Aristotle
and certainly, if we look to prevalence in the world and number of
adherents, the creed of the first is at least equal to that of the
two last.)
The first of the three is the opinion of the mass, countenanced by
many Sovereigns such as Sardanapalus--it is more suitable to animals
than to men, in the judgment of Aristotle (i. 5).
Honour and glory--the reward of political ambition, cannot be the
sovereign good, because it is a possession which the person honoured
can never be sure of retaining: for it depends more upon the persons
by whom he is honoured than upon himself, while the ideas which we
form of the sovereign good suppose it to be something intimately
belonging to us and hard to be withdrawn (i. 5). Moreover those who
aspire to honour, desire it not so much on its own account as in
order that they may have confidence in their own virtue: so that it
seems even in their estimation as if virtue were the higher aim of
the two. But even virtue itself (meaning thereby the simple
possession of virtue as distinguished from the active habitual
exercise of it) cannot be the sovereign good: for the virtuous man
may pass his life in sleep or in inaction--or he may encounter
intolerable suffering and calamity (i. 5).
Besides, Happiness as we conceive it, is an End perfect, final,
comprehensive and all-sufficient--an end which we always seek on its
own account and never with a view to anything ulterior. But neither
honour, nor pleasure, nor intelligence, nor virtue, deserves these
epithets: each is an end special, insufficient, and not final--for
each is sought partly indeed on its own account, but partly also on
account of its tendency to promote what we suppose to be our
happiness (i. 7). The latter is the only end always sought
exclusively for itself: including as it always does and must do, the
happiness of a man's relatives, his children and his countrymen, or
of all with whom he has sympathies; so that if attained, it would
render his life desirable and wanting for nothing--[Greek: o(\
monou/menon, ai(reto\n poiei= to\n bi/on, kai\ mêdeno\s e)ndea=] (i.
7).
The remark which Aristotle here makes in respect to the final aim or
happiness of an individual--viz., that it includes the happiness of
his family and his countrymen and of those with whom he has
sympathies--deserves careful attention. It shows at once the
largeness and the benevolence of his conceptions. We arrive thus at
the same end as that proposed by political science--the happiness of
the community: but we reach it by a different road, starting from the
point of view of the individual citizen.
Having shown that this Happiness, which is "our being's end and aim,"
does not consist in any special acquisition such as pleasure, or
glory, or intelligence, or virtue, Aristotle adopts a different
method to show wherein it does consist. Every artist and every
professional man (he says--i. 7), the painter, the musician, &c., has
his peculiar business to do, and the _Good_ of each artist consists
in doing his business well and appropriately. Each separate portion
of man, the eye, the hand and the foot, has its peculiar function:
and in analogy with both these, man as such has his business and
function, in the complete performance of which human Good consists.
What is the business and peculiar function of Man, as Man? Not simply
Life, for that he has in common with the entire vegetable and animal
world: nor a mere sensitive Life, for that he has in common with all
Animals: it must be something which he has, apart both from plants
and animals--viz., an active life in conformity with reason ([Greek:
praktikê/ tis tou= lo/gon e)/chontos]); or the exercise of Reason as
a directing and superintending force, and the exercise of the
appetites, passions, and capacities, in a manner conformable to
Reason. This is the special and peculiar business of man: it is what
every man performs either well or ill: and the _virtue_ of a man is
that whereby he is enabled to perform it well. The Supreme Good of
humanity, therefore, consisting as it does in the due performance of
this special business of man, is to be found in the virtuous activity
of our rational and appetitive soul: assuming always a life of the
ordinary length, without which no degree of mental perfection would
suffice to attain the object. The full position will then stand
thus--"Happiness, or the highest good of a human being, consists in
the working of the soul and in a course of action, pursuant to reason
and conformable to virtue, throughout the full continuance of life."
(The argument respecting a man's proper business ([Greek: e)/rgon])
and virtue ([Greek: a)retê\]) seems to be borrowed from
Plato--Republic, i. c. 23, p. 352; c. 24, p. 353. Compare also
Xenophon--Memorabilia, iv. 2, 14.)
This explanation is delivered by Aristotle as a mere outline, which
he seems to think that any one may easily fill up (i. 7). And he
warns us not to require a greater degree of precision than the
subject admits of: since we ought to be content with a rough
approximation to the truth, and with conclusions which are not
universally true, but only true in the majority of instances, such
being the nature of the premisses with which we deal (i. 3).
Having determined in this manner what Happiness or the Supreme Good
consists in, Aristotle next shows that the explanation which he gives
of it conforms in a great degree to the opinions previously delivered
by eminent philosophers, and fulfils at least all the requisite
conditions which have ever been supposed to belong to Happiness (i.
8). All philosophers have from very early times agreed in
distributing good things into three classes--_Mental_, _Corporeal_,
and _External_. Now the first of these classes is incomparably the
highest and most essentially _good_ of the three: and the explanation
which Aristotle gives of happiness ranks it in the first class.
Again, various definitions of happiness have been delivered by
eminent authorities more or less ancient ([Greek: polloi\ kai\
palaioi/]). Eudoxus laid down the principle that happiness consists
in pleasure: others have maintained the opinion that it is entirely
independent both of pleasure and pain--that the former is no good,
and the latter no evil (i. 12, vii. 11-13, x. 1. 2). Some have placed
happiness in virtue: others in prudence: others in a certain sort of
wisdom ([Greek: sophi/a tis]): others have added to the definition
this condition, that pleasure or external prosperity should be
coupled with the above-mentioned objects (i. 8). The moral doctrines
propounded by Zeno and Epicurus were therefore in no way new: how far
the reasonings by which these philosophers sustained them were new we
cannot judge accurately, from the loss of the treatises of Eudoxus
and others to which Aristotle makes reference.
Now, in so far as virtue is introduced, the explanation of Happiness
given by Aristotle coincides with these philosophers and improves
upon them by substituting the active exercise of virtuous habits in
place of the mere possession of virtue. And in regard to pleasure,
the man who has once acquired habits of virtuous agency stands in no
need of pleasure from without, as a foreign accessory: for he finds
pleasure in his own behaviour, and he would not be denominated
virtuous unless he did so: "Now (he says) their life stands in no
need of pleasure, like an extraneous appendage, but has pleasure in
itself" (ii. 8). Again, ii. 3, he says that "the symptom of a perfect
habit is the pleasure or pain which ensues upon the performance of
the acts in which the habit consists: for the man who abstains from
bodily pleasures and rejoices in doing so, is temperate, while he who
does it reluctantly and painfully, is intemperate. And the man who
sustains dangers with pleasure, or at least without pain, is
courageous: if with pain, he is a coward. For ethical virtue has
reference to our pleasures and pains: it is on account of pleasure
that we commit vicious acts, and on account of pain that we shrink
from virtuous performances. Wherefore, as Plato directs, we ought to
be trained at once from our infancy by some means or other so as to
feel pleasure and pain from the proper sources: for that is the right
education."
Moreover, the man who is in the active exercise of virtue derives his
pleasure from the performance of that which is the appropriate
business of humanity, so that all his pleasures are _conformable to
the pleasures natural to man_ and therefore consistent with each
other: whereas the pleasures of most people are contradictory and
inconsistent with each other, because they are not conformable to our
nature (i. 8).
It is not easy to understand perfectly what Aristotle means by saying
that the things agreeable to the majority of mankind are not things
agreeable by nature. The construction above put upon this expression
seems the only plausible one--that those pleasures which inhere in
the performance of the appropriate business of man, are to be
considered as our natural pleasures; those which do not so inhere, as
not natural pleasures: inasmuch as they arise out of circumstances
foreign to the performance of our appropriate business.
This however hardly consists with the explanation which Aristotle
gives of [Greek: to\ phu/sei]--in another place and with reference to
another subject. In the Magna Moralia (i. 34, pp. 1194-1195 Bek.), in
distinguishing between _natural_ justice ([Greek: to\ di/kaion
phu/sei]) and _conventional_ justice ([Greek: to\ di/kaion no/mô|]),
he tells us that _the naturally just_ is that which most commonly
remains just. (Similarly Ethic. Eudem. iv. 14, p. 1217 Bek.) That
which exists by nature (he says) may be changed by art and practice;
the left hand may by these means be rendered as strong as the right
in particular cases, but if in the greater number of cases and for
the longer portion of time the left remains left and the right
remains right, this is to be considered as existing by nature.
If we are to consider that arrangement as natural which we find to
prevail in the greatest number of cases and for the greatest length
of time, then undoubtedly the pleasures arising out of virtuous
active behaviour must be regarded as less natural than those other
pleasures which Aristotle admits to form the enjoyment of the
majority of mankind.
But again there is a third passage, respecting nature and natural
arrangements, which appears scarcely reconcilable with either of the
two opinions just noticed. In Eth. Nicom. ii. 1: "Ethical virtue is a
result of habit, whence it is evident that not one of the ethical
virtues exists in us by nature. For none of those things which exist
by nature is altered by habit. For example, the stone which naturally
moves downwards cannot be habituated to move upwards, not even if a
man should endeavour so to habituate it by throwing it upwards ten
thousand times; nor in like manner fire downwards: nor can any other
of the things formed by nature in one way be changed by habit to any
other than that natural way. Virtues therefore are not generated in
us either _by_ nature, or _contrary_ to nature; but we are formed by
nature so as to be capable of receiving them, and we are perfected in
them through the influence of habit."
If it be true that nothing which exists in one manner by nature can
be changed by habit so as to exist in another manner, I do not see
how the assertion contained in the passage above cited out of the
Magna Moralia can be reconciled with it, where we are told--"For even
things which exist _by nature partake of change_. Thus if we all
should practise throwing with the left hand, we should become
ambidextrous: but still it is the left hand by nature, and the right