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Ancient History Sourcebook
Aristotle
from The Nicomachean Ethics, c. 340 BCE
Book I:
In view of the fact that all knowledge and every pursuit aims at some good, there is
very general agreement; for both the general run of men and people of superior refinement
say that it is happiness, and identify living well and doing well with being happy. To
judge from the lives that men lead, most men, and men of the most vulgar type, seem (not
without some ground) to identify the good, or happiness, with pleasure; which is the
reason why they love the life of enjoyment. For there are, we may say, three prominent
types of life---that just mentioned, the political, and thirdly the contemplative life.
The answer to the question we are asking is plain: Happiness lies in virtuous activity,
and perfect happiness lies in the best activity, which is contemplative. Contemplation is
preferable to war or politics or any other practical career, because it allows leisure,
and leisure is essential to happiness. Practical virtue brings only a secondary kind of
happiness; the supreme happiness is in the exercise of Reason, for Reason, more than
anything else, is man. Man cannot be wholly contemplative, but in so far as
he is so he shares in the divine life. The activity of God, which surpasses all others in
blessedness, must be contemplative. And that all these attributes belong most of all to
the philosopher is manifest. He, therefore, is the dearest to the gods. And he who is will
presumably be also the happiest; so that in this way too the philosopher will more than
any other be happy.
Now some think that we are made good by nature, others by habituation, others by
teaching. But it is difficult to get from youth up a right training for virtue if one has
not been brought up under right laws; for to live temperately and hardily is not pleasant
to most people, especially when they are young. For this reason their nurture and
occupations should be fixed by law; for they will not be painful when they have become
customary. But it is surely not enough that when they are young they should get the right
nurture and attention; since they must, even when they are grown up, practice and be
habituated to them, we shall need laws for this as well, and generally speaking to cover
the whole of life; for most people obey necessity rather than argument, and punishments
rather than the sense of what is noble.
If as we have said, the man who is to be good must be well trained and habituated, and
go on to spend his time in worthy occupations and neither willingly nor unwillingly do bad
actions, and if this can be brought about if men live in accordance with a sort of reason
and right order, provided this has force---if this be so, the paternal command indeed has
not the required force or compulsive power (nor in general has the command of one man,
unless he be a king or something similar), but the law has compulsive power, while it is
at the same time a rule proceeding from a sort of practical wisdom and reason. And while
people hate men who oppose their impulses, even if they oppose them rightly, the law in
its ordaining of what is good is not burdensome. Now it is best that there should be a
public and proper care for such matters. It would seem from what has been said that he can
do this better if he makes himself capable of legislating, and for this he needs a
knowledge of Politics.
Source:
From: Thatcher, ed., Vol. II: The Greek World, pp. 364-382; The Politics of
Aristotle, trans. Benjamin Jowett, (New York: Colonial Press, 1900)
Scanned by: J. S. Arkenberg, Dept. of History, Cal. State Fullerton. Prof. Arkenberg
has modernized the text.
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