5. Would equal happiness be predicated of three men, one who had been
happy from his life's beginning to its end, the other only at its end,
and the third, who had been happy, but who ceased being such.[55] This
comparison is not between three men who are happy, but between one man
who is happy, with two who are deprived of happiness, and that at the
(present moment) when happiness (counts most). If then one of them have
any advantage, he possesses it as a man actually happy compared with
such as are not; he therefore surpasses the two others by the actual
possession of happiness.