The Nicomachean ethics of Aristotle
greater degree of nicety; for instance, those men become geometricians
who take Pleasure in geometry, and they apprehend particular points
more completely: in like manner men who are fond of music, or
architecture, or anything else, improve each on his own pursuit,
because they feel Pleasure in them. Thus the Pleasures aid in
increasing the Workings, and things which do so aid are proper and
peculiar: but the things which are proper and peculiar to others
specifically different are themselves also specifically different.
Yet even more clearly may this be shown from the fact that the
Pleasures arising from one kind of Workings hinder other Workings; for
instance, people who are fond of flute-music cannot keep their
attention to conversation or discourse when they catch the sound of a
flute; because they take more Pleasure in flute-playing than in the
Working they are at the time engaged on; in other words, the Pleasure
attendant on flute-playing destroys the Working of conversation or
discourse.
Much the same kind of thing takes place in other cases, when a person
is engaged in two different Workings at the same time: that is, the
pleasanter of the two keeps pushing out the other, and, if the
disparity in pleasantness be great, then more and more till a man even
ceases altogether to work at the other.
This is the reason why, when we are very much pleased with anything
whatever, we do nothing else, and it is only when we are but moderately
pleased with one occupation that we vary it with another: people, for
instance, who eat sweetmeats in the theatre do so most when the
performance is indifferent.
Since then the proper and peculiar Pleasure gives accuracy to the
Workings and makes them more enduring and better of their kind, while
those Pleasures which are foreign to them mar them, it is plain there
is a wide difference between them: in fact, Pleasures foreign to any
Working have pretty much the same effect as the Pains proper to it,[12]
which, in fact, destroy the Workings; I mean, if one man dislikes
writing, or another calculation, the one does not write, the other does
not calculate; because, in each case, the Working is attended with some
Pain: so then contrary effects are produced upon the Workings by the
Pleasures and Pains proper to them, by which I mean those which arise
upon the Working, in itself, independently of any other circumstances.
As for the Pleasures foreign to a Working, we have said already that
they produce a similar effect to the Pain proper to it; that is they
destroy the Working, only not in like way.
Well then, as Workings differ from one another in goodness and badness,
some being fit objects of choice, others of avoidance, and others in
their nature indifferent, Pleasures are similarly related; since its
own proper Pleasure attends or each Working: of course that proper to a
good Working is good, that proper to a bad, bad: for even the desires
for what is noble are praiseworthy, and for what is base blameworthy.
Furthermore, the Pleasures attendant on Workings are more closely
connected with them even than the desires after them: for these last
are separate both in time and nature, but the former are close to the
Workings, and so indivisible from them as to raise a question whether
the Working and the Pleasure are identical; but Pleasure does not seem
to be an Intellectual Operation nor a Faculty of Perception, because
that is absurd; but yet it gives some the impression of being the same
from not being separated from these.
As then the Workings are different so are their Pleasures; now Sight
differs from Touch in purity, and Hearing and Smelling from Taste;
therefore, in like manner, do their Pleasures; and again, Intellectual
Pleasures from these Sensual, and the different kinds both of
Intellectual and Sensual from one another.
It is thought, moreover, that each animal has a Pleasure proper to
itself, as it has a proper Work; that Pleasure of course which is
attendant on the Working. And the soundness of this will appear upon
particular inspection: for horse, dog, and man have different
Pleasures; as Heraclitus says, an ass would sooner have hay than gold;
in other words, provender is pleasanter to asses than gold. So then the
Pleasures of animals specifically different are also specifically
different, but those of the same, we may reasonably suppose, are
without difference.
Yet in the case of human creatures they differ not a little: for the
very same things please some and pain others: and what are painful and
hateful to some are pleasant to and liked by others. The same is the
case with sweet things: the same will not seem so to the man in a fever
as to him who is in health: nor will the invalid and the person in
robust health have the same notion of warmth. The same is the case with
other things also.
Now in all such cases that is held to _be_ which impresses the good man
with the notion of being such and such; and if this is a second maxim
(as it is usually held to be), and Virtue, that is, the Good man, in
that he is such, is the measure of everything, then those must be real
Pleasures which gave him the impression of being so and those things
pleasant in which he takes Pleasure. Nor is it at all astonishing that
what are to him unpleasant should give another person the impression of
being pleasant, for men are liable to many corruptions and marrings;
and the things in question are not pleasant really, only to these
particular persons, and to them only as being thus disposed.
Well of course, you may say, it is obvious that we must assert those
which are confessedly disgraceful to be real Pleasures, except to
depraved tastes: but of those which are thought to be good what kind,
or which, must we say is _The Pleasure of Man?_ is not the answer plain
from considering the Workings, because the Pleasures follow upon these?
If then there be one or several Workings which belong to the perfect
and blessed man, the Pleasures which perfect these Workings must be
said to be specially and properly _The Pleasures of Man;_ and all the
rest in a secondary sense, and in various degrees according as the
Workings are related to those highest and best ones.
Chapter V.
Now that we have spoken about the Excellences of both kinds, and
Friendship in its varieties, and Pleasures, it remains to sketch out
Happiness, since we assume that to be the one End of all human things:
and we shall save time and trouble by recapitulating what was stated
before.
Well then, we said that it is not a State merely; because, if it were,
it might belong to one who slept all his life through and merely
vegetated, or to one who fell into very great calamities: and so, if
these possibilities displease us and we would rather put it into the
rank of some kind of Working (as was also said before), and Workings
are of different kinds (some being necessary and choice-worthy with a
view to other things, while others are so in themselves), it is plain
we must rank Happiness among those choice-worthy for their own sakes
and not among those which are so with a view to something further:
because Happiness has no lack of anything but is self-sufficient.
By choice-worthy in themselves are meant those from which nothing is
sought beyond the act of Working: and of this kind are thought to be
the actions according to Virtue, because doing what is noble and
excellent is one of those things which are choice-worthy for their own
sake alone.
And again, such amusements as are pleasant; because people do not
choose them with any further purpose: in fact they receive more harm
than profit from them, neglecting their persons and their property.
Still the common run of those who are judged happy take refuge in such
pastimes, which is the reason why they who have varied talent in such
are highly esteemed among despots; because they make themselves
pleasant in those things which these aim at, and these accordingly want
such men.
Now these things are thought to be appurtenances of Happiness because
men in power spend their leisure herein: yet, it may be, we cannot
argue from the example of such men: because there is neither Virtue nor
Intellect necessarily involved in having power, and yet these are the
only sources of good Workings: nor does it follow that because these
men, never having tasted pure and generous Pleasure, take refuge in
bodily ones, we are therefore to believe them to be more choice-worthy:
for children too believe that those things are most excellent which are
precious in their eyes.
We may well believe that as children and men have different ideas as to
what is precious so too have the bad and the good: therefore, as we
have many times said, those things are really precious and pleasant
which seem so to the good man: and as to each individual that Working
is most choice-worthy which is in accordance with his own state to the
good man that is so which is in accordance with Virtue.
Happiness then stands not in amusement; in fact the very notion is
absurd of the End being amusement, and of one’s toiling and enduring
hardness all one’s life long with a view to amusement: for everything
in the world, so to speak, we choose with some further End in view,
except Happiness, for that is the End comprehending all others. Now to
take pains and to labour with a view to amusement is plainly foolish
and very childish: but to amuse one’s self with a view to steady
employment afterwards, as Anacharsis says, is thought to be right: for
amusement is like rest, and men want rest because unable to labour
continuously.
Rest, therefore, is not an End, because it is adopted with a view to
Working afterwards.
Again, it is held that the Happy Life must be one in the way of
Excellence, and this is accompanied by earnestness,[13] and stands not
in amusement. Moreover those things which are done in earnest, we say,
are better than things merely ludicrous and joined with amusement: and
we say that the Working of the better part, or the better man, is more
earnest; and the Working of the better is at once better and more
capable of Happiness.
Then, again, as for bodily Pleasures, any ordinary person, or even a
slave, might enjoy them, just as well as the best man living but
Happiness no one supposes a slave to share except so far as it is
implied in life: because Happiness stands not in such pastimes but in
the Workings in the way of Excellence, as has also been stated before.
Chapter VI.
Now if Happiness is a Working in the way of Excellence of course that
Excellence must be the highest, that is to say, the Excellence of the
best Principle. Whether then this best Principle is Intellect or some
other which is thought naturally to rule and to lead and to conceive of
noble and divine things, whether being in its own nature divine or the
most divine of all our internal Principles, the Working of this in
accordance with its own proper Excellence must be the perfect
Happiness.
That it is Contemplative has been already stated: and this would seem
to be consistent with what we said before and with truth: for, in the
first place, this Working is of the highest kind, since the Intellect
is the highest of our internal Principles and the subjects with which
it is conversant the highest of all which fall within the range of our
knowledge.
Next, it is also most Continuous: for we are better able to contemplate
than to do anything else whatever, continuously.
Again, we think Pleasure must be in some way an ingredient in
Happiness, and of all Workings in accordance with Excellence that in
the way of Science is confessedly most pleasant: at least the pursuit
of Science is thought to contain Pleasures admirable for purity and