Aristotle
hand is not the less better by nature than the left, although we
should do everything with the left as we do with the right." (Mag.
Mor. i. 34, _ut sup._) In the one case he illustrates the meaning of
natural properties by the comparative aptitudes of the right and left
hand: in the other by the downward tendency of the stone. The idea is
plainly different in the one case and in the other.
On the other hand, there seems to be not less variance between the
one passage quoted out of the Nicomacheian Ethics and the other. For
in the passage last quoted, we are told that none of the ethical
virtues is generated in us by nature--neither by nature, nor contrary
to nature: nature makes us fit to receive them, habit introduces and
creates them--an observation perfectly true and accurate. But if this
was the sentiment of Aristotle, how could he also believe that the
pleasures arising out of the active manifestation of ethical virtue
were the natural pleasures of man? If ethical virtue does not come by
nature, the pleasures belonging to it cannot come by nature either.
On the whole, these three passages present a variance which I am
unable to reconcile in the meaning which Aristotle annexes to the
very equivocal word--_nature_.
Although Aristotle tells us that the active exercise of the functions
of the soul according to virtue confers happiness, yet he admits that
a certain measure of external comfort and advantages must be
superadded as an indispensable auxiliary and instrument. Disgusting
ugliness, bad health, low birth, loss of friends and relatives or
vicious conduct of friends and relatives, together with many other
misfortunes, are sufficient to sully the blessed condition of the
most virtuous man ([Greek: r(upai/nousi to\ maka/rion]--i. 8)--for
which reason it is that some persons have ranked both virtue and good
fortune as co-ordinate ingredients equally essential to happiness:
and have doubted also whether it can ever be acquired either by
teaching, or by training, or by any other method except chance or
Divine inspiration. To suppose that so magnificent a boon is
conferred by chance, would be an absurdity: it is a boon not unworthy
indeed of the Divine nature to confer; but still the magnificence of
it will appear equally great and equally undeniable, if we suppose it
to be acquired by teaching or training. And this is really the proper
account to give of the way in which Happiness is acquired: for the
grand and primary element in it, is the virtuous agency of the soul,
which is undoubtedly acquired by training: while external advantages,
though indispensable up to a certain limit, are acquired only as
secondary helps and instruments. The creation of these virtuous
habits among the citizens is one of the chief objects of political
science and legislation: when once acquired, they are the most
lasting and ineffaceable of all human possessions: and as they are
created by special training, they may be imparted to every man not
disqualified by some natural defect of organization, and may thus be
widely diffused throughout the community (i. 9).
This is an important property. If happiness be supposed to be derived
from the possession of wealth or honour or power, it can only be
possessed by a small number of persons. For these three considered as
objects of human desire, are essentially comparative. A man does not
think himself rich, or honoured, or powerful, unless he becomes so to
a degree above the multitude of his companions and neighbours.
Aristotle insists most earnestly that the only way of acquiring the
character proper for happiness is by a course of early and incessant
training in virtuous action. Moral teaching, he says, will do little
or nothing, unless it be preceded by, or at least coupled with, moral
training. Motives must be applied sufficient to ensure performance of
what is virtuous and abstinence from what is vicious, until such a
course of conduct becomes habitual, and until a disposition is
created to persevere in them. It is the business of the politician
and the legislator to employ their means of working upon the citizens
for the purpose of enforcing this training. It is not with virtue (he
says) as it is with those faculties which we receive ready-made from
nature, as for example, the external senses. We do not acquire the
faculty of sight by often seeing, but we have it from nature and then
exercise it: whereas with regard to virtue, we obtain our virtues by
means of a previous course of virtuous action, just as we learn other
arts. For those things which we must learn in order to do, we learn
by actually doing: thus by building we become builders, and by
harping we become harpers: by doing just and temperate and courageous
actions, we become just and temperate and courageous. All legislators
try, some in a better and others in a worse manner, to _ethise_
([Greek: e)thi/zontes])--to create habits among--the citizens for the
purpose of making them good. "In one word habits are created by
repeated action, wherefore our actions must be determined in a
suitable way, for according as they differ, so will our habits
differ. Nor is the difference small whether we are _ethised_ in one
way or in another, from our youth upwards: the difference is very
great, or rather it _is everything_" (ii. 1).
Neither an ox, nor a horse, can acquire such habits, and therefore
neither of them can be called happy: even a child cannot be called
so, except from the hope and anticipation of what he will become in
future years.
It may appear somewhat singular that Aristotle characterises a child
as incapable of happiness, since in common language a child when
healthy and well treated is described as peculiarly happy. But
happiness, as Aristotle understands it, is something measured more by
the estimate of the judicious spectator than by the sentiment of the
man in whose bosom it resides. No person is entitled to be called
_happy_, whom the intelligent and reflective observer does not
_macarise_ (or **_eudæmonise_), or whose condition he would
not desire more or less to make his own. Now the life of a child,
even though replete with all the enjoyments belonging to childhood,
is not such as any person in the state of mind of a mature citizen
could bring himself to accept (i. 10, x. 3). The test to which
Aristotle appeals, either tacitly or openly, seems always to be the
judgment of the serious man (i. 8, x. 5). It is no sufficient proof
of happiness that the person who feels it is completely satisfied
with his condition and does not desire anything beyond. Such
self-satisfaction is indeed necessary, but is not by itself
sufficient: it must be farther confirmed by the judgment of persons
without--not of the multitude, who are apt to judge by a wrong
standard--nor of princes, who are equally incompetent, _and who have
never tasted the relish of pure and liberal pleasures_ (x. 6)--but
of the virtuous and worthy, who have arrived at the most perfect
condition attainable by human beings (x. 5, x. 6, x. 8).
The different standard adopted by the many and by the more discerning
few, in estimating human happiness, is again touched upon in
Politica, vii. 1. It is in some respects treated more clearly and
simply in this passage than in the Ethics. Both the Many and the Few
(he says) agree that in order to constitute Happiness, there must be
a coincidence of the three distinct kinds of Good things--The
Mental--The Corporeal--The External. But with respect to the
proportions in which the three ought to be intermingled, a difference
of opinion arises. Most persons are satisfied with a very moderate
portion of mental excellence, while they are immoderate in their
desire for wealth and power ("For of virtue they think that they have
a sufficiency, whatever be the quantity they have; but of wealth and
possessions they seek the excess without bound."--Pol. vii. 1). On
the other hand, the opinion sanctioned by the few of a higher order
of mind, and adopted by Aristotle, was, that Happiness was possessed
in a higher degree by those who were richly set forth with moral and
intellectual excellence and only moderately provided with external
advantages, than by those in regard to whom the proportion was
reversed (_ib._). The same difference of estimate, between the few
and the many, is touched upon Polit. vii. 13, where he says that men
in general esteem external advantages to be the causes of happiness:
which is just as if they were to say that the cause why a musician
played well was his lyre, and not his proficiency in the art.
In this chapter of the Politica (vii. 13), he refers to the Ethica in
a singular manner. Having stated that the point of first importance
is, to determine wherein happiness consists, he proceeds to say--"We
have said also in the Ethics, _if there be any good in that treatise_
([Greek: ei)/ ti tô=n lo/gôn e)kei/nôn o)/phelos]), that it
(happiness) is the active exertion and perfected habit of
virtue."--This is a singular expression--"if there be any good in the
Ethics"--it seems rather to fall in with the several passages in that
treatise in which he insists upon the inherent confusion and darkness
of the subject-matter.
The definition of what happiness really is seems to be one of the
weak points of Aristotle's treatise. In a work addressed to the
public, it is impossible to avoid making the public judges of the
pleasure and pain, the happiness and unhappiness of individuals. A
certain measure of self-esteem on the part of the individual, and a
certain measure of esteem towards him on the part of persons without,
come thus to be regarded as absolutely essential to existence.
Without these, life would appear intolerable to any spectator
without, though the individual himself might be degraded enough to
cling to it. But these are secured by the ordinary morality of the
age and of the locality. The question arises as to degrees of virtue
beyond the ordinary level: Are we sure that such higher excellence
contributes to the happiness of the individual who possesses it?
Assuming that it does so contribute, are we certain that the
accession of happiness which he thereby acquires is greater than he
would have acquired by an increase of his wealth and power, his
virtue remaining still at the ordinary level? These are points which
Aristotle does not establish satisfactorily, although he professes to
have done so: nor do I think that they are capable of being
established. The only ground on which a moralist can inculcate
aspirations after the higher degrees of virtue, is, the gain which
thereby accrues to the happiness of others, not to that of the
individual himself.
Aristotle appeals to God as a proof of the superiority of an internal
source of happiness to an external source--vii. 1, "using God as a
witness who is happy and blessed, yet not through any external good,
but through Himself and from His own nature." Again, vii. 3, "For at
leisure God would be happy, and the whole universe ([Greek:
ko/smos]), who have no external actions except such as are proper to
themselves"--in proof of the superiority of a life of study and
speculation to a life of ambition and political activity. The same
argument is insisted upon in Eth. Nic. x. 8. It is to be observed
that the [Greek: Ko/smos] as well as God is here cited as
experiencing happiness.
The analogy to which Aristotle appeals here is undoubtedly to a
certain extent a just one. The most perfect happiness which we can
conceive--our Idea, to use Kant's phrase, of perfect happiness--is
that of a being who is happy in and for his own nature, with the
least possible aid from external circumstances--a being whose nature
or habits dispose him only to acts, the simple performance of which