what makes the case stronger is this: that they chastise for the
very fact of ignorance, when it is thought to be self-caused; to the
drunken, for instance, penalties are double, because the origination in
such case lies in a man’s own self: for he might have helped getting
drunk, and this is the cause of his ignorance.
Again, those also who are ignorant of legal regulations which they are
bound to know, and which are not hard to know, they chastise; and
similarly in all other cases where neglect is thought to be the cause
of the ignorance, under the notion that it was in their power to
prevent their ignorance, because they might have paid attention.
But perhaps a man is of such a character that he cannot attend to such
things: still men are themselves the causes of having become such
characters by living carelessly, and also of being unjust or destitute
of self-control, the former by doing evil actions, the latter by
spending their time in drinking and such-like; because the particular
acts of working form corresponding characters, as is shown by those who
are practising for any contest or particular course of action, for such
men persevere in the acts of working.
As for the plea, that a man did not know that habits are produced from
separate acts of working, we reply, such ignorance is a mark of
excessive stupidity.
Furthermore, it is wholly irrelevant to say that the man who acts
unjustly or dissolutely does not _wish_ to attain the habits of these
vices: for if a man wittingly does those things whereby he must become
unjust he is to all intents and purposes unjust voluntarily; but he
cannot with a wish cease to be unjust and become just. For, to take the
analogous case, the sick man cannot with a wish be well again, yet in a
supposable case he is voluntarily ill because he has produced his
sickness by living intemperately and disregarding his physicians. There
was a time then when he might have helped being ill, but now he has let
himself go he cannot any longer; just as he who has let a stone out of
his hand cannot recall it,[14] and yet it rested with him to aim and
throw it, because the origination was in his power. Just so the unjust
man, and he who has lost all self-control, might originally have helped
being what they are, and so they are voluntarily what they are; but now
that they are become so they no longer have the power of being
otherwise.
And not only are mental diseases voluntary, but the bodily are so in
some men, whom we accordingly blame: for such as are naturally deformed
no one blames, only such as are so by reason of want of exercise, and
neglect: and so too of weakness and maiming: no one would think of
upbraiding, but would rather compassionate, a man who is blind by
nature, or from disease, or from an accident; but every one would blame
him who was so from excess of wine, or any other kind of intemperance.
It seems, then, that in respect of bodily diseases, those which depend
on ourselves are censured, those which do not are not censured; and if
so, then in the case of the mental disorders, those which are censured
must depend upon ourselves.
But suppose a man to say, “that (by our own admission) all men aim at
that which conveys to their minds an impression of good, and that men
have no control over this impression, but that the End impresses each
with a notion correspondent to his own individual character; that to be
sure if each man is in a way the cause of his own moral state, so he
will be also of the kind of impression he receives: whereas, if this is
not so, no one is the cause to himself of doing evil actions, but he
does them by reason of ignorance of the true End, supposing that
through their means he will secure the chief good. Further, that this
aiming at the End is no matter of one’s own choice, but one must be
born with a power of mental vision, so to speak, whereby to judge
fairly and choose that which is really good; and he is blessed by
nature who has this naturally well: because it is the most important
thing and the fairest, and what a man cannot get or learn from another
but will have such as nature has given it; and for this to be so given
well and fairly would be excellence of nature in the highest and truest
sense.”
If all this be true, how will Virtue be a whit more voluntary than
Vice? Alike to the good man and the bad, the End gives its impression
and is fixed by nature or howsoever you like to say, and they act so
and so, referring everything else to this End.
Whether then we suppose that the End impresses each man’s mind with
certain notions not merely by nature, but that there is somewhat also
dependent on himself; or that the End is given by nature, and yet
Virtue is voluntary because the good man does all the rest voluntarily,
Vice must be equally so; because his own agency equally attaches to the
bad man in the actions, even if not in the selection of the End.
If then, as is commonly said, the Virtues are voluntary (because we at
least cooperate[15] in producing our moral states, and we assume the
End to be of a certain kind according as we are ourselves of certain
characters), the Vices must be voluntary also, because the cases are
exactly similar.
Chapter VIII.
Well now, we have stated generally respecting the Moral Virtues, the
genus (in outline), that they are mean states, and that they are
habits, and how they are formed, and that they are of themselves
calculated to act upon the circumstances out of which they were formed,
and that they are in our own power and voluntary, and are to be done so
as right Reason may direct.
But the particular actions and the habits are not voluntary in the same
sense; for of the actions we are masters from beginning to end
(supposing of course a knowledge of the particular details), but only
of the origination of the habits, the addition by small particular
accessions not being cognisiable (as is the case with sicknesses):
still they are voluntary because it rested with us to use our
circumstances this way or that.
Chapter IX.
Here we will resume the particular discussion of the Moral Virtues, and
say what they are, what is their object-matter, and how they stand
respectively related to it: of course their number will be thereby
shown.
First, then, of Courage. Now that it is a mean state, in respect of
fear and boldness, has been already said: further, the objects of our
fears are obviously things fearful or, in a general way of statement,
evils; which accounts for the common definition of fear, viz.
“expectation of evil.”
Of course we fear evils of all kinds: disgrace, for instance, poverty,
disease, desolateness, death; but not all these seem to be the
object-matter of the Brave man, because there are things which to fear
is right and noble, and not to fear is base; disgrace, for example,
since he who fears this is a good man and has a sense of honour, and he
who does not fear it is shameless (though there are those who call him
Brave by analogy, because he somewhat resembles the Brave man who
agrees with him in being free from fear); but poverty, perhaps, or
disease, and in fact whatever does not proceed from viciousness, nor is
attributable to his own fault, a man ought not to fear: still, being
fearless in respect of these would not constitute a man Brave in the
proper sense of the term.
Yet we do apply the term[16] in right of the similarity of the cases;
for there are men who, though timid in the dangers of war, are liberal
men and are stout enough to face loss of wealth.
And, again, a man is not a coward for fearing insult to his wife or
children, or envy, or any such thing; nor is he a Brave man for being
bold when going to be scourged.
What kind of fearful things then do constitute the object-matter of the
Brave man? first of all, must they not be the greatest, since no man is
more apt to withstand what is dreadful. Now the object of the greatest
dread is death, because it is the end of all things, and the dead man
is thought to be capable neither of good nor evil. Still it would seem
that the Brave man has not for his object-matter even death in every
circumstance; on the sea, for example, or in sickness: in what
circumstances then? must it not be in the most honourable? now such is
death in war, because it is death in the greatest and most honourable
danger; and this is confirmed by the honours awarded in communities,
and by monarchs.
He then may be most properly denominated Brave who is fearless in
respect of honourable death and such sudden emergencies as threaten
death; now such specially are those which arise in the course of war.
It is not meant but that the Brave man will be fearless also on the sea
(and in sickness), but not in the same way as sea-faring men; for these
are light-hearted and hopeful by reason of their experience, while
landsmen though Brave are apt to give themselves up for lost and
shudder at the notion of such a death: to which it should be added that
Courage is exerted in circumstances which admit of doing something to
help one’s self, or in which death would be honourable; now neither of
these requisites attach to destruction by drowning or sickness.
Chapter X.
Again, fearful is a term of relation, the same thing not being so to
all, and there is according to common parlance somewhat so fearful as
to be beyond human endurance: this of course would be fearful to every
man of sense, but those objects which are level to the capacity of man
differ in magnitude and admit of degrees, so too the objects of
confidence or boldness.
Now the Brave man cannot be frighted from his propriety (but of course
only so far as he is man); fear such things indeed he will, but he will
stand up against them as he ought and as right reason may direct, with
a view to what is honourable, because this is the end of the virtue.
Now it is possible to fear these things too much, or too little, or
again to fear what is not really fearful as if it were such. So the
errors come to be either that a man fears when he ought not to fear at
all, or that he fears in an improper way, or at a wrong time, and so
forth; and so too in respect of things inspiring confidence. He is
Brave then who withstands, and fears, and is bold, in respect of right
objects, from a right motive, in right manner, and at right times:
since the Brave man suffers or acts as he ought and as right reason may
direct.
Now the end of every separate act of working is that which accords with
the habit, and so to the Brave man Courage; which is honourable;
therefore such is also the End, since the character of each is
determined by the End.[17]
So honour is the motive from which the Brave man withstands things
fearful and performs the acts which accord with Courage.
Of the characters on the side of Excess, he who exceeds in utter
absence of fear has no appropriate name (I observed before that many
states have none), but he would be a madman or inaccessible to pain if
he feared nothing, neither earthquake, nor the billows, as they tell of
the Celts.
He again who exceeds in confidence in respect of things fearful is
rash. He is thought moreover to be a braggart, and to advance unfounded
claims to the character of Brave: the relation which the Brave man
really bears to objects of fear this man wishes to appear to bear, and
so imitates him in whatever points he can; for this reason most of them
exhibit a curious mixture of rashness and cowardice; because, affecting
rashness in these circumstances, they do not withstand what is truly
fearful.
The man moreover who exceeds in feeling fear is a coward, since there
attach to him the circumstances of fearing wrong objects, in wrong
ways, and so forth. He is deficient also in feeling confidence, but he
is most clearly seen as exceeding in the case of pains; he is a
fainthearted kind of man, for he fears all things: the Brave man is
just the contrary, for boldness is the property of the light-hearted
and hopeful.
So the coward, the rash, and the Brave man have exactly the same
object-matter, but stand differently related to it: the two
first-mentioned respectively exceed and are deficient, the last is in a
mean state and as he ought to be. The rash again are precipitate, and,
being eager before danger, when actually in it fall away, while the
Brave are quick and sharp in action, but before are quiet and composed.
Well then, as has been said, Courage is a mean state in respect of
objects inspiring boldness or fear, in the circumstances which have
been stated, and the Brave man chooses his line and withstands danger
either because to do so is honourable, or because not to do so is base.
But dying to escape from poverty, or the pangs of love, or anything
that is simply painful, is the act not of a Brave man but of a coward;
because it is mere softness to fly from what is toilsome, and the
suicide braves the terrors of death not because it is honourable but to
get out of the reach of evil.
Chapter XI.
Courage proper is somewhat of the kind I have described, but there are
dispositions, differing in five ways,[18] which also bear in common
parlance the name of Courage.
We will take first that which bears most resemblance to the true, the
Courage of Citizenship, so named because the motives which are thought
to actuate the members of a community in braving danger are the
penalties and disgrace held out by the laws to cowardice, and the
dignities conferred on the Brave; which is thought to be the reason why
those are the bravest people among whom cowards are visited with
disgrace and the Brave held in honour.
Such is the kind of Courage Homer exhibits in his characters; Diomed
and Hector for example. The latter says,
“Polydamas will be the first to fix
Disgrace upon me.”
Diomed again,
“For Hector surely will hereafter say,
Speaking in Troy, Tydides by my hand”—
This I say most nearly resembles the Courage before spoken of, because
it arises from virtue, from a feeling of shame, and a desire of what is
noble (that is, of honour), and avoidance of disgrace which is base.
In the same rank one would be inclined to place those also who act
under compulsion from their commanders; yet are they really lower,
because not a sense of honour but fear is the motive from which they
act, and what they seek to avoid is not that which is base but that
which is simply painful: commanders do in fact compel their men
sometimes, as Hector says (to quote Homer again),
“But whomsoever I shall find cowering afar from the fight,
The teeth of dogs he shall by no means escape.”
Those commanders who station staunch troops by doubtful ones,[19] or
who beat their men if they flinch, or who draw their troops up in line
with the trenches, or other similar obstacles, in their rear, do in
effect the same as Hector, for they all use compulsion.
But a man is to be Brave, not on compulsion, but from a sense of
honour.
In the next place, Experience and Skill in the various particulars is
thought to be a species of Courage: whence Socrates also thought that
Courage was knowledge.[20]
This quality is exhibited of course by different men under different
circumstances, but in warlike matters, with which we are now concerned,
it is exhibited by the soldiers (“the regulars”): for there are, it
would seem, many things in war of no real importance[21] which these
have been constantly used to see; so they have a show of Courage
because other people are not aware of the real nature of these things.
Then again by reason of their skill they are better able than any
others to inflict without suffering themselves, because they are able
to use their arms and have such as are most serviceable both with a
view to offence and defence: so that their case is parallel to that of
armed men fighting with unarmed or trained athletes with amateurs,
since in contests of this kind those are the best fighters, not who are
the bravest men, but who are the strongest and are in the best
condition.
In fact, the regular troops come to be cowards whenever the danger is
greater than their means of meeting it; supposing, for example, that
they are inferior in numbers and resources: then they are the first to
fly, but the mere militia stand and fall on the ground (which as you
know really happened at the Hermæum),[22] for in the eyes of these
flight was disgraceful and death preferable to safety bought at such a
price: while “the regulars” originally went into the danger under a
notion of their own superiority, but on discovering their error they
took to flight,[23] having greater fear of death than of disgrace; but
this is not the feeling of the Brave man.
Thirdly, mere Animal Spirit is sometimes brought under the term
Courage: they are thought to be Brave who are carried on by mere Animal
Spirit, as are wild beasts against those who have wounded them, because
in fact the really Brave have much Spirit, there being nothing like it
for going at danger of any kind; whence those frequent expressions in
Homer, “infused strength into his spirit,” “roused his strength and
spirit,” or again, “and keen strength in his nostrils,” “his blood
boiled:” for all these seem to denote the arousing and impetuosity of
the Animal Spirit.
Now they that are truly Brave act from a sense of honour, and this
Animal Spirit co-operates with them; but wild beasts from pain, that is
because they have been wounded, or are frightened; since if they are
quietly in their own haunts, forest or marsh, they do not attack men.
Surely they are not Brave because they rush into danger when goaded on
by pain and mere Spirit, without any view of the danger: else would
asses be Brave when they are hungry, for though beaten they will not
then leave their pasture: profligate men besides do many bold actions
by reason of their lust. We may conclude then that they are not Brave
who are goaded on to meet danger by pain and mere Spirit; but still
this temper which arises from Animal Spirit appears to be most natural,
and would be Courage of the true kind if it could have added to it
moral choice and the proper motive.
So men also are pained by a feeling of anger, and take pleasure in
revenge; but they who fight from these causes may be good fighters, but
they are not truly Brave (in that they do not act from a sense of
honour, nor as reason directs, but merely from the present feeling),
still they bear some resemblance to that character.
Nor, again, are the Sanguine and Hopeful therefore Brave: since their
boldness in dangers arises from their frequent victories over numerous
foes. The two characters are alike, however, in that both are
confident; but then the Brave are so from the afore-mentioned causes,
whereas these are so from a settled conviction of their being superior
and not likely to suffer anything in return (they who are intoxicated
do much the same, for they become hopeful when in that state); but when
the event disappoints their expectations they run away: now it was said
to be the character of a Brave man to withstand things which are
fearful to man or produce that impression, because it is honourable so
to do and the contrary is dishonourable.
For this reason it is thought to be a greater proof of Courage to be
fearless and undisturbed under the pressure of sudden fear than under
that which may be anticipated, because Courage then comes rather from a
fixed habit, or less from preparation: since as to foreseen dangers a
man might take his line even from calculation and reasoning, but in
those which are sudden he will do so according to his fixed habit of
mind.
Fifthly and lastly, those who are acting under Ignorance have a show of
Courage and are not very far from the Hopeful; but still they are
inferior inasmuch as they have no opinion of themselves; which the
others have, and therefore stay and contest a field for some little
time; but they who have been deceived fly the moment they know things
to be otherwise than they supposed, which the Argives experienced when
they fell on the Lacedæmonians, taking them for the men of Sicyon.
Chapter XII.
We have described then what kind of men the Brave are, and what they
who are thought to be, but are not really, Brave.
It must be remarked, however, that though Courage has for its
object-matter boldness and fear it has not both equally so, but objects
of fear much more than the former; for he that under pressure of these
is undisturbed and stands related to them as he ought is better
entitled to the name of Brave than he who is properly affected towards
objects of confidence. So then men are termed Brave for withstanding
painful things.
It follows that Courage involves pain and is justly praised, since it
is a harder matter to withstand things that are painful than to abstain
from such as are pleasant.
It must not be thought but that the End and object of Courage is
pleasant, but it is obscured by the surrounding circumstances: which
happens also in the gymnastic games; to the boxers the End is pleasant
with a view to which they act, I mean the crown and the honours; but
the receiving the blows they do is painful and annoying to flesh and
blood, and so is all the labour they have to undergo; and, as these
drawbacks are many, the object in view being small appears to have no
pleasantness in it.
If then we may say the same of Courage, of course death and wounds must
be painful to the Brave man and against his will: still he endures
these because it is honourable so to do or because it is dishonourable
not to do so. And the more complete his virtue and his happiness so
much the more will he be pained at the notion of death: since to such a
man as he is it is best worth while to live, and he with full
consciousness is deprived of the greatest goods by death, and this is a
painful idea. But he is not the less Brave for feeling it to be so, nay
rather it may be he is shown to be more so because he chooses the
honour that may be reaped in war in preference to retaining safe
possession of these other goods. The fact is that to act with pleasure
does not belong to all the virtues, except so far as a man realises the
End of his actions.
But there is perhaps no reason why not such men should make the best
soldiers, but those who are less truly Brave but have no other good to
care for: these being ready to meet danger and bartering their lives
against small gain.
Let thus much be accepted as sufficient on the subject of Courage; the
true nature of which it is not difficult to gather, in outline at
least, from what has been said.
Chapter XIII.
Next let us speak of Perfected Self-Mastery, which seems to claim the
next place to Courage, since these two are the Excellences of the
Irrational part of the Soul.
That it is a mean state, having for its object-matter Pleasures, we
have already said (Pains being in fact its object-matter in a less
degree and dissimilar manner), the state of utter absence of
self-control has plainly the same object-matter; the next thing then is
to determine what kind of Pleasures.
Let Pleasures then be understood to be divided into mental and bodily:
instances of the former being love of honour or of learning: it being
plain that each man takes pleasure in that of these two objects which
he has a tendency to like, his body being no way affected but rather
his intellect. Now men are not called perfectly self-mastering or
wholly destitute of self-control in respect of pleasures of this class:
nor in fact in respect of any which are not bodily; those for example
who love to tell long stories, and are prosy, and spend their days
about mere chance matters, we call gossips but not wholly destitute of
self-control, nor again those who are pained at the loss of money or
friends.
It is bodily Pleasures then which are the object-matter of Perfected
Self-Mastery, but not even all these indifferently: I mean, that they
who take pleasure in objects perceived by the Sight, as colours, and
forms, and painting, are not denominated men of Perfected Self-Mastery,
or wholly destitute of self-control; and yet it would seem that one may
take pleasure even in such objects, as one ought to do, or excessively,
or too little.
So too of objects perceived by the sense of Hearing; no one applies the
terms before quoted respectively to those who are excessively pleased
with musical tunes or acting, or to those who take such pleasure as
they ought.
Nor again to those persons whose pleasure arises from the sense of
Smell, except incidentally:[24] I mean, we do not say men have no
self-control because they take pleasure in the scent of fruit, or
flowers, or incense, but rather when they do so in the smells of
unguents and sauces: since men destitute of self-control take pleasure
herein, because hereby the objects of their lusts are recalled to their
imagination (you may also see other men take pleasure in the smell of
food when they are hungry): but to take pleasure in such is a mark of
the character before named since these are objects of desire to him.
Now not even brutes receive pleasure in right of these senses, except
incidentally. I mean, it is not the scent of hares’ flesh but the
eating it which dogs take pleasure in, perception of which pleasure is
caused by the sense of Smell. Or again, it is not the lowing of the ox
but eating him which the lion likes; but of the fact of his nearness
the lion is made sensible by the lowing, and so he appears to take
pleasure in this. In like manner, he has no pleasure in merely seeing
or finding a stag or wild goat, but in the prospect of a meal.
The habits of Perfect Self-Mastery and entire absence of self-control
have then for their object-matter such pleasures as brutes also share
in, for which reason they are plainly servile and brutish: they are
Touch and Taste.
But even Taste men seem to make little or no use of; for to the sense
of Taste belongs the distinguishing of flavours; what men do, in fact,
who are testing the quality of wines or seasoning “made dishes.”
But men scarcely take pleasure at all in these things, at least those
whom we call destitute of self-control do not, but only in the actual
enjoyment which arises entirely from the sense of Touch, whether in
eating or in drinking, or in grosser lusts. This accounts for the wish
said to have been expressed once by a great glutton, “that his throat
had been formed longer than a crane’s neck,” implying that his pleasure
was derived from the Touch.
The sense then with which is connected the habit of absence of
self-control is the most common of all the senses, and this habit would
seem to be justly a matter of reproach, since it attaches to us not in
so far as we are men but in so far as we are animals. Indeed it is
brutish to take pleasure in such things and to like them best of all;
for the most respectable of the pleasures arising from the touch have
been set aside; those, for instance, which occur in the course of
gymnastic training from the rubbing and the warm bath: because the
touch of the man destitute of self-control is not indifferently of
_any_ part of the body but only of particular parts.
Now of lusts or desires some are thought to be universal, others
peculiar and acquired; thus desire for food is natural since every one
who really needs desires also food, whether solid or liquid, or both
(and, as Homer says, the man in the prime of youth needs and desires
intercourse with the other sex); but when we come to this or that
particular kind, then neither is the desire universal nor in all men is
it directed to the same objects. And therefore the conceiving of such
desires plainly attaches to us as individuals. It must be admitted,
however, that there is something natural in it: because different
things are pleasant to different men and a preference of some
particular objects to chance ones is universal. Well then, in the case
of the desires which are strictly and properly natural few men go wrong
and all in one direction, that is, on the side of too much: I mean, to
eat and drink of such food as happens to be on the table till one is
overfilled is exceeding in quantity the natural limit, since the
natural desire is simply a supply of a real deficiency.
For this reason these men are called belly-mad, as filling it beyond
what they ought, and it is the slavish who become of this character.
But in respect of the peculiar pleasures many men go wrong and in many
different ways; for whereas the term “fond of so and so” implies either
taking pleasure in wrong objects, or taking pleasure excessively, or as
the mass of men do, or in a wrong way, they who are destitute of all
self-control exceed in all these ways; that is to say, they take
pleasure in some things in which they ought not to do so (because they
are properly objects of detestation), and in such as it is right to
take pleasure in they do so more than they ought and as the mass of men
do.
Well then, that excess with respect to pleasures is absence of
self-control, and blameworthy, is plain. But viewing these habits on
the side of pains, we find that a man is not said to have the virtue
for withstanding them (as in the case of Courage), nor the vice for not
withstanding them; but the man destitute of self-control is such,
because he is pained more than he ought to be at not obtaining things
which are pleasant (and thus his pleasure produces pain to him), and
the man of Perfected Self-Mastery is such in virtue of not being pained
by their absence, that is, by having to abstain from what is pleasant.
Now the man destitute of self-control desires either all pleasant
things indiscriminately or those which are specially pleasant, and he
is impelled by his desire to choose these things in preference to all
others; and this involves pain, not only when he misses the attainment
of his objects but, in the very desiring them, since all desire is
accompanied by pain. Surely it is a strange case this, being pained by
reason of pleasure.
As for men who are defective on the side of pleasure, who take less
pleasure in things than they ought, they are almost imaginary
characters, because such absence of sensual perception is not natural
to man: for even the other animals distinguish between different kinds
of food, and like some kinds and dislike others. In fact, could a man
be found who takes no pleasure in anything and to whom all things are
alike, he would be far from being human at all: there is no name for
such a character because it is simply imaginary.
But the man of Perfected Self-Mastery is in the mean with respect to
these objects: that is to say, he neither takes pleasure in the things
which delight the vicious man, and in fact rather dislikes them, nor at
all in improper objects; nor to any great degree in any object of the
class; nor is he pained at their absence; nor does he desire them; or,
if he does, only in moderation, and neither more than he ought, nor at
improper times, and so forth; but such things as are conducive to
health and good condition of body, being also pleasant, these he will
grasp at in moderation and as he ought to do, and also such other
pleasant things as do not hinder these objects, and are not unseemly or
disproportionate to his means; because he that should grasp at such
would be liking such pleasures more than is proper; but the man of
Perfected Self-Mastery is not of this character, but regulates his
desires by the dictates of right reason.
Chapter XIV.
Now the vice of being destitute of all Self-Control seems to be more
truly voluntary than Cowardice, because pleasure is the cause of the
former and pain of the latter, and pleasure is an object of choice,
pain of avoidance. And again, pain deranges and spoils the natural
disposition of its victim, whereas pleasure has no such effect and is
more voluntary and therefore more justly open to reproach.
It is so also for the following reason; that it is easier to be inured
by habit to resist the objects of pleasure, there being many things of
this kind in life and the process of habituation being unaccompanied by
danger; whereas the case is the reverse as regards the objects of fear.
Again, Cowardice as a confirmed habit would seem to be voluntary in a
different way from the particular instances which form the habit;
because it is painless, but these derange the man by reason of pain so
that he throws away his arms and otherwise behaves himself unseemly,
for which reason they are even thought by some to exercise a power of
compulsion.
But to the man destitute of Self-Control the particular instances are
on the contrary quite voluntary, being done with desire and direct
exertion of the will, but the general result is less voluntary: since
no man desires to form the habit.
The name of this vice (which signifies etymologically unchastened-ness)
we apply also to the faults of children, there being a certain
resemblance between the cases: to which the name is primarily applied,
and to which secondarily or derivatively, is not relevant to the
present subject, but it is evident that the later in point of time must
get the name from the earlier. And the metaphor seems to be a very good
one; for whatever grasps after base things, and is liable to great
increase, ought to be chastened; and to this description desire and the
child answer most truly, in that children also live under the direction
of desire and the grasping after what is pleasant is most prominently
seen in these.
Unless then the appetite be obedient and subjected to the governing
principle it will become very great: for in the fool the grasping after
what is pleasant is insatiable and undiscriminating; and every acting
out of the desire increases the kindred habit, and if the desires are
great and violent in degree they even expel Reason entirely; therefore
they ought to be moderate and few, and in no respect to be opposed to
Reason. Now when the appetite is in such a state we denominate it
obedient and chastened.
In short, as the child ought to live with constant regard to the orders
of its educator, so should the appetitive principle with regard to
those of Reason.
So then in the man of Perfected Self-Mastery, the appetitive principle
must be accordant with Reason: for what is right is the mark at which
both principles aim: that is to say, the man of perfected self-mastery
desires what he ought in right manner and at right times, which is
exactly what Reason directs. Let this be taken for our account of
Perfected Self-Mastery.
BOOK IV
Chapter I.
We will next speak of Liberality. Now this is thought to be the mean
state, having for its object-matter Wealth: I mean, the Liberal man is
praised not in the circumstances of war, nor in those which constitute
the character of perfected self-mastery, nor again in judicial
decisions, but in respect of giving and receiving Wealth, chiefly the
former. By the term Wealth I mean “all those things whose worth is
measured by money.”
Now the states of excess and defect in regard of Wealth are
respectively Prodigality and Stinginess: the latter of these terms we
attach invariably to those who are over careful about Wealth, but the
former we apply sometimes with a complex notion; that is to say, we
give the name to those who fail of self-control and spend money on the
unrestrained gratification of their passions; and this is why they are
thought to be most base, because they have many vices at once.
It must be noted, however, that this is not a strict and proper use of
the term, since its natural etymological meaning is to denote him who
has one particular evil, viz. the wasting his substance: he is unsaved
(as the term literally denotes) who is wasting away by his own fault;
and this he really may be said to be; the destruction of his substance
is thought to be a kind of wasting of himself, since these things are
the means of living. Well, this is our acceptation of the term
Prodigality.
Again. Whatever things are for use may be used well or ill, and Wealth
belongs to this class. He uses each particular thing best who has the
virtue to whose province it belongs: so that he will use Wealth best
who has the virtue respecting Wealth, that is to say, the Liberal man.
Expenditure and giving are thought to be the using of money, but
receiving and keeping one would rather call the possessing of it. And
so the giving to proper persons is more characteristic of the Liberal
man, than the receiving from proper quarters and forbearing to receive
from the contrary. In fact generally, doing well by others is more
characteristic of virtue than being done well by, and doing things
positively honourable than forbearing to do things dishonourable; and
any one may see that the doing well by others and doing things
positively honourable attaches to the act of giving, but to that of
receiving only the being done well by or forbearing to do what is
dishonourable.
Besides, thanks are given to him who gives, not to him who merely
forbears to receive, and praise even more. Again, forbearing to receive
is easier than giving, the case of being too little freehanded with
one’s own being commoner than taking that which is not one’s own.
And again, it is they who give that are denominated Liberal, while they
who forbear to receive are commended, not on the score of Liberality
but of just dealing, while for receiving men are not, in fact, praised
at all.
And the Liberal are liked almost best of all virtuous characters,
because they are profitable to others, and this their profitableness
consists in their giving.
Furthermore: all the actions done in accordance with virtue are
honourable, and done from the motive of honour: and the Liberal man,
therefore, will give from a motive of honour, and will give rightly; I
mean, to proper persons, in right proportion, at right times, and
whatever is included in the term “right giving:” and this too with
positive pleasure, or at least without pain, since whatever is done in
accordance with virtue is pleasant or at least not unpleasant, most
certainly not attended with positive pain.
But the man who gives to improper people, or not from a motive of
honour but from some other cause, shall be called not Liberal but
something else. Neither shall he be so denominated who does it with
pain: this being a sign that he would prefer his wealth to the
honourable action, and this is no part of the Liberal man’s character;
neither will such an one receive from improper sources, because the so
receiving is not characteristic of one who values not wealth: nor again
will he be apt to ask, because one who does kindnesses to others does
not usually receive them willingly; but from proper sources (his own
property, for instance) he will receive, doing this not as honourable
but as necessary, that he may have somewhat to give: neither will he be
careless of his own, since it is his wish through these to help others
in need: nor will he give to chance people, that he may have wherewith
to give to those to whom he ought, at right times, and on occasions
when it is honourable so to do.
Again, it is a trait in the Liberal man’s character even to exceed very
much in giving so as to leave too little for himself, it being
characteristic of such an one not to have a thought of self.
Now Liberality is a term of relation to a man’s means, for the
Liberal-ness depends not on the amount of what is given but on the
moral state of the giver which gives in proportion to his means. There
is then no reason why he should not be the more Liberal man who gives
the less amount, if he has less to give out of.
Again, they are thought to be more Liberal who have inherited, not
acquired for themselves, their means; because, in the first place, they
have never experienced want, and next, all people love most their own
works, just as parents do and poets.
It is not easy for the Liberal man to be rich, since he is neither apt
to receive nor to keep but to lavish, and values not wealth for its own
sake but with a view to giving it away. Hence it is commonly charged
upon fortune that they who most deserve to be rich are least so. Yet
this happens reasonably enough; it is impossible he should have wealth
who does not take any care to have it, just as in any similar case.
Yet he will not give to improper people, nor at wrong times, and so on:
because he would not then be acting in accordance with Liberality, and
if he spent upon such objects, would have nothing to spend on those on
which he ought: for, as I have said before, he is Liberal who spends in
proportion to his means, and on proper objects, while he who does so in
excess is prodigal (this is the reason why we never call despots
prodigal, because it does not seem to be easy for them by their gifts
and expenditure to go beyond their immense possessions).
To sum up then. Since Liberality is a mean state in respect of the
giving and receiving of wealth, the Liberal man will give and spend on
proper objects, and in proper proportion, in great things and in small
alike, and all this with pleasure to himself; also he will receive from
right sources, and in right proportion: because, as the virtue is a
mean state in respect of both, he will do both as he ought, and, in
fact, upon proper giving follows the correspondent receiving, while
that which is not such is contrary to it. (Now those which follow one
another come to co-exist in the same person, those which are contraries
plainly do not.)
Again, should it happen to him to spend money beyond what is needful,
or otherwise than is well, he will be vexed, but only moderately and as
he ought; for feeling pleasure and pain at right objects, and in right
manner, is a property of Virtue.
The Liberal man is also a good man to have for a partner in respect of
wealth: for he can easily be wronged, since he values not wealth, and
is more vexed at not spending where he ought to have done so than at
spending where he ought not, and he relishes not the maxim of
Simonides.
Chapter II.
But the Prodigal man goes wrong also in these points, for he is neither
pleased nor pained at proper objects or in proper manner, which will
become more plain as we proceed.
We have said already that Prodigality and Stinginess are respectively
states of excess and defect, and this in two things, giving and
receiving (expenditure of course we class under giving). Well now,
Prodigality exceeds in giving and forbearing to receive and is
deficient in receiving, while Stinginess is deficient in giving and
exceeds in receiving, but it is in small things.
The two parts of Prodigality, to be sure, do not commonly go together;
it is not easy, I mean, to give to all if you receive from none,
because private individuals thus giving will soon find their means run
short, and such are in fact thought to be prodigal. He that should
combine both would seem to be no little superior to the Stingy man: for
he may be easily cured, both by advancing in years, and also by the
want of means, and he may come thus to the mean: he has, you see,
already the _facts_ of the Liberal man, he gives and forbears to
receive, only he does neither in right manner or well. So if he could
be wrought upon by habituation in this respect, or change in any other
way, he would be a real Liberal man, for he will give to those to whom
he should, and will forbear to receive whence he ought not. This is the
reason too why he is thought not to be low in moral character, because
to exceed in giving and in forbearing to receive is no sign of badness
or meanness, but only of folly.
Well then, he who is Prodigal in this fashion is thought far superior
to the Stingy man for the aforementioned reasons, and also because he
does good to many, but the Stingy man to no one, not even to himself.
But most Prodigals, as has been said, combine with their other faults
that of receiving from improper sources, and on this point are Stingy:
and they become grasping, because they wish to spend and cannot do this
easily, since their means soon run short and they are necessitated to
get from some other quarter; and then again, because they care not for
what is honourable, they receive recklessly, and from all sources
indifferently, because they desire to give but care not how or whence.
And for this reason their givings are not Liberal, inasmuch as they are
not honourable, nor purely disinterested, nor done in right fashion;
but they oftentimes make those rich who should be poor, and to those
who are quiet respectable kind of people they will give nothing, but to
flatterers, or those who subserve their pleasures in any way, they will
give much. And therefore most of them are utterly devoid of
self-restraint; for as they are open-handed they are liberal in
expenditure upon the unrestrained gratification of their passions, and
turn off to their pleasures because they do not live with reference to
what is honourable.
Thus then the Prodigal, if unguided, slides into these faults; but if
he could get care bestowed on him he might come to the mean and to what
is right.
Stinginess, on the contrary, is incurable: old age, for instance, and
incapacity of any kind, is thought to make people Stingy; and it is
more congenial to human nature than Prodigality, the mass of men being
fond of money rather than apt to give: moreover it extends far and has
many phases, the modes of stinginess being thought to be many. For as
it consists of two things, defect of giving and excess of receiving,
everybody does not have it entire, but it is sometimes divided, and one
class of persons exceed in receiving, the other are deficient in
giving. I mean those who are designated by such appellations as
sparing, close-fisted, niggards, are all deficient in giving; but other
men’s property they neither desire nor are willing to receive, in some
instances from a real moderation and shrinking from what is base.
There are some people whose motive, either supposed or alleged, for
keeping their property is this, that they may never be driven to do
anything dishonourable: to this class belongs the skinflint, and every
one of similar character, so named from the excess of not-giving.
Others again decline to receive their neighbour’s goods from a motive
of fear; their notion being that it is not easy to take other people’s
things yourself without their taking yours: so they are content neither
to receive nor give.
The other class again who are Stingy in respect of receiving exceed in
that they receive anything from any source; such as they who work at
illiberal employments, brothel keepers, and such-like, and usurers who
lend small sums at large interest: for all these receive from improper
sources, and improper amounts. Their common characteristic is
base-gaining, since they all submit to disgrace for the sake of gain
and that small; because those who receive great things neither whence
they ought, nor what they ought (as for instance despots who sack
cities and plunder temples), we denominate wicked, impious, and unjust,
but not Stingy.
Now the dicer and bath-plunderer and the robber belong to the class of
the Stingy, for they are given to base gain: both busy themselves and
submit to disgrace for the sake of gain, and the one class incur the
greatest dangers for the sake of their booty, while the others make
gain of their friends to whom they ought to be giving.
So both classes, as wishing to make gain from improper sources, are
given to base gain, and all such receivings are Stingy. And with good
reason is Stinginess called the contrary of Liberality: both because it
is a greater evil than Prodigality, and because men err rather in this
direction than in that of the Prodigality which we have spoken of as
properly and completely such.
Let this be considered as what we have to say respecting Liberality and
the contrary vices.
Chapter III.
Next in order would seem to come a dissertation on Magnificence, this
being thought to be, like liberality, a virtue having for its
object-matter Wealth; but it does not, like that, extend to all
transactions in respect of Wealth, but only applies to such as are
expensive, and in these circumstances it exceeds liberality in respect
of magnitude, because it is (what the very name in Greek hints at)
fitting expense on a large scale: this term is of course relative: I
mean, the expenditure of equipping and commanding a trireme is not the
same as that of giving a public spectacle: “fitting” of course also is
relative to the individual, and the matter wherein and upon which he
has to spend. And a man is not denominated Magnificent for spending as
he should do in small or ordinary things, as, for instance,
“Oft to the wandering beggar did I give,”
but for doing so in great matters: that is to say, the Magnificent man
is liberal, but the liberal is not thereby Magnificent. The falling
short of such a state is called Meanness, the exceeding it Vulgar
Profusion, Want of Taste, and so on; which are faulty, not because they
are on an excessive scale in respect of right objects but, because they
show off in improper objects, and in improper manner: of these we will
speak presently. The Magnificent man is like a man of skill, because he
can see what is fitting, and can spend largely in good taste; for, as
we said at the commencement, the confirmed habit is determined by the
separate acts of working, and by its object-matter.
Well, the expenses of the Magnificent man are great and fitting: such
also are his works (because this secures the expenditure being not
great merely, but befitting the work). So then the work is to be
proportionate to the expense, and this again to the work, or even above
it: and the Magnificent man will incur such expenses from the motive of
honour, this being common to all the virtues, and besides he will do it
with pleasure and lavishly; excessive accuracy in calculation being
Mean. He will consider also how a thing may be done most beautifully
and fittingly, rather, than for how much it may be done, and how at the
least expense.
So the Magnificent man must be also a liberal man, because the liberal
man will also spend what he ought, and in right manner: but it is the
Great, that is to say tke large scale, which is distinctive of the
Magnificent man, the object-matter of liberality being the same, and
without spending more money than another man he will make the work more
magnificent. I mean, the excellence of a possession and of a work is
not the same: as a piece of property that thing is most valuable which
is worth most, gold for instance; but as a work that which is great and
beautiful, because the contemplation of such an object is admirable,
and so is that which is Magnificent. So the excellence of a work is
Magnificence on a large scale. There are cases of expenditure which we
call honourable, such as are dedicatory offerings to the gods, and the
furnishing their temples, and sacrifices, and in like manner everything
that has reference to the Deity, and all such public matters as are
objects of honourable ambition, as when men think in any case that it
is their duty to furnish a chorus for the stage splendidly, or fit out
and maintain a trireme, or give a general public feast.
Now in all these, as has been already stated, respect is had also to
the rank and the means of the man who is doing them: because they
should be proportionate to these, and befit not the work only but also
the doer of the work. For this reason a poor man cannot be a
Magnificent man, since he has not means wherewith to spend largely and
yet becomingly; and if he attempts it he is a fool, inasmuch as it is
out of proportion and contrary to propriety, whereas to be in
accordance with virtue a thing must be done rightly.
Such expenditure is fitting moreover for those to whom such things
previously belong, either through themselves or through their ancestors
or people with whom they are connected, and to the high-born or people
of high repute, and so on: because all these things imply greatness and
reputation.
So then the Magnificent man is pretty much as I have described him, and
Magnificence consists in such expenditures: because they are the
greatest and most honourable: and of private ones such as come but once
for all, marriage to wit, and things of that kind; and any occasion
which engages the interest of the community in general, or of those who
are in power; and what concerns receiving and despatching strangers;
and gifts, and repaying gifts: because the Magnificent man is not apt
to spend upon himself but on the public good, and gifts are pretty much
in the same case as dedicatory offerings.
It is characteristic also of the Magnificent man to furnish his house
suitably to his wealth, for this also in a way reflects credit; and
again, to spend rather upon such works as are of long duration, these
being most honourable. And again, propriety in each case, because the
same things are not suitable to gods and men, nor in a temple and a
tomb. And again, in the case of expenditures, each must be great of its
kind, and great expense on a great object is most magnificent, that is
in any case what is great in these particular things.
There is a difference too between greatness of a work and greatness of
expenditure: for instance, a very beautiful ball or cup is magnificent
as a present to a child, while the price of it is small and almost
mean. Therefore it is characteristic of the Magnificent man to do
magnificently whatever he is about: for whatever is of this kind cannot
be easily surpassed, and bears a proper proportion to the expenditure.
Such then is the Magnificent man.
The man who is in the state of excess, called one of Vulgar Profusion,
is in excess because he spends improperly, as has been said. I mean in
cases requiring small expenditure he lavishes much and shows off out of
taste; giving his club a feast fit for a wedding-party, or if he has to
furnish a chorus for a comedy, giving the actors purple to wear in the
first scene, as did the Megarians. And all such things he will do, not
with a view to that which is really honourable, but to display his
wealth, and because he thinks he shall be admired for these things; and
he will spend little where he ought to spend much, and much where he
should spend little.
The Mean man will be deficient in every case, and even where he has
spent the most he will spoil the whole effect for want of some trifle;
he is procrastinating in all he does, and contrives how he may spend
the least, and does even that with lamentations about the expense, and
thinking that he does all things on a greater scale than he ought.
Of course, both these states are faulty, but they do not involve
disgrace because they are neither hurtful to others nor very unseemly.
Chapter IV.
The very name of Great-mindedness implies, that great things are its
object-matter; and we will first settle what kind of things. It makes
no difference, of course, whether we regard the moral state in the
abstract or as exemplified in an individual.
Well then, he is thought to be Great-minded who values himself highly
and at the same time justly, because he that does so without grounds is
foolish, and no virtuous character is foolish or senseless. Well, the
character I have described is Great-minded. The man who estimates
himself lowly, and at the same time justly, is modest; but not
Great-minded, since this latter quality implies greatness, just as
beauty implies a large bodily conformation while small people are neat
and well made but not beautiful.
Again, he who values himself highly without just grounds is a Vain man:
though the name must not be applied to every case of unduly high
self-estimation. He that values himself below his real worth is
Small-minded, and whether that worth is great, moderate, or small, his
own estimate falls below it. And he is the strongest case of this error
who is really a man of great worth, for what would he have done had his
worth been less?
The Great-minded man is then, as far as greatness is concerned, at the
summit, but in respect of propriety he is in the mean, because he
estimates himself at his real value (the other characters respectively
are in excess and defect). Since then he justly estimates himself at a
high, or rather at the highest possible rate, his character will have
respect specially to one thing: this term “rate” has reference of
course to external goods: and of these we should assume that to be the
greatest which we attribute to the gods, and which is the special
object of desire to those who are in power, and which is the prize
proposed to the most honourable actions: now honour answers to these
descriptions, being the greatest of external goods. So the Great-minded
man bears himself as he ought in respect of honour and dishonour. In
fact, without need of words, the Great-minded plainly have honour for
their object-matter: since honour is what the great consider themselves
specially worthy of, and according to a certain rate.
The Small-minded man is deficient, both as regards himself, and also as
regards the estimation of the Great-minded: while the Vain man is in
excess as regards himself, but does not get beyond the Great-minded
man. Now the Great-minded man, being by the hypothesis worthy of the
greatest things, must be of the highest excellence, since the better a
man is the more is he worth, and he who is best is worth the most: it
follows then, that to be truly Great-minded a man must be good, and
whatever is great in each virtue would seem to belong to the
Great-minded. It would no way correspond with the character of the
Great-minded to flee spreading his hands all abroad; nor to injure any
one; for with what object in view will he do what is base, in whose
eyes nothing is great? in short, if one were to go into particulars,
the Great-minded man would show quite ludicrously unless he were a good
man: he would not be in fact deserving of honour if he were a bad man,
honour being the prize of virtue and given to the good.
This virtue, then, of Great-mindedness seems to be a kind of ornament
of all the other virtues, in that it makes them better and cannot be
without them; and for this reason it is a hard matter to be really and
truly Great-minded; for it cannot be without thorough goodness and
nobleness of character.
Honour then and dishonour are specially the object-matter of the
Great-minded man: and at such as is great, and given by good men, he
will be pleased moderately as getting his own, or perhaps somewhat less
for no honour can be quite adequate to perfect virtue: but still he
will accept this because they have nothing higher to give him. But such
as is given by ordinary people and on trifling grounds he will entirely
despise, because these do not come up to his deserts: and dishonour
likewise, because in his case there cannot be just ground for it.
Now though, as I have said, honour is specially the object-matter of
the Great-minded man, I do not mean but that likewise in respect of
wealth and power, and good or bad fortune of every kind, he will bear
himself with moderation, fall out how they may, and neither in
prosperity will he be overjoyed nor in adversity will he be unduly
pained. For not even in respect of honour does he so bear himself; and
yet it is the greatest of all such objects, since it is the cause of
power and wealth being choice-worthy, for certainly they who have them
desire to receive honour through them. So to whom honour even is a
small thing to him will all other things also be so; and this is why
such men are thought to be supercilious.
It seems too that pieces of good fortune contribute to form this
character of Great-mindedness: I mean, the nobly born, or men of
influence, or the wealthy, are considered to be entitled to honour, for
they are in a position of eminence and whatever is eminent by good is
more entitled to honour: and this is why such circumstances dispose men
rather to Great-mindedness, because they receive honour at the hands of
some men.
Now really and truly the good man alone is entitled to honour; only if
a man unites in himself goodness with these external advantages he is
thought to be more entitled to honour: but they who have them without
also having virtue are not justified in their high estimate of
themselves, nor are they rightly denominated Great-minded; since
perfect virtue is one of the indispensable conditions to such &
character.
Further, such men become supercilious and insolent, it not being easy
to bear prosperity well without goodness; and not being able to bear
it, and possessed with an idea of their own superiority to others, they
despise them, and do just whatever their fancy prompts; for they mimic
the Great-minded man, though they are not like him, and they do this in
such points as they can, so without doing the actions which can only
flow from real goodness they despise others. Whereas the Great-minded
man despises on good grounds (for he forms his opinions truly), but the
mass of men do it at random.
Moreover, he is not a man to incur little risks, nor does he court
danger, because there are but few things he has a value for; but he
will incur great dangers, and when he does venture he is prodigal of
his life as knowing that there are terms on which it is not worth his
while to live. He is the sort of man to do kindnesses, but he is
ashamed to receive them; the former putting a man in the position of
superiority, the latter in that of inferiority; accordingly he will
greatly overpay any kindness done to him, because the original actor
will thus be laid under obligation and be in the position of the party
benefited. Such men seem likewise to remember those they have done
kindnesses to, but not those from whom they have received them: because
he who has received is inferior to him who has done the kindness and
our friend wishes to be superior; accordingly he is pleased to hear of
his own kind acts but not of those done to himself (and this is why, in
Homer, Thetis does not mention to Jupiter the kindnesses she had done
him, nor did the Lacedæmonians to the Athenians but only the benefits
they had received).
Further, it is characteristic of the Great-minded man to ask favours
not at all, or very reluctantly, but to do a service very readily; and
to bear himself loftily towards the great or fortunate, but towards
people of middle station affably; because to be above the former is
difficult and so a grand thing, but to be above the latter is easy; and
to be high and mighty towards the former is not ignoble, but to do it
towards those of humble station would be low and vulgar; it would be
like parading strength against the weak.
And again, not to put himself in the way of honour, nor to go where
others are the chief men; and to be remiss and dilatory, except in the
case of some great honour or work; and to be concerned in few things,
and those great and famous. It is a property of him also to be open,
both in his dislikes and his likings, because concealment is a
consequent of fear. Likewise to be careful for reality rather than
appearance, and talk and act openly (for his contempt for others makes
him a bold man, for which same reason he is apt to speak the truth,
except where the principle of reserve comes in), but to be reserved
towards the generality of men.
And to be unable to live with reference to any other but a friend;
because doing so is servile, as may be seen in that all flatterers are
low and men in low estate are flatterers. Neither is his admiration
easily excited, because nothing is great in his eyes; nor does he bear
malice, since remembering anything, and specially wrongs, is no part of
Great-mindedness, but rather overlooking them; nor does he talk of
other men; in fact, he will not speak either of himself or of any
other; he neither cares to be praised himself nor to have others
blamed; nor again does he praise freely, and for this reason he is not
apt to speak ill even of his enemies except to show contempt and
insolence.
And he is by no means apt to make laments about things which cannot be
helped, or requests about those which are trivial; because to be thus
disposed with respect to these things is consequent only upon real
anxiety about them. Again, he is the kind of man to acquire what is
beautiful and unproductive rather than what is productive and
profitable: this being rather the part of an independent man.
Also slow motion, deep-toned voice, and deliberate style of speech, are
thought to be characteristic of the Great-minded man: for he who is
earnest about few things is not likely to be in a hurry, nor he who
esteems nothing great to be very intent: and sharp tones and quickness
are the result of these.
Chapter V.
This then is my idea of the Great-minded man; and he who is in the
defect is a Small-minded man, he who is in the excess a Vain man.
However, as we observed in respect of the last character we discussed,
these extremes are not thought to be vicious exactly, but only
mistaken, for they do no harm.
The Small-minded man, for instance, being really worthy of good
deprives himself of his deserts, and seems to have somewhat faulty from
not having a sufficiently high estimate of his own desert, in fact from
self-ignorance: because, but for this, he would have grasped after what
he really is entitled to, and that is good. Still such characters are
not thought to be foolish, but rather laggards. But the having such an
opinion of themselves seems to have a deteriorating effect on the
character: because in all cases men’s aims are regulated by their
supposed desert, and thus these men, under a notion of their own want
of desert, stand aloof from honourable actions and courses, and
similarly from external goods.
But the Vain are foolish and self-ignorant, and that palpably: because
they attempt honourable things, as though they were worthy, and then
they are detected. They also set themselves off, by dress, and
carriage, and such-like things, and desire that their good
circumstances may be seen, and they talk of them under the notion of
receiving honour thereby. Small-mindedness rather than Vanity is
opposed to Great-mindedness, because it is more commonly met with and
is worse.
Chapter VI.
Well, the virtue of Great-mindedness has for its object great Honour,
as we have said: and there seems to be a virtue having Honour also for
its object (as we stated in the former book), which may seem to bear to
Great-mindedness the same relation that Liberality does to
Magnificence: that is, both these virtues stand aloof from what is
great but dispose us as we ought to be disposed towards moderate and
small matters. Further: as in giving and receiving of wealth there is a
mean state, an excess, and a defect, so likewise in grasping after
Honour there is the more or less than is right, and also the doing so
from right sources and in right manner.
For we blame the lover of Honour as aiming at Honour more than he
ought, and from wrong sources; and him who is destitute of a love of
Honour as not choosing to be honoured even for what is noble. Sometimes
again we praise the lover of Honour as manly and having a love for what
is noble, and him who has no love for it as being moderate and modest
(as we noticed also in the former discussion of these virtues).
It is clear then that since “Lover of so and so” is a term capable of
several meanings, we do not always denote the same quality by the term
“Lover of Honour;” but when we use it as a term of commendation we
denote more than the mass of men are; when for blame more than a man
should be.
And the mean state having no proper name the extremes seem to dispute
for it as unoccupied ground: but of course where there is excess and
defect there must be also the mean. And in point of fact, men do grasp
at Honour more than they should, and less, and sometimes just as they
ought; for instance, this state is praised, being a mean state in
regard of Honour, but without any appropriate name. Compared with what
is called Ambition it shows like a want of love for Honour, and
compared with this it shows like Ambition, or compared with both, like
both faults: nor is this a singular case among the virtues. Here the
extreme characters appear to be opposed, because the mean has no name
appropriated to it.
Chapter VII.
Meekness is a mean state, having for its object-matter Anger: and as
the character in the mean has no name, and we may almost say the same
of the extremes, we give the name of Meekness (leaning rather to the
defect, which has no name either) to the character in the mean.
The excess may be called an over-aptness to Anger: for the passion is
Anger, and the producing causes many and various. Now he who is angry
at what and with whom he ought, and further, in right manner and time,
and for proper length of time, is praised, so this Man will be Meek
since Meekness is praised. For the notion represented by the term Meek
man is the being imperturbable, and not being led away by passion, but
being angry in that manner, and at those things, and for that length of
time, which Reason may direct. This character however is thought to err
rather on the side of defect, inasmuch as he is not apt to take revenge
but rather to make allowances and forgive. And the defect, call it
Angerlessness or what you will, is blamed: I mean, they who are not
angry at things at which they ought to be angry are thought to be
foolish, and they who are angry not in right manner, nor in right time,
nor with those with whom they ought; for a man who labours under this
defect is thought to have no perception, nor to be pained, and to have
no tendency to avenge himself, inasmuch as he feels no anger: now to
bear with scurrility in one’s own person, and patiently see one’s own
friends suffer it, is a slavish thing.
As for the excess, it occurs in all forms; men are angry with those
with whom, and at things with which, they ought not to be, and more
than they ought, and too hastily, and for too great a length of time. I
do not mean, however, that these are combined in any one person: that
would in fact be impossible, because the evil destroys itself, and if
it is developed in its full force it becomes unbearable.
Now those whom we term the Passionate are soon angry, and with people
with whom and at things at which they ought not, and in an excessive
degree, but they soon cool again, which is the best point about them.
And this results from their not repressing their anger, but repaying
their enemies (in that they show their feeings by reason of their
vehemence), and then they have done with it.
The Choleric again are excessively vehement, and are angry at
everything, and on every occasion; whence comes their Greek name
signifying that their choler lies high.
The Bitter-tempered are hard to reconcile and keep their anger for a
long while, because they repress the feeling: but when they have
revenged themselves then comes a lull; for the vengeance destroys their
anger by producing pleasure in lieu of pain. But if this does not
happen they keep the weight on their minds: because, as it does not
show itself, no one attempts to reason it away, and digesting anger
within one’s self takes time. Such men are very great nuisances to
themselves and to their best friends.
Again, we call those Cross-grained who are angry at wrong objects, and
in excessive degree, and for too long a time, and who are not appeased
without vengeance or at least punishing the offender.
To Meekness we oppose the excess rather than the defect, because it is
of more common occurrence: for human nature is more disposed to take
than to forgo revenge. And the Cross-grained are worse to live with
[than they who are too phlegmatic].
Now, from what has been here said, that is also plain which was said
before. I mean, it is no easy matter to define how, and with what
persons, and at what kind of things, and how long one ought to be
angry, and up to what point a person is right or is wrong. For he that
transgresses the strict rule only a little, whether on the side of too
much or too little, is not blamed: sometimes we praise those who are
deficient in the feeling and call them Meek, sometimes we call the
irritable Spirited as being well qualified for government. So it is not
easy to lay down, in so many words, for what degree or kind of
transgression a man is blameable: because the decision is in
particulars, and rests therefore with the Moral Sense. Thus much,
however, is plain, that the mean state is praiseworthy, in virtue of
which we are angry with those with whom, and at those things with
which, we ought to be angry, and in right manner, and so on; while the
excesses and defects are blameable, slightly so if only slight, more so
if greater, and when considerable very blameable.
It is clear, therefore, that the mean state is what we are to hold to.
This then is to be taken as our account of the various moral states
which have Anger for their object-matter.
Chapter VIII.
Next, as regards social intercourse and interchange of words and acts,
some men are thought to be Over-Complaisant who, with a view solely to
giving pleasure, agree to everything and never oppose, but think their
line is to give no pain to those they are thrown amongst: they, on the
other hand, are called Cross and Contentious who take exactly the
contrary line to these, and oppose in everything, and have no care at
all whether they give pain or not.
Now it is quite clear of course, that the states I have named are
blameable, and that the mean between them is praiseworthy, in virtue of
which a man will let pass what he ought as he ought, and also will
object in like manner. However, this state has no name appropriated,
but it is most like Friendship; since the man who exhibits it is just
the kind of man whom we would call the amiable friend, with the
addition of strong earnest affection; but then this is the very point
in which it differs from Friendship, that it is quite independent of
any feeling or strong affection for those among whom the man mixes: I
mean, that he takes everything as he ought, not from any feeling of
love or hatred, but simply because his natural disposition leads him to
do so; he will do it alike to those whom he does know and those whom he
does not, and those with whom he is intimate and those with whom he is
not; only in each case as propriety requires, because it is not fitting
to care alike for intimates and strangers, nor again to pain them
alike.
It has been stated in a general way that his social intercourse will be
regulated by propriety, and his aim will be to avoid giving pain and to
contribute to pleasure, but with a constant reference to what is noble
and expedient.
His proper object-matter seems to be the pleasures and pains which
arise out of social intercourse, but whenever it is not honourable or
even hurtful to him to contribute to pleasure, in these instances he
will run counter and prefer to give pain.
Or if the things in question involve unseemliness to the doer, and this
not inconsiderable, or any harm, whereas his opposition will cause some
little pain, here he will not agree but will run counter.
Again, he will regulate differently his intercourse with great men and
with ordinary men, and with all people according to the knowledge he
has of them; and in like manner, taking in any other differences which
may exist, giving to each his due, and in itself preferring to give
pleasure and cautious not to give pain, but still guided by the
results, I mean by what is noble and expedient according as they
preponderate.
Again, he will inflict trifling pain with a view to consequent
pleasure.
Well, the man bearing the mean character is pretty well such as I have
described him, but he has no name appropriated to him: of those who try
to give pleasure, the man who simply and disinterestedly tries to be
agreeable is called Over-Complaisant, he who does it with a view to
secure some profit in the way of wealth, or those things which wealth
may procure, is a Flatterer: I have said before, that the man who is
“always non-content” is Cross and Contentious. Here the extremes have
the appearance of being opposed to one another, because the mean has no
appropriate name.
Chapter IX.
The mean state which steers clear of Exaggeration has pretty much the
same object-matter as the last we described, and likewise has no name
appropriated to it. Still it may be as well to go over these states:
because, in the first place, by a particular discussion of each we
shall be better acquainted with the general subject of moral character,
and next we shall be the more convinced that the virtues are mean
states by seeing that this is universally the case.
In respect then of living in society, those who carry on this
intercourse with a view to pleasure and pain have been already spoken
of; we will now go on to speak of those who are True or False, alike in
their words and deeds and in the claims which they advance.
Now the Exaggerator is thought to have a tendency to lay claim to
things reflecting credit on him, both when they do not belong to him at
all and also in greater degree than that in which they really do:
whereas the Reserved man, on the contrary, denies those which really
belong to him or else depreciates them, while the mean character being
a Plain-matter-of-fact person is Truthful in life and word, admitting
the existence of what does really belong to him and making it neither
greater nor less than the truth.
It is possible of course to take any of these lines either with or
without some further view: but in general men speak, and act, and live,
each according to his particular character and disposition, unless
indeed a man is acting from any special motive.
Now since falsehood is in itself low and blameable, while truth is
noble and praiseworthy, it follows that the Truthful man (who is also
in the mean) is praiseworthy, and the two who depart from strict truth
are both blameable, but especially the Exaggerator.
We will now speak of each, and first of the Truthful man: I call him
Truthful, because we are not now meaning the man who is true in his
agreements nor in such matters as amount to justice or injustice (this
would come within the province of a different virtue), but, in such as
do not involve any such serious difference as this, the man we are
describing is true in life and word simply because he is in a certain
moral state.
And he that is such must be judged to be a good man: for he that has a
love for Truth as such, and is guided by it in matters indifferent,
will be so likewise even more in such as are not indifferent; for
surely he will have a dread of falsehood as base, since he shunned it
even in itself: and he that is of such a character is praiseworthy, yet
he leans rather to that which is below the truth, this having an
appearance of being in better taste because exaggerations are so
hateful.
As for the man who lays claim to things above what really belongs to
him _without_ any special motive, he is like a base man because he
would not otherwise have taken pleasure in falsehood, but he shows as a
fool rather than as a knave. But if a man does this _with_ a special
motive, suppose for honour or glory, as the Braggart does, then he is
not so very blameworthy, but if, directly or indirectly, for pecuniary
considerations, he is more unseemly.
Now the Braggart is such not by his power but by his purpose, that is
to say, in virtue of his moral state, and because he is a man of a
certain kind; just as there are liars who take pleasure in falsehood
for its own sake while others lie from a desire of glory or gain. They
who exaggerate with a view to glory pretend to such qualities as are
followed by praise or highest congratulation; they who do it with a
view to gain assume those which their neighbours can avail themselves
of, and the absence of which can be concealed, as a man’s being a
skilful soothsayer or physician; and accordingly most men pretend to
such things and exaggerate in this direction, because the faults I have
mentioned are in them.
The Reserved, who depreciate their own qualities, have the appearance
of being more refined in their characters, because they are not thought
to speak with a view to gain but to avoid grandeur: one very common
trait in such characters is their denying common current opinions, as
Socrates used to do. There are people who lay claim falsely to small
things and things the falsity of their pretensions to which is obvious;
these are called Factotums and are very despicable.
This very Reserve sometimes shows like Exaggeration; take, for
instance, the excessive plainness of dress affected by the
Lacedæmonians: in fact, both excess and the extreme of deficiency
partake of the nature of Exaggeration. But they who practise Reserve in
moderation, and in cases in which the truth is not very obvious and
plain, give an impression of refinement. Here it is the Exaggerator (as
being the worst character) who appears to be opposed to the Truthful
Man.
Chapter X.
Next, as life has its pauses and in them admits of pastime combined
with Jocularity, it is thought that in this respect also there is a
kind of fitting intercourse, and that rules may be prescribed as to the
kind of things one should say and the manner of saying them; and in
respect of hearing likewise (and there will be a difference between the
saying and hearing such and such things). It is plain that in regard to
these things also there will be an excess and defect and a mean.
Now they who exceed in the ridiculous are judged to be Buffoons and
Vulgar, catching at it in any and every way and at any cost, and aiming
rather at raising laughter than at saying what is seemly and at
avoiding to pain the object of their wit. They, on the other hand, who
would not for the world make a joke themselves and are displeased with
such as do are thought to be Clownish and Stern. But they who are
Jocular in good taste are denominated by a Greek term expressing
properly ease of movement, because such are thought to be, as one may
say, motions of the moral character; and as bodies are judged of by
their motions so too are moral characters.
Now as the ridiculous lies on the surface, and the majority of men take
more pleasure than they ought in Jocularity and Jesting, the Buffoons
too get this name of Easy Pleasantry, as if refined and gentlemanlike;
but that they differ from these, and considerably too, is plain from
what has been said.
One quality which belongs to the mean state is Tact: it is
characteristic of a man of Tact to say and listen to such things as are
fit for a good man and a gentleman to say and listen to: for there are
things which are becoming for such a one to say and listen to in the
way of Jocularity, and there is a difference between the Jocularity of
the Gentleman and that of the Vulgarian; and again, between that of the
educated and uneducated man. This you may see from a comparison of the
Old and New Comedy: in the former obscene talk made the fun; in the
latter it is rather innuendo: and this is no slight difference _as
regards decency_.
Well then, are we to characterise him who jests well by his saying what
is becoming a gentleman, or by his avoiding to pain the object of his
wit, or even by his giving him pleasure? or will not such a definition
be vague, since different things are hateful and pleasant to different
men?
Be this as it may, whatever he says such things will he also listen to,
since it is commonly held that a man will do what he will bear to hear:
this must, however, be limited; a man will not do quite all that he
will hear: because jesting is a species of scurrility and there are
some points of scurrility forbidden by law; it may be certain points of
jesting should have been also so forbidden. So then the refined and
gentlemanlike man will bear himself thus as being a law to himself.
Such is the mean character, whether denominated the man of Tact or of
Easy Pleasantry.
But the Buffoon cannot resist the ridiculous, sparing neither himself
nor any one else so that he can but raise his laugh, saying things of
such kind as no man of refinement would say and some which he would not
even tolerate if said by others in his hearing.
The Clownish man is for such intercourse wholly useless: inasmuch as
contributing nothing jocose of his own he is savage with all who do.
Yet some pause and amusement in life are generally judged to be
indispensable.
The three mean states which have been described do occur in life, and
the object-matter of all is interchange of words and deeds. They
differ, in that one of them is concerned with truth, and the other two
with the pleasurable: and of these two again, the one is conversant
with the jocosities of life, the other with all other points of social
intercourse.
Chapter XI.
To speak of Shame as a Virtue is incorrect, because it is much more
like a feeling than a moral state. It is defined, we know, to be “a
kind of fear of disgrace,” and its effects are similar to those of the
fear of danger, for they who feel Shame grow red and they who fear
death turn pale. So both are evidently in a way physical, which is
thought to be a mark of a feeling rather than a moral state.
Moreover, it is a feeling not suitable to every age, but only to youth:
we do think that the young should be Shamefaced, because since they
live at the beck and call of passion they do much that is wrong and
Shame acts on them as a check. In fact, we praise such young men as are
Shamefaced, but no one would ever praise an old man for being given to
it, inasmuch as we hold that he ought not to do things which cause
Shame; for Shame, since it arises at low bad actions, does not at all
belong to the good man, because such ought not to be done at all: nor
does it make any difference to allege that some things are disgraceful
really, others only because they are thought so; for neither should be
done, so that a man ought not to be in the position of feeling Shame.
In truth, to be such a man as to do anything disgraceful is the part of
a faulty character. And for a man to be such that he would feel Shame
if he should do anything disgraceful, and to think that this
constitutes him a good man, is absurd: because Shame is felt at
voluntary actions only, and a good man will never voluntarily do what
is base.
True it is, that Shame may be good on a certain supposition, as “if a
man should do such things, he would feel Shame:” but then the Virtues
are good in themselves, and not merely in supposed cases. And, granted
that impudence and the not being ashamed to do what is disgraceful is
base, it does not the more follow that it is good for a man to do such
things and feel Shame.
Nor is Self-Control properly a Virtue, but a kind of mixed state:
however, all about this shall be set forth in a future Book.
BOOK V
Chapter I.
Now the points for our enquiry in respect of Justice and Injustice are,
what kind of actions are their object-matter, and what kind of a mean
state Justice is, and between what points the abstract principle of it,
i.e. the Just, is a mean. And our enquiry shall be, if you please,
conducted in the same method as we have observed in the foregoing parts
of this Treatise.
We see then that all men mean by the term Justice a moral state such
that in consequence of it men have the capacity of doing what is just,
and actually do it, and wish it:[1] similarly also with respect to
Injustice, a moral state such that in consequence of it men do unjustly
and wish what is unjust: let us also be content then with these as a
ground-work sketched out.
I mention the two, because the same does not hold with regard to States
whether of mind or body as with regard to Sciences or Faculties: I mean
that whereas it is thought that the same Faculty or Science embraces
contraries, a State will not: from health, for instance, not the
contrary acts are done but the healthy ones only; we say a man walks
healthily when he walks as the healthy man would.
However, of the two contrary states the one may be frequently known
from the other, and oftentimes the states from their subject-matter: if
it be seen clearly what a good state of body is, then is it also seen
what a bad state is, and from the things which belong to a good state
of body the good state itself is seen, and _vice versâ_. If, for
instance, the good state is firmness of flesh it follows that the bad
state is flabbiness of flesh; and whatever causes firmness of flesh is
connected with the good state.
It follows moreover in general,[2] that if of two contrary terms the
one is used in many senses so also will the other be; as, for instance,
if “the Just,” then also “the Unjust.” Now Justice and Injustice do
seem to be used respectively in many senses, but, because the line of
demarcation between these is very fine and minute,[3] it commonly
escapes notice that they are thus used, and it is not plain and
manifest as where the various significations of terms are widely
different for in these last the visible difference is great, for
instance, the word κλεὶς is used equivocally to denote the bone which
is under the neck of animals and the instrument with which people close
doors.
Let it be ascertained then in how many senses the term “Unjust man” is
used. Well, he who violates the law, and he who is a grasping man, and
the unequal man, are all thought to be Unjust and so manifestly the
Just man will be, the man who acts according to law, and the equal man
“The Just” then will be the lawful and the equal, and “the Unjust” the
unlawful and the unequal.
Well, since the Unjust man is also a grasping man, he will be so, of
course, with respect to good things, but not of every kind, only those
which are the subject-matter of good and bad fortune and which are in
themselves always good but not always to the individual.[4] Yet men
pray for and pursue these things: this they should not do but pray that
things which are in the abstract good may be so also to them, and
choose what is good for themselves.
But the Unjust man does not always choose actually the greater part,
but even sometimes the less; as in the case of things which are simply
evil: still, since the less evil is thought to be in a manner a good
and the grasping is after good, therefore even in this case he is
thought to be a grasping man, _i.e._ one who strives for more good than
fairly falls to his share: of course he is also an unequal man, this
being an inclusive and common term.