office? It may help us to find out this if we consider what his proper work is not. Man's proper work is not the maintenance of a mere organic life, for that, we may say, is the proper work of vegetables; but man is not a vegetable. Nor is the attainment and maintenance of pleasurable sensations the proper work of a man, for that is the proper business of mere animals, but man is not a mere animal. The proper work of man, therefore, is not mere life, because he is not a creature that merely lives; and it is not mere sensation, because he is not a creature that merely feels.
17. What, then, is the proper work of a man? To ascertain this we must ascertain what man's peculiar property or attribute is. His peculiar property or attribute is reason. He has life in common with all organised creatures; he has sensation in common with all animated creatures; but he has reason as an endowment, which is peculiar to himself. Man's proper work, therefore, the vocation he has to discharge, must stand closely related to the peculiar characteristic, namely, the rational nature, with which he has been endowed; and hence man's true work or function, as defined by Aristotle, is as follows—"The work of man is a conscious and active life of the soul in accordance with reason."[1] This, he says,
- ↑ ἀνθρώπου δὲ τίθεμεν ἔργον ζωήν τινα, ταύτην δὲ ψυχῆς ἐνέργειαν καὶ πράξεις μετὰ λόγου (σπουδαίου δ᾽ ἀνδρὸς εὖ ταῦτα καὶ καλῶς.—Eth. Nic., 1. 7.
