Happiness, and these of course belong to the soul. And so our account is a good one, at least according to this opinion, which is of ancient date, and accepted by those who profess philosophy. Rightly too are certain actions and workings said to be the end, for thus it is brought into the number of the goods of the soul instead of the external. Agreeing also with our definition is the common notion, that the happy man lives well and does well, for it has been stated by us to be pretty much a kind of living well and doing well.
But further, the points required in Happiness are found in combination in our account of it.
For some think it is virtue, others practical wisdom, others a kind of scientific philosophy; others that it is these, or else some one of them, in combination with pleasure, or at least not independently of it; while others again take in external prosperity.
Of these opinions, some rest on the authority of numbers or antiquity, others on that of few, and those men of note: and it is not likely that either of these classes should be wrong in all points, but be right at least in some one, or even in most.
Now with those who assert it to be Virtue (Excellence), or some kind of Virtue, our account agrees: for working in the way of Excellence surely belongs to Excellence.
And there is perhaps no unimportant difference between conceiving of the Chief Good as in possession or as in use, in other words, as a mere state[1] or as a working. For the state or habit may possibly exist in a subject without effecting any good,1099a as, for instance, in him who is asleep, or in any other way inactive; but the working cannot so, for it will of necessity act, and act well. And as at the Olympic games it is not the finest and strongest men who are crowned, but they who enter the lists, for out of these the prize-men are selected; so too in life, of the honourable and the good, it is they who act who rightly win the prizes[2].
Their life too is in itself pleasant: for the feeling of pleasure
- ↑ P. 14, l. 27. I have thought it worth while to vary the interpretation of this word, because though "habitus" may be equivalent to all the senses of ἕξις, “habit” is not, at least according to our colloquial usage: we commonly denote by “habit” a state formed by habituation.
- ↑ P. 14, l. 35. Another and perhaps more obvious method of rendering this passage is to apply καλῶν κἀγαθῶν to things, and let them depend grammatically on ἐπήβολοι. It is to be remembered, however, that καλός κἀγαθὸς bore a special and well—known meaning: also the comparison is in the text more complete, and the point of the passage seems more completely brought out.
