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Title: The Nicomachean ethics of Aristotle

Author: Aristotle

Release date: July 1, 2005 [eBook #8438]
Most recently updated: March 27, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
NICOMACHEAN ETHICS OF ARISTOTLE ***

The Nicomachean Ethics of
Aristotle

By Aristotle

Introduction by J. A. Smith

Contents

INTRODUCTION

ARISTOTLE’S ETHICS
BOOK I
BOOK II
BOOK III
BOOK IV
BOOK V
BOOK VI
BOOK VII
BOOK VIII
BOOK IX
BOOK X
NOTES

INTRODUCTION

The Ethics of Aristotle is one half of a single treatise of which his
Politics is the other half. Both deal with one and the same subject. This
subject is what Aristotle calls in one place the “philosophy of human
affairs;” but more frequently Political or Social Science. In the two works
taken together we have their author’s whole theory of human conduct or
practical activity, that is, of all human activity which is not directed merely
to knowledge or truth. The two parts of this treatise are mutually
complementary, but in a literary sense each is independent and self-
contained. The proem to the Ethics is an introduction to the whole subject,
not merely to the first part; the last chapter of the Ethics points forward to
the Politics, and sketches for that part of the treatise the order of enquiry to
be pursued (an order which in the actual treatise is not adhered to).
The principle of distribution of the subject-matter between the two works
is far from obvious, and has been much debated. Not much can be gathered
from their titles, which in any case were not given to them by their author.
Nor do these titles suggest any very compact unity in the works to which
they are applied: the plural forms, which survive so oddly in English
(Ethics, Politics), were intended to indicate the treatment within a single
work of a group of connected questions. The unity of the first group arises
from their centring round the topic of character, that of the second from
their connection with the existence and life of the city or state. We have thus
to regard the Ethics as dealing with one group of problems and the Politics
with a second, both falling within the wide compass of Political Science.
Each of these groups falls into sub-groups which roughly correspond to the
several books in each work. The tendency to take up one by one the various
problems which had suggested themselves in the wide field obscures both
the unity of the subject-matter and its proper articulation. But it is to be
remembered that what is offered us is avowedly rather an enquiry than an
exposition of hard and fast doctrine.

Nevertheless each work aims at a relative completeness, and it is
important to observe the relation of each to the other. The distinction is not
that the one treats of Moral and the other of Political Philosophy, nor again
that the one deals with the moral activity of the individual and the other
with that of the State, nor once more that the one gives us the theory of
human conduct, while the other discusses its application in practice, though
not all of these misinterpretations are equally erroneous. The clue to the
right interpretation is given by Aristotle himself, where in the last chapter of
the Ethics he is paving the way for the Politics. In the Ethics he has not
confined himself to the abstract or isolated individual, but has always
thought of him, or we might say, in his social and political context, with a
given nature due to race and heredity and in certain surroundings. So
viewing him he has studied the nature and formation of his character—all
that he can make himself or be made by others to be. Especially he has
investigated the various admirable forms of human character and the mode
of their production. But all this, though it brings more clearly before us
what goodness or virtue is, and how it is to be reached, remains mere theory
or talk. By itself it does not enable us to become, or to help others to
become, good. For this it is necessary to bring into play the great force of
the Political Community or State, of which the main instrument is Law.
Hence arises the demand for the necessary complement to the Ethics, i.e., a
treatise devoted to the questions which centre round the enquiry; by what
organisation of social or political forces, by what laws or institutions can we
best secure the greatest amount of good character?
We must, however, remember that the production of good character is not
the end of either individual or state action: that is the aim of the one and the
other because good character is the indispensable condition and chief
determinant of happiness, itself the goal of all human doing. The end of all
action, individual or collective, is the greatest happiness of the greatest
number. There is, Aristotle insists, no difference of kind between the good
of one and the good of many or all. The sole difference is one of amount or
scale. This does not mean simply that the State exists to secure in larger
measure the objects of degree which the isolated individual attempts, but is
too feeble, to secure without it. On the contrary, it rather insists that
whatever goods society alone enables a man to secure have always had to
the individual—whether he realised it or not—the value which, when so
secured, he recognises them to possess. The best and happiest life for the

individual is that which the State renders possible, and this it does mainly
by revealing to him the value of new objects of desire and educating him to
appreciate them. To Aristotle or to Plato the State is, above all, a large and
powerful educative agency which gives the individual increased
opportunities of self-development and greater capacities for the enjoyment
of life.
Looking forward, then, to the life of the State as that which aids support,
and combines the efforts of the individual to obtain happiness, Aristotle
draws no hard and fast distinction between the spheres of action of Man as
individual and Man as citizen. Nor does the division of his discussion into
the Ethics and the Politics rest upon any such distinction. The distinction
implied is rather between two stages in the life of the civilised man—the
stage of preparation for the full life of the adult citizen, and the stage of the
actual exercise or enjoyment of citizenship. Hence the Ethics, where his
attention is directed upon the formation of character, is largely and centrally
a treatise on Moral Education. It discusses especially those admirable
human qualities which fit a man for life in an organised civic community,
which makes him “a good citizen,” and considers how they can be fostered
or created and their opposites prevented.
This is the kernel of the Ethics, and all the rest is subordinate to this main
interest and purpose. Yet “the rest” is not irrelevant; the whole situation in
which character grows and operates is concretely conceived. There is a
basis of what we should call Psychology, sketched in firm outlines, the
deeper presuppositions and the wider issues of human character and
conduct are not ignored, and there is no little of what we should call
Metaphysics. But neither the Psychology nor the Metaphysics is elaborated,
and only so much is brought forward as appears necessary to put the main
facts in their proper perspective and setting. It is this combination of width
of outlook with close observation of the concrete facts of conduct which
gives its abiding value to the work, and justifies the view of it as containing
Aristotle’s Moral Philosophy. Nor is it important merely as summing up the
moral judgments and speculations of an age now long past. It seizes and
dwells upon those elements and features in human practice which are most
essential and permanent, and it is small wonder that so much in it survives
in our own ways of regarding conduct and speaking of it. Thus it still
remains one of the classics of Moral Philosophy, nor is its value likely soon
to be exhausted.

As was pointed out above, the proem (Book I., cc. i-iii.) is a prelude to
the treatment of the whole subject covered by the Ethics and the Politics
together. It sets forth the purpose of the enquiry, describes the spirit in
which it is to be undertaken and what ought to be the expectation of the
reader, and lastly states the necessary conditions of studying it with profit.
The aim of it is the acquisition and propagation of a certain kind of
knowledge (science), but this knowledge and the thinking which brings it
about are subsidiary to a practical end. The knowledge aimed at is of what
is best for man and of the conditions of its realisation. Such knowledge is
that which in its consumate form we find in great statesmen, enabling them
to organise and administer their states and regulate by law the life of the
citizens to their advantage and happiness, but it is the same kind of
knowledge which on a smaller scale secures success in the management of
the family or of private life.
It is characteristic of such knowledge that it should be deficient in
“exactness,” in precision of statement, and closeness of logical
concatenation. We must not look for a mathematics of conduct. The subject-
matter of Human Conduct is not governed by necessary and uniform laws.
But this does not mean that it is subject to no laws. There are general
principles at work in it, and these can be formulated in “rules,” which rules
can be systematised or unified. It is all-important to remember that practical
or moral rules are only general and always admit of exceptions, and that
they arise not from the mere complexity of the facts, but from the liability
of the facts to a certain unpredictable variation. At their very best, practical
rules state probabilities, not certainties; a relative constancy of connection is
all that exists, but it is enough to serve as a guide in life. Aristotle here
holds the balance between a misleading hope of reducing the subject-matter
of conduct to a few simple rigorous abstract principles, with conclusions
necessarily issuing from them, and the view that it is the field of operation
of inscrutable forces acting without predictable regularity. He does not
pretend to find in it absolute uniformities, or to deduce the details from his
principles. Hence, too, he insists on the necessity of experience as the
source or test of all that he has to say. Moral experience—the actual
possession and exercise of good character—is necessary truly to understand
moral principles and profitably to apply them. The mere intellectual
apprehension of them is not possible, or if possible, profitless.

The Ethics is addressed to students who are presumed both to have
enough general education to appreciate these points, and also to have a solid
foundation of good habits. More than that is not required for the profitable
study of it.
If the discussion of the nature and formation of character be regarded as
the central topic of the Ethics, the contents of Book I., cc. iv.-xii. may be
considered as still belonging to the introduction and setting, but these
chapters contain matter of profound importance and have exercised an
enormous influence upon subsequent thought. They lay down a principle
which governs all Greek thought about human life, viz. that it is only
intelligible when viewed as directed towards some end or good. This is the
Greek way of expressing that all human life involves an ideal element—
something which it is not yet and which under certain conditions it is to be.
In that sense Greek Moral Philosophy is essentially idealistic. Further it is
always assumed that all human practical activity is directed or “oriented” to
a single end, and that that end is knowable or definable in advance of its
realisation. To know it is not merely a matter of speculative interest, it is of
the highest practical moment for only in the light of it can life be duly
guided, and particularly only so can the state be properly organised and
administered. This explains the stress laid throughout by Greek Moral
Philosophy upon the necessity of knowledge as a condition of the best life.
This knowledge is not, though it includes knowledge of the nature of man
and his circumstances, it is knowledge of what is best—of man’s supreme
end or good.
But this end is not conceived as presented to him by a superior power nor
even as something which ought to be. The presentation of the Moral Ideal
as Duty is almost absent. From the outset it is identified with the object of
desire, of what we not merely judge desirable but actually do desire, or that
which would, if realised, satisfy human desire. In fact it is what we all, wise
and simple, agree in naming “Happiness” (Welfare or Well-being)
In what then does happiness consist? Aristotle summarily sets aside the
more or less popular identifications of it with abundance of physical
pleasures, with political power and honour, with the mere possession of
such superior gifts or attainments as normally entitle men to these, with
wealth. None of these can constitute the end or good of man as such. On the
other hand, he rejects his master Plato’s conception of a good which is the

end of the whole universe, or at least dismisses it as irrelevant to his present
enquiry. The good towards which all human desires and practical activities
are directed must be one conformable to man’s special nature and
circumstances and attainable by his efforts. There is in Aristotle’s theory of
human conduct no trace of Plato’s “other worldliness”, he brings the moral
ideal in Bacon’s phrase down to “right earth”—and so closer to the facts
and problems of actual human living. Turning from criticism of others he
states his own positive view of Happiness, and, though he avowedly states
it merely in outline his account is pregnant with significance. Human
Happiness lies in activity or energising, and that in a way peculiar to man
with his given nature and his given circumstances, it is not theoretical, but
practical: it is the activity not of reason but still of a being who possesses
reason and applies it, and it presupposes in that being the development, and
not merely the natural possession, of certain relevant powers and capacities.
The last is the prime condition of successful living and therefore of
satisfaction, but Aristotle does not ignore other conditions, such as length of
life, wealth and good luck, the absence or diminution of which render
happiness not impossible, but difficult of attainment.
It is interesting to compare this account of Happiness with Mill’s in
Utilitarianism. Mill’s is much the less consistent: at times he distinguishes
and at times he identifies, happiness, pleasure, contentment, and
satisfaction. He wavers between belief in its general attainability and an
absence of hopefulness. He mixes up in an arbitrary way such ingredients as
“not expecting more from life than it is capable of bestowing,” “mental
cultivation,” “improved laws,” etc., and in fact leaves the whole conception
vague, blurred, and uncertain. Aristotle draws the outline with a firmer hand
and presents a more definite ideal. He allows for the influence on happiness
of conditions only partly, if at all, within the control of man, but he clearly
makes the man positive determinant of man’s happiness he in himself, and
more particularly in what he makes directly of his own nature, and so
indirectly of his circumstances. “‘Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus”
But once more this does not involve an artificial or abstract isolation of the
individual moral agent from his relation to other persons or things from his
context in society and nature, nor ignore the relative dependence of his life
upon a favourable environment.
The main factor which determines success or failure in human life is the
acquisition of certain powers, for Happiness is just the exercise or putting

forth of these in actual living, everything else is secondary and subordinate.
These powers arise from the due development of certain natural aptitudes
which belong (in various degrees) to human nature as such and therefore to
all normal human beings. In their developed form they are known as virtues
(the Greek means simply “goodnesses,” “perfections,” “excellences,” or
“fitnesses”), some of them are physical, but others are psychical, and
among the latter some, and these distinctively or peculiarly human, are
“rational,” i e, presuppose the possession and exercise of mind or
intelligence. These last fall into two groups, which Aristotle distinguishes as
Goodnesses of Intellect and Goodnesses of Character. They have in
common that they all excite in us admiration and praise of their possessors,
and that they are not natural endowments, but acquired characteristics But
they differ in important ways. (1) the former are excellences or developed
powers of the reason as such—of that in us which sees and formulates laws,
rules, regularities systems, and is content in the vision of them, while the
latter involve a submission or obedience to such rules of something in us
which is in itself capricious and irregular, but capable of regulation, viz our
instincts and feelings, (2) the former are acquired by study and instruction,
the latter by discipline. The latter constitute “character,” each of them as a
“moral virtue” (literally “a goodness of character”), and upon them
primarily depends the realisation of happiness. This is the case at least for
the great majority of men, and for all men their possession is an
indispensable basis of the best, i e, the most desirable life. They form the
chief or central subject-matter of the Ethics.
Perhaps the truest way of conceiving Aristotle’s meaning here is to regard
a moral virtue as a form of obedience to a maxim or rule of conduct
accepted by the agent as valid for a class of recurrent situations in human
life. Such obedience requires knowledge of the rule and acceptance of it as
the rule of the agent’s own actions, but not necessarily knowledge of its
ground or of its systematic connexion with other similarly known and
similarly accepted rules (It may be remarked that the Greek word usually
translated “reason,” means in almost all cases in the Ethics such a rule, and
not the faculty which apprehends, formulates, considers them).
The “moral virtues and vices” make up what we call character, and the
important questions arise: (1) What is character? and (2) How is it formed?
(for character in this sense is not a natural endowment; it is formed or
produced). Aristotle deals with these questions in the reverse order. His

answers are peculiar and distinctive—not that they are absolutely novel (for
they are anticipated in Plato), but that by him they are for the first time
distinctly and clearly formulated.
(1.) Character, good or bad, is produced by what Aristotle calls
“habituation,” that is, it is the result of the repeated doing of acts which
have a similar or common quality. Such repetition acting upon natural
aptitudes or propensities gradually fixes them in one or other of two
opposite directions, giving them a bias towards good or evil. Hence the
several acts which determine goodness or badness of character must be
done in a certain way, and thus the formation of good character requires
discipline and direction from without. Not that the agent himself contributes
nothing to the formation of his character, but that at first he needs guidance.
The point is not so much that the process cannot be safely left to Nature, but
that it cannot be entrusted to merely intellectual instruction. The process is
one of assimilation, largely by imitation and under direction and control.
The result is a growing understanding of what is done, a choice of it for its
own sake, a fixity and steadiness of purpose. Right acts and feelings
become, through habit, easier and more pleasant, and the doing of them a
“second nature.” The agent acquires the power of doing them freely,
willingly, more and more “of himself.”
But what are “right” acts? In the first place, they are those that conform
to a rule—to the right rule, and ultimately to reason. The Greeks never
waver from the conviction that in the end moral conduct is essentially
reasonable conduct. But there is a more significant way of describing their
“rightness,” and here for the first time Aristotle introduces his famous
“Doctrine of the Mean.” Reasoning from the analogy of “right” physical
acts, he pronounces that rightness always means adaptation or adjustment to
the special requirements of a situation. To this adjustment he gives a
quantitative interpretation. To do (or to feel) what is right in a given
situation is to do or to feel just the amount required—neither more nor less:
to do wrong is to do or to feel too much or too little—to fall short of or
over-shoot, “a mean” determined by the situation. The repetition of acts
which lie in the mean is the cause of the formation of each and every
“goodness of character,” and for this “rules” can be given.
(2) What then is a “moral virtue,” the result of such a process duly
directed? It is no mere mood of feeling, no mere liability to emotion, no

mere natural aptitude or endowment, it is a permanent state of the agent’s
self, or, as we might in modern phrase put it, of his will, it consists in a
steady self-imposed obedience to a rule of action in certain situations which
frequently recur in human life. The rule prescribes the control and
regulation within limits of the agent’s natural impulses to act and feel thus
and thus. The situations fall into groups which constitute the “fields” of the
several “moral virtues”, for each there is a rule, conformity to which
secures rightness in the individual acts. Thus the moral ideal appears as a
code of rules, accepted by the agent, but as yet to him without rational
justification and without system or unity. But the rules prescribe no
mechanical uniformity: each within its limits permits variety, and the
exactly right amount adopted to the requirements of the individual situation
(and every actual situation is individual) must be determined by the
intuition of the moment. There is no attempt to reduce the rich possibilities
of right action to a single monotonous type. On the contrary, there are
acknowledged to be many forms of moral virtue, and there is a long list of
them, with their correlative vices enumerated.
The Doctrine of the Mean here takes a form in which it has impressed
subsequent thinkers, but which has less importance than is usually ascribed
to it. In the “Table of the Virtues and Vices,” each of the virtues is flanked
by two opposite vices, which are respectively the excess and defect of that
which in due measure constitutes the virtue. Aristotle tries to show that this
is the case in regard to every virtue named and recognised as such, but his
treatment is often forced and the endeavour is not very successful. Except
as a convenient principle of arrangement of the various forms of
praiseworthy or blameworthy characters, generally acknowledged as such
by Greek opinion, this form of the doctrine is of no great significance.
Books III-V are occupied with a survey of the moral virtues and vices.
These seem to have been undertaken in order to verify in detail the general
account, but this aim is not kept steadily in view. Nor is there any well-
considered principle of classification. What we find is a sort of portrait-
gallery of the various types of moral excellence which the Greeks of the
author’s age admired and strove to encourage. The discussion is full of
acute, interesting and sometimes profound observations. Some of the types
are those which are and will be admired at all times, but others are
connected with peculiar features of Greek life which have now passed
away. The most important is that of Justice or the Just Man, to which we

may later return. But the discussion is preceded by an attempt to elucidate
some difficult and obscure points in the general account of moral virtue and
action (Book III, cc i-v). This section is concerned with the notion of
Responsibility. The discussion designedly excludes what we may call the
metaphysical issues of the problem, which here present themselves, it
moves on the level of thought of the practical man, the statesman, and the
legislator. Coercion and ignorance of relevant circumstances render acts
involuntary and exempt their doer from responsibility, otherwise the act is
voluntary and the agent responsible, choice or preference of what is done,
and inner consent to the deed, are to be presumed. Neither passion nor
ignorance of the right rule can extenuate responsibility. But there is a
difference between acts done voluntarily and acts done of set choice or
purpose. The latter imply Deliberation. Deliberation involves thinking,
thinking out means to ends: in deliberate acts the whole nature of the agent
consents to and enters into the act, and in a peculiar sense they are his, they
are him in action, and the most significant evidence of what he is. Aristotle
is unable wholly to avoid allusion to the metaphysical difficulties and what
he does here say upon them is obscure and unsatisfactory. But he insists
upon the importance in moral action of the agent’s inner consent, and on the
reality of his individual responsibility. For his present purpose the
metaphysical difficulties are irrelevant.
The treatment of Justice in Book V has always been a source of great
difficulty to students of the Ethics. Almost more than any other part of the
work it has exercised influence upon mediaeval and modern thought upon
the subject. The distinctions and divisions have become part of the stock-in-
trade of would be philosophic jurists. And yet, oddly enough, most of these
distinctions have been misunderstood and the whole purport of the
discussion misconceived. Aristotle is here dealing with justice in a restricted
sense viz as that special goodness of character which is required of every
adult citizen and which can be produced by early discipline or habituation.
It is the temper or habitual attitude demanded of the citizen for the due
exercise of his functions as taking part in the administration of the civic
community—as a member of the judicature and executive. The Greek
citizen was only exceptionally, and at rare intervals if ever, a law-maker
while at any moment he might be called upon to act as a judge (juryman or
arbitrator) or as an administrator. For the work of a legislator far more than
the moral virtue of justice or fairmindedness was necessary, these were

requisite to the rarer and higher “intellectual virtue” of practical wisdom.
Then here, too, the discussion moves on a low level, and the raising of
fundamental problems is excluded. Hence “distributive justice” is
concerned not with the large question of the distribution of political power
and privileges among the constituent members or classes of the state but
with the smaller questions of the distribution among those of casual gains
and even with the division among private claimants of a common fund or
inheritance, while “corrective justice” is concerned solely with the
management of legal redress. The whole treatment is confused by the
unhappy attempt to give a precise mathematical form to the principles of
justice in the various fields distinguished. Still it remains an interesting first
endeavour to give greater exactness to some of the leading conceptions of
jurisprudence.
Book VI appears to have in view two aims: (1) to describe goodness of
intellect and discover its highest form or forms; (2) to show how this is
related to goodness of character, and so to conduct generally. As all thinking
is either theoretical or practical, goodness of intellect has two supreme
forms—Theoretical and Practical Wisdom. The first, which apprehends the
eternal laws of the universe, has no direct relation to human conduct: the
second is identical with that master science of human life of which the
whole treatise, consisting of the Ethics and the Politics, is an exposition. It
is this science which supplies the right rules of conduct Taking them as they
emerge in and from practical experience, it formulates them more precisely
and organises them into a system where they are all seen to converge upon
happiness. The mode in which such knowledge manifests itself is in the
power to show that such and such rules of action follow from the very
nature of the end or good for man. It presupposes and starts from a clear
conception of the end and the wish for it as conceived, and it proceeds by a
deduction which is dehberation writ large. In the man of practical wisdom
this process has reached its perfect result, and the code of right rules is
apprehended as a system with a single principle and so as something wholly
rational or reasonable He has not on each occasion to seek and find the right
rule applicable to the situation, he produces it at once from within himself,
and can at need justify it by exhibiting its rationale, i.e. , its connection with
the end. This is the consummate form of reason applied to conduct, but
there are minor forms of it, less independent or original, but nevertheless of
great value, such as the power to think out the proper cause of policy in

novel circumstances or the power to see the proper line of treatment to
follow in a court of law.
The form of the thinking which enters into conduct is that which
terminates in the production of a rule which declares some means to the end
of life. The process presupposes (a) a clear and just apprehension of the
nature of that end—such as the Ethics itself endeavours to supply; (b) a
correct perception of the conditions of action, (a) at least is impossible
except to a man whose character has been duly formed by discipline; it
arises only in a man who has acquired moral virtue. For such action and
feeling as forms bad character, blinds the eye of the soul and corrupts the
moral principle, and the place of practical wisdom is taken by that parody
of itself which Aristotle calls “cleverness”—the “wisdom” of the
unscrupulous man of the world. Thus true practical wisdom and true
goodness of character are interdependent; neither is genuinely possible or
“completely” present without the other. This is Aristotle’s contribution to
the discussion of the question, so central in Greek Moral Philosophy, of the
relation of the intellectual and the passionate factors in conduct.
Aristotle is not an intuitionist, but he recognises the implication in
conduct of a direct and immediate apprehension both of the end and of the
character of his circumstances under which it is from moment to moment
realised. The directness of such apprehension makes it analogous to
sensation or sense-perception; but it is on his view in the end due to the
existence or activity in man of that power in him which is the highest thing
in his nature, and akin to or identical with the divine nature—mind, or
intelligence. It is this which reveals to us what is best for us—the ideal of a
happiness which is the object of our real wish and the goal of all our efforts.
But beyond and above the practical ideal of what is best for man begins to
show itself another and still higher ideal—that of a life not distinctively
human or in a narrow sense practical, yet capable of being participated in
by man even under the actual circumstances of this world. For a time,
however, this further and higher ideal is ignored.
The next book (Book VII.), is concerned partly with moral conditions, in
which the agent seems to rise above the level of moral virtue or fall below
that of moral vice, but partly and more largely with conditions in which the
agent occupies a middle position between the two. Aristotle’s attention is
here directed chiefly towards the phenomena of “Incontinence,” weakness

of will or imperfect self-control. This condition was to the Greeks a matter
of only too frequent experience, but it appeared to them peculiarly difficult
to understand. How can a man know what is good or best for him, and yet
chronically fail to act upon his knowledge? Socrates was driven to the
paradox of denying the possibility, but the facts are too strong for him.
Knowledge of the right rule may be present, nay the rightfulness of its
authority may be acknowledged, and yet time after time it may be
disobeyed; the will may be good and yet overmastered by the force of
desire, so that the act done is contrary to the agent’s will. Nevertheless the
act may be the agent’s, and the will therefore divided against itself. Aristotle
is aware of the seriousness and difficulty of the problem, but in spite of the
vividness with which he pictures, and the acuteness with which he analyses,
the situation in which such action occurs, it cannot be said that he solves the
problem. It is time that he rises above the abstract view of it as a conflict
between reason and passion, recognising that passion is involved in the
knowledge which in conduct prevails or is overborne, and that the force
which leads to the wrong act is not blind or ignorant passion, but always has
some reason in it. But he tends to lapse back into the abstraction, and his
final account is perplexed and obscure. He finds the source of the
phenomenon in the nature of the desire for bodily pleasures, which is not
irrational but has something rational in it. Such pleasures are not necessarily
or inherently bad, as has sometimes been maintained; on the contrary, they
are good, but only in certain amounts or under certain conditions, so that the
will is often misled, hesitates, and is lost.
Books VIII. and IX. (on Friendship) are almost an interruption of the
argument. The subject-matter of them was a favourite topic of ancient
writers, and the treatment is smoother and more orderly than elsewhere in
the Ethics. The argument is clear, and may be left without comment to the
readers. These books contain a necessary and attractive complement to the
somewhat dry account of Greek morality in the preceding books, and there
are in them profound reflections on what may be called the metaphysics of
friendship or love.
At the beginning of Book X. we return to the topic of Pleasure, which is
now regarded from a different point of view. In Book VII. the antagonists
were those who over-emphasised the irrationality or badness of Pleasure:
here it is rather those who so exaggerate its value as to confuse or identify it
with the good or Happiness. But there is offered us in this section much

more than criticism of the errors of others. Answers are given both to the
psychological question, “What is Pleasure?” and to the ethical question,
“What is its value?” Pleasure, we are told, is the natural concomitant and
index of perfect activity, distinguishable but inseparable from it—“the
activity of a subject at its best acting upon an object at its best.” It is
therefore always and in itself a good, but its value rises and falls with that
of the activity with which it is conjoined, and which it intensifies and
perfects. Hence it follows that the highest and best pleasures are those
which accompany the highest and best activity.
Pleasure is, therefore, a necessary element in the best life, but it is not the
whole of it nor the principal ingredient. The value of a life depends upon
the nature and worth of the activity which it involves; given the maximum
of full free action, the maximum of pleasure necessary follows. But on what
sort of life is such activity possible? This leads us back to the question,
What is happiness? In what life can man find the fullest satisfaction for his
desires? To this question Aristotle gives an answer which cannot but
surprise us after what has preceded. True Happiness, great satisfaction,
cannot be found by man in any form of “practical” life, no, not in the fullest
and freest exercise possible of the “moral virtues,” not in the life of the
citizen or of the great soldier or statesman. To seek it there is to court failure
and disappointment. It is to be found in the life of the onlooker, the
disinterested spectator; or, to put it more distinctly, “in the life of the
philosopher, the life of scientific and philosophic contemplation.” The
highest and most satisfying form of life possible to man is “the
contemplative life”; it is only in a secondary sense and for those incapable
of their life, that the practical or moral ideal is the best. It is time that such a
life is not distinctively human, but it is the privilege of man to partake in it,
and such participation, at however rare intervals and for however short a
period, is the highest Happiness which human life can offer. All other
activities have value only because and in so far as they render this life
possible.
But it must not be forgotten that Aristotle conceives of this life as one of
intense activity or energising: it is just this which gives it its supremacy. In
spite of the almost religious fervour with which he speaks of it (“the most
orthodox of his disciples” paraphrases his meaning by describing its content
as “the service and vision of God”), it is clear that he identified it with the
life of the philosopher, as he understood it, a life of ceaseless intellectual

activity in which at least at times all the distractions and disturbances
inseparable from practical life seemed to disappear and become as nothing.
This ideal was partly an inheritance from the more ardent idealism of his
master Plato, but partly it was the expression of personal experience.
The nobility of this ideal cannot be questioned; the conception of the end
of man or a life lived for truth—of a life blissfully absorbed in the vision of
truth—is a lofty and inspiring one. But we cannot resist certain criticisms
upon its presentation by Aristotle: (1) the relation of it to the lower ideal of
practice is left somewhat obscure; (2) it is described in such a way as
renders its realisation possible only to a gifted few, and under exceptional
circumstances; (3) it seems in various ways, as regards its content, to be
unnecessarily and unjustifiably limited. But it must be borne in mind that
this is a first endeavour to determine its principle, and that similar failures
have attended the attempts to describe the “religious” or the “spiritual”
ideals of life, which have continually been suggested by the apparently
inherent limitations of the “practical” or “moral” life, which is the subject
of Moral Philosophy.
The Moral Ideal to those who have most deeply reflected on it leads to
the thought of an Ideal beyond and above it, which alone gives it meaning,
but which seems to escape from definite conception by man. The richness
and variety of this Ideal ceaselessly invite, but as ceaselessly defy, our
attempts to imprison it in a definite formula or portray it in detailed
imagination. Yet the thought of it is and remains inexpungable from our
minds.
This conception of the best life is not forgotten in the Politics The end of
life in the state is itself well-living and well-doing—a life which helps to
produce the best life The great agency in the production of such life is the
State operating through Law, which is Reason backed by Force. For its
greatest efficiency there is required the development of a science of
legislation. The main drift of what he says here is that the most desirable
thing would be that the best reason of the community should be embodied
in its laws. But so far as that is not possible, it still is true that anyone who
would make himself and others better must become a miniature legislator—
must study the general principles of law, morality, and education. The
conception of πολιτικὴ with which he opened the Ethics would serve as a
guide to a father educating his children as well as to the legislator

legislating for the state. Finding in his predecessors no developed doctrine
on this subject, Aristotle proposes himself to undertake the construction of
it, and sketches in advance the programme of the Politics in the concluding
sentence of the Ethics His ultimate object is to answer the questions, What
is the best form of Polity, how should each be constituted, and what laws
and customs should it adopt and employ? Not till this answer is given will
“the philosophy of human affairs” be complete.
On looking back it will be seen that the discussion of the central topic of
the nature and formation of character has expanded into a Philosophy of
Human Conduct, merging at its beginning and end into metaphysics The
result is a Moral Philosophy set against a background of Political Theory
and general Philosophy. The most characteristic features of this Moral
Philosophy are due to the fact of its essentially teleological view of human
life and action: (1) Every human activity, but especially every human
practical activity, is directed towards a simple End discoverable by
reflection, and this End is conceived of as the object of universal human
desire, as something to be enjoyed, not as something which ought to be
done or enacted. Anstotle’s Moral Philosophy is not hedonistic but it is
eudæmomstic, the end is the enjoyment of Happiness, not the fulfilment of
Duty. (2) Every human practical activity derives its value from its efficiency
as a means to that end, it is good or bad, right or wrong, as it conduces or
fails to conduce to Happiness Thus his Moral Philosophy is essentially
utilitarian or prudential Right action presupposes Thought or Thinking,
partly on the development of a clearer and distincter conception of the end
of desire, partly as the deduction from that of rules which state the normally
effective conditions of its realisation. The thinking involved in right
conduct is calculation—calculation of means to an end fixed by nature and
foreknowable Action itself is at its best just the realisation of a scheme
preconceived and thought out beforehand, commending itself by its
inherent attractiveness or promise of enjoyment.
This view has the great advantage of exhibiting morality as essentially
reasonable, but the accompanying disadvantage of lowering it into a
somewhat prosaic and unideal Prudentialism, nor is it saved from this by
the tacking on to it, by a sort of after-thought, of the second and higher
Ideal—an addition which ruins the coherence of the account without really
transmuting its substance The source of our dissatisfaction with the whole
theory lies deeper than in its tendency to identify the end with the maximum

of enjoyment or satisfaction, or to regard the goodness or badness of acts
and feelings as lying solely in their efficacy to produce such a result It
arises from the application to morality of the distinction of means and end
For this distinction, for all its plausibility and usefulness in ordinary thought
and speech, cannot finally be maintained In morality—and this is vital to its
character—everything is both means and end, and so neither in distinction
or separation, and all thinking about it which presupposes the finality of this
distinction wanders into misconception and error. The thinking which really
matters in conduct is not a thinking which imaginatively forecasts ideals
which promise to fulfil desire, or calculates means to their attainment—that
is sometimes useful, sometimes harmful, and always subordinate, but
thinking which reveals to the agent the situation in which he is to act, both,
that is, the universal situation on which as man he always and everywhere
stands, and the ever-varying and ever-novel situation in which he as this
individual, here and now, finds himself. In such knowledge of given or
historic fact lie the natural determinants of his conduct, in such knowledge
alone lies the condition of his freedom and his good.
But this does not mean that Moral Philosophy has not still much to learn
from Aristotle’s Ethics. The work still remains one of the best introductions
to a study of its important subject-matter, it spreads before us a view of the
relevant facts, it reduces them to manageable compass and order, it raises
some of the central problems, and makes acute and valuable suggestions
towards their solution. Above all, it perpetually incites to renewed and
independent reflection upon them.

J. A. SMITH

The following is a list of the works of Aristotle:—
First edition of works (with omission of Rhetorica, Poetica, and second
book of Economica), 5 vols by Aldus Manutius, Venice, 1495 8, re
impression supervised by Erasmus and with certain corrections by
Grynaeus (including Rhetorica and Poetica), 1531, 1539, revised 1550, later
editions were followed by that of Immanuel Bekker and Brandis (Greek and
Latin), 5 vols. The 5th vol contains the Index by Bomtz, 1831-70, Didot
edition (Greek and Latin), 5 vols 1848 74

ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS Edited by T Taylor, with Porphyry’s
Introduction, 9 vols, 1812, under editorship of J A Smith and W D Ross, II
vols, 1908-31, Loeb editions Ethica, Rhetorica, Poetica, Physica, Politica,
Metaphysica, 1926-33
Later editions of separate works De Anima Torstrik, 1862,
Trendelenburg, 2nd edition, 1877, with English translation, L Wallace,
1882, Biehl, 1884, 1896, with English, R D Hicks, 1907 Ethica J S Brewer
(Nicomachean), 1836, W E Jelf, 1856, J F T Rogers, 1865, A Grant, 1857 8,
1866, 1874, 1885, E Moore, 1871, 1878, 4th edition, 1890, Ramsauer
(Nicomachean), 1878, Susemihl, 1878, 1880, revised by O Apelt, 1903, A
Grant, 1885, I Bywater (Nicomachean), 1890, J Burnet, 1900
Historia Animalium Schneider, 1812, Aubert and Wimmer, 1860;
Dittmeyer, 1907
Metaphysica Schwegler, 1848, W Christ, 1899
Organon Waitz, 1844 6
Poetica Vahlen, 1867, 1874, with Notes by E Moore, 1875, with English
translation by E R Wharton, 1883, 1885, Uberweg, 1870, 1875, with
German translation, Susemihl, 1874, Schmidt, 1875, Christ, 1878, I
Bywater, 1898, T G Tucker, 1899
De Republica Athenientium Text and facsimile of Papyrus, F G Kenyon,
1891, 3rd edition, 1892, Kaibel and Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, 1891, 3rd
edition, 1898, Van Herwerden and Leeuwen (from Kenyon’s text), 1891,
Blass, 1892, 1895, 1898, 1903, J E Sandys, 1893
Politica Susemihl, 1872, with German, 1878, 3rd edition, 1882, Susemihl
and Hicks, 1894, etc, O Immisch, 1909
Physica C Prantl, 1879
Rhetorica Stahr, 1862, Sprengel (with Latin text), 1867, Cope and
Sandys, 1877, Roemer, 1885, 1898
ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF ONE OR MORE WORKS De Anima
(with Parva Naturalia), by W A Hammond, 1902 Ethica Of Morals to
Nicomachus, by E Pargiter, 1745, with Politica by J Gillies, 1797, 1804,
1813, with Rhetorica and Poetica, by T Taylor, 1818, and later editions
Nicomachean Ethics, 1819, mainly from text of Bekker by D P Chase,
1847, revised 1861, and later editions, with an introductory essay by G H
Lewes (Camelot Classics) 1890, re-edited by J M Mitchell (New Universal

Library), 1906, 1910, by R W Browne (Bohn’s Classical Library), 1848,
etc, by R Williams, 1869, 1876, by W M Hatch and others (with translation
of paraphrase attributed to Andronicus of Rhodes), edited by E Hatch, 1879
by F H Peters, 1881, J E C Welldon, 1892, J Gillies (Lubbock’s Hundred
Books) 1893 Historia Animalium, by R Creswell (Bonn’s Classical Library)
1848, with Treatise on Physiognomy, by T Taylor, 1809 Metaphysica, by T
Taylor, 1801, by J H M Mahon (Bohn’s Classical Library), 1848 Organon,
with Porphyry’s Introduction, by O F Owen (Bohn’s Classical Library),
1848 Posterior Analytics, E Poste, 1850, E S Bourchier, 1901, On Fallacies,
E Poste, 1866 Parva Naturaha (Greek and English), by G R T Ross, 1906,
with De Anima, by W A Hammond, 1902 Youth and Old Age, Life and
Death and Respiration, W Ogle 1897 Poetica, with Notes from the French
of D Acier, 1705, by H J Pye, 1788, 1792, T Twining, 1789, 1812, with
Preface and Notes by H Hamilton, 1851, Treatise on Rhetorica and Poetica,
by T Hobbes (Bohn’s Classical Library), 1850, by Wharton, 1883 (see
Greek version), S H Butcher, 1895, 1898, 3rd edition, 1902, E S Bourchier,
1907, by Ingram Bywater, 1909 De Partibus Animalium, W Ogle, 1882 De
Republica Athenientium, by E Poste, 1891, F G Kenyon, 1891, T J Dymes,
1891 De Virtutibus et Vitus, by W Bridgman, 1804 Politica, from the
French of Regius, 1598, by W Ellis, 1776, 1778, 1888 (Morley’s Universal
Library), 1893 (Lubbock’s Hundred Books) by E Walford (with
Æconomics, and Life by Dr Gillies), (Bohn’s Classical Library), 1848, J E.
C. Welldon, 1883, B Jowett, 1885, with Introduction and Index by H W C
Davis, 1905, Books i iii iv (vii) from Bekker’s text by W E Bolland, with
Introduction by A Lang, 1877. Problemata (with writings of other
philosophers), 1597, 1607, 1680, 1684, etc. Rhetorica, A summary by T
Hobbes, 1655 (?), new edition, 1759, by the translators of the Art of
Thinking, 1686, 1816, by D M Crimmin, 1812, J Gillies, 1823, Anon 1847,
J E C Welldon, 1886, R C Jebb, with Introduction and Supplementary Notes
by J E Sandys, 1909 (see under Poetica and Ethica). Secreta Secretorum
(supposititious work), Anon 1702, from the Hebrew version by M Gaster,
1907, 1908. Version by Lydgate and Burgh, edited by R Steele (E E T S),
1894, 1898.
LIFE, ETC J W Blakesley, 1839, A Crichton (Jardine’s Naturalist’s
Library), 1843, JS Blackie, Four Phases of Morals, Socrates, Aristotle, etc,
1871, G Grote, Aristotle, edited by A Bain and G C Robertson, 1872, 1880,
E Wallace, Outlines of the Philosophy of Aristotle, 1875, 1880, A Grant

(Ancient Classics for English readers), 1877, T Davidson, Aristotle and
Ancient Educational Ideals (Great Educators), 1892, F Sewall, Swedenborg
and Aristotle, 1895, W A Heidel, The Necessary and the Contingent of the
Aristotelian System (University of Chicago Contributions to Philosophy),
1896, F W Bain, On the Realisation of the Possible, and the Spirit of
Aristotle, 1899, J H Hyslop, The Ethics of the Greek Philosophers, etc
(Evolution of Ethics), 1903, M V Williams, Six Essays on the Platonic
Theory of Knowledge as expounded in the later dialogues and reviewed by
Aristotle, 1908, J M Watson, Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato, 1909 A E Taylor,
Aristotle, 1919, W D Ross, Aristotle, 1923.

ARISTOTLE’S ETHICS

BOOK I

Chapter I.
Every art, and every science reduced to a teachable form, and in like
manner every action and moral choice, aims, it is thought, at some good: for
which reason a common and by no means a bad description of the Chief
Good is, “that which all things aim at.”
Now there plainly is a difference in the Ends proposed: for in some cases
they are acts of working, and in others certain works or tangible results
beyond and beside the acts of working: and where there are certain Ends
beyond and beside the actions, the works are in their nature better than the
acts of working. Again, since actions and arts and sciences are many, the
Ends likewise come to be many: of the healing art, for instance, health; of
the ship-building art, a vessel; of the military art, victory; and of domestic
management, wealth; are respectively the Ends.
And whatever of such actions, arts, or sciences range under some one
faculty (as under that of horsemanship the art of making bridles, and all that
are connected with the manufacture of horse-furniture in general; this itself
again, and every action connected with war, under the military art; and in
the same way others under others), in all such, the Ends of the master-arts
are more choice-worthy than those ranging under them, because it is with a
view to the former that the latter are pursued.
(And in this comparison it makes no difference whether the acts of
working are themselves the Ends of the actions, or something further beside
them, as is the case in the arts and sciences we have been just speaking of.)
Since then of all things which may be done there is some one End which
we desire for its own sake, and with a view to which we desire everything
else; and since we do not choose in all instances with a further End in view
(for then men would go on without limit, and so the desire would be

unsatisfied and fruitless), this plainly must be the Chief Good, i.e. the best
thing of all.
Surely then, even with reference to actual life and conduct, the
knowledge of it must have great weight; and like archers, with a mark in
view, we shall be more likely to hit upon what is right: and if so, we ought
to try to describe, in outline at least, what it is and of which of the sciences
and faculties it is the End.
Now one would naturally suppose it to be the End of that which is most
commanding and most inclusive: and to this description, πολιτικὴ[1] plainly
answers: for this it is that determines which of the sciences should be in the
communities, and which kind individuals are to learn, and what degree of
proficiency is to be required. Again; we see also ranging under this the most
highly esteemed faculties, such as the art military, and that of domestic
management, and Rhetoric. Well then, since this uses all the other practical
sciences, and moreover lays down rules as to what men are to do, and from
what to abstain, the End of this must include the Ends of the rest, and so
must be The Good of Man. And grant that this is the same to the individual
and to the community, yet surely that of the latter is plainly greater and
more perfect to discover and preserve: for to do this even for a single
individual were a matter for contentment; but to do it for a whole nation,
and for communities generally, were more noble and godlike.
Such then are the objects proposed by our treatise, which is of the nature
of πολιτικὴ: and I conceive I shall have spoken on them satisfactorily, if
they be made as distinctly clear as the nature of the subject-matter will
admit: for exactness must not be looked for in all discussions alike, any
more than in all works of handicraft. Now the notions of nobleness and
justice, with the examination of which πολιτικὴ is concerned, admit of
variation and error to such a degree, that they are supposed by some to exist
conventionally only, and not in the nature of things: but then, again, the
things which are allowed to be goods admit of a similar error, because harm
comes to many from them: for before now some have perished through
wealth, and others through valour.
We must be content then, in speaking of such things and from such data,
to set forth the truth roughly and in outline; in other words, since we are
speaking of general matter and from general data, to draw also conclusions
merely general. And in the same spirit should each person receive what we

say: for the man of education will seek exactness so far in each subject as
the nature of the thing admits, it being plainly much the same absurdity to
put up with a mathematician who tries to persuade instead of proving, and
to demand strict demonstrative reasoning of a Rhetorician.
Now each man judges well what he knows, and of these things he is a
good judge: on each particular matter then he is a good judge who has been
instructed in it, and in a general way the man of general mental cultivation.
[2]

Hence the young man is not a fit student of Moral Philosophy, for he has
no experience in the actions of life, while all that is said presupposes and is
concerned with these: and in the next place, since he is apt to follow the
impulses of his passions, he will hear as though he heard not, and to no
profit, the end in view being practice and not mere knowledge.
And I draw no distinction between young in years, and youthful in
temper and disposition: the defect to which I allude being no direct result of
the time, but of living at the beck and call of passion, and following each
object as it rises.[3] For to them that are such the knowledge comes to be
unprofitable, as to those of imperfect self-control: but, to those who form
their desires and act in accordance with reason, to have knowledge on these
points must be very profitable.
Let thus much suffice by way of preface on these three points, the
student, the spirit in which our observations should be received, and the
object which we propose.

Chapter II.
And now, resuming the statement with which we commenced, since all
knowledge and moral choice grasps at good of some kind or another, what
good is that which we say πολιτικὴ aims at? or, in other words, what is the
highest of all the goods which are the objects of action?
So far as name goes, there is a pretty general agreement: for HAPPINESS
both the multitude and the refined few call it, and “living well” and “doing
well” they conceive to be the same with “being happy;” but about the
Nature of this Happiness, men dispute, and the multitude do not in their
account of it agree with the wise. For some say it is some one of those

things which are palpable and apparent, as pleasure or wealth or honour; in
fact, some one thing, some another; nay, oftentimes the same man gives a
different account of it; for when ill, he calls it health; when poor, wealth:
and conscious of their own ignorance, men admire those who talk grandly
and above their comprehension. Some again held it to be something by
itself, other than and beside these many good things, which is in fact to all
these the cause of their being good.
Now to sift all the opinions would be perhaps rather a fruitless task; so it
shall suffice to sift those which are most generally current, or are thought to
have some reason in them.
And here we must not forget the difference between reasoning from
principles, and reasoning to principles:[4] for with good cause did Plato too
doubt about this, and enquire whether the right road is from principles or to
principles, just as in the racecourse from the judges to the further end, or
vice versâ.
Of course, we must begin with what is known; but then this is of two
kinds, what we do know, and what we may know:[5] perhaps then as
individuals we must begin with what we do know. Hence the necessity that
he should have been well trained in habits, who is to study, with any
tolerable chance of profit, the principles of nobleness and justice and moral
philosophy generally. For a principle is a matter of fact, and if the fact is
sufficiently clear to a man there will be no need in addition of the reason for
the fact. And he that has been thus trained either has principles already, or
can receive them easily: as for him who neither has nor can receive them,
let him hear his sentence from Hesiod:
He is best of all who of himself conceiveth all things;
Good again is he too who can adopt a good suggestion;
But whoso neither of himself conceiveth nor hearing from another
Layeth it to heart;—he is a useless man.

Chapter III.
But to return from this digression.
Now of the Chief Good (i.e. of Happiness) men seem to form their
notions from the different modes of life, as we might naturally expect: the
many and most low conceive it to be pleasure, and hence they are content

with the life of sensual enjoyment. For there are three lines of life which
stand out prominently to view: that just mentioned, and the life in society,
and, thirdly, the life of contemplation.
Now the many are plainly quite slavish, choosing a life like that of brute
animals: yet they obtain some consideration, because many of the great
share the tastes of Sardanapalus. The refined and active again conceive it to
be honour: for this may be said to be the end of the life in society: yet it is
plainly too superficial for the object of our search, because it is thought to
rest with those who pay rather than with him who receives it, whereas the
Chief Good we feel instinctively must be something which is our own, and
not easily to be taken from us.
And besides, men seem to pursue honour, that they may believe
themselves to be good:[6] for instance, they seek to be honoured by the wise,
and by those among whom they are known, and for virtue: clearly then, in
the opinion at least of these men, virtue is higher than honour. In truth, one
would be much more inclined to think this to be the end of the life in
society; yet this itself is plainly not sufficiently final: for it is conceived
possible, that a man possessed of virtue might sleep or be inactive all
through his life, or, as a third case, suffer the greatest evils and misfortunes:
and the man who should live thus no one would call happy, except for mere
disputation’s sake.[7]
And for these let thus much suffice, for they have been treated of at
sufficient length in my Encyclia.[8]
A third line of life is that of contemplation, concerning which we shall
make our examination in the following pages.[9]
As for the life of money-making, it is one of constraint, and wealth
manifestly is not the good we are seeking, because it is for use, that is, for
the sake of something further: and hence one would rather conceive the
forementioned ends to be the right ones, for men rest content with them for
their own sakes. Yet, clearly, they are not the objects of our search either,
though many words have been wasted on them.[10] So much then for these.
Again, the notion of one Universal Good (the same, that is, in all things),
it is better perhaps we should examine, and discuss the meaning of it,
though such an enquiry is unpleasant, because they are friends of ours who
have introduced these εἴδη.[11] Still perhaps it may appear better, nay to be
our duty where the safety of the truth is concerned, to upset if need be even

our own theories, specially as we are lovers of wisdom: for since both are
dear to us, we are bound to prefer the truth. Now they who invented this
doctrine of εἴδη, did not apply it to those things in which they spoke of
priority and posteriority, and so they never made any ἰδέα of numbers; but
good is predicated in the categories of Substance, Quality, and Relation;
now that which exists of itself, i.e. Substance, is prior in the nature of things
to that which is relative, because this latter is an off-shoot, as it were, and
result of that which is; on their own principle then there cannot be a
common ἰδέα in the case of these.
In the next place, since good is predicated in as many ways as there are
modes of existence [for it is predicated in the category of Substance, as
God, Intellect—and in that of Quality, as The Virtues—and in that of
Quantity, as The Mean—and in that of Relation, as The Useful—and in that
of Time, as Opportunity—and in that of Place, as Abode; and other such
like things], it manifestly cannot be something common and universal and
one in all: else it would not have been predicated in all the categories, but in
one only.
Thirdly, since those things which range under one ἰδέα are also under the
cognisance of one science, there would have been, on their theory, only one
science taking cognisance of all goods collectively: but in fact there are
many even for those which range under one category: for instance, of
Opportunity or Seasonableness (which I have before mentioned as being in
the category of Time), the science is, in war, generalship; in disease,
medical science; and of the Mean (which I quoted before as being in the
category of Quantity), in food, the medical science; and in labour or
exercise, the gymnastic science. A person might fairly doubt also what in
the world they mean by very-this that or the other, since, as they would
themselves allow, the account of the humanity is one and the same in the
very-Man, and in any individual Man: for so far as the individual and the
very-Man are both Man, they will not differ at all: and if so, then very-good
and any particular good will not differ, in so far as both are good. Nor will it
do to say, that the eternity of the very-good makes it to be more good; for
what has lasted white ever so long, is no whiter than what lasts but for a
day.
No. The Pythagoreans do seem to give a more credible account of the
matter, who place “One” among the goods in their double list of goods and

bads:[12] which philosophers, in fact, Speusippus[13] seems to have followed.
But of these matters let us speak at some other time. Now there is plainly
a loophole to object to what has been advanced, on the plea that the theory I
have attacked is not by its advocates applied to all good: but those goods
only are spoken of as being under one ἰδέα, which are pursued, and with
which men rest content simply for their own sakes: whereas those things
which have a tendency to produce or preserve them in any way, or to hinder
their contraries, are called good because of these other goods, and after
another fashion. It is manifest then that the goods may be so called in two
senses, the one class for their own sakes, the other because of these.
Very well then, let us separate the independent goods from the
instrumental, and see whether they are spoken of as under one ἰδέα. But the
question next arises, what kind of goods are we to call independent? All
such as are pursued even when separated from other goods, as, for instance,
being wise, seeing, and certain pleasures and honours (for these, though we
do pursue them with some further end in view, one would still place among
the independent goods)? or does it come in fact to this, that we can call
nothing independent good except the ἰδέα, and so the concrete of it will be
nought?
If, on the other hand, these are independent goods, then we shall require
that the account of the goodness be the same clearly in all, just as that of the
whiteness is in snow and white lead. But how stands the fact? Why of
honour and wisdom and pleasure the accounts are distinct and different in
so far as they are good. The Chief Good then is not something common, and
after one ἰδέα.
But then, how does the name come to be common (for it is not seemingly
a case of fortuitous equivocation)? Are different individual things called
good by virtue of being from one source, or all conducing to one end, or
rather by way of analogy, for that intellect is to the soul as sight to the body,
and so on? However, perhaps we ought to leave these questions now, for an
accurate investigation of them is more properly the business of a different
philosophy. And likewise respecting the ἰδέα: for even if there is some one
good predicated in common of all things that are good, or separable and
capable of existing independently, manifestly it cannot be the object of
human action or attainable by Man; but we are in search now of something
that is so.[14]

It may readily occur to any one, that it would be better to attain a
knowledge of it with a view to such concrete goods as are attainable and
practical, because, with this as a kind of model in our hands, we shall the
better know what things are good for us individually, and when we know
them, we shall attain them.
Some plausibility, it is true, this argument possesses, but it is contradicted
by the facts of the Arts and Sciences; for all these, though aiming at some
good, and seeking that which is deficient, yet pretermit the knowledge of it:
now it is not exactly probable that all artisans without exception should be
ignorant of so great a help as this would be, and not even look after it;
neither is it easy to see wherein a weaver or a carpenter will be profited in
respect of his craft by knowing the very-good, or how a man will be the
more apt to effect cures or to command an army for having seen the ἰδέα
itself. For manifestly it is not health after this general and abstract fashion
which is the subject of the physician’s investigation, but the health of Man,
or rather perhaps of this or that man; for he has to heal individuals.—Thus
much on these points.

Chapter IV.
And now let us revert to the Good of which we are in search: what can it
be? for manifestly it is different in different actions and arts: for it is
different in the healing art and in the art military, and similarly in the rest.
What then is the Chief Good in each? Is it not “that for the sake of which
the other things are done?” and this in the healing art is health, and in the art
military victory, and in that of house-building a house, and in any other
thing something else; in short, in every action and moral choice the End,
because in all cases men do everything else with a view to this. So that if
there is some one End of all things which are and may be done, this must be
the Good proposed by doing, or if more than one, then these.
Thus our discussion after some traversing about has come to the same
point which we reached before. And this we must try yet more to clear up.
Now since the ends are plainly many, and of these we choose some with
a view to others (wealth, for instance, musical instruments, and, in general,
all instruments), it is clear that all are not final: but the Chief Good is
manifestly something final; and so, if there is some one only which is final,

this must be the object of our search: but if several, then the most final of
them will be it.
Now that which is an object of pursuit in itself we call more final than
that which is so with a view to something else; that again which is never an
object of choice with a view to something else than those which are so both
in themselves and with a view to this ulterior object: and so by the term
“absolutely final,” we denote that which is an object of choice always in
itself, and never with a view to any other.
And of this nature Happiness is mostly thought to be, for this we choose
always for its own sake, and never with a view to anything further: whereas
honour, pleasure, intellect, in fact every excellence we choose for their own
sakes, it is true (because we would choose each of these even if no result
were to follow), but we choose them also with a view to happiness,
conceiving that through their instrumentality we shall be happy: but no man
chooses happiness with a view to them, nor in fact with a view to any other
thing whatsoever.
The same result[15] is seen to follow also from the notion of self-
sufficiency, a quality thought to belong to the final good. Now by sufficient
for Self, we mean not for a single individual living a solitary life, but for his
parents also and children and wife, and, in general, friends and countrymen;
for man is by nature adapted to a social existence. But of these, of course,
some limit must be fixed: for if one extends it to parents and descendants
and friends’ friends, there is no end to it. This point, however, must be left
for future investigation: for the present we define that to be self-sufficient
“which taken alone makes life choice-worthy, and to be in want of
nothing;” now of such kind we think Happiness to be: and further, to be
most choice-worthy of all things; not being reckoned with any other thing,
[16]
for if it were so reckoned, it is plain we must then allow it, with the
addition of ever so small a good, to be more choice-worthy than it was
before:[17] because what is put to it becomes an addition of so much more
good, and of goods the greater is ever the more choice-worthy.
So then Happiness is manifestly something final and self-sufficient, being
the end of all things which are and may be done.

Chapter V.

But, it may be, to call Happiness the Chief Good is a mere truism, and
what is wanted is some clearer account of its real nature. Now this object
may be easily attained, when we have discovered what is the work of man;
for as in the case of flute-player, statuary, or artisan of any kind, or, more
generally, all who have any work or course of action, their Chief Good and
Excellence is thought to reside in their work, so it would seem to be with
man, if there is any work belonging to him.
Are we then to suppose, that while carpenter and cobbler have certain
works and courses of action, Man as Man has none, but is left by Nature
without a work? or would not one rather hold, that as eye, hand, and foot,
and generally each of his members, has manifestly some special work; so
too the whole Man, as distinct from all these, has some work of his own?[18]
What then can this be? not mere life, because that plainly is shared with
him even by vegetables, and we want what is peculiar to him. We must
separate off then the life of mere nourishment and growth, and next will
come the life of sensation: but this again manifestly is common to horses,
oxen, and every animal. There remains then a kind of life of the Rational
Nature apt to act: and of this Nature there are two parts denominated
Rational, the one as being obedient to Reason, the other as having and
exerting it. Again, as this life is also spoken of in two ways,[19] we must take
that which is in the way of actual working, because this is thought to be
most properly entitled to the name. If then the work of Man is a working of
the soul in accordance with reason, or at least not independently of reason,
and we say that the work of any given subject, and of that subject good of
its kind, are the same in kind (as, for instance, of a harp-player and a good
harp-player, and so on in every case, adding to the work eminence in the
way of excellence; I mean, the work of a harp-player is to play the harp, and
of a good harp-player to play it well); if, I say, this is so, and we assume the
work of Man to be life of a certain kind, that is to say a working of the soul,
and actions with reason, and of a good man to do these things well and
nobly, and in fact everything is finished off well in the way of the
excellence which peculiarly belongs to it: if all this is so, then the Good of
Man comes to be “a working of the Soul in the way of Excellence,” or, if
Excellence admits of degrees, in the way of the best and most perfect
Excellence.

And we must add, ἐν βίῳ τελείῳ;[20] for as it is not one swallow or one
fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes
a man blessed and happy.
Let this then be taken for a rough sketch of the Chief Good: since it is
probably the right way to give first the outline, and fill it in afterwards. And
it would seem that any man may improve and connect what is good in the
sketch, and that time is a good discoverer and co-operator in such matters: it
is thus in fact that all improvements in the various arts have been brought
about, for any man may fill up a deficiency.
You must remember also what has been already stated, and not seek for
exactness in all matters alike, but in each according to the subject-matter,
and so far as properly belongs to the system. The carpenter and
geometrician, for instance, enquire into the right line in different fashion:
the former so far as he wants it for his work, the latter enquires into its
nature and properties, because he is concerned with the truth.
So then should one do in other matters, that the incidental matters may
not exceed the direct ones.
And again, you must not demand the reason either in all things alike,[21]
because in some it is sufficient that the fact has been well demonstrated,
which is the case with first principles; and the fact is the first step, i.e.
starting-point or principle.
And of these first principles some are obtained by induction, some by
perception,[22] some by a course of habituation, others in other different
ways. And we must try to trace up each in their own nature, and take pains
to secure their being well defined, because they have great influence on
what follows: it is thought, I mean, that the starting-point or principle is
more than half the whole matter, and that many of the points of enquiry
come simultaneously into view thereby.

Chapter VI.
We must now enquire concerning Happiness, not only from our
conclusion and the data on which our reasoning proceeds, but likewise from
what is commonly said about it: because with what is true all things which

really are are in harmony, but with that which is false the true very soon
jars.
Now there is a common division of goods into three classes; one being
called external, the other two those of the soul and body respectively, and
those belonging to the soul we call most properly and specially good. Well,
in our definition we assume that the actions and workings of the soul
constitute 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.
And 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
or as a working. For the state or habit[23] may possibly exist in a subject
without effecting any good, 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.[24]

Their life too is in itself pleasant: for the feeling of pleasure is a mental
sensation, and that is to each pleasant of which he is said to be fond: a
horse, for instance, to him who is fond of horses, and a sight to him who is
fond of sights: and so in like manner just acts to him who is fond of justice,
and more generally the things in accordance with virtue to him who is fond
of virtue. Now in the case of the multitude of men the things which they
individually esteem pleasant clash, because they are not such by nature,
whereas to the lovers of nobleness those things are pleasant which are such
by nature: but the actions in accordance with virtue are of this kind, so that
they are pleasant both to the individuals and also in themselves.
So then their life has no need of pleasure as a kind of additional
appendage, but involves pleasure in itself. For, besides what I have just
mentioned, a man is not a good man at all who feels no pleasure in noble
actions,[25] just as no one would call that man just who does not feel
pleasure in acting justly, or liberal who does not in liberal actions, and
similarly in the case of the other virtues which might be enumerated: and if
this be so, then the actions in accordance with virtue must be in themselves
pleasurable. Then again they are certainly good and noble, and each of these
in the highest degree; if we are to take as right the judgment of the good
man, for he judges as we have said.
Thus then Happiness is most excellent, most noble, and most pleasant,
and these attributes are not separated as in the well-known Delian
inscription—
“Most noble is that which is most just, but best is health;
And naturally most pleasant is the obtaining one’s desires.”

For all these co-exist in the best acts of working: and we say that Happiness
is these, or one, that is, the best of them.
Still[26] it is quite plain that it does require the addition of external goods,
as we have said: because without appliances it is impossible, or at all events
not easy, to do noble actions: for friends, money, and political influence are
in a manner instruments whereby many things are done: some things there
are again a deficiency in which mars blessedness; good birth, for instance,
or fine offspring, or even personal beauty: for he is not at all capable of
Happiness who is very ugly, or is ill-born, or solitary and childless; and still
less perhaps supposing him to have very bad children or friends, or to have
lost good ones by death. As we have said already, the addition of prosperity

of this kind does seem necessary to complete the idea of Happiness; hence
some rank good fortune, and others virtue, with Happiness.

Chapter VII.
And hence too a question is raised, whether it is a thing that can be
learned, or acquired by habituation or discipline of some other kind, or
whether it comes in the way of divine dispensation, or even in the way of
chance.
Now to be sure, if anything else is a gift of the Gods to men, it is
probable that Happiness is a gift of theirs too, and specially because of all
human goods it is the highest. But this, it may be, is a question belonging
more properly to an investigation different from ours:[27] and it is quite clear,
that on the supposition of its not being sent from the Gods direct, but
coming to us by reason of virtue and learning of a certain kind, or
discipline, it is yet one of the most Godlike things; because the prize and
End of virtue is manifestly somewhat most excellent, nay divine and
blessed.
It will also on this supposition be widely participated, for it may through
learning and diligence of a certain kind exist in all who have not been
maimed[28] for virtue.
And if it is better we should be happy thus than as a result of chance, this
is in itself an argument that the case is so; because those things which are in
the way of nature, and in like manner of art, and of every cause, and
specially the best cause, are by nature in the best way possible: to leave
them to chance what is greatest and most noble would be very much out of
harmony with all these facts.[29]
The question may be determined also by a reference to our definition of
Happiness, that it is a working of the soul in the way of excellence or virtue
of a certain kind: and of the other goods, some we must have to begin with,
and those which are co-operative and useful are given by nature as
instruments.[30]
These considerations will harmonise also with what we said at the
commencement: for we assumed the End of πολιτικὴ to be most excellent:

now this bestows most care on making the members of the community of a
certain character; good that is and apt to do what is honourable.
With good reason then neither ox nor horse nor any other brute animal do
we call happy, for none of them can partake in such working: and for this
same reason a child is not happy either, because by reason of his tender age
he cannot yet perform such actions: if the term is applied, it is by way of
anticipation.
For to constitute Happiness, there must be, as we have said, complete
virtue and a complete life: for many changes and chances of all kinds arise
during a life, and he who is most prosperous may become involved in great
misfortunes in his old age, as in the heroic poems the tale is told of Priam:
but the man who has experienced such fortune and died in wretchedness, no
man calls happy.

Chapter VIII.
Are we then to call no man happy while he lives, and, as Solon would
have us, look to the end? And again, if we are to maintain this position, is a
man then happy when he is dead? or is not this a complete absurdity,
specially in us who say Happiness is a working of a certain kind?
If on the other hand we do not assert that the dead man is happy, and
Solon does not mean this, but only that one would then be safe in
pronouncing a man happy, as being thenceforward out of the reach of evils
and misfortunes, this too admits of some dispute, since it is thought that the
dead has somewhat both of good and evil (if, as we must allow, a man may
have when alive but not aware of the circumstances), as honour and
dishonour, and good and bad fortune of children and descendants generally.
Nor is this view again without its difficulties: for, after a man has lived in
blessedness to old age and died accordingly, many changes may befall him
in right of his descendants; some of them may be good and obtain positions
in life accordant to their merits, others again quite the contrary: it is plain
too that the descendants may at different intervals or grades stand in all
manner of relations to the ancestors.[31] Absurd indeed would be the position
that even the dead man is to change about with them and become at one
time happy and at another miserable. Absurd however it is on the other

hand that the affairs of the descendants should in no degree and during no
time affect the ancestors.
But we must revert to the point first raised,[32] since the present question
will be easily determined from that.
If then we are to look to the end and then pronounce the man blessed, not
as being so but as having been so at some previous time, surely it is absurd
that when he is happy the truth is not to be asserted of him, because we are
unwilling to pronounce the living happy by reason of their liability to
changes, and because, whereas we have conceived of happiness as
something stable and no way easily changeable, the fact is that good and
bad fortune are constantly circling about the same people: for it is quite
plain, that if we are to depend upon the fortunes of men, we shall often have
to call the same man happy, and a little while after miserable, thus
representing our happy man,
“Chameleon-like, and based on rottenness.”

Is not this the solution? that to make our sentence dependent on the changes
of fortune, is no way right: for not in them stands the well, or the ill, but
though human life needs these as accessories (which we have allowed
already), the workings in the way of virtue are what determine Happiness,
and the contrary the contrary.
And, by the way, the question which has been here discussed, testifies
incidentally to the truth of our account of Happiness.[33] For to nothing does
a stability of human results attach so much as it does to the workings in the
way of virtue, since these are held to be more abiding even than the
sciences: and of these last again[34] the most precious are the most abiding,
because the blessed live in them most and most continuously, which seems
to be the reason why they are not forgotten. So then this stability which is
sought will be in the happy man, and he will be such through life, since
always, or most of all, he will be doing and contemplating the things which
are in the way of virtue: and the various chances of life he will bear most
nobly, and at all times and in all ways harmoniously, since he is the truly
good man, or in the terms of our proverb “a faultless cube.”
And whereas the incidents of chance are many, and differ in greatness
and smallness, the small pieces of good or ill fortune evidently do not affect
the balance of life, but the great and numerous, if happening for good, will

make life more blessed (for it is their nature to contribute to ornament, and
the using of them comes to be noble and excellent), but if for ill, they bruise
as it were and maim the blessedness: for they bring in positive pain, and
hinder many acts of working. But still, even in these, nobleness shines
through when a man bears contentedly many and great mischances not from
insensibility to pain but because he is noble and high-spirited.
And if, as we have said, the acts of working are what determine the
character of the life, no one of the blessed can ever become wretched,
because he will never do those things which are hateful and mean. For the
man who is truly good and sensible bears all fortunes, we presume,
becomingly, and always does what is noblest under the circumstances, just
as a good general employs to the best advantage the force he has with him;
or a good shoemaker makes the handsomest shoe he can out of the leather
which has been given him; and all other good artisans likewise. And if this
be so, wretched never can the happy man come to be: I do not mean to say
he will be blessed should he fall into fortunes like those of Priam.
Nor, in truth, is he shifting and easily changeable, for on the one hand
from his happiness he will not be shaken easily nor by ordinary mischances,
but, if at all, by those which are great and numerous; and, on the other, after
such mischances he cannot regain his happiness in a little time; but, if at all,
in a long and complete period, during which he has made himself master of
great and noble things.
Why then should we not call happy the man who works in the way of
perfect virtue, and is furnished with external goods sufficient for acting his
part in the drama of life:[35] and this during no ordinary period but such as
constitutes a complete life as we have been describing it.
Or we must add, that not only is he to live so, but his death must be in
keeping with such life, since the future is dark to us, and Happiness we
assume to be in every way an end and complete. And, if this be so, we shall
call them among the living blessed who have and will have the things
specified, but blessed as Men.[36]
On these points then let it suffice to have denned thus much.

Chapter IX.

Now that the fortunes of their descendants, and friends generally,
contribute nothing towards forming the condition of the dead, is plainly a
very heartless notion, and contrary to the current opinions.
But since things which befall are many, and differ in all kinds of ways,
and some touch more nearly, others less, to go into minute particular
distinctions would evidently be a long and endless task: and so it may
suffice to speak generally and in outline.
If then, as of the misfortunes which happen to one’s self, some have a
certain weight and turn the balance of life, while others are, so to speak,
lighter; so it is likewise with those which befall all our friends alike; if
further, whether they whom each suffering befalls be alive or dead makes
much more difference than in a tragedy the presupposing or actual
perpetration of the various crimes and horrors, we must take into our
account this difference also, and still more perhaps the doubt concerning the
dead whether they really partake of any good or evil; it seems to result from
all these considerations, that if anything does pierce the veil and reach
them, be the same good or bad, it must be something trivial and small,
either in itself or to them; or at least of such a magnitude or such a kind as
neither to make happy them that are not so otherwise, nor to deprive of their
blessedness them that are.[37]
It is plain then that the good or ill fortunes of their friends do affect the
dead somewhat: but in such kind and degree as neither to make the happy
unhappy nor produce any other such effect.

Chapter X.
Having determined these points, let us examine with respect to
Happiness, whether it belongs to the class of things praiseworthy or things
precious; for to that of faculties[38] it evidently does not.
Now it is plain that everything which is a subject of praise is praised for
being of a certain kind and bearing a certain relation to something else: for
instance, the just, and the valiant, and generally the good man, and virtue
itself, we praise because of the actions and the results: and the strong man,
and the quick runner, and so forth, we praise for being of a certain nature
and bearing a certain relation to something good and excellent (and this is
illustrated by attempts to praise the gods; for they are presented in a

ludicrous aspect[39] by being referred to our standard, and this results from
the fact, that all praise does, as we have said, imply reference to a standard).
Now if it is to such objects that praise belongs, it is evident that what is
applicable to the best objects is not praise, but something higher and better:
which is plain matter of fact, for not only do we call the gods blessed and
happy, but of men also we pronounce those blessed who most nearly
resemble the gods. And in like manner in respect of goods; no man thinks of
praising Happiness as he does the principle of justice, but calls it blessed, as
being somewhat more godlike and more excellent.
Eudoxus[40] too is thought to have advanced a sound argument in support
of the claim of pleasure to the highest prize: for the fact that, though it is
one of the good things, it is not praised, he took for an indication of its
superiority to those which are subjects of praise: a superiority he attributed
also to a god and the Chief Good, on the ground that they form the standard
to which everything besides is referred. For praise applies to virtue, because
it makes men apt to do what is noble; but encomia to definite works of body
or mind.[41]
However, it is perhaps more suitable to a regular treatise on encomia to
pursue this topic with exactness: it is enough for our purpose that from what
has been said it is evident that Happiness belongs to the class of things
precious and final. And it seems to be so also because of its being a starting-
point; which it is, in that with a view to it we all do everything else that is
done; now the starting-point and cause of good things we assume to be
something precious and divine.

Chapter XI.
Moreover, since Happiness is a kind of working of the soul in the way of
perfect Excellence, we must enquire concerning Excellence: for so probably
shall we have a clearer view concerning Happiness; and again, he who is
really a statesman is generally thought to have spent most pains on this, for
he wishes to make the citizens good and obedient to the laws. (For
examples of this class we have the lawgivers of the Cretans and
Lacedæmonians and whatever other such there have been.) But if this
investigation belongs properly to πολιτικὴ, then clearly the enquiry will be
in accordance with our original design.

Well, we are to enquire concerning Excellence, i.e. Human Excellence of
course, because it was the Chief Good of Man and the Happiness of Man
that we were enquiring of just now.
And by Human Excellence we mean not that of man’s body but that of
his soul; for we call Happiness a working of the Soul.
And if this is so, it is plain that some knowledge of the nature of the Soul
is necessary for the statesman, just as for the oculist a knowledge of the
whole body, and the more so in proportion as πολιτικὴ is more precious and
higher than the healing art: and in fact physicians of the higher class do
busy themselves much with the knowledge of the body.
So then the statesman is to consider the nature of the Soul: but he must
do so with these objects in view, and so far only as may suffice for the
objects of his special enquiry: for to carry his speculations to a greater
exactness is perhaps a task more laborious than falls within his province.
In fact, the few statements made on the subject in my popular treatises
are quite enough, and accordingly we will adopt them here: as, that the Soul
consists of two parts, the Irrational and the Rational (as to whether these are
actually divided, as are the parts of the body, and everything that is capable
of division; or are only metaphysically speaking two, being by nature
inseparable, as are convex and concave circumferences, matters not in
respect of our present purpose). And of the Irrational, the one part seems
common to other objects, and in fact vegetative; I mean the cause of
nourishment and growth (for such a faculty of the Soul one would assume
to exist in all things that receive nourishment, even in embryos, and this the
same as in the perfect creatures; for this is more likely than that it should be
a different one).
Now the Excellence of this manifestly is not peculiar to the human
species but common to others: for this part and this faculty is thought to
work most in time of sleep, and the good and bad man are least
distinguishable while asleep; whence it is a common saying that during one
half of life there is no difference between the happy and the wretched; and
this accords with our anticipations, for sleep is an inactivity of the soul, in
so far as it is denominated good or bad, except that in some wise some of its
movements find their way through the veil and so the good come to have
better dreams than ordinary men. But enough of this: we must forego any

further mention of the nutritive part, since it is not naturally capable of the
Excellence which is peculiarly human.
And there seems to be another Irrational Nature of the Soul, which yet in
a way partakes of Reason. For in the man who controls his appetites, and in
him who resolves to do so and fails, we praise the Reason or Rational part
of the Soul, because it exhorts aright and to the best course: but clearly
there is in them, beside the Reason, some other natural principle which
fights with and strains against the Reason. (For in plain terms, just as
paralysed limbs of the body when their owners would move them to the
right are borne aside in a contrary direction to the left, so is it in the case of
the Soul, for the impulses of men who cannot control their appetites are to
contrary points: the difference is that in the case of the body we do see what
is borne aside but in the case of the soul we do not. But, it may be, not the
less[42] on that account are we to suppose that there is in the Soul also
somewhat besides the Reason, which is opposed to this and goes against it;
as to how it is different, that is irrelevant.)
But of Reason this too does evidently partake, as we have said: for
instance, in the man of self-control it obeys Reason: and perhaps in the man
of perfected self-mastery,[43] or the brave man, it is yet more obedient; in
them it agrees entirely with the Reason.
So then the Irrational is plainly twofold: the one part, the merely
vegetative, has no share of Reason, but that of desire, or appetition
generally, does partake of it in a sense, in so far as it is obedient to it and
capable of submitting to its rule. (So too in common phrase we say we have
λόγος of our father or friends, and this in a different sense from that in
which we say we have λόγος of mathematics.)[44]
Now that the Irrational is in some way persuaded by the Reason,
admonition, and every act of rebuke and exhortation indicate. If then we are
to say that this also has Reason, then the Rational, as well as the Irrational,
will be twofold, the one supremely and in itself, the other paying it a kind of
filial regard.
The Excellence of Man then is divided in accordance with this
difference: we make two classes, calling the one Intellectual, and the other
Moral; pure science, intelligence, and practical wisdom—Intellectual:
liberality, and perfected self-mastery—Moral: in speaking of a man’s Moral
character, we do not say he is a scientific or intelligent but a meek man, or

one of perfected self-mastery: and we praise the man of science in right of
his mental state;[45] and of these such as are praiseworthy we call
Excellences.

BOOK II

Chapter I.
Well: human Excellence is of two kinds, Intellectual and Moral:[1] now
the Intellectual springs originally, and is increased subsequently, from
teaching (for the most part that is[2]), and needs therefore experience and
time; whereas the Moral comes from custom, and so the Greek term
denoting it is but a slight deflection from the term denoting custom in that
language.
From this fact it is plain that not one of the Moral Virtues comes to be in
us merely by nature: because of such things as exist by nature, none can be
changed by custom: a stone, for instance, by nature gravitating downwards,
could never by custom be brought to ascend, not even if one were to try and
accustom it by throwing it up ten thousand times; nor could file again be
brought to descend, nor in fact could anything whose nature is in one way
be brought by custom to be in another. The Virtues then come to be in us
neither by nature, nor in despite of nature,[3] but we are furnished by nature
with a capacity for receiving themu and are perfected in them through
custom.
Again, in whatever cases we get things by nature, we get the faculties
first and perform the acts of working afterwards; an illustration of which is
afforded by the case of our bodily senses, for it was not from having often
seen or heard that we got these senses, but just the reverse: we had them
and so exercised them, but did not have them because we had exercised
them. But the Virtues we get by first performing single acts of working,
which, again, is the case of other things, as the arts for instance; for what
we have to make when we have learned how, these we learn how to make
by making: men come to be builders, for instance, by building; harp-
players, by playing on the harp: exactly so, by doing just actions we come

to be just; by doing the actions of self-mastery we come to be perfected in
self-mastery; and by doing brave actions brave.
And to the truth of this testimony is borne by what takes place in
communities: because the law-givers make the individual members good
men by habituation, and this is the intention certainly of every law-giver,
and all who do not effect it well fail of their intent; and herein consists the
difference between a good Constitution and a bad.
Again, every Virtue is either produced or destroyed from and by the very
same circumstances: art too in like manner; I mean it is by playing the harp
that both the good and the bad harp-players are formed: and similarly
builders and all the rest; by building well men will become good builders;
by doing it badly bad ones: in fact, if this had not been so, there would have
been no need of instructors, but all men would have been at once good or
bad in their several arts without them.
So too then is it with the Virtues: for by acting in the various relations in
which we are thrown with our fellow men, we come to be, some just, some
unjust: and by acting in dangerous positions and being habituated to feel
fear or confidence, we come to be, some brave, others cowards.
Similarly is it also with respect to the occasions of lust and anger: for
some men come to be perfected in self-mastery and mild, others destitute of
all self-control and passionate; the one class by behaving in one way under
them, the other by behaving in another. Or, in one word, the habits are
produced from the acts of working like to them: and so what we have to do
is to give a certain character to these particular acts, because the habits
formed correspond to the differences of these.
So then, whether we are accustomed this way or that straight from
childhood, makes not a small but an important difference, or rather I would
say it makes all the difference.

Chapter II.
Since then the object of the present treatise is not mere speculation, as it
is of some others (for we are enquiring not merely that we may know what
virtue is but that we may become virtuous, else it would have been useless),
we must consider as to the particular actions how we are to do them,

because, as we have just said, the quality of the habits that shall be formed
depends on these.
Now, that we are to act in accordance with Right Reason is a general
maxim, and may for the present be taken for granted: we will speak of it
hereafter, and say both what Right Reason is, and what are its relations to
the other virtues.[4]
But let this point be first thoroughly understood between us, that all
which can be said on moral action must be said in outline, as it were, and
not exactly: for as we remarked at the commencement, such reasoning only
must be required as the nature of the subject-matter admits of, and matters
of moral action and expediency have no fixedness any more than matters of
health. And if the subject in its general maxims is such, still less in its
application to particular cases is exactness attainable:[5] because these fall
not under any art or system of rules, but it must be left in each instance to
the individual agents to look to the exigencies of the particular case, as it is
in the art of healing, or that of navigating a ship. Still, though the present
subject is confessedly such, we must try and do what we can for it.
First then this must be noted, that it is the nature of such things to be
spoiled by defect and excess; as we see in the case of health and strength
(since for the illustration of things which cannot be seen we must use those
that can), for excessive training impairs the strength as well as deficient:
meat and drink, in like manner, in too great or too small quantities, impair
the health: while in due proportion they cause, increase, and preserve it.
Thus it is therefore with the habits of perfected Self-Mastery and
Courage and the rest of the Virtues: for the man who flies from and fears all
things, and never stands up against anything, comes to be a coward; and he
who fears nothing, but goes at everything, comes to be rash. In like manner
too, he that tastes of every pleasure and abstains from none comes to lose
all self-control; while he who avoids all, as do the dull and clownish, comes
as it were to lose his faculties of perception: that is to say, the habits of
perfected Self-Mastery and Courage are spoiled by the excess and defect,
but by the mean state are preserved.
Furthermore, not only do the origination, growth, and marring of the
habits come from and by the same circumstances, but also the acts of
working after the habits are formed will be exercised on the same: for so it
is also with those other things which are more directly matters of sight,

strength for instance: for this comes by taking plenty of food and doing
plenty of work, and the man who has attained strength is best able to do
these: and so it is with the Virtues, for not only do we by abstaining from
pleasures come to be perfected in Self-Mastery, but when we have come to
be so we can best abstain from them: similarly too with Courage: for it is by
accustoming ourselves to despise objects of fear and stand up against them
that we come to be brave; and after we have come to be so we shall be best
able to stand up against such objects.
And for a test of the formation of the habits we must take the pleasure or
pain which succeeds the acts; for he is perfected in Self-Mastery who not
only abstains from the bodily pleasures but is glad to do so; whereas he who
abstains but is sorry to do it has not Self-Mastery: he again is brave who
stands up against danger, either with positive pleasure or at least without
any pain; whereas he who does it with pain is not brave.[6]
For Moral Virtue has for its object-matter pleasures and pains, because by
reason of pleasure we do what is bad, and by reason of pain decline doing
what is right (for which cause, as Plato observes, men should have been
trained straight from their childhood to receive pleasure and pain from
proper objects, for this is the right education). Again: since Virtues have to
do with actions and feelings, and on every feeling and every action pleasure
and pain follow, here again is another proof that Virtue has for its object-
matter pleasure and pain. The same is shown also by the fact that
punishments are effected through the instrumentality of these; because they
are of the nature of remedies, and it is the nature of remedies to be the
contraries of the ills they cure. Again, to quote what we said before: every
habit of the Soul by its very nature has relation to, and exerts itself upon,
things of the same kind as those by which it is naturally deteriorated or
improved: now such habits do come to be vicious by reason of pleasures
and pains, that is, by men pursuing or avoiding respectively, either such as
they ought not, or at wrong times, or in wrong manner, and so forth (for
which reason, by the way, some people define the Virtues as certain states
of impassibility and utter quietude,[7] but they are wrong because they speak
without modification, instead of adding “as they ought,” “as they ought
not,” and “when,” and so on). Virtue then is assumed to be that habit which
is such, in relation to pleasures and pains, as to effect the best results, and
Vice the contrary.

The following considerations may also serve to set this in a clear light.
There are principally three things moving us to choice and three to
avoidance, the honourable, the expedient, the pleasant; and their three
contraries, the dishonourable, the hurtful, and the painful: now the good
man is apt to go right, and the bad man wrong, with respect to all these of
course, but most specially with respect to pleasure: because not only is this
common to him with all animals but also it is a concomitant of all those
things which move to choice, since both the honourable and the expedient
give an impression of pleasure.
Again, it grows up with us all from infancy, and so it is a hard matter to
remove from ourselves this feeling, engrained as it is into our very life.
Again, we adopt pleasure and pain (some of us more, and some less) as
the measure even of actions: for this cause then our whole business must be
with them, since to receive right or wrong impressions of pleasure and pain
is a thing of no little importance in respect of the actions. Once more; it is
harder, as Heraclitus says, to fight against pleasure than against anger: now
it is about that which is more than commonly difficult that art comes into
being, and virtue too, because in that which is difficult the good is of a
higher order: and so for this reason too both virtue and moral philosophy
generally must wholly busy themselves respecting pleasures and pains,
because he that uses these well will be good, he that does so ill will be bad.
Let us then be understood to have stated, that Virtue has for its object-
matter pleasures and pains, and that it is either increased or marred by the
same circumstances (differently used) by which it is originally generated,
and that it exerts itself on the same circumstances out of which it was
generated.

Chapter III.
Now I can conceive a person perplexed as to the meaning of our
statement, that men must do just actions to become just, and those of self-
mastery to acquire the habit of self-mastery; “for,” he would say, “if men
are doing the actions they have the respective virtues already, just as men
are grammarians or musicians when they do the actions of either art.” May
we not reply by saying that it is not so even in the case of the arts referred
to: because a man may produce something grammatical either by chance or

the suggestion of another; but then only will he be a grammarian when he
not only produces something grammatical but does so grammarian-wise,
i.e. in virtue of the grammatical knowledge he himself possesses.
Again, the cases of the arts and the virtues are not parallel: because those
things which are produced by the arts have their excellence in themselves,
and it is sufficient therefore that these when produced should be in a certain
state: but those which are produced in the way of the virtues, are, strictly
speaking, actions of a certain kind (say of Justice or perfected Self-
Mastery), not merely if in themselves they are in a certain state but if also
he who does them does them being himself in a certain state, first if
knowing what he is doing, next if with deliberate preference, and with such
preference for the things’ own sake; and thirdly if being himself stable and
unapt to change. Now to constitute possession of the arts these requisites
are not reckoned in, excepting the one point of knowledge: whereas for
possession of the virtues knowledge avails little or nothing, but the other
requisites avail not a little, but, in fact, are all in all, and these requisites as a
matter of fact do come from oftentimes doing the actions of Justice and
perfected Self-Mastery.
The facts,[8] it is true, are called by the names of these habits when they
are such as the just or perfectly self-mastering man would do; but he is not
in possession of the virtues who merely does these facts, but he who also so
does them as the just and self-mastering do them.
We are right then in saying, that these virtues are formed in a man by his
doing the actions; but no one, if he should leave them undone, would be
even in the way to become a good man. Yet people in general do not
perform these actions, but taking refuge in talk they flatter themselves they
are philosophising, and that they will so be good men: acting in truth very
like those sick people who listen to the doctor with great attention but do
nothing that he tells them: just as these then cannot be well bodily under
such a course of treatment, so neither can those be mentally by such
philosophising.

Chapter IV.
Next, we must examine what Virtue is.[9] Well, since the things which
come to be in the mind are, in all, of three kinds, Feelings, Capacities,

States, Virtue of course must belong to one of the three classes.
By Feelings, I mean such as lust, anger, fear, confidence, envy, joy,
friendship, hatred, longing, emulation, compassion, in short all such as are
followed by pleasure or pain: by Capacities, those in right of which we are
said to be capable of these feelings; as by virtue of which we are able to
have been made angry, or grieved, or to have compassionated; by States,
those in right of which we are in a certain relation good or bad to the
aforementioned feelings; to having been made angry, for instance, we are in
a wrong relation if in our anger we were too violent or too slack, but if we
were in the happy medium we are in a right relation to the feeling. And so
on of the rest.
Now Feelings neither the virtues nor vices are, because in right of the
Feelings we are not denominated either good or bad, but in right of the
virtues and vices we are.
Again, in right of the Feelings we are neither praised nor blamed,[10] (for
a man is not commended for being afraid or being angry, nor blamed for
being angry merely but for being so in a particular way), but in right of the
virtues and vices we are.
Again, both anger and fear we feel without moral choice, whereas the
virtues are acts of moral choice, or at least certainly not independent of it.
Moreover, in right of the Feelings we are said to be moved, but in right of
the virtues and vices not to be moved, but disposed, in a certain way.
And for these same reasons they are not Capacities, for we are not called
good or bad merely because we are able to feel, nor are we praised or
blamed.
And again, Capacities we have by nature, but we do not come to be good
or bad by nature, as we have said before.
Since then the virtues are neither Feelings nor Capacities, it remains that
they must be States.

Chapter V.
Now what the genus of Virtue is has been said; but we must not merely
speak of it thus, that it is a state but say also what kind of a state it is.

We must observe then that all excellence makes that whereof it is the
excellence both to be itself in a good state and to perform its work well. The
excellence of the eye, for instance, makes both the eye good and its work
also: for by the excellence of the eye we see well. So too the excellence of
the horse makes a horse good, and good in speed, and in carrying his rider,
and standing up against the enemy. If then this is universally the case, the
excellence of Man, i.e. Virtue, must be a state whereby Man comes to be
good and whereby he will perform well his proper work. Now how this
shall be it is true we have said already, but still perhaps it may throw light
on the subject to see what is its characteristic nature.
In all quantity then, whether continuous or discrete,[11] one may take the
greater part, the less, or the exactly equal, and these either with reference to
the thing itself, or relatively to us: and the exactly equal is a mean between
excess and defect. Now by the mean of the thing, i.e. absolute mean, I
denote that which is equidistant from either extreme (which of course is one
and the same to all), and by the mean relatively to ourselves, that which is
neither too much nor too little for the particular individual. This of course is
not one nor the same to all: for instance, suppose ten is too much and two
too little, people take six for the absolute mean; because it exceeds the
smaller sum by exactly as much as it is itself exceeded by the larger, and
this mean is according to arithmetical proportion.[12]
But the mean relatively to ourselves must not be so found ; for it does not
follow, supposing ten minæ[13] is too large a quantity to eat and two too
small, that the trainer will order his man six; because for the person who is
to take it this also may be too much or too little: for Milo it would be too
little, but for a man just commencing his athletic exercises too much:
similarly too of the exercises themselves, as running or wrestling.
So then it seems every one possessed of skill avoids excess and defect,
but seeks for and chooses the mean, not the absolute but the relative.
Now if all skill thus accomplishes well its work by keeping an eye on the
mean, and bringing the works to this point (whence it is common enough to
say of such works as are in a good state, “one cannot add to or take ought
from them,” under the notion of excess or defect destroying goodness but
the mean state preserving it), and good artisans, as we say, work with their
eye on this, and excellence, like nature, is more exact and better than any art
in the world, it must have an aptitude to aim at the mean.

It is moral excellence, i.e. Virtue, of course which I mean, because this it
is which is concerned with feelings and actions, and in these there can be
excess and defect and the mean: it is possible, for instance, to feel the
emotions of fear, confidence, lust, anger, compassion, and pleasure and pain
generally, too much or too little, and in either case wrongly; but to feel them
when we ought, on what occasions, towards whom, why, and as, we should
do, is the mean, or in other words the best state, and this is the property of
Virtue.
In like manner too with respect to the actions, there may be excess and
defect and the mean. Now Virtue is concerned with feelings and actions, in
which the excess is wrong and the defect is blamed but the mean is praised
and goes right; and both these circumstances belong to Virtue. Virtue then is
in a sense a mean state, since it certainly has an aptitude for aiming at the
mean.
Again, one may go wrong in many different ways (because, as the
Pythagoreans expressed it, evil is of the class of the infinite, good of the
finite), but right only in one; and so the former is easy, the latter difficult;
easy to miss the mark, but hard to hit it: and for these reasons, therefore,
both the excess and defect belong to Vice, and the mean state to Virtue; for,
as the poet has it,
“Men may be bad in many ways,
But good in one alone.”

Chapter VI.
Virtue then is “a state apt to exercise deliberate choice, being in the
relative mean, determined by reason, and[14] as the man of practical wisdom
would determine.”
It is a middle state between too faulty ones, in the way of excess on one
side and of defect on the other: and it is so moreover, because the faulty
states on one side fall short of, and those on the other exceed, what is right,
both in the case of the feelings and the actions; but Virtue finds, and when
found adopts, the mean.
And so, viewing it in respect of its essence and definition, Virtue is a
mean state; but in reference to the chief good and to excellence it is the

highest state possible.
But it must not be supposed that every action or every feeling is capable
of subsisting in this mean state, because some there are which are so named
as immediately to convey the notion of badness, as malevolence,
shamelessness, envy; or, to instance in actions, adultery, theft, homicide; for
all these and suchlike are blamed because they are in themselves bad, not
the having too much or too little of them.
In these then you never can go right, but must always be wrong: nor in
such does the right or wrong depend on the selection of a proper person,
time, or manner (take adultery for instance), but simply doing any one
soever of those things is being wrong.
You might as well require that there should be determined a mean state,
an excess and a defect in respect of acting unjustly, being cowardly, or
giving up all control of the passions: for at this rate there will be of excess
and defect a mean state; of excess, excess; and of defect, defect.
But just as of perfected self-mastery and courage there is no excess and
defect, because the mean is in one point of view the highest possible state,
so neither of those faulty states can you have a mean state, excess, or defect,
but howsoever done they are wrong: you cannot, in short, have of excess
and defect a mean state, nor of a mean state excess and defect.

Chapter VII.
It is not enough, however, to state this in general terms, we must also
apply it to particular instances, because in treatises on moral conduct
general statements have an air of vagueness, but those which go into detail
one of greater reality: for the actions after all must be in detail, and the
general statements, to be worth anything, must hold good here.
We must take these details then from the well-known scheme.[15]
I. In respect of fears and confidence or boldness:
The Mean state is Courage: men may exceed, of course, either in absence
of fear or in positive confidence: the former has no name (which is a
common case), the latter is called rash: again, the man who has too much
fear and too little confidence is called a coward.

II. In respect of pleasures and pains (but not all, and perhaps fewer pains
than pleasures):
The Mean state here is perfected Self-Mastery, the defect total absence of
Self-control. As for defect in respect of pleasure, there are really no people
who are chargeable with it, so, of course, there is really no name for such
characters, but, as they are conceivable, we will give them one and call
them insensible.
III. In respect of giving and taking wealth[16] (a):
The mean state is Liberality, the excess Prodigality, the defect Stinginess:
here each of the extremes involves really an excess and defect contrary to
each other: I mean, the prodigal gives out too much and takes in too little,
while the stingy man takes in too much and gives out too little. (It must be
understood that we are now giving merely an outline and summary,
intentionally: and we will, in a later part of the treatise, draw out the
distinctions with greater exactness.)
IV. In respect of wealth (b):
There are other dispositions besides these just mentioned; a mean state
called Munificence (for the munificent man differs from the liberal, the
former having necessarily to do with great wealth, the latter with but small);
the excess called by the names either of Want of taste or Vulgar Profusion,
and the defect Paltriness (these also differ from the extremes connected
with liberality, and the manner of their difference shall also be spoken of
later).
V. In respect of honour and dishonour (a):
The mean state Greatness of Soul, the excess which may be called
χαυνότης,[17] and the defect Littleness of Soul.
VI. In respect of honour and dishonour (b):
Now there is a state bearing the same relation to Greatness of Soul as we
said just now Liberality does to Munificence, with the difference that is of
being about a small amount of the same thing: this state having reference to
small honour, as Greatness of Soul to great honour; a man may, of course,
grasp at honour either more than he should or less; now he that exceeds in
his grasping at it is called ambitious, he that falls short unambitious, he that
is just as he should be has no proper name: nor in fact have the states,
except that the disposition of the ambitious man is called ambition. For this

reason those who are in either extreme lay claim to the mean as a
debateable land, and we call the virtuous character sometimes by the name
ambitious,[18] sometimes by that of unambitious, and we commend
sometimes the one and sometimes the other. Why we do it shall be said in
the subsequent part of the treatise; but now we will go on with the rest of
the virtues after the plan we have laid down.
VII. In respect of anger:
Here too there is excess, defect, and a mean state; but since they may be
said to have really no proper names, as we call the virtuous character Meek,
we will call the mean state Meekness, and of the extremes, let the man who
is excessive be denominated Passionate, and the faulty state Passionateness,
and him who is deficient Angerless, and the defect Angerlessness.
There are also three other mean states, having some mutual resemblance,
but still with differences; they are alike in that they all have for their object-
matter intercourse of words and deeds, and they differ in that one has
respect to truth herein, the other two to what is pleasant; and this in two
ways, the one in relaxation and amusement, the other in all things which
occur in daily life. We must say a word or two about these also, that we may
the better see that in all matters the mean is praiseworthy, while the
extremes are neither right nor worthy of praise but of blame.
Now of these, it is true, the majority have really no proper names, but
still we must try, as in the other cases, to coin some for them for the sake of
clearness and intelligibleness.
I. In respect of truth:
The man who is in the mean state we will call Truthful, and his state
Truthfulness, and as to the disguise of truth, if it be on the side of
exaggeration, Braggadocia, and him that has it a Braggadocio; if on that of
diminution, Reserve and Reserved shall be the terms.
II. In respect of what is pleasant in the way of relaxation or amusement.
The mean state shall be called Easy-pleasantry, and the character
accordingly a man of Easy-pleasantry; the excess Buffoonery, and the man
a Buffoon; the man deficient herein a Clown, and his state Clownishness.
III. In respect of what is pleasant in daily life.
He that is as he should be may be called Friendly, and his mean state
Friendliness: he that exceeds, if it be without any interested motive,

somewhat too Complaisant, if with such motive, a Flatterer: he that is
deficient and in all instances unpleasant, Quarrelsome and Cross.
There are mean states likewise in feelings and matters concerning them.
Shamefacedness, for instance, is no virtue, still a man is praised for being
shamefaced: for in these too the one is denominated the man in the mean
state, the other in the excess; the Dumbfoundered, for instance, who is
overwhelmed with shame on all and any occasions: the man who is in the
defect, i.e. who has no shame at all in his composition, is called Shameless:
but the right character Shamefaced.
Indignation against successful vice,[19] again, is a state in the mean
between Envy and Malevolence: they all three have respect to pleasure and
pain produced by what happens to one’s neighbour: for the man who has
this right feeling is annoyed at undeserved success of others, while the
envious man goes beyond him and is annoyed at all success of others, and
the malevolent falls so far short of feeling annoyance that he even rejoices
[at misfortune of others].again, is a state in the mean between Envy and
Malevolence: they all three have respect to pleasure and pain produced by
what happens to one’s neighbour: for the man who has this right feeling is
annoyed at undeserved success of others, while the envious man goes
beyond him and is annoyed at all success of others, and the malevolent falls
so far short of feeling annoyance that he even rejoices [at misfortune of
others].
But for the discussion of these also there will be another opportunity, as
of Justice too, because the term is used in more senses than one. So after
this we will go accurately into each and say how they are mean states: and
in like manner also with respect to the Intellectual Excellences.

Chapter VIII.
Now as there are three states in each case, two faulty either in the way of
excess or defect, and one right, which is the mean state, of course all are in
a way opposed to one another; the extremes, for instance, not only to the
mean but also to one another, and the mean to the extremes: for just as the
half is greater if compared with the less portion, and less if compared with
the greater, so the mean states, compared with the defects, exceed, whether
in feelings or actions, and vice versa. The brave man, for instance, shows as

rash when compared with the coward, and cowardly when compared with
the rash; similarly too the man of perfected self-mastery, viewed in
comparison with the man destitute of all perception, shows like a man of no
self-control, but in comparison with the man who really has no self-control,
he looks like one destitute of all perception: and the liberal man compared
with the stingy seems prodigal, and by the side of the prodigal, stingy.
And so the extreme characters push away, so to speak, towards each
other the man in the mean state; the brave man is called a rash man by the
coward, and a coward by the rash man, and in the other cases accordingly.
And there being this mutual opposition, the contrariety between the
extremes is greater than between either and the mean, because they are
further from one another than from the mean, just as the greater or less
portion differ more from each other than either from the exact half.
Again, in some cases an extreme will bear a resemblance to the mean;
rashness, for instance, to courage, and prodigality to liberality; but between
the extremes there is the greatest dissimilarity. Now things which are
furthest from one another[20] are defined to be contrary, and so the further
off the more contrary will they be.
Further: of the extremes in some cases the excess, and in others the
defect, is most opposed to the mean: to courage, for instance, not rashness
which is the excess, but cowardice which is the defect; whereas to perfected
self-mastery not insensibility which is the defect but absence of all self-
control which is the excess.
And for this there are two reasons to be given; one from the nature of the
thing itself, because from the one extreme being nearer and more like the
mean, we do not put this against it, but the other; as, for instance, since
rashness is thought to be nearer to courage than cowardice is, and to
resemble it more, we put cowardice against courage rather than rashness,
because those things which are further from the mean are thought to be
more contrary to it. This then is one reason arising from the thing itself;
there is another arising from our own constitution and make: for in each
man’s own case those things give the impression of being more contrary to
the mean to which we individually have a natural bias. Thus we have a
natural bias towards pleasures, for which reason we are much more inclined
to the rejection of all self-control, than to self-discipline.

These things then to which the bias is, we call more contrary, and so total
want of self-control (the excess) is more contrary than the defect is to
perfected self-mastery.

Chapter IX.
Now that Moral Virtue is a mean state, and how it is so, and that it lies
between two faulty states, one in the way of excess and another in the way
of defect, and that it is so because it has an aptitude to aim at the mean both
in feelings and actions, all this has been set forth fully and sufficiently.
And so it is hard to be good: for surely hard it is in each instance to find
the mean, just as to find the mean point or centre of a circle is not what any
man can do, but only he who knows how: just so to be angry, to give
money, and be expensive, is what any man can do, and easy: but to do these
to the right person, in due proportion, at the right time, with a right object,
and in the right manner, this is not as before what any man can do, nor is it
easy; and for this cause goodness is rare, and praiseworthy, and noble.
Therefore he who aims at the mean should make it his first care to keep
away from that extreme which is more contrary than the other to the mean;
just as Calypso in Homer advises Ulysses,
“Clear of this smoke and surge thy barque direct;”

because of the two extremes the one is always more, and the other less,
erroneous; and, therefore, since to hit exactly on the mean is difficult, one
must take the least of the evils as the safest plan;[21] and this a man will be
doing, if he follows this method.
We ought also to take into consideration our own natural bias; which
varies in each man’s case, and will be ascertained from the pleasure and
pain arising in us. Furthermore, we should force ourselves off in the
contrary direction, because we shall find ourselves in the mean after we
have removed ourselves far from the wrong side, exactly as men do in
straightening bent timber.[22]
But in all cases we must guard most carefully against what is pleasant,
and pleasure itself, because we are not impartial judges of it.

We ought to feel in fact towards pleasure as did the old counsellors
towards Helen, and in all cases pronounce a similar sentence; for so by
sending it away from us, we shall err the less.[23]
Well, to speak very briefly, these are the precautions by adopting which
we shall be best able to attain the mean.
Still, perhaps, after all it is a matter of difficulty, and specially in the
particular instances: it is not easy, for instance, to determine exactly in what
manner, with what persons, for what causes, and for what length of time,
one ought to feel anger: for we ourselves sometimes praise those who are
defective in this feeling, and we call them meek; at another, we term the
hot-tempered manly and spirited.
Then, again, he who makes a small deflection from what is right, be it on
the side of too much or too little, is not blamed, only he who makes a
considerable one; for he cannot escape observation. But to what point or
degree a man must err in order to incur blame, it is not easy to determine
exactly in words: nor in fact any of those points which are matter of
perception by the Moral Sense: such questions are matters of detail, and the
decision of them rests with the Moral Sense.[24]
At all events thus much is plain, that the mean state is in all things
praiseworthy, and that practically we must deflect sometimes towards
excess sometimes towards defect, because this will be the easiest method of
hitting on the mean, that is, on what is right.

BOOK III

Chapter I.
Now since Virtue is concerned with the regulation of feelings and
actions, and praise and blame arise upon such as are voluntary, while for the
involuntary allowance is made, and sometimes compassion is excited, it is
perhaps a necessary task for those who are investigating the nature of Virtue
to draw out the distinction between what is voluntary and what involuntary;
and it is certainly useful for legislators, with respect to the assigning of
honours and punishments.
Involuntary actions then are thought to be of two kinds, being done either
on compulsion, or by reason of ignorance. An action is, properly speaking,
compulsory, when the origination is external to the agent, being such that in
it the agent (perhaps we may more properly say the patient) contributes
nothing; as if a wind were to convey you anywhere, or men having power
over your person.
But when actions are done, either from fear of greater evils, or from some
honourable motive, as, for instance, if you were ordered to commit some
base act by a despot who had your parents or children in his power, and
they were to be saved upon your compliance or die upon your refusal, in
such cases there is room for a question whether the actions are voluntary or
involuntary.
A similar question arises with respect to cases of throwing goods
overboard in a storm: abstractedly no man throws away his property
willingly, but with a view to his own and his shipmates’ safety any one
would who had any sense.
The truth is, such actions are of a mixed kind, but are most like voluntary
actions; for they are choice-worthy at the time when they are being done,
and the end or object of the action must be taken with reference to the

actual occasion. Further, we must denominate an action voluntary or
involuntary at the time of doing it: now in the given case the man acts
voluntarily, because the originating of the motion of his limbs in such
actions rests with himself; and where the origination is in himself it rests
with himself to do or not to do.
Such actions then are voluntary, though in the abstract perhaps
involuntary because no one would choose any of such things in and by
itself.
But for such actions men sometimes are even praised, as when they
endure any disgrace or pain to secure great and honourable equivalents; if
vice versâ, then they are blamed, because it shows a base mind to endure
things very disgraceful for no honourable object, or for a trifling one.
For some again no praise is given, but allowance is made; as where a
man does what he should not by reason of such things as overstrain the
powers of human nature, or pass the limits of human endurance.
Some acts perhaps there are for which compulsion cannot be pleaded, but
a man should rather suffer the worst and die; how absurd, for instance, are
the pleas of compulsion with which Alcmaeon in Euripides’ play excuses
his matricide!
But it is difficult sometimes to decide what kind of thing should be
chosen instead of what, or what endured in preference to what, and much
moreso to abide by one’s decisions: for in general the alternatives are
painful, and the actions required are base, and so praise or blame is awarded
according as persons have been compelled or no.
What kind of actions then are to be called compulsory? may we say,
simply and abstractedly whenever the cause is external and the agent
contributes nothing; and that where the acts are in themselves such as one
would not wish but choice-worthy at the present time and in preference to
such and such things, and where the origination rests with the agent, the
actions are in themselves involuntary but at the given time and in
preference to such and such things voluntary; and they are more like
voluntary than involuntary, because the actions consist of little details, and
these are voluntary.
But what kind of things one ought to choose instead of what, it is not
easy to settle, for there are many differences in particular instances.

But suppose a person should say, things pleasant and honourable exert a
compulsive force (for that they are external and do compel); at that rate
every action is on compulsion, because these are universal motives of
action.
Again, they who act on compulsion and against their will do so with
pain; but they who act by reason of what is pleasant or honourable act with
pleasure.
It is truly absurd for a man to attribute his actions to external things
instead of to his own capacity for being easily caught by them;[1] or, again,
to ascribe the honourable to himself, and the base ones to pleasure.
So then that seems to be compulsory “whose origination is from without,
the party compelled contributing nothing.”

Chapter II.
Now every action of which ignorance is the cause is not-voluntary, but
that only is involuntary which is attended with pain and remorse; for clearly
the man who has done anything by reason of ignorance, but is not annoyed
at his own action, cannot be said to have done it with his will because he did
not know he was doing it, nor again against his will because he is not sorry
for it.
So then of the class “acting by reason of ignorance,” he who feels regret
afterwards is thought to be an involuntary agent, and him that has no such
feeling, since he certainly is different from the other, we will call a not-
voluntary agent; for as there is a real difference it is better to have a proper
name.
Again, there seems to be a difference between acting because of
ignorance and acting with ignorance: for instance, we do not usually assign
ignorance as the cause of the actions of the drunken or angry man, but
either the drunkenness or the anger, yet they act not knowingly but with
ignorance.
Again, every bad man is ignorant what he ought to do and what to leave
undone, and by reason of such error men become unjust and wholly evil.
Again, we do not usually apply the term involuntary when a man is
ignorant of his own true interest;[2] because ignorance which affects moral

choice[3] constitutes depravity but not involuntariness: nor does any
ignorance of principle (because for this men are blamed) but ignorance in
particular details, wherein consists the action and wherewith it is concerned,
for in these there is both compassion and allowance, because he who acts in
ignorance of any of them acts in a proper sense involuntarily.
It may be as well, therefore, to define these particular details; what they
are, and how many; viz. who acts, what he is doing, with respect to what or
in what, sometimes with what, as with what instrument, and with what
result;[4] as that of preservation, for instance, and how, as whether softly or
violently.
All these particulars, in one and the same case, no man in his senses
could be ignorant of; plainly not of the agent, being himself. But what he is
doing a man may be ignorant, as men in speaking say a thing escaped them
unawares; or as Aeschylus did with respect to the Mysteries, that he was not
aware that it was unlawful to speak of them; or as in the case of that
catapult accident the other day the man said he discharged it merely to
display its operation. Or a person might suppose a son to be an enemy, as
Merope did; or that the spear really pointed was rounded off; or that the
stone was a pumice; or in striking with a view to save might kill; or might
strike when merely wishing to show another, as people do in sham-fighting.
Now since ignorance is possible in respect to all these details in which
the action consists, he that acted in ignorance of any of them is thought to
have acted involuntarily, and he most so who was in ignorance as regards
the most important, which are thought to be those in which the action
consists, and the result.
Further, not only must the ignorance be of this kind, to constitute an
action involuntary, but it must be also understood that the action is followed
by pain and regret.

Chapter III.
Now since all involuntary action is either upon compulsion or by reason
of ignorance, Voluntary Action would seem to be “that whose origination is
in the agent, he being aware of the particular details in which the action
consists.”

For, it may be, men are not justified by calling those actions involuntary,
which are done by reason of Anger or Lust.
Because, in the first place, if this be so no other animal but man, and not
even children, can be said to act voluntarily. Next, is it meant that we never
act voluntarily when we act from Lust or Anger, or that we act voluntarily
in doing what is right and involuntarily in doing what is discreditable? The
latter supposition is absurd, since the cause is one and the same. Then as to
the former, it is a strange thing to maintain actions to be involuntary which
we are bound to grasp at: now there are occasions on which anger is a duty,
[5]
and there are things which we are bound to lust after,[6] health, for
instance, and learning.
Again, whereas actions strictly involuntary are thought to be attended
with pain, those which are done to gratify lust are thought to be pleasant.
Again: how does the involuntariness make any difference[7] between
wrong actions done from deliberate calculation, and those done by reason
of anger? for both ought to be avoided, and the irrational feelings are
thought to be just as natural to man as reason, and so of course must be such
actions of the individual as are done from Anger and Lust. It is absurd then
to class these actions among the involuntary.

Chapter IV.
Having thus drawn out the distinction between voluntary and involuntary
action our next step is to examine into the nature of Moral Choice, because
this seems most intimately connected with Virtue and to be a more decisive
test of moral character than a man’s acts are.
Now Moral Choice is plainly voluntary, but the two are not co-extensive,
voluntary being the more comprehensive term; for first, children and all
other animals share in voluntary action but not in Moral Choice; and next,
sudden actions we call voluntary but do not ascribe them to Moral Choice.
Nor do they appear to be right who say it is lust or anger, or wish, or
opinion of a certain kind; because, in the first place, Moral Choice is not
shared by the irrational animals while Lust and Anger are. Next; the man
who fails of self-control acts from Lust but not from Moral Choice; the man

of self-control, on the contrary, from Moral Choice, not from Lust. Again:
whereas Lust is frequently opposed to Moral Choice, Lust is not to Lust.
Lastly: the object-matter of Lust is the pleasant and the painful, but of
Moral Choice neither the one nor the other. Still less can it be Anger,
because actions done from Anger are thought generally to be least of all
consequent on Moral Choice.
Nor is it Wish either, though appearing closely connected with it;
because, in the first place, Moral Choice has not for its objects
impossibilities, and if a man were to say he chose them he would be thought
to be a fool; but Wish may have impossible things for its objects,
immortality for instance.
Wish again may be exercised on things in the accomplishment of which
one’s self could have nothing to do, as the success of any particular actor or
athlete; but no man chooses things of this nature, only such as he believes
he may himself be instrumental in procuring.
Further: Wish has for its object the End rather, but Moral Choice the
means to the End; for instance, we wish to be healthy but we choose the
means which will make us so; or happiness again we wish for, and
commonly say so, but to say we choose is not an appropriate term, because,
in short, the province of Moral Choice seems to be those things which are in
our own power.
Neither can it be Opinion; for Opinion is thought to be unlimited in its
range of objects, and to be exercised as well upon things eternal and
impossible as on those which are in our own power: again, Opinion is
logically divided into true and false, not into good and bad as Moral Choice
is.
However, nobody perhaps maintains its identity with Opinion simply; but
it is not the same with opinion of any kind,[8] because by choosing good and
bad things we are constituted of a certain character, but by having opinions
on them we are not.
Again, we choose to take or avoid, and so on, but we opine what a thing
is, or for what it is serviceable, or how; but we do not opine to take or
avoid.
Further, Moral Choice is commended rather for having a right object than
for being judicious, but Opinion for being formed in accordance with truth.

Again, we choose such things as we pretty well know to be good, but we
form opinions respecting such as we do not know at all.
And it is not thought that choosing and opining best always go together,
but that some opine the better course and yet by reason of viciousness
choose not the things which they should.
It may be urged, that Opinion always precedes or accompanies Moral
Choice; be it so, this makes no difference, for this is not the point in
question, but whether Moral Choice is the same as Opinion of a certain
kind.
Since then it is none of the aforementioned things, what is it, or how is it
characterised? Voluntary it plainly is, but not all voluntary action is an
object of Moral Choice. May we not say then, it is “that voluntary which
has passed through a stage of previous deliberation?” because Moral Choice
is attended with reasoning and intellectual process. The etymology of its
Greek name seems to give a hint of it, being when analysed “chosen in
preference to somewhat else.”

Chapter V.
Well then; do men deliberate about everything, and is anything soever the
object of Deliberation, or are there some matters with respect to which there
is none? (It may be as well perhaps to say, that by “object of Deliberation”
is meant such matter as a sensible man would deliberate upon, not what any
fool or madman might.)
Well: about eternal things no one deliberates; as, for instance, the
universe, or the incommensurability of the diameter and side of a square.
Nor again about things which are in motion but which always happen in
the same way either necessarily, or naturally, or from some other cause, as
the solstices or the sunrise.
Nor about those which are variable, as drought and rains; nor fortuitous
matters, as finding of treasure.
Nor in fact even about all human affairs; no Lacedæmonian, for instance,
deliberates as to the best course for the Scythian government to adopt;
because in such cases we have no power over the result.

But we do deliberate respecting such practical matters as are in our own
power (which are what are left after all our exclusions).
I have adopted this division because causes seem to be divisible into
nature, necessity, chance, and moreover intellect, and all human powers.
And as man in general deliberates about what man in general can effect,
so individuals do about such practical things as can be effected through
their own instrumentality.
Again, we do not deliberate respecting such arts or sciences as are exact
and independent: as, for instance, about written characters, because we have
no doubt how they should be formed; but we do deliberate on all buch
things as are usually done through our own instrumentality, but not
invariably in the same way; as, for instance, about matters connected with
the healing art, or with money-making; and, again, more about piloting
ships than gymnastic exercises, because the former has been less exactly
determined, and so forth; and more about arts than sciences, because we
more frequently doubt respecting the former.
So then Deliberation takes place in such matters as are under general
laws, but still uncertain how in any given case they will issue, i.e. in which
there is some indefiniteness; and for great matters we associate coadjutors
in counsel, distrusting our ability to settle them alone.
Further, we deliberate not about Ends, but Means to Ends. No physician,
for instance, deliberates whether he will cure, nor orator whether he will
persuade, nor statesman whether he will produce a good constitution, nor in
fact any man in any other function about his particular End; but having set
before them a certain End they look how and through what means it may be
accomplished: if there is a choice of means, they examine further which are
easiest and most creditable; or, if there is but one means of accomplishing
the object, then how it may be through this, this again through what, till
they come to the first cause; and this will be the last found; for a man
engaged in a process of deliberation seems to seek and analyse, as a man, to
solve a problem, analyses the figure given him. And plainly not every
search is Deliberation, those in mathematics to wit, but every Deliberation
is a search, and the last step in the analysis is the first in the constructive
process. And if in the course of their search men come upon an
impossibility, they give it up; if money, for instance, be necessary, but
cannot be got: but if the thing appears possible they then attempt to do it.

And by possible I mean what may be done through our own
instrumentality (of course what may be done through our friends is through
our own instrumentality in a certain sense, because the origination in such
cases rests with us). And the object of search is sometimes the necessary
instruments, sometimes the method of using them; and similarly in the rest
sometimes through what, and sometimes how or through what.[9]
So it seems, as has been said, that Man is the originator of his actions;
and Deliberation has for its object whatever may be done through one’s
own instrumentality, and the actions are with a view to other things; and so
it is, not the End, but the Means to Ends on which Deliberation is
employed.
Nor, again, is it employed on matters of detail, as whether the substance
before me is bread, or has been properly cooked; for these come under the
province of sense, and if a man is to be always deliberating, he may go on
ad infinitum.
Further, exactly the same matter is the object both of Deliberation and
Moral Choice; but that which is the object of Moral Choice is
thenceforward separated off and definite,[10] because by object of Moral
Choice is denoted that which after Deliberation has been preferred to
something else: for each man leaves off searching how he shall do a thing
when he has brought the origination up to himself, i.e. to the governing
principle in himself,[11] because it is this which makes the choice. A good
illustration of this is furnished by the old regal constitutions which Homer
drew from, in which the Kings would announce to the commonalty what
they had determined before.
Now since that which is the object of Moral Choice is something in our
own power, which is the object of deliberation and the grasping of the Will,
Moral Choice must be “a grasping after something in our own power
consequent upon Deliberation:” because after having deliberated we decide,
and then grasp by our Will in accordance with the result of our deliberation.
[12]

Let this be accepted as a sketch of the nature and object of Moral Choice,
that object being “Means to Ends.”

Chapter VI.

That Wish has for its object-matter the End, has been already stated; but
there are two opinions respecting it; some thinking that its object is real
good, others whatever impresses the mind with a notion of good.
Now those who maintain that the object of Wish is real good are beset by
this difficulty, that what is wished for by him who chooses wrongly is not
really an object of Wish (because, on their theory, if it is an object of wish,
it must be good, but it is, in the case supposed, evil). Those who maintain,
on the contrary, that that which impresses the mind with a notion of good is
properly the object of Wish, have to meet this difficulty, that there is
nothing naturally an object of Wish but to each individual whatever seems
good to him; now different people have different notions, and it may chance
contrary ones.
But, if these opinions do not satisfy us, may we not say that, abstractedly
and as a matter of objective truth, the really good is the object of Wish, but
to each individual whatever impresses his mind with the notion of good.[13]
And so to the good man that is an object of Wish which is really and truly
so, but to the bad man anything may be; just as physically those things are
wholesome to the healthy which are really so, but other things to the sick.
And so too of bitter and sweet, and hot and heavy, and so on. For the good
man judges in every instance correctly, and in every instance the notion
conveyed to his mind is the true one.
For there are fair and pleasant things peculiar to, and so varying with,
each state; and perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of the good
man is his seeing the truth in every instance, he being, in fact, the rule and
measure of these matters.
The multitude of men seem to be deceived by reason of pleasure, because
though it is not really a good it impresses their minds with the notion of
goodness, so they choose what is pleasant as good and avoid pain as an evil.

Chapter VII.
Now since the End is the object of Wish, and the means to the End of
Deliberation and Moral Choice, the actions regarding these matters must be
in the way of Moral Choice, i.e. voluntary: but the acts of working out the
virtues are such actions, and therefore Virtue is in our power.

And so too is Vice: because wherever it is in our power to do it is also in
our power to forbear doing, and vice versâ: therefore if the doing (being in a
given case creditable) is in our power, so too is the forbearing (which is in
the same case discreditable), and vice versâ.
But if it is in our power to do and to forbear doing what is creditable or
the contrary, and these respectively constitute the being good or bad, then
the being good or vicious characters is in our power.
As for the well-known saying, “No man voluntarily is wicked or
involuntarily happy,” it is partly true, partly false; for no man is happy
against his will, of course, but wickedness is voluntary. Or must we dispute
the statements lately made, and not say that Man is the originator or
generator of his actions as much as of his children?
But if this is matter of plain manifest fact, and we cannot refer our
actions to any other originations beside those in our own power, those
things must be in our own power, and so voluntary, the originations of
which are in ourselves.
Moreover, testimony seems to be borne to these positions both privately
by individuals, and by law-givers too, in that they chastise and punish those
who do wrong (unless they do so on compulsion, or by reason of ignorance
which is not self-caused), while they honour those who act rightly, under
the notion of being likely to encourage the latter and restrain the former.
But such things as are not in our own power, i.e. not voluntary, no one
thinks of encouraging us to do, knowing it to be of no avail for one to have
been persuaded not to be hot (for instance), or feel pain, or be hungry, and
so forth, because we shall have those sensations all the same.
And what makes the case stronger is this: that they chastise for the very
fact of ignorance, when it is thought to be self-caused; to the drunken, for
instance, penalties are double, because the origination in such case lies in a
man’s own self: for he might have helped getting drunk, and this is the
cause of his ignorance.
Again, those also who are ignorant of legal regulations which they are
bound to know, and which are not hard to know, they chastise; and similarly
in all other cases where neglect is thought to be the cause of the ignorance,
under the notion that it was in their power to prevent their ignorance,
because they might have paid attention.

But perhaps a man is of such a character that he cannot attend to such
things: still men are themselves the causes of having become such
characters by living carelessly, and also of being unjust or destitute of self-
control, the former by doing evil actions, the latter by spending their time in
drinking and such-like; because the particular acts of working form
corresponding characters, as is shown by those who are practising for any
contest or particular course of action, for such men persevere in the acts of
working.
As for the plea, that a man did not know that habits are produced from
separate acts of working, we reply, such ignorance is a mark of excessive
stupidity.
Furthermore, it is wholly irrelevant to say that the man who acts unjustly
or dissolutely does not wish to attain the habits of these vices: for if a man
wittingly does those things whereby he must become unjust he is to all
intents and purposes unjust voluntarily; but he cannot with a wish cease to
be unjust and become just. For, to take the analogous case, the sick man
cannot with a wish be well again, yet in a supposable case he is voluntarily
ill because he has produced his sickness by living intemperately and
disregarding his physicians. There was a time then when he might have
helped being ill, but now he has let himself go he cannot any longer; just as
he who has let a stone out of his hand cannot recall it,[14] and yet it rested
with him to aim and throw it, because the origination was in his power. Just
so the unjust man, and he who has lost all self-control, might originally
have helped being what they are, and so they are voluntarily what they are;
but now that they are become so they no longer have the power of being
otherwise.
And not only are mental diseases voluntary, but the bodily are so in some
men, whom we accordingly blame: for such as are naturally deformed no
one blames, only such as are so by reason of want of exercise, and neglect:
and so too of weakness and maiming: no one would think of upbraiding, but
would rather compassionate, a man who is blind by nature, or from disease,
or from an accident; but every one would blame him who was so from
excess of wine, or any other kind of intemperance. It seems, then, that in
respect of bodily diseases, those which depend on ourselves are censured,
those which do not are not censured; and if so, then in the case of the
mental disorders, those which are censured must depend upon ourselves.

But suppose a man to say, “that (by our own admission) all men aim at
that which conveys to their minds an impression of good, and that men have
no control over this impression, but that the End impresses each with a
notion correspondent to his own individual character; that to be sure if each
man is in a way the cause of his own moral state, so he will be also of the
kind of impression he receives: whereas, if this is not so, no one is the cause
to himself of doing evil actions, but he does them by reason of ignorance of
the true End, supposing that through their means he will secure the chief
good. Further, that this aiming at the End is no matter of one’s own choice,
but one must be born with a power of mental vision, so to speak, whereby
to judge fairly and choose that which is really good; and he is blessed by
nature who has this naturally well: because it is the most important thing
and the fairest, and what a man cannot get or learn from another but will
have such as nature has given it; and for this to be so given well and fairly
would be excellence of nature in the highest and truest sense.”
If all this be true, how will Virtue be a whit more voluntary than Vice?
Alike to the good man and the bad, the End gives its impression and is fixed
by nature or howsoever you like to say, and they act so and so, referring
everything else to this End.
Whether then we suppose that the End impresses each man’s mind with
certain notions not merely by nature, but that there is somewhat also
dependent on himself; or that the End is given by nature, and yet Virtue is
voluntary because the good man does all the rest voluntarily, Vice must be
equally so; because his own agency equally attaches to the bad man in the
actions, even if not in the selection of the End.
If then, as is commonly said, the Virtues are voluntary (because we at
least cooperate[15] in producing our moral states, and we assume the End to
be of a certain kind according as we are ourselves of certain characters), the
Vices must be voluntary also, because the cases are exactly similar.

Chapter VIII.
Well now, we have stated generally respecting the Moral Virtues, the
genus (in outline), that they are mean states, and that they are habits, and
how they are formed, and that they are of themselves calculated to act upon

the circumstances out of which they were formed, and that they are in our
own power and voluntary, and are to be done so as right Reason may direct.
But the particular actions and the habits are not voluntary in the same
sense; for of the actions we are masters from beginning to end (supposing
of course a knowledge of the particular details), but only of the origination
of the habits, the addition by small particular accessions not being
cognisiable (as is the case with sicknesses): still they are voluntary because
it rested with us to use our circumstances this way or that.

Chapter IX.
Here we will resume the particular discussion of the Moral Virtues, and
say what they are, what is their object-matter, and how they stand
respectively related to it: of course their number will be thereby shown.
First, then, of Courage. Now that it is a mean state, in respect of fear and
boldness, has been already said: further, the objects of our fears are
obviously things fearful or, in a general way of statement, evils; which
accounts for the common definition of fear, viz. “expectation of evil.”
Of course we fear evils of all kinds: disgrace, for instance, poverty,
disease, desolateness, death; but not all these seem to be the object-matter
of the Brave man, because there are things which to fear is right and noble,
and not to fear is base; disgrace, for example, since he who fears this is a
good man and has a sense of honour, and he who does not fear it is
shameless (though there are those who call him Brave by analogy, because
he somewhat resembles the Brave man who agrees with him in being free
from fear); but poverty, perhaps, or disease, and in fact whatever does not
proceed from viciousness, nor is attributable to his own fault, a man ought
not to fear: still, being fearless in respect of these would not constitute a
man Brave in the proper sense of the term.
Yet we do apply the term[16] in right of the similarity of the cases; for
there are men who, though timid in the dangers of war, are liberal men and
are stout enough to face loss of wealth.
And, again, a man is not a coward for fearing insult to his wife or
children, or envy, or any such thing; nor is he a Brave man for being bold
when going to be scourged.

What kind of fearful things then do constitute the object-matter of the
Brave man? first of all, must they not be the greatest, since no man is more
apt to withstand what is dreadful. Now the object of the greatest dread is
death, because it is the end of all things, and the dead man is thought to be
capable neither of good nor evil. Still it would seem that the Brave man has
not for his object-matter even death in every circumstance; on the sea, for
example, or in sickness: in what circumstances then? must it not be in the
most honourable? now such is death in war, because it is death in the
greatest and most honourable danger; and this is confirmed by the honours
awarded in communities, and by monarchs.
He then may be most properly denominated Brave who is fearless in
respect of honourable death and such sudden emergencies as threaten death;
now such specially are those which arise in the course of war.
It is not meant but that the Brave man will be fearless also on the sea
(and in sickness), but not in the same way as sea-faring men; for these are
light-hearted and hopeful by reason of their experience, while landsmen
though Brave are apt to give themselves up for lost and shudder at the
notion of such a death: to which it should be added that Courage is exerted
in circumstances which admit of doing something to help one’s self, or in
which death would be honourable; now neither of these requisites attach to
destruction by drowning or sickness.

Chapter X.
Again, fearful is a term of relation, the same thing not being so to all, and
there is according to common parlance somewhat so fearful as to be beyond
human endurance: this of course would be fearful to every man of sense,
but those objects which are level to the capacity of man differ in magnitude
and admit of degrees, so too the objects of confidence or boldness.
Now the Brave man cannot be frighted from his propriety (but of course
only so far as he is man); fear such things indeed he will, but he will stand
up against them as he ought and as right reason may direct, with a view to
what is honourable, because this is the end of the virtue.
Now it is possible to fear these things too much, or too little, or again to
fear what is not really fearful as if it were such. So the errors come to be
either that a man fears when he ought not to fear at all, or that he fears in an

improper way, or at a wrong time, and so forth; and so too in respect of
things inspiring confidence. He is Brave then who withstands, and fears,
and is bold, in respect of right objects, from a right motive, in right manner,
and at right times: since the Brave man suffers or acts as he ought and as
right reason may direct.
Now the end of every separate act of working is that which accords with
the habit, and so to the Brave man Courage; which is honourable; therefore
such is also the End, since the character of each is determined by the End.[17]
So honour is the motive from which the Brave man withstands things
fearful and performs the acts which accord with Courage.
Of the characters on the side of Excess, he who exceeds in utter absence
of fear has no appropriate name (I observed before that many states have
none), but he would be a madman or inaccessible to pain if he feared
nothing, neither earthquake, nor the billows, as they tell of the Celts.
He again who exceeds in confidence in respect of things fearful is rash.
He is thought moreover to be a braggart, and to advance unfounded claims
to the character of Brave: the relation which the Brave man really bears to
objects of fear this man wishes to appear to bear, and so imitates him in
whatever points he can; for this reason most of them exhibit a curious
mixture of rashness and cowardice; because, affecting rashness in these
circumstances, they do not withstand what is truly fearful.
The man moreover who exceeds in feeling fear is a coward, since there
attach to him the circumstances of fearing wrong objects, in wrong ways,
and so forth. He is deficient also in feeling confidence, but he is most
clearly seen as exceeding in the case of pains; he is a fainthearted kind of
man, for he fears all things: the Brave man is just the contrary, for boldness
is the property of the light-hearted and hopeful.
So the coward, the rash, and the Brave man have exactly the same object-
matter, but stand differently related to it: the two first-mentioned
respectively exceed and are deficient, the last is in a mean state and as he
ought to be. The rash again are precipitate, and, being eager before danger,
when actually in it fall away, while the Brave are quick and sharp in action,
but before are quiet and composed.
Well then, as has been said, Courage is a mean state in respect of objects
inspiring boldness or fear, in the circumstances which have been stated, and
the Brave man chooses his line and withstands danger either because to do

so is honourable, or because not to do so is base. But dying to escape from
poverty, or the pangs of love, or anything that is simply painful, is the act
not of a Brave man but of a coward; because it is mere softness to fly from
what is toilsome, and the suicide braves the terrors of death not because it is
honourable but to get out of the reach of evil.

Chapter XI.
Courage proper is somewhat of the kind I have described, but there are
dispositions, differing in five ways,[18] which also bear in common parlance
the name of Courage.
We will take first that which bears most resemblance to the true, the
Courage of Citizenship, so named because the motives which are thought to
actuate the members of a community in braving danger are the penalties
and disgrace held out by the laws to cowardice, and the dignities conferred
on the Brave; which is thought to be the reason why those are the bravest
people among whom cowards are visited with disgrace and the Brave held
in honour.
Such is the kind of Courage Homer exhibits in his characters; Diomed
and Hector for example. The latter says,
“Polydamas will be the first to fix
Disgrace upon me.”

Diomed again,
“For Hector surely will hereafter say,
Speaking in Troy, Tydides by my hand”—

This I say most nearly resembles the Courage before spoken of, because
it arises from virtue, from a feeling of shame, and a desire of what is noble
(that is, of honour), and avoidance of disgrace which is base.
In the same rank one would be inclined to place those also who act under
compulsion from their commanders; yet are they really lower, because not a
sense of honour but fear is the motive from which they act, and what they
seek to avoid is not that which is base but that which is simply painful:
commanders do in fact compel their men sometimes, as Hector says (to
quote Homer again),

“But whomsoever I shall find cowering afar from the fight,
The teeth of dogs he shall by no means escape.”

Those commanders who station staunch troops by doubtful ones,[19] or
who beat their men if they flinch, or who draw their troops up in line with
the trenches, or other similar obstacles, in their rear, do in effect the same as
Hector, for they all use compulsion.
But a man is to be Brave, not on compulsion, but from a sense of honour.
In the next place, Experience and Skill in the various particulars is
thought to be a species of Courage: whence Socrates also thought that
Courage was knowledge.[20]
This quality is exhibited of course by different men under different
circumstances, but in warlike matters, with which we are now concerned, it
is exhibited by the soldiers (“the regulars”): for there are, it would seem,
many things in war of no real importance[21] which these have been
constantly used to see; so they have a show of Courage because other
people are not aware of the real nature of these things. Then again by reason
of their skill they are better able than any others to inflict without suffering
themselves, because they are able to use their arms and have such as are
most serviceable both with a view to offence and defence: so that their case
is parallel to that of armed men fighting with unarmed or trained athletes
with amateurs, since in contests of this kind those are the best fighters, not
who are the bravest men, but who are the strongest and are in the best
condition.
In fact, the regular troops come to be cowards whenever the danger is
greater than their means of meeting it; supposing, for example, that they are
inferior in numbers and resources: then they are the first to fly, but the mere
militia stand and fall on the ground (which as you know really happened at
the Hermæum),[22] for in the eyes of these flight was disgraceful and death
preferable to safety bought at such a price: while “the regulars” originally
went into the danger under a notion of their own superiority, but on
discovering their error they took to flight,[23] having greater fear of death
than of disgrace; but this is not the feeling of the Brave man.
Thirdly, mere Animal Spirit is sometimes brought under the term
Courage: they are thought to be Brave who are carried on by mere Animal
Spirit, as are wild beasts against those who have wounded them, because in
fact the really Brave have much Spirit, there being nothing like it for going

at danger of any kind; whence those frequent expressions in Homer,
“infused strength into his spirit,” “roused his strength and spirit,” or again,
“and keen strength in his nostrils,” “his blood boiled:” for all these seem to
denote the arousing and impetuosity of the Animal Spirit.
Now they that are truly Brave act from a sense of honour, and this
Animal Spirit co-operates with them; but wild beasts from pain, that is
because they have been wounded, or are frightened; since if they are quietly
in their own haunts, forest or marsh, they do not attack men. Surely they are
not Brave because they rush into danger when goaded on by pain and mere
Spirit, without any view of the danger: else would asses be Brave when
they are hungry, for though beaten they will not then leave their pasture:
profligate men besides do many bold actions by reason of their lust. We
may conclude then that they are not Brave who are goaded on to meet
danger by pain and mere Spirit; but still this temper which arises from
Animal Spirit appears to be most natural, and would be Courage of the true
kind if it could have added to it moral choice and the proper motive.
So men also are pained by a feeling of anger, and take pleasure in
revenge; but they who fight from these causes may be good fighters, but
they are not truly Brave (in that they do not act from a sense of honour, nor
as reason directs, but merely from the present feeling), still they bear some
resemblance to that character.
Nor, again, are the Sanguine and Hopeful therefore Brave: since their
boldness in dangers arises from their frequent victories over numerous foes.
The two characters are alike, however, in that both are confident; but then
the Brave are so from the afore-mentioned causes, whereas these are so
from a settled conviction of their being superior and not likely to suffer
anything in return (they who are intoxicated do much the same, for they
become hopeful when in that state); but when the event disappoints their
expectations they run away: now it was said to be the character of a Brave
man to withstand things which are fearful to man or produce that
impression, because it is honourable so to do and the contrary is
dishonourable.
For this reason it is thought to be a greater proof of Courage to be
fearless and undisturbed under the pressure of sudden fear than under that
which may be anticipated, because Courage then comes rather from a fixed
habit, or less from preparation: since as to foreseen dangers a man might

take his line even from calculation and reasoning, but in those which are
sudden he will do so according to his fixed habit of mind.
Fifthly and lastly, those who are acting under Ignorance have a show of
Courage and are not very far from the Hopeful; but still they are inferior
inasmuch as they have no opinion of themselves; which the others have,
and therefore stay and contest a field for some little time; but they who have
been deceived fly the moment they know things to be otherwise than they
supposed, which the Argives experienced when they fell on the
Lacedæmonians, taking them for the men of Sicyon.

Chapter XII.
We have described then what kind of men the Brave are, and what they
who are thought to be, but are not really, Brave.
It must be remarked, however, that though Courage has for its object-
matter boldness and fear it has not both equally so, but objects of fear much
more than the former; for he that under pressure of these is undisturbed and
stands related to them as he ought is better entitled to the name of Brave
than he who is properly affected towards objects of confidence. So then
men are termed Brave for withstanding painful things.
It follows that Courage involves pain and is justly praised, since it is a
harder matter to withstand things that are painful than to abstain from such
as are pleasant.
It must not be thought but that the End and object of Courage is pleasant,
but it is obscured by the surrounding circumstances: which happens also in
the gymnastic games; to the boxers the End is pleasant with a view to which
they act, I mean the crown and the honours; but the receiving the blows
they do is painful and annoying to flesh and blood, and so is all the labour
they have to undergo; and, as these drawbacks are many, the object in view
being small appears to have no pleasantness in it.
If then we may say the same of Courage, of course death and wounds
must be painful to the Brave man and against his will: still he endures these
because it is honourable so to do or because it is dishonourable not to do so.
And the more complete his virtue and his happiness so much the more will
he be pained at the notion of death: since to such a man as he is it is best

worth while to live, and he with full consciousness is deprived of the
greatest goods by death, and this is a painful idea. But he is not the less
Brave for feeling it to be so, nay rather it may be he is shown to be more so
because he chooses the honour that may be reaped in war in preference to
retaining safe possession of these other goods. The fact is that to act with
pleasure does not belong to all the virtues, except so far as a man realises
the End of his actions.
But there is perhaps no reason why not such men should make the best
soldiers, but those who are less truly Brave but have no other good to care
for: these being ready to meet danger and bartering their lives against small
gain.
Let thus much be accepted as sufficient on the subject of Courage; the
true nature of which it is not difficult to gather, in outline at least, from what
has been said.

Chapter XIII.
Next let us speak of Perfected Self-Mastery, which seems to claim the
next place to Courage, since these two are the Excellences of the Irrational
part of the Soul.
That it is a mean state, having for its object-matter Pleasures, we have
already said (Pains being in fact its object-matter in a less degree and
dissimilar manner), the state of utter absence of self-control has plainly the
same object-matter; the next thing then is to determine what kind of
Pleasures.
Let Pleasures then be understood to be divided into mental and bodily:
instances of the former being love of honour or of learning: it being plain
that each man takes pleasure in that of these two objects which he has a
tendency to like, his body being no way affected but rather his intellect.
Now men are not called perfectly self-mastering or wholly destitute of self-
control in respect of pleasures of this class: nor in fact in respect of any
which are not bodily; those for example who love to tell long stories, and
are prosy, and spend their days about mere chance matters, we call gossips
but not wholly destitute of self-control, nor again those who are pained at
the loss of money or friends.

It is bodily Pleasures then which are the object-matter of Perfected Self-
Mastery, but not even all these indifferently: I mean, that they who take
pleasure in objects perceived by the Sight, as colours, and forms, and
painting, are not denominated men of Perfected Self-Mastery, or wholly
destitute of self-control; and yet it would seem that one may take pleasure
even in such objects, as one ought to do, or excessively, or too little.
So too of objects perceived by the sense of Hearing; no one applies the
terms before quoted respectively to those who are excessively pleased with
musical tunes or acting, or to those who take such pleasure as they ought.
Nor again to those persons whose pleasure arises from the sense of
Smell, except incidentally:[24] I mean, we do not say men have no self-
control because they take pleasure in the scent of fruit, or flowers, or
incense, but rather when they do so in the smells of unguents and sauces:
since men destitute of self-control take pleasure herein, because hereby the
objects of their lusts are recalled to their imagination (you may also see
other men take pleasure in the smell of food when they are hungry): but to
take pleasure in such is a mark of the character before named since these
are objects of desire to him.
Now not even brutes receive pleasure in right of these senses, except
incidentally. I mean, it is not the scent of hares’ flesh but the eating it which
dogs take pleasure in, perception of which pleasure is caused by the sense
of Smell. Or again, it is not the lowing of the ox but eating him which the
lion likes; but of the fact of his nearness the lion is made sensible by the
lowing, and so he appears to take pleasure in this. In like manner, he has no
pleasure in merely seeing or finding a stag or wild goat, but in the prospect
of a meal.
The habits of Perfect Self-Mastery and entire absence of self-control
have then for their object-matter such pleasures as brutes also share in, for
which reason they are plainly servile and brutish: they are Touch and Taste.
But even Taste men seem to make little or no use of; for to the sense of
Taste belongs the distinguishing of flavours; what men do, in fact, who are
testing the quality of wines or seasoning “made dishes.”
But men scarcely take pleasure at all in these things, at least those whom
we call destitute of self-control do not, but only in the actual enjoyment
which arises entirely from the sense of Touch, whether in eating or in
drinking, or in grosser lusts. This accounts for the wish said to have been

expressed once by a great glutton, “that his throat had been formed longer
than a crane’s neck,” implying that his pleasure was derived from the
Touch.
The sense then with which is connected the habit of absence of self-
control is the most common of all the senses, and this habit would seem to
be justly a matter of reproach, since it attaches to us not in so far as we are
men but in so far as we are animals. Indeed it is brutish to take pleasure in
such things and to like them best of all; for the most respectable of the
pleasures arising from the touch have been set aside; those, for instance,
which occur in the course of gymnastic training from the rubbing and the
warm bath: because the touch of the man destitute of self-control is not
indifferently of any part of the body but only of particular parts.
Now of lusts or desires some are thought to be universal, others peculiar
and acquired; thus desire for food is natural since every one who really
needs desires also food, whether solid or liquid, or both (and, as Homer
says, the man in the prime of youth needs and desires intercourse with the
other sex); but when we come to this or that particular kind, then neither is
the desire universal nor in all men is it directed to the same objects. And
therefore the conceiving of such desires plainly attaches to us as
individuals. It must be admitted, however, that there is something natural in
it: because different things are pleasant to different men and a preference of
some particular objects to chance ones is universal. Well then, in the case of
the desires which are strictly and properly natural few men go wrong and all
in one direction, that is, on the side of too much: I mean, to eat and drink of
such food as happens to be on the table till one is overfilled is exceeding in
quantity the natural limit, since the natural desire is simply a supply of a
real deficiency.
For this reason these men are called belly-mad, as filling it beyond what
they ought, and it is the slavish who become of this character.
But in respect of the peculiar pleasures many men go wrong and in many
different ways; for whereas the term “fond of so and so” implies either
taking pleasure in wrong objects, or taking pleasure excessively, or as the
mass of men do, or in a wrong way, they who are destitute of all self-control
exceed in all these ways; that is to say, they take pleasure in some things in
which they ought not to do so (because they are properly objects of

detestation), and in such as it is right to take pleasure in they do so more
than they ought and as the mass of men do.
Well then, that excess with respect to pleasures is absence of self-control,
and blameworthy, is plain. But viewing these habits on the side of pains, we
find that a man is not said to have the virtue for withstanding them (as in
the case of Courage), nor the vice for not withstanding them; but the man
destitute of self-control is such, because he is pained more than he ought to
be at not obtaining things which are pleasant (and thus his pleasure
produces pain to him), and the man of Perfected Self-Mastery is such in
virtue of not being pained by their absence, that is, by having to abstain
from what is pleasant.
Now the man destitute of self-control desires either all pleasant things
indiscriminately or those which are specially pleasant, and he is impelled by
his desire to choose these things in preference to all others; and this
involves pain, not only when he misses the attainment of his objects but, in
the very desiring them, since all desire is accompanied by pain. Surely it is
a strange case this, being pained by reason of pleasure.
As for men who are defective on the side of pleasure, who take less
pleasure in things than they ought, they are almost imaginary characters,
because such absence of sensual perception is not natural to man: for even
the other animals distinguish between different kinds of food, and like some
kinds and dislike others. In fact, could a man be found who takes no
pleasure in anything and to whom all things are alike, he would be far from
being human at all: there is no name for such a character because it is
simply imaginary.
But the man of Perfected Self-Mastery is in the mean with respect to
these objects: that is to say, he neither takes pleasure in the things which
delight the vicious man, and in fact rather dislikes them, nor at all in
improper objects; nor to any great degree in any object of the class; nor is
he pained at their absence; nor does he desire them; or, if he does, only in
moderation, and neither more than he ought, nor at improper times, and so
forth; but such things as are conducive to health and good condition of
body, being also pleasant, these he will grasp at in moderation and as he
ought to do, and also such other pleasant things as do not hinder these
objects, and are not unseemly or disproportionate to his means; because he
that should grasp at such would be liking such pleasures more than is

proper; but the man of Perfected Self-Mastery is not of this character, but
regulates his desires by the dictates of right reason.

Chapter XIV.
Now the vice of being destitute of all Self-Control seems to be more truly
voluntary than Cowardice, because pleasure is the cause of the former and
pain of the latter, and pleasure is an object of choice, pain of avoidance.
And again, pain deranges and spoils the natural disposition of its victim,
whereas pleasure has no such effect and is more voluntary and therefore
more justly open to reproach.
It is so also for the following reason; that it is easier to be inured by habit
to resist the objects of pleasure, there being many things of this kind in life
and the process of habituation being unaccompanied by danger; whereas the
case is the reverse as regards the objects of fear.
Again, Cowardice as a confirmed habit would seem to be voluntary in a
different way from the particular instances which form the habit; because it
is painless, but these derange the man by reason of pain so that he throws
away his arms and otherwise behaves himself unseemly, for which reason
they are even thought by some to exercise a power of compulsion.
But to the man destitute of Self-Control the particular instances are on
the contrary quite voluntary, being done with desire and direct exertion of
the will, but the general result is less voluntary: since no man desires to
form the habit.
The name of this vice (which signifies etymologically unchastened-ness)
we apply also to the faults of children, there being a certain resemblance
between the cases: to which the name is primarily applied, and to which
secondarily or derivatively, is not relevant to the present subject, but it is
evident that the later in point of time must get the name from the earlier.
And the metaphor seems to be a very good one; for whatever grasps after
base things, and is liable to great increase, ought to be chastened; and to this
description desire and the child answer most truly, in that children also live
under the direction of desire and the grasping after what is pleasant is most
prominently seen in these.

Unless then the appetite be obedient and subjected to the governing
principle it will become very great: for in the fool the grasping after what is
pleasant is insatiable and undiscriminating; and every acting out of the
desire increases the kindred habit, and if the desires are great and violent in
degree they even expel Reason entirely; therefore they ought to be moderate
and few, and in no respect to be opposed to Reason. Now when the appetite
is in such a state we denominate it obedient and chastened.
In short, as the child ought to live with constant regard to the orders of its
educator, so should the appetitive principle with regard to those of Reason.
So then in the man of Perfected Self-Mastery, the appetitive principle
must be accordant with Reason: for what is right is the mark at which both
principles aim: that is to say, the man of perfected self-mastery desires what
he ought in right manner and at right times, which is exactly what Reason
directs. Let this be taken for our account of Perfected Self-Mastery.

BOOK IV

Chapter I.
We will next speak of Liberality. Now this is thought to be the mean
state, having for its object-matter Wealth: I mean, the Liberal man is praised
not in the circumstances of war, nor in those which constitute the character
of perfected self-mastery, nor again in judicial decisions, but in respect of
giving and receiving Wealth, chiefly the former. By the term Wealth I mean
“all those things whose worth is measured by money.”
Now the states of excess and defect in regard of Wealth are respectively
Prodigality and Stinginess: the latter of these terms we attach invariably to
those who are over careful about Wealth, but the former we apply
sometimes with a complex notion; that is to say, we give the name to those
who fail of self-control and spend money on the unrestrained gratification
of their passions; and this is why they are thought to be most base, because
they have many vices at once.
It must be noted, however, that this is not a strict and proper use of the
term, since its natural etymological meaning is to denote him who has one
particular evil, viz. the wasting his substance: he is unsaved (as the term
literally denotes) who is wasting away by his own fault; and this he really
may be said to be; the destruction of his substance is thought to be a kind of
wasting of himself, since these things are the means of living. Well, this is
our acceptation of the term Prodigality.
Again. Whatever things are for use may be used well or ill, and Wealth
belongs to this class. He uses each particular thing best who has the virtue
to whose province it belongs: so that he will use Wealth best who has the
virtue respecting Wealth, that is to say, the Liberal man.
Expenditure and giving are thought to be the using of money, but
receiving and keeping one would rather call the possessing of it. And so the

giving to proper persons is more characteristic of the Liberal man, than the
receiving from proper quarters and forbearing to receive from the contrary.
In fact generally, doing well by others is more characteristic of virtue than
being done well by, and doing things positively honourable than forbearing
to do things dishonourable; and any one may see that the doing well by
others and doing things positively honourable attaches to the act of giving,
but to that of receiving only the being done well by or forbearing to do what
is dishonourable.
Besides, thanks are given to him who gives, not to him who merely
forbears to receive, and praise even more. Again, forbearing to receive is
easier than giving, the case of being too little freehanded with one’s own
being commoner than taking that which is not one’s own.
And again, it is they who give that are denominated Liberal, while they
who forbear to receive are commended, not on the score of Liberality but of
just dealing, while for receiving men are not, in fact, praised at all.
And the Liberal are liked almost best of all virtuous characters, because
they are profitable to others, and this their profitableness consists in their
giving.
Furthermore: all the actions done in accordance with virtue are
honourable, and done from the motive of honour: and the Liberal man,
therefore, will give from a motive of honour, and will give rightly; I mean,
to proper persons, in right proportion, at right times, and whatever is
included in the term “right giving:” and this too with positive pleasure, or at
least without pain, since whatever is done in accordance with virtue is
pleasant or at least not unpleasant, most certainly not attended with positive
pain.
But the man who gives to improper people, or not from a motive of
honour but from some other cause, shall be called not Liberal but something
else. Neither shall he be so denominated who does it with pain: this being a
sign that he would prefer his wealth to the honourable action, and this is no
part of the Liberal man’s character; neither will such an one receive from
improper sources, because the so receiving is not characteristic of one who
values not wealth: nor again will he be apt to ask, because one who does
kindnesses to others does not usually receive them willingly; but from
proper sources (his own property, for instance) he will receive, doing this
not as honourable but as necessary, that he may have somewhat to give:

neither will he be careless of his own, since it is his wish through these to
help others in need: nor will he give to chance people, that he may have
wherewith to give to those to whom he ought, at right times, and on
occasions when it is honourable so to do.
Again, it is a trait in the Liberal man’s character even to exceed very
much in giving so as to leave too little for himself, it being characteristic of
such an one not to have a thought of self.
Now Liberality is a term of relation to a man’s means, for the Liberal-
ness depends not on the amount of what is given but on the moral state of
the giver which gives in proportion to his means. There is then no reason
why he should not be the more Liberal man who gives the less amount, if
he has less to give out of.
Again, they are thought to be more Liberal who have inherited, not
acquired for themselves, their means; because, in the first place, they have
never experienced want, and next, all people love most their own works,
just as parents do and poets.
It is not easy for the Liberal man to be rich, since he is neither apt to
receive nor to keep but to lavish, and values not wealth for its own sake but
with a view to giving it away. Hence it is commonly charged upon fortune
that they who most deserve to be rich are least so. Yet this happens
reasonably enough; it is impossible he should have wealth who does not
take any care to have it, just as in any similar case.
Yet he will not give to improper people, nor at wrong times, and so on:
because he would not then be acting in accordance with Liberality, and if he
spent upon such objects, would have nothing to spend on those on which he
ought: for, as I have said before, he is Liberal who spends in proportion to
his means, and on proper objects, while he who does so in excess is
prodigal (this is the reason why we never call despots prodigal, because it
does not seem to be easy for them by their gifts and expenditure to go
beyond their immense possessions).
To sum up then. Since Liberality is a mean state in respect of the giving
and receiving of wealth, the Liberal man will give and spend on proper
objects, and in proper proportion, in great things and in small alike, and all
this with pleasure to himself; also he will receive from right sources, and in
right proportion: because, as the virtue is a mean state in respect of both, he
will do both as he ought, and, in fact, upon proper giving follows the

correspondent receiving, while that which is not such is contrary to it. (Now
those which follow one another come to co-exist in the same person, those
which are contraries plainly do not.)
Again, should it happen to him to spend money beyond what is needful,
or otherwise than is well, he will be vexed, but only moderately and as he
ought; for feeling pleasure and pain at right objects, and in right manner, is
a property of Virtue.
The Liberal man is also a good man to have for a partner in respect of
wealth: for he can easily be wronged, since he values not wealth, and is
more vexed at not spending where he ought to have done so than at
spending where he ought not, and he relishes not the maxim of Simonides.

Chapter II.
But the Prodigal man goes wrong also in these points, for he is neither
pleased nor pained at proper objects or in proper manner, which will
become more plain as we proceed.
We have said already that Prodigality and Stinginess are respectively
states of excess and defect, and this in two things, giving and receiving
(expenditure of course we class under giving). Well now, Prodigality
exceeds in giving and forbearing to receive and is deficient in receiving,
while Stinginess is deficient in giving and exceeds in receiving, but it is in
small things.
The two parts of Prodigality, to be sure, do not commonly go together; it
is not easy, I mean, to give to all if you receive from none, because private
individuals thus giving will soon find their means run short, and such are in
fact thought to be prodigal. He that should combine both would seem to be
no little superior to the Stingy man: for he may be easily cured, both by
advancing in years, and also by the want of means, and he may come thus
to the mean: he has, you see, already the facts of the Liberal man, he gives
and forbears to receive, only he does neither in right manner or well. So if
he could be wrought upon by habituation in this respect, or change in any
other way, he would be a real Liberal man, for he will give to those to
whom he should, and will forbear to receive whence he ought not. This is
the reason too why he is thought not to be low in moral character, because

to exceed in giving and in forbearing to receive is no sign of badness or
meanness, but only of folly.
Well then, he who is Prodigal in this fashion is thought far superior to the
Stingy man for the aforementioned reasons, and also because he does good
to many, but the Stingy man to no one, not even to himself. But most
Prodigals, as has been said, combine with their other faults that of receiving
from improper sources, and on this point are Stingy: and they become
grasping, because they wish to spend and cannot do this easily, since their
means soon run short and they are necessitated to get from some other
quarter; and then again, because they care not for what is honourable, they
receive recklessly, and from all sources indifferently, because they desire to
give but care not how or whence.
And for this reason their givings are not Liberal, inasmuch as they are not
honourable, nor purely disinterested, nor done in right fashion; but they
oftentimes make those rich who should be poor, and to those who are quiet
respectable kind of people they will give nothing, but to flatterers, or those
who subserve their pleasures in any way, they will give much. And
therefore most of them are utterly devoid of self-restraint; for as they are
open-handed they are liberal in expenditure upon the unrestrained
gratification of their passions, and turn off to their pleasures because they
do not live with reference to what is honourable.
Thus then the Prodigal, if unguided, slides into these faults; but if he
could get care bestowed on him he might come to the mean and to what is
right.
Stinginess, on the contrary, is incurable: old age, for instance, and
incapacity of any kind, is thought to make people Stingy; and it is more
congenial to human nature than Prodigality, the mass of men being fond of
money rather than apt to give: moreover it extends far and has many phases,
the modes of stinginess being thought to be many. For as it consists of two
things, defect of giving and excess of receiving, everybody does not have it
entire, but it is sometimes divided, and one class of persons exceed in
receiving, the other are deficient in giving. I mean those who are designated
by such appellations as sparing, close-fisted, niggards, are all deficient in
giving; but other men’s property they neither desire nor are willing to
receive, in some instances from a real moderation and shrinking from what
is base.

There are some people whose motive, either supposed or alleged, for
keeping their property is this, that they may never be driven to do anything
dishonourable: to this class belongs the skinflint, and every one of similar
character, so named from the excess of not-giving. Others again decline to
receive their neighbour’s goods from a motive of fear; their notion being
that it is not easy to take other people’s things yourself without their taking
yours: so they are content neither to receive nor give.
The other class again who are Stingy in respect of receiving exceed in
that they receive anything from any source; such as they who work at
illiberal employments, brothel keepers, and such-like, and usurers who lend
small sums at large interest: for all these receive from improper sources,
and improper amounts. Their common characteristic is base-gaining, since
they all submit to disgrace for the sake of gain and that small; because those
who receive great things neither whence they ought, nor what they ought
(as for instance despots who sack cities and plunder temples), we
denominate wicked, impious, and unjust, but not Stingy.
Now the dicer and bath-plunderer and the robber belong to the class of
the Stingy, for they are given to base gain: both busy themselves and submit
to disgrace for the sake of gain, and the one class incur the greatest dangers
for the sake of their booty, while the others make gain of their friends to
whom they ought to be giving.
So both classes, as wishing to make gain from improper sources, are
given to base gain, and all such receivings are Stingy. And with good reason
is Stinginess called the contrary of Liberality: both because it is a greater
evil than Prodigality, and because men err rather in this direction than in
that of the Prodigality which we have spoken of as properly and completely
such.
Let this be considered as what we have to say respecting Liberality and
the contrary vices.

Chapter III.
Next in order would seem to come a dissertation on Magnificence, this
being thought to be, like liberality, a virtue having for its object-matter
Wealth; but it does not, like that, extend to all transactions in respect of
Wealth, but only applies to such as are expensive, and in these

circumstances it exceeds liberality in respect of magnitude, because it is
(what the very name in Greek hints at) fitting expense on a large scale: this
term is of course relative: I mean, the expenditure of equipping and
commanding a trireme is not the same as that of giving a public spectacle:
“fitting” of course also is relative to the individual, and the matter wherein
and upon which he has to spend. And a man is not denominated
Magnificent for spending as he should do in small or ordinary things, as, for
instance,
“Oft to the wandering beggar did I give,”

but for doing so in great matters: that is to say, the Magnificent man is
liberal, but the liberal is not thereby Magnificent. The falling short of such a
state is called Meanness, the exceeding it Vulgar Profusion, Want of Taste,
and so on; which are faulty, not because they are on an excessive scale in
respect of right objects but, because they show off in improper objects, and
in improper manner: of these we will speak presently. The Magnificent man
is like a man of skill, because he can see what is fitting, and can spend
largely in good taste; for, as we said at the commencement, the confirmed
habit is determined by the separate acts of working, and by its object-
matter.
Well, the expenses of the Magnificent man are great and fitting: such also
are his works (because this secures the expenditure being not great merely,
but befitting the work). So then the work is to be proportionate to the
expense, and this again to the work, or even above it: and the Magnificent
man will incur such expenses from the motive of honour, this being
common to all the virtues, and besides he will do it with pleasure and
lavishly; excessive accuracy in calculation being Mean. He will consider
also how a thing may be done most beautifully and fittingly, rather, than for
how much it may be done, and how at the least expense.
So the Magnificent man must be also a liberal man, because the liberal
man will also spend what he ought, and in right manner: but it is the Great,
that is to say tke large scale, which is distinctive of the Magnificent man,
the object-matter of liberality being the same, and without spending more
money than another man he will make the work more magnificent. I mean,
the excellence of a possession and of a work is not the same: as a piece of
property that thing is most valuable which is worth most, gold for instance;
but as a work that which is great and beautiful, because the contemplation

of such an object is admirable, and so is that which is Magnificent. So the
excellence of a work is Magnificence on a large scale. There are cases of
expenditure which we call honourable, such as are dedicatory offerings to
the gods, and the furnishing their temples, and sacrifices, and in like manner
everything that has reference to the Deity, and all such public matters as are
objects of honourable ambition, as when men think in any case that it is
their duty to furnish a chorus for the stage splendidly, or fit out and
maintain a trireme, or give a general public feast.
Now in all these, as has been already stated, respect is had also to the
rank and the means of the man who is doing them: because they should be
proportionate to these, and befit not the work only but also the doer of the
work. For this reason a poor man cannot be a Magnificent man, since he has
not means wherewith to spend largely and yet becomingly; and if he
attempts it he is a fool, inasmuch as it is out of proportion and contrary to
propriety, whereas to be in accordance with virtue a thing must be done
rightly.
Such expenditure is fitting moreover for those to whom such things
previously belong, either through themselves or through their ancestors or
people with whom they are connected, and to the high-born or people of
high repute, and so on: because all these things imply greatness and
reputation.
So then the Magnificent man is pretty much as I have described him, and
Magnificence consists in such expenditures: because they are the greatest
and most honourable: and of private ones such as come but once for all,
marriage to wit, and things of that kind; and any occasion which engages
the interest of the community in general, or of those who are in power; and
what concerns receiving and despatching strangers; and gifts, and repaying
gifts: because the Magnificent man is not apt to spend upon himself but on
the public good, and gifts are pretty much in the same case as dedicatory
offerings.
It is characteristic also of the Magnificent man to furnish his house
suitably to his wealth, for this also in a way reflects credit; and again, to
spend rather upon such works as are of long duration, these being most
honourable. And again, propriety in each case, because the same things are
not suitable to gods and men, nor in a temple and a tomb. And again, in the
case of expenditures, each must be great of its kind, and great expense on a

great object is most magnificent, that is in any case what is great in these
particular things.
There is a difference too between greatness of a work and greatness of
expenditure: for instance, a very beautiful ball or cup is magnificent as a
present to a child, while the price of it is small and almost mean. Therefore
it is characteristic of the Magnificent man to do magnificently whatever he
is about: for whatever is of this kind cannot be easily surpassed, and bears a
proper proportion to the expenditure.
Such then is the Magnificent man.
The man who is in the state of excess, called one of Vulgar Profusion, is
in excess because he spends improperly, as has been said. I mean in cases
requiring small expenditure he lavishes much and shows off out of taste;
giving his club a feast fit for a wedding-party, or if he has to furnish a
chorus for a comedy, giving the actors purple to wear in the first scene, as
did the Megarians. And all such things he will do, not with a view to that
which is really honourable, but to display his wealth, and because he thinks
he shall be admired for these things; and he will spend little where he ought
to spend much, and much where he should spend little.
The Mean man will be deficient in every case, and even where he has
spent the most he will spoil the whole effect for want of some trifle; he is
procrastinating in all he does, and contrives how he may spend the least,
and does even that with lamentations about the expense, and thinking that
he does all things on a greater scale than he ought.
Of course, both these states are faulty, but they do not involve disgrace
because they are neither hurtful to others nor very unseemly.

Chapter IV.
The very name of Great-mindedness implies, that great things are its
object-matter; and we will first settle what kind of things. It makes no
difference, of course, whether we regard the moral state in the abstract or as
exemplified in an individual.
Well then, he is thought to be Great-minded who values himself highly
and at the same time justly, because he that does so without grounds is
foolish, and no virtuous character is foolish or senseless. Well, the character

I have described is Great-minded. The man who estimates himself lowly,
and at the same time justly, is modest; but not Great-minded, since this
latter quality implies greatness, just as beauty implies a large bodily
conformation while small people are neat and well made but not beautiful.
Again, he who values himself highly without just grounds is a Vain man:
though the name must not be applied to every case of unduly high self-
estimation. He that values himself below his real worth is Small-minded,
and whether that worth is great, moderate, or small, his own estimate falls
below it. And he is the strongest case of this error who is really a man of
great worth, for what would he have done had his worth been less?
The Great-minded man is then, as far as greatness is concerned, at the
summit, but in respect of propriety he is in the mean, because he estimates
himself at his real value (the other characters respectively are in excess and
defect). Since then he justly estimates himself at a high, or rather at the
highest possible rate, his character will have respect specially to one thing:
this term “rate” has reference of course to external goods: and of these we
should assume that to be the greatest which we attribute to the gods, and
which is the special object of desire to those who are in power, and which is
the prize proposed to the most honourable actions: now honour answers to
these descriptions, being the greatest of external goods. So the Great-
minded man bears himself as he ought in respect of honour and dishonour.
In fact, without need of words, the Great-minded plainly have honour for
their object-matter: since honour is what the great consider themselves
specially worthy of, and according to a certain rate.
The Small-minded man is deficient, both as regards himself, and also as
regards the estimation of the Great-minded: while the Vain man is in excess
as regards himself, but does not get beyond the Great-minded man. Now the
Great-minded man, being by the hypothesis worthy of the greatest things,
must be of the highest excellence, since the better a man is the more is he
worth, and he who is best is worth the most: it follows then, that to be truly
Great-minded a man must be good, and whatever is great in each virtue
would seem to belong to the Great-minded. It would no way correspond
with the character of the Great-minded to flee spreading his hands all
abroad; nor to injure any one; for with what object in view will he do what
is base, in whose eyes nothing is great? in short, if one were to go into
particulars, the Great-minded man would show quite ludicrously unless he

were a good man: he would not be in fact deserving of honour if he were a
bad man, honour being the prize of virtue and given to the good.
This virtue, then, of Great-mindedness seems to be a kind of ornament of
all the other virtues, in that it makes them better and cannot be without
them; and for this reason it is a hard matter to be really and truly Great-
minded; for it cannot be without thorough goodness and nobleness of
character.
Honour then and dishonour are specially the object-matter of the Great-
minded man: and at such as is great, and given by good men, he will be
pleased moderately as getting his own, or perhaps somewhat less for no
honour can be quite adequate to perfect virtue: but still he will accept this
because they have nothing higher to give him. But such as is given by
ordinary people and on trifling grounds he will entirely despise, because
these do not come up to his deserts: and dishonour likewise, because in his
case there cannot be just ground for it.
Now though, as I have said, honour is specially the object-matter of the
Great-minded man, I do not mean but that likewise in respect of wealth and
power, and good or bad fortune of every kind, he will bear himself with
moderation, fall out how they may, and neither in prosperity will he be
overjoyed nor in adversity will he be unduly pained. For not even in respect
of honour does he so bear himself; and yet it is the greatest of all such
objects, since it is the cause of power and wealth being choice-worthy, for
certainly they who have them desire to receive honour through them. So to
whom honour even is a small thing to him will all other things also be so;
and this is why such men are thought to be supercilious.
It seems too that pieces of good fortune contribute to form this character
of Great-mindedness: I mean, the nobly born, or men of influence, or the
wealthy, are considered to be entitled to honour, for they are in a position of
eminence and whatever is eminent by good is more entitled to honour: and
this is why such circumstances dispose men rather to Great-mindedness,
because they receive honour at the hands of some men.
Now really and truly the good man alone is entitled to honour; only if a
man unites in himself goodness with these external advantages he is thought
to be more entitled to honour: but they who have them without also having
virtue are not justified in their high estimate of themselves, nor are they

rightly denominated Great-minded; since perfect virtue is one of the
indispensable conditions to such & character.
Further, such men become supercilious and insolent, it not being easy to
bear prosperity well without goodness; and not being able to bear it, and
possessed with an idea of their own superiority to others, they despise them,
and do just whatever their fancy prompts; for they mimic the Great-minded
man, though they are not like him, and they do this in such points as they
can, so without doing the actions which can only flow from real goodness
they despise others. Whereas the Great-minded man despises on good
grounds (for he forms his opinions truly), but the mass of men do it at
random.
Moreover, he is not a man to incur little risks, nor does he court danger,
because there are but few things he has a value for; but he will incur great
dangers, and when he does venture he is prodigal of his life as knowing that
there are terms on which it is not worth his while to live. He is the sort of
man to do kindnesses, but he is ashamed to receive them; the former putting
a man in the position of superiority, the latter in that of inferiority;
accordingly he will greatly overpay any kindness done to him, because the
original actor will thus be laid under obligation and be in the position of the
party benefited. Such men seem likewise to remember those they have done
kindnesses to, but not those from whom they have received them: because
he who has received is inferior to him who has done the kindness and our
friend wishes to be superior; accordingly he is pleased to hear of his own
kind acts but not of those done to himself (and this is why, in Homer, Thetis
does not mention to Jupiter the kindnesses she had done him, nor did the
Lacedæmonians to the Athenians but only the benefits they had received).
Further, it is characteristic of the Great-minded man to ask favours not at
all, or very reluctantly, but to do a service very readily; and to bear himself
loftily towards the great or fortunate, but towards people of middle station
affably; because to be above the former is difficult and so a grand thing, but
to be above the latter is easy; and to be high and mighty towards the former
is not ignoble, but to do it towards those of humble station would be low
and vulgar; it would be like parading strength against the weak.
And again, not to put himself in the way of honour, nor to go where
others are the chief men; and to be remiss and dilatory, except in the case of
some great honour or work; and to be concerned in few things, and those

great and famous. It is a property of him also to be open, both in his dislikes
and his likings, because concealment is a consequent of fear. Likewise to be
careful for reality rather than appearance, and talk and act openly (for his
contempt for others makes him a bold man, for which same reason he is apt
to speak the truth, except where the principle of reserve comes in), but to be
reserved towards the generality of men.
And to be unable to live with reference to any other but a friend; because
doing so is servile, as may be seen in that all flatterers are low and men in
low estate are flatterers. Neither is his admiration easily excited, because
nothing is great in his eyes; nor does he bear malice, since remembering
anything, and specially wrongs, is no part of Great-mindedness, but rather
overlooking them; nor does he talk of other men; in fact, he will not speak
either of himself or of any other; he neither cares to be praised himself nor
to have others blamed; nor again does he praise freely, and for this reason
he is not apt to speak ill even of his enemies except to show contempt and
insolence.
And he is by no means apt to make laments about things which cannot be
helped, or requests about those which are trivial; because to be thus
disposed with respect to these things is consequent only upon real anxiety
about them. Again, he is the kind of man to acquire what is beautiful and
unproductive rather than what is productive and profitable: this being rather
the part of an independent man.
Also slow motion, deep-toned voice, and deliberate style of speech, are
thought to be characteristic of the Great-minded man: for he who is earnest
about few things is not likely to be in a hurry, nor he who esteems nothing
great to be very intent: and sharp tones and quickness are the result of these.

Chapter V.
This then is my idea of the Great-minded man; and he who is in the
defect is a Small-minded man, he who is in the excess a Vain man.
However, as we observed in respect of the last character we discussed, these
extremes are not thought to be vicious exactly, but only mistaken, for they
do no harm.
The Small-minded man, for instance, being really worthy of good
deprives himself of his deserts, and seems to have somewhat faulty from

not having a sufficiently high estimate of his own desert, in fact from self-
ignorance: because, but for this, he would have grasped after what he really
is entitled to, and that is good. Still such characters are not thought to be
foolish, but rather laggards. But the having such an opinion of themselves
seems to have a deteriorating effect on the character: because in all cases
men’s aims are regulated by their supposed desert, and thus these men,
under a notion of their own want of desert, stand aloof from honourable
actions and courses, and similarly from external goods.
But the Vain are foolish and self-ignorant, and that palpably: because
they attempt honourable things, as though they were worthy, and then they
are detected. They also set themselves off, by dress, and carriage, and such-
like things, and desire that their good circumstances may be seen, and they
talk of them under the notion of receiving honour thereby. Small-
mindedness rather than Vanity is opposed to Great-mindedness, because it
is more commonly met with and is worse.

Chapter VI.
Well, the virtue of Great-mindedness has for its object great Honour, as
we have said: and there seems to be a virtue having Honour also for its
object (as we stated in the former book), which may seem to bear to Great-
mindedness the same relation that Liberality does to Magnificence: that is,
both these virtues stand aloof from what is great but dispose us as we ought
to be disposed towards moderate and small matters. Further: as in giving
and receiving of wealth there is a mean state, an excess, and a defect, so
likewise in grasping after Honour there is the more or less than is right, and
also the doing so from right sources and in right manner.
For we blame the lover of Honour as aiming at Honour more than he
ought, and from wrong sources; and him who is destitute of a love of
Honour as not choosing to be honoured even for what is noble. Sometimes
again we praise the lover of Honour as manly and having a love for what is
noble, and him who has no love for it as being moderate and modest (as we
noticed also in the former discussion of these virtues).
It is clear then that since “Lover of so and so” is a term capable of several
meanings, we do not always denote the same quality by the term “Lover of

Honour;” but when we use it as a term of commendation we denote more
than the mass of men are; when for blame more than a man should be.
And the mean state having no proper name the extremes seem to dispute
for it as unoccupied ground: but of course where there is excess and defect
there must be also the mean. And in point of fact, men do grasp at Honour
more than they should, and less, and sometimes just as they ought; for
instance, this state is praised, being a mean state in regard of Honour, but
without any appropriate name. Compared with what is called Ambition it
shows like a want of love for Honour, and compared with this it shows like
Ambition, or compared with both, like both faults: nor is this a singular case
among the virtues. Here the extreme characters appear to be opposed,
because the mean has no name appropriated to it.

Chapter VII.
Meekness is a mean state, having for its object-matter Anger: and as the
character in the mean has no name, and we may almost say the same of the
extremes, we give the name of Meekness (leaning rather to the defect,
which has no name either) to the character in the mean.
The excess may be called an over-aptness to Anger: for the passion is
Anger, and the producing causes many and various. Now he who is angry at
what and with whom he ought, and further, in right manner and time, and
for proper length of time, is praised, so this Man will be Meek since
Meekness is praised. For the notion represented by the term Meek man is
the being imperturbable, and not being led away by passion, but being
angry in that manner, and at those things, and for that length of time, which
Reason may direct. This character however is thought to err rather on the
side of defect, inasmuch as he is not apt to take revenge but rather to make
allowances and forgive. And the defect, call it Angerlessness or what you
will, is blamed: I mean, they who are not angry at things at which they
ought to be angry are thought to be foolish, and they who are angry not in
right manner, nor in right time, nor with those with whom they ought; for a
man who labours under this defect is thought to have no perception, nor to
be pained, and to have no tendency to avenge himself, inasmuch as he feels
no anger: now to bear with scurrility in one’s own person, and patiently see
one’s own friends suffer it, is a slavish thing.

As for the excess, it occurs in all forms; men are angry with those with
whom, and at things with which, they ought not to be, and more than they
ought, and too hastily, and for too great a length of time. I do not mean,
however, that these are combined in any one person: that would in fact be
impossible, because the evil destroys itself, and if it is developed in its full
force it becomes unbearable.
Now those whom we term the Passionate are soon angry, and with people
with whom and at things at which they ought not, and in an excessive
degree, but they soon cool again, which is the best point about them. And
this results from their not repressing their anger, but repaying their enemies
(in that they show their feeings by reason of their vehemence), and then
they have done with it.
The Choleric again are excessively vehement, and are angry at
everything, and on every occasion; whence comes their Greek name
signifying that their choler lies high.
The Bitter-tempered are hard to reconcile and keep their anger for a long
while, because they repress the feeling: but when they have revenged
themselves then comes a lull; for the vengeance destroys their anger by
producing pleasure in lieu of pain. But if this does not happen they keep the
weight on their minds: because, as it does not show itself, no one attempts
to reason it away, and digesting anger within one’s self takes time. Such
men are very great nuisances to themselves and to their best friends.
Again, we call those Cross-grained who are angry at wrong objects, and
in excessive degree, and for too long a time, and who are not appeased
without vengeance or at least punishing the offender.
To Meekness we oppose the excess rather than the defect, because it is of
more common occurrence: for human nature is more disposed to take than
to forgo revenge. And the Cross-grained are worse to live with [than they
who are too phlegmatic].
Now, from what has been here said, that is also plain which was said
before. I mean, it is no easy matter to define how, and with what persons,
and at what kind of things, and how long one ought to be angry, and up to
what point a person is right or is wrong. For he that transgresses the strict
rule only a little, whether on the side of too much or too little, is not
blamed: sometimes we praise those who are deficient in the feeling and call
them Meek, sometimes we call the irritable Spirited as being well qualified

for government. So it is not easy to lay down, in so many words, for what
degree or kind of transgression a man is blameable: because the decision is
in particulars, and rests therefore with the Moral Sense. Thus much,
however, is plain, that the mean state is praiseworthy, in virtue of which we
are angry with those with whom, and at those things with which, we ought
to be angry, and in right manner, and so on; while the excesses and defects
are blameable, slightly so if only slight, more so if greater, and when
considerable very blameable.
It is clear, therefore, that the mean state is what we are to hold to.
This then is to be taken as our account of the various moral states which
have Anger for their object-matter.

Chapter VIII.
Next, as regards social intercourse and interchange of words and acts,
some men are thought to be Over-Complaisant who, with a view solely to
giving pleasure, agree to everything and never oppose, but think their line is
to give no pain to those they are thrown amongst: they, on the other hand,
are called Cross and Contentious who take exactly the contrary line to
these, and oppose in everything, and have no care at all whether they give
pain or not.
Now it is quite clear of course, that the states I have named are
blameable, and that the mean between them is praiseworthy, in virtue of
which a man will let pass what he ought as he ought, and also will object in
like manner. However, this state has no name appropriated, but it is most
like Friendship; since the man who exhibits it is just the kind of man whom
we would call the amiable friend, with the addition of strong earnest
affection; but then this is the very point in which it differs from Friendship,
that it is quite independent of any feeling or strong affection for those
among whom the man mixes: I mean, that he takes everything as he ought,
not from any feeling of love or hatred, but simply because his natural
disposition leads him to do so; he will do it alike to those whom he does
know and those whom he does not, and those with whom he is intimate and
those with whom he is not; only in each case as propriety requires, because
it is not fitting to care alike for intimates and strangers, nor again to pain
them alike.

It has been stated in a general way that his social intercourse will be
regulated by propriety, and his aim will be to avoid giving pain and to
contribute to pleasure, but with a constant reference to what is noble and
expedient.
His proper object-matter seems to be the pleasures and pains which arise
out of social intercourse, but whenever it is not honourable or even hurtful
to him to contribute to pleasure, in these instances he will run counter and
prefer to give pain.
Or if the things in question involve unseemliness to the doer, and this not
inconsiderable, or any harm, whereas his opposition will cause some little
pain, here he will not agree but will run counter.
Again, he will regulate differently his intercourse with great men and
with ordinary men, and with all people according to the knowledge he has
of them; and in like manner, taking in any other differences which may
exist, giving to each his due, and in itself preferring to give pleasure and
cautious not to give pain, but still guided by the results, I mean by what is
noble and expedient according as they preponderate.
Again, he will inflict trifling pain with a view to consequent pleasure.
Well, the man bearing the mean character is pretty well such as I have
described him, but he has no name appropriated to him: of those who try to
give pleasure, the man who simply and disinterestedly tries to be agreeable
is called Over-Complaisant, he who does it with a view to secure some
profit in the way of wealth, or those things which wealth may procure, is a
Flatterer: I have said before, that the man who is “always non-content” is
Cross and Contentious. Here the extremes have the appearance of being
opposed to one another, because the mean has no appropriate name.

Chapter IX.
The mean state which steers clear of Exaggeration has pretty much the
same object-matter as the last we described, and likewise has no name
appropriated to it. Still it may be as well to go over these states: because, in
the first place, by a particular discussion of each we shall be better
acquainted with the general subject of moral character, and next we shall be

the more convinced that the virtues are mean states by seeing that this is
universally the case.
In respect then of living in society, those who carry on this intercourse
with a view to pleasure and pain have been already spoken of; we will now
go on to speak of those who are True or False, alike in their words and
deeds and in the claims which they advance.
Now the Exaggerator is thought to have a tendency to lay claim to things
reflecting credit on him, both when they do not belong to him at all and also
in greater degree than that in which they really do: whereas the Reserved
man, on the contrary, denies those which really belong to him or else
depreciates them, while the mean character being a Plain-matter-of-fact
person is Truthful in life and word, admitting the existence of what does
really belong to him and making it neither greater nor less than the truth.
It is possible of course to take any of these lines either with or without
some further view: but in general men speak, and act, and live, each
according to his particular character and disposition, unless indeed a man is
acting from any special motive.
Now since falsehood is in itself low and blameable, while truth is noble
and praiseworthy, it follows that the Truthful man (who is also in the mean)
is praiseworthy, and the two who depart from strict truth are both
blameable, but especially the Exaggerator.
We will now speak of each, and first of the Truthful man: I call him
Truthful, because we are not now meaning the man who is true in his
agreements nor in such matters as amount to justice or injustice (this would
come within the province of a different virtue), but, in such as do not
involve any such serious difference as this, the man we are describing is
true in life and word simply because he is in a certain moral state.
And he that is such must be judged to be a good man: for he that has a
love for Truth as such, and is guided by it in matters indifferent, will be so
likewise even more in such as are not indifferent; for surely he will have a
dread of falsehood as base, since he shunned it even in itself: and he that is
of such a character is praiseworthy, yet he leans rather to that which is
below the truth, this having an appearance of being in better taste because
exaggerations are so hateful.
As for the man who lays claim to things above what really belongs to
him without any special motive, he is like a base man because he would not

otherwise have taken pleasure in falsehood, but he shows as a fool rather
than as a knave. But if a man does this with a special motive, suppose for
honour or glory, as the Braggart does, then he is not so very blameworthy,
but if, directly or indirectly, for pecuniary considerations, he is more
unseemly.
Now the Braggart is such not by his power but by his purpose, that is to
say, in virtue of his moral state, and because he is a man of a certain kind;
just as there are liars who take pleasure in falsehood for its own sake while
others lie from a desire of glory or gain. They who exaggerate with a view
to glory pretend to such qualities as are followed by praise or highest
congratulation; they who do it with a view to gain assume those which their
neighbours can avail themselves of, and the absence of which can be
concealed, as a man’s being a skilful soothsayer or physician; and
accordingly most men pretend to such things and exaggerate in this
direction, because the faults I have mentioned are in them.
The Reserved, who depreciate their own qualities, have the appearance of
being more refined in their characters, because they are not thought to speak
with a view to gain but to avoid grandeur: one very common trait in such
characters is their denying common current opinions, as Socrates used to
do. There are people who lay claim falsely to small things and things the
falsity of their pretensions to which is obvious; these are called Factotums
and are very despicable.
This very Reserve sometimes shows like Exaggeration; take, for instance,
the excessive plainness of dress affected by the Lacedæmonians: in fact,
both excess and the extreme of deficiency partake of the nature of
Exaggeration. But they who practise Reserve in moderation, and in cases in
which the truth is not very obvious and plain, give an impression of
refinement. Here it is the Exaggerator (as being the worst character) who
appears to be opposed to the Truthful Man.

Chapter X.
Next, as life has its pauses and in them admits of pastime combined with
Jocularity, it is thought that in this respect also there is a kind of fitting
intercourse, and that rules may be prescribed as to the kind of things one
should say and the manner of saying them; and in respect of hearing

likewise (and there will be a difference between the saying and hearing such
and such things). It is plain that in regard to these things also there will be
an excess and defect and a mean.
Now they who exceed in the ridiculous are judged to be Buffoons and
Vulgar, catching at it in any and every way and at any cost, and aiming
rather at raising laughter than at saying what is seemly and at avoiding to
pain the object of their wit. They, on the other hand, who would not for the
world make a joke themselves and are displeased with such as do are
thought to be Clownish and Stern. But they who are Jocular in good taste
are denominated by a Greek term expressing properly ease of movement,
because such are thought to be, as one may say, motions of the moral
character; and as bodies are judged of by their motions so too are moral
characters.
Now as the ridiculous lies on the surface, and the majority of men take
more pleasure than they ought in Jocularity and Jesting, the Buffoons too
get this name of Easy Pleasantry, as if refined and gentlemanlike; but that
they differ from these, and considerably too, is plain from what has been
said.
One quality which belongs to the mean state is Tact: it is characteristic of
a man of Tact to say and listen to such things as are fit for a good man and a
gentleman to say and listen to: for there are things which are becoming for
such a one to say and listen to in the way of Jocularity, and there is a
difference between the Jocularity of the Gentleman and that of the
Vulgarian; and again, between that of the educated and uneducated man.
This you may see from a comparison of the Old and New Comedy: in the
former obscene talk made the fun; in the latter it is rather innuendo: and this
is no slight difference as regards decency.
Well then, are we to characterise him who jests well by his saying what is
becoming a gentleman, or by his avoiding to pain the object of his wit, or
even by his giving him pleasure? or will not such a definition be vague,
since different things are hateful and pleasant to different men?
Be this as it may, whatever he says such things will he also listen to,
since it is commonly held that a man will do what he will bear to hear: this
must, however, be limited; a man will not do quite all that he will hear:
because jesting is a species of scurrility and there are some points of
scurrility forbidden by law; it may be certain points of jesting should have

been also so forbidden. So then the refined and gentlemanlike man will bear
himself thus as being a law to himself. Such is the mean character, whether
denominated the man of Tact or of Easy Pleasantry.
But the Buffoon cannot resist the ridiculous, sparing neither himself nor
any one else so that he can but raise his laugh, saying things of such kind as
no man of refinement would say and some which he would not even
tolerate if said by others in his hearing.
The Clownish man is for such intercourse wholly useless: inasmuch as
contributing nothing jocose of his own he is savage with all who do.
Yet some pause and amusement in life are generally judged to be
indispensable.
The three mean states which have been described do occur in life, and the
object-matter of all is interchange of words and deeds. They differ, in that
one of them is concerned with truth, and the other two with the pleasurable:
and of these two again, the one is conversant with the jocosities of life, the
other with all other points of social intercourse.

Chapter XI.
To speak of Shame as a Virtue is incorrect, because it is much more like a
feeling than a moral state. It is defined, we know, to be “a kind of fear of
disgrace,” and its effects are similar to those of the fear of danger, for they
who feel Shame grow red and they who fear death turn pale. So both are
evidently in a way physical, which is thought to be a mark of a feeling
rather than a moral state.
Moreover, it is a feeling not suitable to every age, but only to youth: we
do think that the young should be Shamefaced, because since they live at
the beck and call of passion they do much that is wrong and Shame acts on
them as a check. In fact, we praise such young men as are Shamefaced, but
no one would ever praise an old man for being given to it, inasmuch as we
hold that he ought not to do things which cause Shame; for Shame, since it
arises at low bad actions, does not at all belong to the good man, because
such ought not to be done at all: nor does it make any difference to allege
that some things are disgraceful really, others only because they are thought
so; for neither should be done, so that a man ought not to be in the position

of feeling Shame. In truth, to be such a man as to do anything disgraceful is
the part of a faulty character. And for a man to be such that he would feel
Shame if he should do anything disgraceful, and to think that this
constitutes him a good man, is absurd: because Shame is felt at voluntary
actions only, and a good man will never voluntarily do what is base.
True it is, that Shame may be good on a certain supposition, as “if a man
should do such things, he would feel Shame:” but then the Virtues are good
in themselves, and not merely in supposed cases. And, granted that
impudence and the not being ashamed to do what is disgraceful is base, it
does not the more follow that it is good for a man to do such things and feel
Shame.
Nor is Self-Control properly a Virtue, but a kind of mixed state: however,
all about this shall be set forth in a future Book.

BOOK V

Chapter I.
Now the points for our enquiry in respect of Justice and Injustice are, what
kind of actions are their object-matter, and what kind of a mean state Justice
is, and between what points the abstract principle of it, i.e. the Just, is a
mean. And our enquiry shall be, if you please, conducted in the same method
as we have observed in the foregoing parts of this Treatise.
We see then that all men mean by the term Justice a moral state such that
in consequence of it men have the capacity of doing what is just, and
actually do it, and wish it:[1] similarly also with respect to Injustice, a moral
state such that in consequence of it men do unjustly and wish what is unjust:
let us also be content then with these as a ground-work sketched out.
I mention the two, because the same does not hold with regard to States
whether of mind or body as with regard to Sciences or Faculties: I mean that
whereas it is thought that the same Faculty or Science embraces contraries, a
State will not: from health, for instance, not the contrary acts are done but
the healthy ones only; we say a man walks healthily when he walks as the
healthy man would.
However, of the two contrary states the one may be frequently known
from the other, and oftentimes the states from their subject-matter: if it be
seen clearly what a good state of body is, then is it also seen what a bad state
is, and from the things which belong to a good state of body the good state
itself is seen, and vice versâ. If, for instance, the good state is firmness of
flesh it follows that the bad state is flabbiness of flesh; and whatever causes
firmness of flesh is connected with the good state.
It follows moreover in general,[2] that if of two contrary terms the one is
used in many senses so also will the other be; as, for instance, if “the Just,”
then also “the Unjust.” Now Justice and Injustice do seem to be used

respectively in many senses, but, because the line of demarcation between
these is very fine and minute,[3] it commonly escapes notice that they are
thus used, and it is not plain and manifest as where the various significations
of terms are widely different for in these last the visible difference is great,
for instance, the word κλεὶς is used equivocally to denote the bone which is
under the neck of animals and the instrument with which people close doors.
Let it be ascertained then in how many senses the term “Unjust man” is
used. Well, he who violates the law, and he who is a grasping man, and the
unequal man, are all thought to be Unjust and so manifestly the Just man
will be, the man who acts according to law, and the equal man “The Just”
then will be the lawful and the equal, and “the Unjust” the unlawful and the
unequal.
Well, since the Unjust man is also a grasping man, he will be so, of
course, with respect to good things, but not of every kind, only those which
are the subject-matter of good and bad fortune and which are in themselves
always good but not always to the individual.[4] Yet men pray for and pursue
these things: this they should not do but pray that things which are in the
abstract good may be so also to them, and choose what is good for
themselves.
But the Unjust man does not always choose actually the greater part, but
even sometimes the less; as in the case of things which are simply evil: still,
since the less evil is thought to be in a manner a good and the grasping is
after good, therefore even in this case he is thought to be a grasping man, i.e.
one who strives for more good than fairly falls to his share: of course he is
also an unequal man, this being an inclusive and common term.

Chapter II.
We said that the violator of Law is Unjust, and the keeper of the Law Just:
further, it is plain that all Lawful things are in a manner Just, because by
Lawful we understand what have been defined by the legislative power and
each of these we say is Just. The Laws too give directions on all points,
aiming either at the common good of all, or that of the best, or that of those
in power (taking for the standard real goodness or adopting some other
estimate); in one way we mean by Just, those things which are apt to
produce and preserve happiness and its ingredients for the social community.

Further, the Law commands the doing the deeds not only of the brave man
(as not leaving the ranks, nor flying, nor throwing away one’s arms), but
those also of the perfectly self-mastering man, as abstinence from adultery
and wantonness; and those of the meek man, as refraining from striking
others or using abusive language: and in like manner in respect of the other
virtues and vices commanding some things and forbidding others, rightly if
it is a good law, in a way somewhat inferior if it is one extemporised.
Now this Justice is in fact perfect Virtue, yet not simply so but as
exercised towards one’s neighbour: and for this reason Justice is thought
oftentimes to be the best of the Virtues, and
“neither Hesper nor the Morning-star
So worthy of our admiration:”

and in a proverbial saying we express the same;
“All virtue is in Justice comprehended.”

And it is in a special sense perfect Virtue because it is the practice of perfect
Virtue. And perfect it is because he that has it is able to practise his virtue
towards his neighbour and not merely on himself; I mean, there are many
who can practise virtue in the regulation of their own personal conduct who
are wholly unable to do it in transactions with their neighbour. And for this
reason that saying of Bias is thought to be a good one,
“Rule will show what a man is;”

for he who bears Rule is necessarily in contact with others, i.e. in a
community. And for this same reason Justice alone of all the Virtues is
thought to be a good to others, because it has immediate relation to some
other person, inasmuch as the Just man does what is advantageous to
another, either to his ruler or fellow-subject. Now he is the basest of men
who practises vice not only in his own person,[5] but towards his friends also;
but he the best who practises virtue not merely in his own person but
towards his neighbour, for this is a matter of some difficulty.
However, Justice in this sense is not a part of Virtue but is co-extensive
with Virtue; nor is the Injustice which answers to it a part of Vice but co-
extensive with Vice. Now wherein Justice in this sense differs from Virtue
appears from what has been said: it is the same really, but the point of view

is not the same: in so far as it has respect to one’s neighbour it is Justice, in
so far as it is such and such a moral state it is simply Virtue.

Chapter III.
But the object of our enquiry is Justice, in the sense in which it is a part of
Virtue (for there is such a thing, as we commonly say), and likewise with
respect to particular Injustice. And of the existence of this last the following
consideration is a proof: there are many vices by practising which a man acts
unjustly, of course, but does not grasp at more than his share of good; if, for
instance, by reason of cowardice he throws away his shield, or by reason of
ill-temper he uses abusive language, or by reason of stinginess does not give
a friend pecuniary assistance; but whenever he does a grasping action, it is
often in the way of none of these vices, certainly not in all of them, still in
the way of some vice or other (for we blame him), and in the way of
Injustice. There is then some kind of Injustice distinct from that co-extensive
with Vice and related to it as a part to a whole, and some “Unjust” related to
that which is co-extensive with violation of the law as a part to a whole.
Again, suppose one man seduces a man’s wife with a view to gain and
actually gets some advantage by it,[6] and another does the same from
impulse of lust, at an expense of money and damage; this latter will be
thought to be rather destitute of self-mastery than a grasping man, and the
former Unjust but not destitute of self-mastery: now why? plainly because of
his gaining.
Again, all other acts of Injustice we refer to some particular depravity, as,
if a man commits adultery, to abandonment to his passions; if he deserts his
comrade, to cowardice; if he strikes another, to anger: but if he gains by the
act to no other vice than to Injustice.
Thus it is clear that there is a kind of Injustice different from and besides
that which includes all Vice, having the same name because the definition is
in the same genus; for both have their force in dealings with others, but the
one acts upon honour, or wealth, or safety, or by whatever one name we can
include all these things, and is actuated by pleasure attendant on gain, while
the other acts upon all things which constitute the sphere of the good man’s
action.

Chapter IV.
Now that there is more than one kind of Justice, and that there is one
which is distinct from and besides that which is co-extensive with, Virtue, is
plain: we must next ascertain what it is, and what are its characteristics.
Well, the Unjust has been divided into the unlawful and the unequal, and
the Just accordingly into the lawful and the equal: the aforementioned
Injustice is in the way of the unlawful. And as the unequal and the more[7]
are not the same, but differing as part to whole (because all more is unequal,
but not all unequal more), so the Unjust and the Injustice we are now in
search of are not the same with, but other than, those before mentioned, the
one being the parts, the other the wholes; for this particular Injustice is a part
of the Injustice co-extensive with Vice, and likewise this Justice of the
Justice co-extensive with Virtue. So that what we have now to speak of is the
particular Justice and Injustice, and likewise the particular Just and Unjust.
Here then let us dismiss any further consideration of the Justice ranking as
co-extensive with Virtue (being the practice of Virtue in all its bearings
towards others), and of the co-relative Injustice (being similarly the practice
of Vice). It is clear too, that we must separate off the Just and the Unjust
involved in these: because one may pretty well say that most lawful things
are those which naturally result in action from Virtue in its fullest sense,
because the law enjoins the living in accordance with each Virtue and
forbids living in accordance with each Vice. And the producing causes of
Virtue in all its bearings are those enactments which have been made
respecting education for society.
By the way, as to individual education, in respect of which a man is
simply good without reference to others, whether it is the province of
πολιτικὴ or some other science we must determine at a future time: for it
may be it is not the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen in every
case.[8]

Chapter V.
Now of the Particular Justice, and the Just involved in it, one species is
that which is concerned in the distributions of honour, or wealth, or such
other things as are to be shared among the members of the social community

(because in these one man as compared with another may have either an
equal or an unequal share), and the other is that which is Corrective in the
various transactions between man and man.
And of this latter there are two parts: because of transactions some are
voluntary and some involuntary; voluntary, such as follow; selling, buying,
use, bail, borrowing, deposit, hiring: and this class is called voluntary
because the origination of these transactions is voluntary.
The involuntary again are either such as effect secrecy; as theft, adultery,
poisoning, pimping, kidnapping of slaves, assassination, false witness; or
accompanied with open violence; as insult, bonds, death, plundering,
maiming, foul language, slanderous abuse.

Chapter VI.
Well, the unjust man we have said is unequal, and the abstract “Unjust”
unequal: further, it is plain that there is some mean of the unequal, that is to
say, the equal or exact half (because in whatever action there is the greater
and the less there is also the equal, i.e. the exact half). If then the Unjust is
unequal the Just is equal, which all must allow without further proof: and as
the equal is a mean the Just must be also a mean. Now the equal implies two
terms at least: it follows then that the Just is both a mean and equal, and
these to certain persons; and, in so far as it is a mean, between certain things
(that is, the greater and the less), and, so far as it is equal, between two, and
in so far as it is just it is so to certain persons. The Just then must imply four
terms at least, for those[9] to which it is just are two, and the terms
representing the things are two.
And there will be the same equality between the terms representing the
persons, as between those representing the things: because as the latter are to
one another so are the former: for if the persons are not equal they must not
have equal shares; in fact this is the very source of all the quarrelling and
wrangling in the world, when either they who are equal have and get
awarded to them things not equal, or being not equal those things which are
equal. Again, the necessity of this equality of ratios is shown by the common
phrase “according to rate,” for all agree that the Just in distributions ought to
be according to some rate: but what that rate is to be, all do not agree; the

democrats are for freedom, oligarchs for wealth, others for nobleness of
birth, and the aristocratic party for virtue.
The Just, then, is a certain proportionable thing. For proportion does not
apply merely to number in the abstract,[10] but to number generally, since it is
equality of ratios, and implies four terms at least (that this is the case in what
may be called discrete proportion is plain and obvious, but it is true also in
continual proportion, for this uses the one term as two, and mentions it
twice; thus A:B:C may be expressed A:B::B:C. In the first, B is named
twice; and so, if, as in the second, B is actually written twice, the
proportionals will be four): and the Just likewise implies four terms at the
least, and the ratio between the two pair of terms is the same, because the
persons and the things are divided similarly. It will stand then thus,
A:B::C:D, and then permutando A:C::B:D, and then (supposing C and D to
represent the things) A+C:B+D::A:B. The distribution in fact consisting in
putting together these terms thus: and if they are put together so as to
preserve this same ratio, the distribution puts them together justly.[11] So then
the joining together of the first and third and second and fourth proportionals
is the Just in the distribution, and this Just is the mean relatively to that
which violates the proportionate, for the proportionate is a mean and the Just
is proportionate. Now mathematicians call this kind of proportion
geometrical: for in geometrical proportion the whole is to the whole as each
part to each part. Furthermore this proportion is not continual, because the
person and thing do not make up one term.
The Just then is this proportionate, and the Unjust that which violates the
proportionate; and so there comes to be the greater and the less: which in
fact is the case in actual transactions, because he who acts unjustly has the
greater share and he who is treated unjustly has the less of what is good: but
in the case of what is bad this is reversed: for the less evil compared with the
greater comes to be reckoned for good, because the less evil is more choice-
worthy than the greater, and what is choice-worthy is good, and the more so
the greater good.
This then is the one species of the Just.

Chapter VII.

And the remaining one is the Corrective, which arises in voluntary as well
as involuntary transactions. Now this just has a different form from the
aforementioned; for that which is concerned in distribution of common
property is always according to the aforementioned proportion: I mean that,
if the division is made out of common property, the shares will bear the same
proportion to one another as the original contributions did: and the Unjust
which is opposite to this Just is that which violates the proportionate.
But the Just which arises in transactions between men is an equal in a
certain sense, and the Unjust an unequal, only not in the way of that
proportion but of arithmetical.[12] Because it makes no difference whether a
robbery, for instance, is committed by a good man on a bad or by a bad man
on a good, nor whether a good or a bad man has committed adultery: the law
looks only to the difference created by the injury and treats the men as
previously equal, where the one does and the other suffers injury, or the one
has done and the other suffered harm. And so this Unjust, being unequal, the
judge endeavours to reduce to equality again, because really when the one
party has been wounded and the other has struck him, or the one kills and the
other dies, the suffering and the doing are divided into unequal shares; well,
the judge tries to restore equality by penalty, thereby taking from the gain.
For these terms gain and loss are applied to these cases, though perhaps
the term in some particular instance may not be strictly proper, as gain, for
instance, to the man who has given a blow, and loss to him who has received
it: still, when the suffering has been estimated, the one is called loss and the
other gain.
And so the equal is a mean between the more and the less, which
represent gain and loss in contrary ways (I mean, that the more of good and
the less of evil is gain, the less of good and the more of evil is loss): between
which the equal was stated to be a mean, which equal we say is Just: and so
the Corrective Just must be the mean between loss and gain. And this is the
reason why, upon a dispute arising, men have recourse to the judge: going to
the judge is in fact going to the Just, for the judge is meant to be the
personification of the Just.[13] And men seek a judge as one in the mean,
which is expressed in a name given by some to judges (μεσίδιοι, or middle-
men) under the notion that if they can hit on the mean they shall hit on the
Just. The Just is then surely a mean since the judge is also.
So it is the office of a judge to make things equal, and the line, as it were,
having been unequally divided, he takes from the greater part that by which

it exceeds the half, and adds this on to the less. And when the whole is
divided into two exactly equal portions then men say they have their own,
when they have gotten the equal; and the equal is a mean between the greater
and the less according to arithmetical equality.
This, by the way, accounts for the etymology of the term by which we in
Greek express the ideas of Just and Judge; (δίκαιον quasi δίχαιον, that is in
two parts, and δικάστης quasi διχάστης, he who divides into two parts). For
when from one of two equal magnitudes somewhat has been taken and
added to the other, this latter exceeds the former by twice that portion: if it
had been merely taken from the former and not added to the latter, then the
latter would have exceeded the former only by that one portion; but in the
other case, the greater exceeds the mean by one, and the mean exceeds also
by one that magnitude from which the portion was taken. By this illustration,
then, we obtain a rule to determine what one ought to take from him who has
the greater, and what to add to him who has the less. The excess of the mean
over the less must be added to the less, and the excess of the greater over the
mean be taken from the greater.
Thus let there be three straight lines equal to one another. From one of
them cut off a portion, and add as much to another of them. The whole line
thus made will exceed the remainder of the first-named line, by twice the
portion added, and will exceed the untouched line by that portion.[14] And
these terms loss and gain are derived from voluntary exchange: that is to say,
the having more than what was one’s own is called gaining, and the having
less than one’s original stock is called losing; for instance, in buying or
selling, or any other transactions which are guaranteed by law: but when the
result is neither more nor less, but exactly the same as there was originally,
[15]
people say they have their own, and neither lose nor gain.
So then the Just we have been speaking of is a mean between loss and
gain arising in involuntary transactions; that is, it is the having the same after
the transaction as one had before it took place.

Chapter VIII.
There are people who have a notion that Reciprocation is simply just, as
the Pythagoreans said: for they defined the Just simply and without
qualification as “That which reciprocates with another.” But this simple

Reciprocation will not fit on either to the Distributive Just, or the Corrective
(and yet this is the interpretation they put on the Rhadamanthian rule of Just,
If a man should suffer what he hath done, then there would be straightforward justice;”)

for in many cases differences arise: as, for instance, suppose one in authority
has struck a man, he is not to be struck in turn; or if a man has struck one in
authority, he must not only be struck but punished also.[16] And again, the
voluntariness or involuntariness of actions makes a great difference.
But in dealings of exchange such a principle of Justice as this
Reciprocation forms the bond of union, but then it must be Reciprocation
according to proportion and not exact equality, because by proportionate
reciprocity of action the social community is held together, For either
Reciprocation of evil is meant, and if this be not allowed it is thought to be a
servile condition of things: or else Reciprocation of good, and if this be not
effected then there is no admission to participation which is the very bond of
their union.
And this is the moral of placing the Temple of the Graces (χάριτες) in the
public streets; to impress the notion that there may be requital, this being
peculiar to χάρις[17] because a man ought to requite with a good turn the man
who has done him a favour and then to become himself the originator of
another χάρις, by doing him a favour.
Now the acts of mutual giving in due proportion may be represented by
the diameters of a parallelogram, at the four angles of which the parties and
their wares are so placed that the side connecting the parties be opposite to
that connecting the wares, and each party be connected by one side with his
own ware, as in the accompanying diagram.

The builder is to receive from the shoemaker of his ware, and to give him
of his own: if then there be first proportionate equality, and then the
Reciprocation takes place, there will be the just result which we are speaking
of: if not, there is not the equal, nor will the connection stand: for there is no
reason why the ware of the one may not be better than that of the other, and
therefore before the exchange is made they must have been equalised. And
this is so also in the other arts: for they would have been destroyed entirely if
there were not a correspondence in point of quantity and quality between the
producer and the consumer. For, we must remember, no dealing arises
between two of the same kind, two physicians, for instance; but say between
a physician and agriculturist, or, to state it generally, between those who are
different and not equal, but these of course must have been equalised before
the exchange can take place.
It is therefore indispensable that all things which can be exchanged should
be capable of comparison, and for this purpose money has come in, and
comes to be a kind of medium, for it measures all things and so likewise the
excess and defect; for instance, how many shoes are equal to a house or a
given quantity of food. As then the builder to the shoemaker, so many shoes

must be to the house (or food, if instead of a builder an agriculturist be the
exchanging party); for unless there is this proportion there cannot be
exchange or dealing, and this proportion cannot be unless the terms are in
some way equal; hence the need, as was stated above, of some one measure
of all things. Now this is really and truly the Demand for them, which is the
common bond of all such dealings. For if the parties were not in want at all
or not similarly of one another’s wares, there would either not be any
exchange, or at least not the same.
And money has come to be, by general agreement, a representative of
Demand: and the account of its Greek name νομισμα is this, that it is what it
is not naturally but by custom or law (νόμος), and it rests with us to change
its value, or make it wholly useless.
Very well then, there will be Reciprocation when the terms have been
equalised so as to stand in this proportion; Agriculturist : Shoemaker : :
wares of Shoemaker : wares of Agriculturist; but you must bring them to this
form of proportion when they exchange, otherwise the one extreme will
combine both exceedings of the mean:[18] but when they have exactly their
own then they are equal and have dealings, because the same equality can
come to be in their case. Let A represent an agriculturist, C food, B a
shoemaker, D his wares equalised with A’s. Then the proportion will be
correct, A:B::C:D; now Reciprocation will be practicable, if it were not,
there would have been no dealing.
Now that what connects men in such transactions is Demand, as being
some one thing, is shown by the fact that, when either one does not want the
other or neither want one another, they do not exchange at all: whereas they
do[19] when one wants what the other man has, wine for instance, giving in
return corn for exportation.
And further, money is a kind of security to us in respect of exchange at
some future time (supposing that one wants nothing now that we shall have
it when we do): the theory of money being that whenever one brings it one
can receive commodities in exchange: of course this too is liable to
depreciation, for its purchasing power is not always the same, but still it is of
a more permanent nature than the commodities it represents. And this is the
reason why all things should have a price set upon them, because thus there
may be exchange at any time, and if exchange then dealing. So money, like a
measure, making all things commensurable equalises them: for if there was
not exchange there would not have been dealing, nor exchange if there were

not equality, nor equality if there were not the capacity of being
commensurate: it is impossible that things so greatly different should be
really commensurate, but we can approximate sufficiently for all practical
purposes in reference to Demand. The common measure must be some one
thing, and also from agreement (for which reason it is called νόμισμα), for
this makes all things commensurable: in fact, all things are measured by
money. Let B represent ten minæ, A a house worth five minæ, or in other
words half B, C a bed worth 1/10th of B: it is clear then how many beds are
equal to one house, namely, five.
It is obvious also that exchange was thus conducted before the existence
of money: for it makes no difference whether you give for a house five beds
or the price of five beds.

Chapter IX.
We have now said then what the abstract Just and Unjust are, and these
having been defined it is plain that just acting is a mean between acting
unjustly and being acted unjustly towards: the former being equivalent to
having more, and the latter to having less.
But Justice, it must be observed, is a mean state not after the same manner
as the forementioned virtues, but because it aims at producing the mean,
while Injustice occupies both the extremes.
And Justice is the moral state in virtue of which the just man is said to
have the aptitude for practising the Just in the way of moral choice, and for
making division between, himself and another, or between two other men,
not so as to give to himself the greater and to his neighbour the less share of
what is choice-worthy and contrariwise of what is hurtful, but what is
proportionably equal, and in like manner when adjudging the rights of two
other men.
Injustice is all this with respect to the Unjust: and since the Unjust is
excess or defect of what is good or hurtful respectively, in violation of the
proportionate, therefore Injustice is both excess and defect because it aims at
producing excess and defect; excess, that is, in a man’s own case of what is
simply advantageous, and defect of what is hurtful: and in the case of other
men in like manner generally speaking, only that the proportionate is
violated not always in one direction as before but whichever way it happens

in the given case. And of the Unjust act the less is being acted unjustly
towards, and the greater the acting unjustly towards others.[20]
Let this way of describing the nature of Justice and Injustice, and likewise
the Just and the Unjust generally, be accepted as sufficient.

Chapter X.
[Again, since a man may do unjust acts and not yet have formed a
character of injustice, the question arises whether a man is unjust in each
particular form of injustice, say a thief, or adulterer, or robber, by doing acts
of a given character.
We may say, I think, that this will not of itself make any difference; a man
may, for instance, have had connection with another’s wife, knowing well
with whom he was sinning, but he may have done it not of deliberate choice
but from the impulse of passion: of course he acts unjustly, but he has not
necessarily formed an unjust character: that is, he may have stolen yet not be
a thief; or committed an act of adultery but still not be an adulterer, and so
on in other cases which might be enumerated.][21]
Of the relation which Reciprocation bears to the Just we have already
spoken: and here it should be noticed that the Just which we are
investigating is both the Just in the abstract and also as exhibited in Social
Relations, which latter arises in the case of those who live in communion
with a view to independence and who are free and equal either
proportionately or numerically.[22]
It follows then that those who are not in this position have not among
themselves the Social Just, but still Just of some kind and resembling that
other. For Just implies mutually acknowledged law, and law the possibility
of injustice, for adjudication is the act of distinguishing between the Just and
the Unjust.
And among whomsoever there is the possibility of injustice among these
there is that of acting unjustly; but it does not hold conversely that injustice
attaches to all among whom there is the possibility of acting unjustly, since
by the former we mean giving one’s self the larger share of what is
abstractedly good and the less of what is abstractedly evil.
This, by the way, is the reason why we do not allow a man to govern, but
Principle, because a man governs for himself and comes to be a despot: but

the office of a ruler is to be guardian of the Just and therefore of the Equal.
Well then, since he seems to have no peculiar personal advantage, supposing
him a Just man, for in this case he does not allot to himself the larger share
of what is abstractedly good unless it falls to his share proportionately (for
which reason he really governs for others, and so Justice, men say, is a good
not to one’s self so much as to others, as was mentioned before), therefore
some compensation must be given him, as there actually is in the shape of
honour and privilege; and wherever these are not adequate there rulers turn
into despots.
But the Just which arises in the relations of Master and Father, is not
identical with, but similar to, these; because there is no possibility of
injustice towards those things which are absolutely one’s own; and a slave or
child (so long as this last is of a certain age and not separated into an
independent being), is, as it were, part of a man’s self, and no man chooses
to hurt himself, for which reason there cannot be injustice towards one’s own
self: therefore neither is there the social Unjust or Just, which was stated to
be in accordance with law and to exist between those among whom law
naturally exists, and these were said to be they to whom belongs equality of
ruling and being ruled.
Hence also there is Just rather between a man and his wife than between a
man and his children or slaves; this is in fact the Just arising in domestic
relations: and this too is different from the Social Just.
Further, this last-mentioned Just is of two kinds, natural and conventional;
the former being that which has everywhere the same force and does not
depend upon being received or not; the latter being that which originally
may be this way or that indifferently but not after enactment: for instance,
the price of ransom being fixed at a mina, or the sacrificing a goat instead of
two sheep; and again, all cases of special enactment, as the sacrificing to
Brasidas as a hero; in short, all matters of special decree.
But there are some men who think that all the Justs are of this latter kind,
and on this ground: whatever exists by nature, they say, is unchangeable and
has everywhere the same force; fire, for instance, burns not here only but in
Persia as well, but the Justs they see changed in various places.
Now this is not really so, and yet it is in a way (though among the gods
perhaps by no means): still even amongst ourselves there is somewhat

existing by nature: allowing that everything is subject to change, still there is
that which does exist by nature, and that which does not.[23]
Nay, we may go further, and say that it is practically plain what among
things which can be otherwise does exist by nature, and what does not but is
dependent upon enactment and conventional, even granting that both are
alike subject to be changed: and the same distinctive illustration will apply to
this and other cases; the right hand is naturally the stronger, still some men
may become equally strong in both.
A parallel may be drawn between the Justs which depend upon convention
and expedience, and measures; for wine and corn measures are not equal in
all places, but where men buy they are large, and where these same sell
again they are smaller: well, in like manner the Justs which are not natural,
but of human invention, are not everywhere the same, for not even the forms
of government are, and yet there is one only which by nature would be best
in all places.

Chapter XI.
Now of Justs and Lawfuls each bears to the acts which embody and
exemplify it the relation of an universal to a particular; the acts being many,
but each of the principles only singular because each is an universal. And so
there is a difference between an unjust act and the abstract Unjust, and the
just act and the abstract Just: I mean, a thing is unjust in itself, by nature or
by ordinance; well, when this has been embodied in act, there is an unjust
act, but not till then, only some unjust thing.[24] And similarly of a just act.
(Perhaps δικαιοπράγημα is more correctly the common or generic term for
just act, the word δικαίωμα, which I have here used, meaning generally and
properly the act corrective of the unjust act.) Now as to each of them, what
kinds there are, and how many, and what is their object-matter, we must
examine afterwards.
For the present we proceed to say that, the Justs and the Unjusts being
what have been mentioned, a man is said to act unjustly or justly when he
embodies these abstracts in voluntary actions, but when in involuntary, then
he neither acts unjustly or justly except accidentally; I mean that the being
just or unjust is really only accidental to the agents in such cases.

So both unjust and just actions are limited by the being voluntary or the
contrary: for when an embodying of the Unjust is voluntary, then it is
blamed and is at the same time also an unjust action: but, if voluntariness
does not attach, there will be a thing which is in itself unjust but not yet an
unjust action.
By voluntary, I mean, as we stated before, whatsoever of things in his own
power a man does with knowledge, and the absence of ignorance as to the
person to whom, or the instrument with which, or the result with which he
does; as, for instance, whom he strikes, what he strikes him with, and with
what probable result; and each of these points again, not accidentally nor by
compulsion; as supposing another man were to seize his hand and strike a
third person with it, here, of course, the owner of the hand acts not
voluntarily, because it did not rest with him to do or leave undone: or again,
it is conceivable that the person struck may be his father, and he may know
that it is a man, or even one of the present company, whom he is striking, but
not know that it is his father. And let these same distinctions be supposed to
be carried into the case of the result and in fact the whole of any given
action. In fine then, that is involuntary which is done through ignorance, or
which, not resulting from ignorance, is not in the agent’s control or is done
on compulsion.
I mention these cases, because there are many natural things which we do
and suffer knowingly but still no one of which is either voluntary or
involuntary, growing old, or dying, for instance.
Again, accidentality may attach to the unjust in like manner as to the just
acts. For instance, a man may have restored what was deposited with him,
but against his will and from fear of the consequences of a refusal: we must
not say that he either does what is just, or does justly, except accidentally:
and in like manner the man who through compulsion and against his will
fails to restore a deposit, must be said to do unjustly, or to do what is unjust,
accidentally only.
Again, voluntary actions we do either from deliberate choice or without it;
from it, when we act from previous deliberation; without it, when without
any previous deliberation. Since then hurts which may be done in
transactions between man and man are threefold, those mistakes which are
attended with ignorance are, when a man either does a thing not to the man
to whom he meant to do it, or not the thing he meant to do, or not with the
instrument, or not with the result which he intended: either he did not think

he should hit him at all, or not with this, or this is not the man he thought he
should hit, or he did not think this would be the result of the blow but a
result has followed which he did not anticipate; as, for instance, he did it not
to wound but merely to prick him; or it is not the man whom, or the way in
which, he meant.
Now when the hurt has come about contrary to all reasonable expectation,
it is a Misadventure; when though not contrary to expectation yet without
any viciousness, it is a Mistake; for a man makes a mistake when the
origination of the cause rests with himself, he has a misadventure when it is
external to himself. When again he acts with knowledge, but not from
previous deliberation, it is an unjust action; for instance, whatever happens
to men from anger or other passions which are necessary or natural: for
when doing these hurts or making these mistakes they act unjustly of course
and their actions are unjust, still they are not yet confirmed unjust or wicked
persons by reason of these, because the hurt did not arise from depravity in
the doer of it: but when it does arise from deliberate choice, then the doer is
a confirmed unjust and depraved man.
And on this principle acts done from anger are fairly judged not to be
from malice prepense, because it is not the man who acts in wrath who is the
originator really but he who caused his wrath. And again, the question at
issue in such cases is not respecting the fact but respecting the justice of the
case, the occasion of anger being a notion of injury.[25] I mean, that the
parties do not dispute about the fact, as in questions of contract (where one
of the two must be a rogue, unless real forgetfulness can be pleaded), but,
admitting the fact, they dispute on which side the justice of the case lies (the
one who plotted against the other, i.e. the real aggressor, of course, cannot be
ignorant),[26] so that the one thinks there is injustice committed while the
other does not.
Well then, a man acts unjustly if he has hurt another of deliberate purpose,
and he who commits such acts of injustice is ipso facto an unjust character
when they are in violation of the proportionate or the equal; and in like
manner also a man is a just character when he acts justly of deliberate
purpose, and he does act justly if he acts voluntarily.
Then as for involuntary acts of harm, they are either such as are excusable
or such as are not: under the former head come all errors done not merely in
ignorance but from ignorance; under the latter all that are done not from

ignorance but in ignorance caused by some passion which is neither natural
nor fairly attributable to human infirmity.

Chapter XII.
Now a question may be raised whether we have spoken with sufficient
distinctness as to being unjustly dealt with, and dealing unjustly towards
others.
First, whether the case is possible which Euripides has put, saying
somewhat strangely,
“My mother he hath slain; the tale is short,
Either he willingly did slay her willing,
Or else with her will but against his own.”

I mean then, is it really possible for a person to be unjustly dealt with with
his own consent, or must every case of being unjustly dealt with be against
the will of the sufferer as every act of unjust dealing is voluntary?
And next, are cases of being unjustly dealt with to be ruled all one way as
every act of unjust dealing is voluntary? or may we say that some cases are
voluntary and some involuntary?
Similarly also as regards being justly dealt with: all just acting is
voluntary, so that it is fair to suppose that the being dealt with unjustly or
justly must be similarly opposed, as to being either voluntary or involuntary.
Now as for being justly dealt with, the position that every case of this is
voluntary is a strange one, for some are certainly justly dealt with without
their will.[27] The fact is a man may also fairly raise this question, whether in
every case he who has suffered what is unjust is therefore unjustly dealt
with, or rather that the case is the same with suffering as it is with acting;
namely that in both it is possible to participate in what is just, but only
accidentally. Clearly the case of what is unjust is similar: for doing things in
themselves unjust is not identical with acting unjustly, nor is suffering them
the same as being unjustly dealt with. So too of acting justly and being justly
dealt with, since it is impossible to be unjustly dealt with unless some one
else acts unjustly or to be justly dealt with unless some one else acts justly.
Now if acting unjustly is simply “hurting another voluntarily” (by which I
mean, knowing whom you are hurting, and wherewith, and how you are

hurting him), and the man who fails of self-control voluntarily hurts himself,
then this will be a case of being voluntarily dealt unjustly with, and it will be
possible for a man to deal unjustly with himself. (This by the way is one of
the questions raised, whether it is possible for a man to deal unjustly with
himself.) Or again, a man may, by reason of failing of self-control, receive
hurt from another man acting voluntarily, and so here will be another case of
being unjustly dealt with voluntarily.
The solution, I take it, is this: the definition of being unjustly dealt with is
not correct, but we must add, to the hurting with the knowledge of the person
hurt and the instrument and the manner of hurting him, the fact of its being
against the wish of the man who is hurt.
So then a man may be hurt and suffer what is in itself unjust voluntarily,
but unjustly dealt with voluntarily no man can be: since no man wishes to be
hurt, not even he who fails of self-control, who really acts contrary to his
wish: for no man wishes for that which he does not think to be good, and the
man who fails of self-control does not what he thinks he ought to do.
And again, he that gives away his own property (as Homer says Glaucus
gave to Diomed, “armour of gold for brass, armour worth a hundred oxen for
that which was worth but nine”) is not unjustly dealt with, because the
giving rests entirely with himself; but being unjustly dealt with does not,
there must be some other person who is dealing unjustly towards him.
With respect to being unjustly dealt with then, it is clear that it is not
voluntary.

Chapter XIII.
There remain yet two points on which we purposed to speak: first, is he
chargeable with an unjust act who in distribution has given the larger share
to one party contrary to the proper rate, or he that has the larger share? next,
can a man deal unjustly by himself?
In the first question, if the first-named alternative is possible and it is the
distributor who acts unjustly and not he who has the larger share, then
supposing that a person knowingly and willingly gives more to another than
to himself here is a case of a man dealing unjustly by himself; which, in fact,
moderate men are thought to do, for it is a characteristic of the equitable man
to take less than his due.

Is not this the answer? that the case is not quite fairly stated, because of
some other good, such as credit or the abstract honourable, in the supposed
case the man did get the larger share. And again, the difficulty is solved by
reference to the definition of unjust dealing: for the man suffers nothing
contrary to his own wish, so that, on this score at least, he is not unjustly
dealt with, but, if anything, he is hurt only.
It is evident also that it is the distributor who acts unjustly and not the man
who has the greater share: because the mere fact of the abstract Unjust
attaching to what a man does, does not constitute unjust action, but the doing
this voluntarily: and voluntariness attaches to that quarter whence is the
origination of the action, which clearly is in the distributor not in the
receiver. And again the term doing is used in several senses; in one sense
inanimate objects kill, or the hand, or the slave by his master’s bidding; so
the man in question does not act unjustly but does things which are in
themselves unjust.
Again, suppose that a man has made a wrongful award in ignorance; in the
eye of the law he does not act unjustly nor is his awarding unjust, but yet he
is in a certain sense: for the Just according to law and primary or natural Just
are not coincident: but, if he knowingly decided unjustly, then he himself as
well as the receiver got the larger share, that is, either of favour from the
receiver or private revenge against the other party: and so the man who
decided unjustly from these motives gets a larger share, in exactly the same
sense as a man would who received part of the actual matter of the unjust
action: because in this case the man who wrongly adjudged, say a field, did
not actually get land but money by his unjust decision.

Chapter XIV.
Now men suppose that acting Unjustly rests entirely with themselves, and
conclude that acting Justly is therefore also easy. But this is not really so; to
have connection with a neighbour’s wife, or strike one’s neighbour, or give
the money with one’s hand, is of course easy and rests with one’s self: but
the doing these acts with certain inward dispositions neither is easy nor rests
entirely with one’s self. And in like way, the knowing what is Just and what
Unjust men think no great instance of wisdom because it is not hard to
comprehend those things of which the laws speak. They forget that these are

not Just actions, except accidentally: to be Just they must be done and
distributed in a certain manner: and this is a more difficult task than knowing
what things are wholesome; for in this branch of knowledge it is an easy
matter to know honey, wine, hellebore, cautery, or the use of the knife, but
the knowing how one should administer these with a view to health, and to
whom and at what time, amounts in fact to being a physician.
From this very same mistake they suppose also, that acting Unjustly is
equally in the power of the Just man, for the Just man no less, nay even
more, than the Unjust, may be able to do the particular acts; he may be able
to have intercourse with a woman or strike a man; or the brave man to throw
away his shield and turn his back and run this way or that. True: but then it is
not the mere doing these things which constitutes acts of cowardice or
injustice (except accidentally), but the doing them with certain inward
dispositions: just as it is not the mere using or not using the knife,
administering or not administering certain drugs, which constitutes medical
treatment or curing, but doing these things in a certain particular way.
Again the abstract principles of Justice have their province among those
who partake of what is abstractedly good, and can have too much or too little
of these.[28] Now there are beings who cannot have too much of them, as
perhaps the gods; there are others, again, to whom no particle of them is of
use, those who are incurably wicked to whom all things are hurtful; others to
whom they are useful to a certain degree: for this reason then the province of
Justice is among Men.

Chapter XV.
We have next to speak of Equity and the Equitable, that is to say, of the
relations of Equity to Justice and the Equitable to the Just; for when we look
into the matter the two do not appear identical nor yet different in kind; and
we sometimes commend the Equitable and the man who embodies it in his
actions, so that by way of praise we commonly transfer the term also to other
acts instead of the term good, thus showing that the more Equitable a thing is
the better it is: at other times following a certain train of reasoning we arrive
at a difficulty, in that the Equitable though distinct from the Just is yet
praiseworthy; it seems to follow either that the Just is not good or the

Equitable not Just, since they are by hypothesis different; or if both are good
then they are identical.
This is a tolerably fair statement of the difficulty which on these grounds
arises in respect of the Equitable; but, in fact, all these may be reconciled
and really involve no contradiction: for the Equitable is Just, being also
better than one form of Just, but is not better than the Just as though it were
different from it in kind: Just and Equitable then are identical, and, both
being good, the Equitable is the better of the two.
What causes the difficulty is this; the Equitable is Just, but not the Just
which is in accordance with written law, being in fact a correction of that
kind of Just. And the account of this is, that every law is necessarily
universal while there are some things which it is not possible to speak of
rightly in any universal or general statement. Where then there is a necessity
for general statement, while a general statement cannot apply rightly to all
cases, the law takes the generality of cases, being fully aware of the error
thus involved; and rightly too notwithstanding, because the fault is not in the
law, or in the framer of the law, but is inherent in the nature of the thing,
because the matter of all action is necessarily such.
When then the law has spoken in general terms, and there arises a case of
exception to the general rule, it is proper, in so far as the lawgiver omits the
case and by reason of his universality of statement is wrong, to set right the
omission by ruling it as the lawgiver himself would rule were he there
present, and would have provided by law had he foreseen the case would
arise. And so the Equitable is Just but better than one form of Just; I do not
mean the abstract Just but the error which arises out of the universality of
statement: and this is the nature of the Equitable, “a correction of Law,
where Law is defective by reason of its universality.”
This is the reason why not all things are according to law, because there
are things about which it is simply impossible to lay down a law, and so we
want special enactments for particular cases. For to speak generally, the rule
of the undefined must be itself undefined also, just as the rule to measure
Lesbian building is made of lead: for this rule shifts according to the form of
each stone and the special enactment according to the facts of the case in
question.
It is clear then what the Equitable is; namely that it is Just but better than
one form of Just: and hence it appears too who the Equitable man is: he is

one who has a tendency to choose and carry out these principles, and who is
not apt to press the letter of the law on the worse side but content to waive
his strict claims though backed by the law: and this moral state is Equity,
being a species of Justice, not a different moral state from Justice.

Chapter XVI.
The answer to the second of the two questions indicated above, “whether
it is possible for a man to deal unjustly by himself,” is obvious from what
has been already stated.
In the first place, one class of Justs is those which are enforced by law in
accordance with Virtue in the most extensive sense of the term: for instance,
the law does not bid a man kill himself; and whatever it does not bid it
forbids: well, whenever a man does hurt contrary to the law (unless by way
of requital of hurt), voluntarily, i.e. knowing to whom he does it and
wherewith, he acts Unjustly. Now he that from rage kills himself,
voluntarily, does this in contravention of Right Reason, which the law does
not permit. He therefore acts Unjustly: but towards whom? towards the
Community, not towards himself (because he suffers with his own consent,
and no man can be Unjustly dealt with with his own consent), and on this
principle the Community punishes him; that is a certain infamy is attached to
the suicide as to one who acts Unjustly towards the Community.
Next, a man cannot deal Unjustly by himself in the sense in which a man
is Unjust who only does Unjust acts without being entirely bad (for the two
things are different, because the Unjust man is in a way bad, as the coward
is, not as though he were chargeable with badness in the full extent of the
term, and so he does not act Unjustly in this sense), because if it were so
then it would be possible for the same thing to have been taken away from
and added to the same person:[29] but this is really not possible, the Just and
the Unjust always implying a plurality of persons.
Again, an Unjust action must be voluntary, done of deliberate purpose,
and aggressive (for the man who hurts because he has first suffered and is
merely requiting the same is not thought to act Unjustly), but here the man
does to himself and suffers the same things at the same time.
Again, it would imply the possibility of being Unjustly dealt with with
one’s own consent.

And, besides all this, a man cannot act Unjustly without his act falling
under some particular crime; now a man cannot seduce his own wife,
commit a burglary on his own premises, or steal his own property.
After all, the general answer to the question is to allege what was settled
respecting being Unjustly dealt with with one’s own consent.

Chapter XVII.
It is obvious, moreover, that being Unjustly dealt by and dealing Unjustly
by others are both wrong; because the one is having less, the other having
more, than the mean, and the case is parallel to that of the healthy in the
healing art, and that of good condition in the art of training: but still the
dealing Unjustly by others is the worst of the two, because this involves
wickedness and is blameworthy; wickedness, I mean, either wholly, or
nearly so (for not all voluntary wrong implies injustice), but the being
Unjustly dealt by does not involve wickedness or injustice.
In itself then, the being Unjustly dealt by is the least bad, but accidentally
it may be the greater evil of the two. However, scientific statement cannot
take in such considerations; a pleurisy, for instance, is called a greater
physical evil than a bruise: and yet this last may be the greater accidentally;
it may chance that a bruise received in a fall may cause one to be captured
by the enemy and slain.
Further: Just, in the way of metaphor and similitude, there may be I do not
say between a man and himself exactly but between certain parts of his
nature; but not Just of every kind, only such as belongs to the relation of
master and slave, or to that of the head of a family. For all through this
treatise the rational part of the Soul has been viewed as distinct from the
irrational.
Now, taking these into consideration, there is thought to be a possibility of
injustice towards one’s self, because herein it is possible for men to suffer
somewhat in contradiction of impulses really their own; and so it is thought
that there is Just of a certain kind between these parts mutually, as between
ruler and ruled.
Let this then be accepted as an account of the distinctions which we
recognise respecting Justice and the rest of the moral virtues.[30]

BOOK VI

Chapter I.
Having stated in a former part of this treatise that men should choose the
mean instead of either the excess or defect, and that the mean is according
to the dictates of Right Reason; we will now proceed to explain this term.
For in all the habits which we have expressly mentioned, as likewise in
all the others, there is, so to speak, a mark with his eye fixed on which the
man who has Reason tightens or slacks his rope;[1] and there is a certain
limit of those mean states which we say are in accordance with Right
Reason, and lie between excess on the one hand and defect on the other.
Now to speak thus is true enough but conveys no very definite meaning:
as, in fact, in all other pursuits requiring attention and diligence on which
skill and science are brought to bear; it is quite true of course to say that
men are neither to labour nor relax too much or too little, but in moderation,
and as Right Reason directs; yet if this were all a man had he would not be
greatly the wiser; as, for instance, if in answer to the question, what are
proper applications to the body, he were to be told, “Oh! of course,
whatever the science of medicine, and in such manner as the physician,
directs.”
And so in respect of the mental states it is requisite not merely that this
should be true which has been already stated, but further that it should be
expressly laid down what Right Reason is, and what is the definition of it.

Chapter II.
Now in our division of the Excellences of the Soul, we said there were
two classes, the Moral and the Intellectual: the former we have already gone

through; and we will now proceed to speak of the others, premising a few
words respecting the Soul itself. It was stated before, you will remember,
that the Soul consists of two parts, the Rational, and Irrational: we must
now make a similar division of the Rational.
Let it be understood then that there are two parts of the Soul possessed of
Reason; one whereby we realise those existences whose causes cannot be
otherwise than they are, and one whereby we realise those which can be
otherwise than they are,[2] (for there must be, answering to things
generically different, generically different parts of the soul naturally
adapted to each, since these parts of the soul possess their knowledge in
virtue of a certain resemblance and appropriateness in themselves to the
objects of which they are percipients);[3] and let us name the former, “that
which is apt to know,” the latter, “that which is apt to calculate” (because
deliberating and calculating are the same, and no one ever deliberates about
things which cannot be otherwise than they are: and so the Calculative will
be one part of the Rational faculty of the soul).
We must discover, then, which is the best state of each of these, because
that will be the Excellence of each; and this again is relative to the work
each has to do.[4]
There are in the Soul three functions on which depend moral action and
truth; Sense, Intellect, Appetition, whether vague Desire or definite Will.
Now of these Sense is the originating cause of no moral action, as is seen
from the fact that brutes have Sense but are in no way partakers of moral
action.[5]
[Intellect and Will are thus connected,] what in the Intellectual operation
is Affirmation and Negation that in the Will is Pursuit and Avoidance, And
so, since Moral Virtue is a State apt to exercise Moral Choice and Moral
Choice is Will consequent on deliberation, the Reason must be true and the
Will right, to constitute good Moral Choice, and what the Reason affirms
the Will must pursue.[6]
Now this Intellectual operation and this Truth is what bears upon Moral
Action; of course truth and falsehood must be the good and the bad of that
Intellectual Operation which is purely Speculative, and concerned neither
with action nor production, because this is manifestly the work of every
Intellectual faculty, while of the faculty which is of a mixed Practical and

Intellectual nature, the work is that Truth which, as I have described above,
corresponds to the right movement of the Will.
Now the starting-point of moral action is Moral Choice, (I mean, what
actually sets it in motion, not the final cause,)[7] and of Moral Choice,
Appetition, and Reason directed to a certain result: and thus Moral Choice
is neither independent of intellect, i. e. intellectual operation, nor of a
certain moral state: for right or wrong action cannot be, independently of
operation of the Intellect, and moral character.
But operation of the Intellect by itself moves nothing, only when directed
to a certain result, i. e. exercised in Moral Action: (I say nothing of its being
exercised in production, because this function is originated by the former:
for every one who makes makes with a view to somewhat further; and that
which is or may be made, is not an End in itself, but only relatively to
somewhat else, and belonging to some one:[8] whereas that which is or may
be done is an End in itself, because acting well is an End in itself, and this is
the object of the Will,) and so Moral Choice is either[9] Intellect put in a
position of Will-ing, or Appetition subjected to an Intellectual Process. And
such a Cause is Man.
But nothing which is done and past can be the object of Moral Choice;
for instance, no man chooses to have sacked Troy; because, in fact, no one
ever deliberates about what is past, but only about that which is future, and
which may therefore be influenced, whereas what has been cannot not have
been: and so Agathon is right in saying
“Of this alone is Deity bereft,
To make undone whatever hath been done.”

Thus then Truth is the work of both the Intellectual Parts of the Soul;
those states therefore are the Excellences of each in which each will best
attain truth.

Chapter III.
Commencing then from the point stated above we will now speak of
these Excellences again. Let those faculties whereby the Soul attains truth
in Affirmation or Negation, be assumed to be in number five:[10] viz. Art,

Knowledge, Practical Wisdom, Science, Intuition: (Supposition and
Opinion I do not include, because by these one may go wrong.)
What Knowledge is, is plain from the following of considerations, if one
is to speak accurately, instead of being led away by resemblances. For we
all conceive that what we strictly speaking know, cannot be otherwise than
it is, because as to those things which can be otherwise than they are, we are
uncertain whether they are or are not, the moment they cease to be within
the sphere of our actual observation.
So then, whatever comes within the range of Knowledge is by necessity,
and therefore eternal, (because all things are so which exist necessarily,)
and all eternal things are without beginning, and indestructible.
Again, all Knowledge is thought to be capable of being taught, and what
comes within its range capable of being learned. And all teaching is based
upon previous knowledge; (a statement you will find in the Analytics also,)
[11]
for there are two ways of teaching, by Syllogism and by Induction. In
fact. Induction is the source of universal propositions, and Syllogism
reasons from these universals.[12] Syllogism then may reason from principles
which cannot be themselves proved Syllogistically: and therefore must by
Induction.
So Knowledge is “a state or mental faculty apt to demonstrate
syllogistically,” &c. as in the Analytics:[13] because a man, strictly and
properly speaking, knows, when he establishes his conclusion in a certain
way, and the principles are known to him: for if they are not better known
to him than the conclusion, such knowledge as he has will be merely
accidental.
Let thus much be accepted as a definition of Knowledge.

Chapter IV.
Matter which may exist otherwise than it actually does in any given case
(commonly called Contingent) is of two kinds, that which is the object of
Making, and that which is the object of Doing; now Making and Doing are
two different things (as we show in the exoteric treatise), and so that state of
mind, conjoined with Reason, which is apt to Do, is distinct from that also
conjoined with Reason, which is apt to Make: and for this reason they are

not included one by the other, that is, Doing is not Making, nor Making
Doing.[14] Now[15] as Architecture is an Art, and is the same as “a certain
state of mind, conjoined with Reason, which is apt to Make,” and as there is
no Art which is not such a state, nor any such state which is not an Art, Art,
in its strict and proper sense, must be “a state of mind, conjoined with true
Reason, apt to Make.”
Now all Art has to do with production, and contrivance, and seeing how
any of those things may be produced which may either be or not be, and the
origination of which rests with the maker and not with the thing made.
And, so neither things which exist or come into being necessarily, nor
things in the way of nature, come under the province of Art, because these
are self-originating. And since Making and Doing are distinct, Art must be
concerned with the former and not the latter. And in a certain sense Art and
Fortune are concerned with the same things, as, Agathon says by the way,
“Art Fortune loves, and is of her beloved.”

So Art, as has been stated, is “a certain state of mind, apt to Make,
conjoined with true Reason;” its absence, on the contrary, is the same state
conjoined with false Reason, and both are employed upon Contingent
matter.

Chapter V.
As for Practical Wisdom, we shall ascertain its nature by examining to
what kind of persons we in common language ascribe it.[16]
It is thought then to be the property of the Practically Wise man to be
able to deliberate well respecting what is good and expedient for himself,
not in any definite line,[17] as what is conducive to health or strength, but
what to living well. A proof of this is that we call men Wise in this or that,
when they calculate well with a view to some good end in a case where
there is no definite rule. And so, in a general way of speaking, the man who
is good at deliberation will be Practically Wise. Now no man deliberates
respecting things which cannot be otherwise than they are, nor such as lie
not within the range of his own action: and so, since Knowledge requires
strict demonstrative reasoning, of which Contingent matter does not admit
(I say Contingent matter, because all matters of deliberation must be

Contingent and deliberation cannot take place with respect to things which
are Necessarily), Practical Wisdom cannot be Knowledge nor Art; nor the
former, because what falls under the province of Doing must be Contingent;
not the latter, because Doing and Making are different in kind.
It remains then that it must be “a state of mind true, conjoined with
Reason, and apt to Do, having for its object those things which are good or
bad for Man:” because of Making something beyond itself is always the
object, but cannot be of Doing because the very well-doing is in itself an
End.
For this reason we think Pericles and men of that stamp to be Practically
Wise, because they can see what is good for themselves and for men in
general, and we also think those to be such who are skilled in domestic
management or civil government. In fact, this is the reason why we call the
habit of perfected self-mastery by the name which in Greek it bears,
etymologically signifying “that which preserves the Practical Wisdom:” for
what it does preserve is the Notion I have mentioned, i.e. of one’s own true
interest.[18]
For it is not every kind of Notion which the pleasant and the painful
corrupt and pervert, as, for instance, that “the three angles of every
rectilineal triangle are equal to two right angles,” but only those bearing on
moral action.
For the Principles of the matters of moral action are the final cause of
them:[19] now to the man who has been corrupted by reason of pleasure or
pain the Principle immediately becomes obscured, nor does he see that it is
his duty to choose and act in each instance with a view to this final cause
and by reason of it: for viciousness has a tendency to destroy the moral
Principle: and so Practical Wisdom must be “a state conjoined with reason,
true, having human good for its object, and apt to do.”
Then again Art admits of degrees of excellence, but Practical Wisdom
does not:[20] and in Art he who goes wrong purposely is preferable to him
who does so unwittingly,[21] but not so in respect of Practical Wisdom or the
other Virtues. It plainly is then an Excellence of a certain kind, and not an
Art.
Now as there are two parts of the Soul which have Reason, it must be the
Excellence of the Opinionative [which we called before calculative or
deliberative], because both Opinion and Practical Wisdom are exercised

upon Contingent matter. And further, it is not simply a state conjoined with
Reason, as is proved by the fact that such a state may be forgotten and so
lost while Practical Wisdom cannot.

Chapter VI.
Now Knowledge is a conception concerning universals and Necessary
matter, and there are of course certain First Principles in all trains of
demonstrative reasoning (that is of all Knowledge because this is connected
with reasoning): that faculty, then, which takes in the first principles of that
which comes under the range of Knowledge, cannot be either Knowledge,
or Art, or Practical Wisdom: not Knowledge, because what is the object of
Knowledge must be derived from demonstrative reasoning; not either of the
other two, because they are exercised upon Contingent matter only. Nor can
it be Science which takes in these, because the Scientific Man must in some
cases depend on demonstrative Reasoning.
It comes then to this: since the faculties whereby we always attain truth
and are never deceived when dealing with matter Necessary or even
Contingent are Knowledge, Practical Wisdom, Science, and Intuition, and
the faculty which takes in First Principles cannot be any of the three first;
the last, namely Intuition, must be it which performs this function.

Chapter VII.
Science is a term we use principally in two meanings: in the first place, in
the Arts we ascribe it to those who carry their arts to the highest accuracy;
[22]
Phidias, for instance, we call a Scientific or cunning sculptor; Polycleitus
a Scientific or cunning statuary; meaning, in this instance, nothing else by
Science than an excellence of art: in the other sense, we think some to be
Scientific in a general way, not in any particular line or in any particular
thing, just as Homer says of a man in his Margites; “Him the Gods made
neither a digger of the ground, nor ploughman, nor in any other way
Scientific.”
So it is plain that Science must mean the most accurate of all Knowledge;
but if so, then the Scientific man must not merely know the deductions from

the First Principles but be in possession of truth respecting the First
Principles. So that Science must be equivalent to Intuition and Knowledge;
it is, so to speak, Knowledge of the most precious objects, with a head on.
[23]

I say of the most precious things, because it is absurd to suppose
πολιτικὴ,[24] or Practical Wisdom, to be the highest, unless it can be shown
that Man is the most excellent of all that exists in the Universe. Now if
“healthy” and “good” are relative terms, differing when applied to men or
to fish, but “white” and “straight” are the same always, men must allow that
the Scientific is the same always, but the Practically Wise varies: for
whatever provides all things well for itself, to this they would apply the
term Practically Wise, and commit these matters to it; which is the reason,
by the way, that they call some brutes Practically Wise, such that is as
plainly have a faculty of forethought respecting their own subsistence.
And it is quite plain that Science and πολιτικὴ cannot be identical:
because if men give the name of Science to that faculty which is employed
upon what is expedient for themselves, there will be many instead of one,
because there is not one and the same faculty employed on the good of all
animals collectively, unless in the same sense as you may say there is one
art of healing with respect to all living beings.
If it is urged that man is superior to all other animals, that makes no
difference: for there are many other things more Godlike in their nature than
Man, as, most obviously, the elements of which the Universe is composed.
[25]

It is plain then that Science is the union of Knowledge and Intuition, and
has for its objects those things which are most precious in their nature.
Accordingly, Anexagoras, Thales, and men of that stamp, people call
Scientific, but not Practically Wise because they see them ignorant of what
concerns themselves; and they say that what they know is quite out of the
common run certainly, and wonderful, and hard, and very fine no doubt, but
still useless because they do not seek after what is good for them as men.

Chapter VIII.
But Practical Wisdom is employed upon human matters, and such as are
objects of deliberation (for we say, that to deliberate well is most peculiarly

the work of the man who possesses this Wisdom), and no man deliberates
about things which cannot be otherwise than they are, nor about any save
those that have some definite End and this End good resulting from Moral
Action; and the man to whom we should give the name of Good in Counsel,
simply and without modification, is he who in the way of calculation has a
capacity for attaining that of practical goods which is the best for Man.
Nor again does Practical Wisdom consist in a knowledge of general
principles only, but it is necessary that one should know also the particular
details, because it is apt to act, and action is concerned with details: for
which reason sometimes men who have not much knowledge are more
practical than others who have; among others, they who derive all they
know from actual experience: suppose a man to know, for instance, that
light meats are easy of digestion and wholesome, but not what kinds of
meat are light, he will not produce a healthy state; that man will have a
much better chance of doing so, who knows that the flesh of birds is light
and wholesome. Since then Practical Wisdom is apt to act, one ought to
have both kinds of knowledge, or, if only one, the knowledge of details
rather than of Principles. So there will be in respect of Practical Wisdom the
distinction of supreme and subordinate.[26]
Further: πολιτικὴ and Practical Wisdom are the same mental state, but the
point of view is not the same.
Of Practical Wisdom exerted upon a community that which I would call
the Supreme is the faculty of Legislation; the subordinate, which is
concerned with the details, generally has the common name πολιτικὴ, and
its functions are Action and Deliberation (for the particular enactment is a
matter of action, being the ultimate issue of this branch of Practical
Wisdom, and therefore people commonly say, that these men alone are
really engaged in government, because they alone act, filling the same place
relatively to legislators, that workmen do to a master).[27]
Again, that is thought to be Practical Wisdom in the most proper sense
which has for its object the interest of the Individual: and this usually
appropriates the common name: the others are called respectively Domestic
Management, Legislation, Executive Government divided into two
branches, Deliberative and Judicial.[28] Now of course, knowledge for one’s
self is one kind of knowledge, but it admits of many shades of difference:
and it is a common notion that the man who knows and busies himself

about his own concerns merely is the man of Practical Wisdom, while they
who extend their solicitude to society at large are considered meddlesome.
Euripides has thus embodied this sentiment; “How,” says one of his
Characters, “How foolish am I, who whereas I might have shared equally,
idly numbered among the multitude of the army *** for them that are busy
and meddlesome [Jove hates],” because the generality of mankind seek
their own good and hold that this is their proper business. It is then from
this opinion that the notion has arisen that such men are the Practically-
Wise. And yet it is just possible that the good of the individual cannot be
secured independently of connection with a family or a community. And
again, how a man should manage his own affairs is sometimes not quite
plain, and must be made a matter of enquiry.[29]
A corroboration of what I have said is[30] the fact, that the young come to
be geometricians, and mathematicians, and Scientific in such matters, but it
is not thought that a young man can come to be possessed of Practical
Wisdom: now the reason is, that this Wisdom has for its object particular
facts, which come to be known from experience, which a young man has
not because it is produced only by length of time.
By the way, a person might also enquire,[31] why a boy may be made a
mathematician but not Scientific or a natural philosopher. Is not this the
reason? that mathematics are taken in by the process of abstraction, but the
principles of Science[32] and natural philosophy must be gained by
experiment; and the latter young men talk of but do not realise, while the
nature of the former is plain and clear.
Again, in matter of practice, error attaches either to the general rule, in
the process of deliberation, or to the particular fact: for instance, this would
be a general rule, “All water of a certain gravity is bad;” the particular fact,
“this water is of that gravity.”
And that Practical Wisdom is not Knowledge is plain, for it has to do
with the ultimate issue,[33] as has been said, because every object of action is
of this nature.
To Intuition it is opposed, for this takes in those principles which cannot
be proved by reasoning, while Practical Wisdom is concerned with the
ultimate particular fact which cannot be realised by Knowledge but by
Sense; I do not mean one of the five senses, but the same by which we take
in the mathematical fact, that no rectilineal figure can be contained by less

than three lines, i.e. that a triangle is the ultimate figure, because here also
is a stopping point.
This however is Sense rather than Practical Wisdom, which is of another
kind.[34]

Chapter IX.
Now the acts of enquiring and deliberating differ, though deliberating is a
kind of enquiring. We ought to ascertain about Good Counsel likewise what
it is, whether a kind of Knowledge, or Opinion, or Happy Conjecture, or
some other kind of faculty. Knowledge it obviously is not, because men do
not enquire about what they know, and Good Counsel is a kind of
deliberation, and the man who is deliberating is enquiring and calculating.
Neither is it Happy Conjecture; because this is independent of reasoning,
and a rapid operation; but men deliberate a long time, and it is a common
saying that one should execute speedily what has been resolved upon in
deliberation, but deliberate slowly.
Quick perception of causes[35] again is a different faculty from good
counsel, for it is a species of Happy Conjecture. Nor is Good Counsel
Opinion of any kind.
Well then, since he who deliberates ill goes wrong, and he who
deliberates well does so rightly, it is clear that Good Counsel is rightness of
some kind, but not of Knowledge nor of Opinion: for Knowledge cannot be
called right because it cannot be wrong, and Rightness of Opinion is Truth:
and again, all which is the object of opinion is definitely marked out.[36]
Still, however, Good Counsel is not independent of Reason, Does it
remain then that it is a rightness of Intellectual Operation simply, because
this does not amount to an assertion; and the objection to Opinion was that
it is not a process of enquiry but already a definite assertion; whereas
whosoever deliberates, whether well or ill, is engaged in enquiry and
calculation.
Well, Good Counsel is a Rightness of deliberation, and so the first
question must regard the nature and objects of deliberation. Now remember
Rightness is an equivocal term; we plainly do not mean Rightness of any
kind whatever; the ἀκρατὴς, for instance, or the bad man, will obtain by his

calculation what he sets before him as an object, and so he may be said to
have deliberated rightly in one sense, but will have attained a great evil.
Whereas to have deliberated well is thought to be a good, because Good
Counsel is Rightness of deliberation of such a nature as is apt to attain
good.
But even this again you may get by false reasoning, and hit upon the right
effect though not through right means,[37] your middle term being fallacious:
and so neither will this be yet Good Counsel in consequence of which you
get what you ought but not through proper means.
Again, one man may hit on a thing after long deliberation, another
quickly. And so that before described will not be yet Good Counsel, but the
Rightness must be with reference to what is expedient; and you must have a
proper end in view, pursue it in a right manner and right time.
Once more. One may deliberate well either generally or towards some
particular End.[38] Good counsel in the general then is that which goes right
towards that which is the End in a general way of consideration; in
particular, that which does so towards some particular End.
Since then deliberating well is a quality of men possessed of Practical
Wisdom, Good Counsel must be “Rightness in respect of what conduces to
a given End, of which[39] Practical Wisdom is the true conception.”

Chapter X.
There is too the faculty of Judiciousness, and also its absence, in virtue of
which we call men Judicious or the contrary.
Now Judiciousness is neither entirely identical with Knowledge or
Opinion (for then all would have been Judicious), nor is it any one specific
science, as medical science whose object matter is things wholesome; or
geometry whose object matter is magnitude: for it has not for its object
things which always exist and are immutable, nor of those things which
come into being just any which may chance; but those in respect of which a
man might doubt and deliberate.
And so it has the same object matter as Practical Wisdom; yet the two
faculties are not identical, because Practical Wisdom has the capacity for
commanding and taking the initiative, for its End is “what one should do or

not do:” but Judiciousness is only apt to decide upon suggestions (though
we do in Greek put “well” on to the faculty and its concrete noun, these
really mean exactly the same as the plain words), and Judiciousness is
neither the having Practical Wisdom, nor attaining it: but just as learning is
termed συνιέναι when a man uses his knowledge, so judiciousness consists
in employing the Opinionative faculty in judging concerning those things
which come within the province of Practical Wisdom, when another
enunciates them; and not judging merely, but judging well (for εὐ and
καλῶς mean exactly the same thing). And the Greek name of this faculty is
derived from the use of the term συνιέναι in learning: μανθάνειν and
συνιέναι being often used as synonymous.
The faculty called γνώμη,[40] in right of which we call men εὐγνώμονες,
or say they have γνώμη, is “the right judgment of the equitable man.” A
proof of which is that we most commonly say that the equitable man has a
tendency to make allowance, and the making allowance in certain cases is
equitable. And συγγνώμη (the word denoting allowance) is right γνώμη
having a capacity of making equitable decisions, By “right” I mean that of
the Truthful man.

Chapter XI.
Now all these mental states[41] tend to the same object, as indeed common
language leads us to expect: I mean, we speak of γνώμη, Judiciousness,
Practical Wisdom, and Practical Intuition, attributing the possession of
γνώμη and Practical Intuition to the same Individuals whom we denominate
Practically-Wise and Judicious: because all these faculties are employed
upon the extremes,[42] i.e. on particular details; and in right of his aptitude
for deciding on the matters which come within the province of the
Practically-Wise, a man is Judicious and possessed of good γνώμη; i.e. he is
disposed to make allowance, for considerations of equity are entertained by
all good men alike in transactions with their fellows.
And all matters of Moral Action belong to the class of particulars,
otherwise called extremes: for the man of Practical Wisdom must know
them, and Judiciousness and γνώμη are concerned with matters of Moral
Actions, which are extremes.

Intuition, moreover, takes in the extremes at both ends:[43] I mean, the
first and last terms must be taken in not by reasoning but by Intuition [so
that Intuition comes to be of two kinds], and that which belongs to strict
demonstrative reasonings takes in immutable, i.e. Necessary, first terms;
while that which is employed in practical matters takes in the extreme, the
Contingent, and the minor Premiss:[44] for the minor Premisses are the
source of the Final Cause, Universals being made up out of Particulars.[45]
To take in these, of course, we must have Sense, i.e. in other words
Practical Intuition.
And for this reason these are thought to be simply gifts of nature; and
whereas no man is thought to be Scientific by nature, men are thought to
have γνώμη, and Judiciousness, and Practical Intuition: a proof of which is
that we think these faculties are a consequence even of particular ages, and
this given age has Practical Intuition and γνώμη, we say, as if under the
notion that nature is the cause. And thus Intuition is both the beginning and
end, because the proofs are based upon the one kind of extremes and
concern the other.
And so[46] one should attend to the undemonstrable dicta and opinions of
the skilful, the old and the Practically-Wise, no less than to those which are
based on strict reasoning, because they see aright, having gained their
power of moral vision from experience.

Chapter XII.
Well, we have now stated the nature and objects of Practical Wisdom and
Science respectively, and that they belong each to a different part of the
Soul. But I can conceive a person questioning their utility. “Science,” he
would say, “concerns itself with none of the causes of human happiness (for
it has nothing to do with producing anything): Practical Wisdom has this
recommendation, I grant, but where is the need of it, since its province is
those things which are just and honourable, and good for man, and these are
the things which the good man as such does; but we are not a bit the more
apt to do them because we know them, since the Moral Virtues are Habits;
just as we are not more apt to be healthy or in good condition from mere
knowledge of what relates to these (I mean,[47] of course, things so called
not from their producing health, etc., but from their evidencing it in a

particular subject), for we are not more apt to be healthy and in good
condition merely from knowing the art of medicine or training.
“If it be urged that knowing what is good does not by itself make a
Practically-Wise man but becoming good; still this Wisdom will be no use
either to those that are good, and so have it already, or to those who have it
not; because it will make no difference to them whether they have it
themselves or put themselves under the guidance of others who have; and
we might be contented to be in respect of this as in respect of health: for
though we wish to be healthy still we do not set about learning the art of
healing.
“Furthermore, it would seem to be strange that, though lower in the scale
than Science, it is to be its master; which it is, because whatever produces
results takes the rule and directs in each matter.”
This then is what we are to talk about, for these are the only points now
raised.
Now first we say that being respectively Excellences of different parts of
the Soul they must be choice-worthy, even on the supposition that they
neither of them produce results.
In the next place we say that they do produce results; that Science makes
Happiness, not as the medical art but as healthiness makes health:[48]
because, being a part of Virtue in its most extensive sense, it makes a man
happy by being possessed and by working.
Next, Man’s work as Man is accomplished by virtue of Practical Wisdom
and Moral Virtue, the latter giving the right aim and direction, the former
the right means to its attainment;[49] but of the fourth part of the Soul, the
mere nutritive principle, there is no such Excellence, because nothing is in
its power to do or leave undone.[50]
As to our not being more apt to do what is noble and just by reason of
possessing Practical Wisdom, we must begin a little higher up,[51] taking this
for our starting-point. As we say that men may do things in themselves just
and yet not be just men; for instance, when men do what the laws require of
them, either against their will, or by reason of ignorance or something else,
at all events not for the sake of the things themselves; and yet they do what
they ought and all that the good man should do; so it seems that to be a
good man one must do each act in a particular frame of mind, I mean from
Moral Choice and for the sake of the things themselves which are done.

Now it is Virtue which makes the Moral Choice right, but whatever is
naturally required to carry out that Choice comes under the province not of
Virtue but of a different faculty. We must halt, as it were, awhile, and speak
more clearly on these points.
There is then a certain faculty, commonly named Cleverness, of such a
nature as to be able to do and attain whatever conduces to any given
purpose: now if that purpose be a good one the faculty is praiseworthy; if
otherwise, it goes by a name which, denoting strictly the ability, implies the
willingness to do anything; we accordingly call the Practically-Wise Clever,
and also those who can and will do anything.[52]
Now Practical Wisdom is not identical with Cleverness, nor is it without
this power of adapting means to ends: but this Eye of the Soul (as we may
call it) does not attain its proper state without goodness, as we have said
before and as is quite plain, because the syllogisms into which Moral Action
may be analysed have for their Major Premiss,[53] “since —— is the End
and the Chief Good”[54] (fill up the blank with just anything you please, for
we merely want to exhibit the Form, so that anything will do), but how this
blank should be filled is seen only by the good man: because Vice distorts
the moral vision and causes men to be deceived in respect of practical
principles.[55]
It is clear, therefore, that a man cannot be a Practically-Wise, without
being a good, man.
We must enquire again also about Virtue: for it may be divided into
Natural Virtue and Matured, which two bear to each other a relation similar
to that which Practical Wisdom bears to Cleverness, one not of identity but
resemblance. I speak of Natural Virtue, because men hold that each of the
moral dispositions attach to us all somehow by nature: we have
dispositions[56] towards justice, self-mastery and courage, for instance,
immediately from our birth: but still we seek Goodness in its highest sense
as something distinct from these, and that these dispositions should attach
to us in a somewhat different fashion.[57] Children and brutes have these
natural states, but then they are plainly hurtful unless combined with an
intellectual element: at least thus much is matter of actual experience and
observation, that as a strong body destitute of sight must, if set in motion,
fall violently because it has not sight, so it is also in the case we are
considering: but if it can get the intellectual element it then excels in acting.

Just so the Natural State of Virtue, being like this strong body, will then be
Virtue in the highest sense when it too is combined with the intellectual
element.
So that, as in the case of the Opinionative faculty, there are two forms,
Cleverness and Practical Wisdom; so also in the case of the Moral there are
two, Natural Virtue and Matured; and of these the latter cannot be formed
without Practical Wisdom.[58]
This leads some to say that all the Virtues are merely intellectual
Practical Wisdom, and Socrates was partly right in his enquiry and partly
wrong: wrong in that he thought all the Virtues were merely intellectual
Practical Wisdom, right in saying they were not independent of that faculty.
A proof of which is that now all, in defining Virtue, add on the “state”
[mentioning also to what standard it has reference, namely that] “which is
accordant with Right Reason:” now “right” means in accordance with
Practical Wisdom. So then all seem to have an instinctive notion that that
state which is in accordance with Practical Wisdom is Virtue; however, we
must make a slight change in their statement, because that state is Virtue,
not merely which is in accordance with but which implies the possession of
Right Reason; which, upon such matters, is Practical Wisdom. The
difference between us and Socrates is this: he thought the Virtues were
reasoning processes (i.e. that they were all instances of Knowledge in its
strict sense), but we say they imply the possession of Reason.
From what has been said then it is clear that one cannot be, strictly
speaking, good without Practical Wisdom nor Practically-Wise without
moral goodness.
And by the distinction between Natural and Matured Virtue one can meet
the reasoning by which it might be argued “that the Virtues are separable
because the same man is not by nature most inclined to all at once so that he
will have acquired this one before he has that other:” we would reply that
this is possible with respect to the Natural Virtues but not with respect to
those in right of which a man is denominated simply good: because they
will all belong to him together with the one faculty of Practical Wisdom.
It is plain too that even had it not been apt to act we should have needed
it, because it is the Excellence of a part of the Soul; and that the moral
choice cannot be right independently of Practical Wisdom and Moral

Goodness; because this gives the right End, that causes the doing these
things which conduce to the End.
Then again, it is not Master of Science (i.e. of the superior part of the
Soul), just as neither is the healing art Master of health; for it does not make
use of it, but looks how it may come to be: so it commands for the sake of it
but does not command it.
The objection is, in fact, about as valid as if a man should say πολιτικὴ
governs the gods because it gives orders about all things in the communty.

APPENDIX
On ἐπισπήμη, from I. Post. Analyt. chap. i. and ii.

(Such parts only are translated as throw light on the Ethics.)

All teaching, and all intellectual learning, proceeds on the basis of
previous knowledge, as will appear on an examination of all. The
Mathematical Sciences, and every other system, draw their conclusions in
this method. So too of reasonings, whether by syllogism, or induction: for
both teach through what is previously known, the former assuming the
premisses as from wise men, the latter proving universals from the
evidentness of the particulars. In like manner too rhetoricians persuade,
either through examples (which amounts to induction), or through
enthymemes (which amounts to syllogism).

CHAP. II

Well, we suppose that we know things (in the strict and proper sense of
the word) when we suppose ourselves to know the cause by reason of which
the thing is to be the cause of it; and that this cannot be otherwise. It is plain
that the idea intended to be conveyed by the term knowing is something of
this kind; because they who do not really know suppose themselves thus
related to the matter in hand and they who do know really are so that of
whatsoever there is properly speaking Knowledge this cannot be otherwise
than it is Whether or no there is another way of knowing we will say
afterwards, but we do say that we know through demonstration, by which I

mean a syllogism apt to produce Knowledge, i.e. in right of which through
having it, we know.
If Knowledge then is such as we have described it, the Knowledge
produced by demonstrative reasoning must be drawn from premisses true
and first, and incapable of syllogistic proof, and better known, and prior in
order of time, and causes of the conclusion, for so the principles will be
akin to the conclusion demonstrated.
(Syllogism, of course there may be without such premisses, but it will not
be demonstration because it will not produce knowledge).
True, they must be, because it is impossible to know that which is not.
First, that is indemonstrable, because, if demonstrable, he cannot be said
to know them who has no demonstration of them for knowing such things as
are demonstrable is the same as having demonstration of them.
Causes they must be, and better known, and prior in time, causes,
because we then know when we are acquainted with the cause, and prior, if
causes, and known beforehand, not merely comprehended in idea but
known to exist (The terms prior, and better known, bear two senses for
prior by nature and prior relatively to ourselves are not the same, nor better
known by nature, and better known to us I mean, by prior and better known
relatively to ourselves, such things as are nearer to sensation, but
abstractedly so such as are further Those are furthest which are most
universal those nearest which are particulars, and these are mutually
opposed.)
And by first, I mean principles akin to the conclusion, for principle
means the same as first And the principle or first step in demonstration is a
proposition incapable of syllogistic proof, i.e. one to which there is none
prior. Now of such syllogistic principles I call that a θέσις which you cannot
demonstrate, and which is unnecessary with a view to learning something
else. That which is necessary in order to learn something else is an Axiom.
Further, since one is to believe and know the thing by having a syllogism
of the kind called demonstration, and what constitutes it to be such is the
nature of the premisses, it is necessary not merely to know before, but to
know better than the conclusion, either all or at least some of, the
principles, because that which is the cause of a quality inhering in
something else always inheres itself more as the cause of our loving is itself
more lovable. So, since the principles are the cause of our knowing and

behoving we know and believe them more, because by reason of them we
know also the conclusion following.
Further: the man who is to have the Knowledge which comes through
demonstration must not merely know and believe his principles better than
he does his conclusion, but he must believe nothing more firmly than the
contradictories of those principles out of which the contrary fallacy may be
constructed: since he who knows, is to be simply and absolutely infallible.

BOOK VII

Chapter I.
Next we must take a different point to start from,[1] and observe that of
what is to be avoided in respect of moral character there are three forms;
Vice, Imperfect Self-Control, and Brutishness. Of the two former it is plain
what the contraries are, for we call the one Virtue, the other Self-Control;
and as answering to Brutishness it will be most suitable to assign
Superhuman, i.e. heroical and godlike Virtue, as, in Homer, Priam says of
Hector “that he was very excellent, nor was he like the offspring of mortal
man, but of a god.” and so, if, as is commonly said, men are raised to the
position of gods by reason of very high excellence in Virtue, the state
opposed to the Brutish will plainly be of this nature: because as brutes are
not virtuous or vicious so neither are gods; but the state of these is
something more precious than Virtue, of the former something different in
kind from Vice.
And as, on the one hand, it is a rare thing for a man to be godlike (a term
the Lacedæmonians are accustomed to use when they admire a man
exceedingly; σεῖος ἀνὴρ they call him), so the brutish man is rare; the
character is found most among barbarians, and some cases of it are caused
by disease or maiming; also such men as exceed in vice all ordinary
measures we therefore designate by this opprobrious term. Well, we must in
a subsequent place make some mention of this disposition, and Vice has
been spoken of before: for the present we must speak of Imperfect Self-
Control and its kindred faults of Softness and Luxury, on the one hand, and
of Self-Control and Endurance on the other; since we are to conceive of
them, not as being the same states exactly as Virtue and Vice respectively,
nor again as differing in kind.

And we should adopt the same course as before, i.e. state the phenomena,
and, after raising and discussing difficulties which suggest themselves, then
exhibit, if possible, all the opinions afloat respecting these affections of the
moral character; or, if not all, the greater part and the most important: for
we may consider we have illustrated the matter sufficiently when the
difficulties have been solved, and such theories as are most approved are
left as a residuum.
The chief points may be thus enumerated. It is thought,
I. That Self-Control and Endurance belong to the class of things good and
praiseworthy, while Imperfect Self-Control and Softness belong to that of
things low and blameworthy.
II. That the man of Self-Control is identical with the man who is apt to
abide by his resolution, and the man of Imperfect Self-Control with him
who is apt to depart from his resolution.
III. That the man of Imperfect Self-Control does things at the instigation
of his passions, knowing them to be wrong, while the man of Self-Control,
knowing his lusts to be wrong, refuses, by the influence of reason, to follow
their suggestions.
IV. That the man of Perfected Self-Mastery unites the qualities of Self-
Control and Endurance, and some say that every one who unites these is a
man of Perfect Self-Mastery, others do not.
V. Some confound the two characters of the man who has no Self-
Control, and the man of Imperfect Self-Control, while others distinguish
between them.
VI. It is sometimes said that the man of Practical Wisdom cannot be a
man of Imperfect Self-Control, sometimes that men who are Practically
Wise and Clever are of Imperfect Self-Control.
VII. Again, men are said to be of Imperfect Self-Control, not simply but
with the addition of the thing wherein, as in respect of anger, of honour, and
gain.
These then are pretty well the common statements.

Chapter II.

Now a man may raise a question as to the nature of the right conception
in violation of which a man fails of Self-Control.
That he can so fail when knowing in the strict sense what is right some
say is impossible: for it is a strange thing, as Socrates thought, that while
Knowledge is present in his mind something else should master him and
drag him about like a slave. Socrates in fact contended generally against the
theory, maintaining there is no such state as that of Imperfect Self-Control,
for that no one acts contrary to what is best conceiving it to be best but by
reason of ignorance what is best.
With all due respect to Socrates, his account of the matter is at variance
with plain facts, and we must enquire with respect to the affection, if it be
caused by ignorance what is the nature of the ignorance: for that the man so
failing does not suppose his acts to be right before he is under the influence
of passion is quite plain.[2]
There are people who partly agree with Socrates and partly not: that
nothing can be stronger than Knowledge they agree, but that no man acts in
contravention of his conviction of what is better they do not agree; and so
they say that it is not Knowledge, but only Opinion, which the man in
question has and yet yields to the instigation of his pleasures.
But then, if it is Opinion and not Knowledge, that is it the opposing
conception be not strong but only mild (as in the case of real doubt), the not
abiding by it in the face of strong lusts would be excusable: but wickedness
is not excusable, nor is anything which deserves blame.
Well then, is it Practical Wisdom which in this case offers opposition: for
that is the strongest principle? The supposition is absurd, for we shall have
the same man uniting Practical Wisdom and Imperfect Self-Control, and
surely no single person would maintain that it is consistent with the
character of Practical Wisdom to do voluntarily what is very wrong; and
besides we have shown before that the very mark of a man of this character
is aptitude to act, as distinguished from mere knowledge of what is right;
because he is a man conversant with particular details, and possessed of all
the other virtues.
Again, if the having strong and bad lusts is necessary to the idea of the
man of Self-Control, this character cannot be identical with the man of
Perfected Self-Mastery, because the having strong desires or bad ones does
not enter into the idea of this latter character: and yet the man of Self-

Control must have such: for suppose them good; then the moral state which
should hinder a man from following their suggestions must be bad, and so
Self-Control would not be in all cases good: suppose them on the other
hand to be weak and not wrong, it would be nothing grand; nor anything
great, supposing them to be wrong and weak.
Again, if Self-Control makes a man apt to abide by all opinions without
exception, it may be bad, as suppose the case of a false opinion: and if
Imperfect Self-Control makes a man apt to depart from all without
exception, we shall have cases where it will be good; take that of
Neoptolemus in the Philoctetes of Sophocles, for instance: he is to be
praised for not abiding by what he was persuaded to by Ulysses, because he
was pained at being guilty of falsehood.
Or again, false sophistical reasoning presents a difficulty: for because
men wish to prove paradoxes that they may be counted clever when they
succeed, the reasoning that has been used becomes a difficulty: for the
intellect is fettered; a man being unwilling to abide by the conclusion
because it does not please his judgment, but unable to advance because he
cannot disentangle the web of sophistical reasoning.
Or again, it is conceivable on this supposition that folly joined with
Imperfect Self-Control may turn out, in a given case, goodness: for by
reason of his imperfection of self-control a man acts in a way which
contradicts his notions; now his notion is that what is really good is bad and
ought not to be done; and so he will eventually do what is good and not
what is bad.
Again, on the same supposition, the man who acting on conviction
pursues and chooses things because they are pleasant must be thought a
better man than he who does so not by reason of a quasi-rational conviction
but of Imperfect Self-Control: because he is more open to cure by reason of
the possibility of his receiving a contrary conviction. But to the man of
Imperfect Self-Control would apply the proverb, “when water chokes, what
should a man drink then?” for had he never been convinced at all in respect
of what he does,[3] then by a conviction in a contrary direction he might
have stopped in his course; but now though he has had convictions he
notwithstanding acts against them.
Again, if any and every thing is the object-matter of Imperfect and
Perfect Self-Control, who is the man of Imperfect Self-Control simply?

because no one unites all cases of it, and we commonly say that some men
are so simply, not adding any particular thing in which they are so.
Well, the difficulties raised are pretty near such as I have described them,
and of these theories we must remove some and leave others as established;
because the solving of a difficulty is a positive act of establishing something
as true.

Chapter III.
Now we must examine first whether men of Imperfect Self-Control act
with a knowledge of what is right or not: next, if with such knowledge, in
what sense; and next what are we to assume is the object-matter of the man
of Imperfect Self-Control, and of the man of Self-Control; I mean, whether
pleasure and pain of all kinds or certain definite ones; and as to Self-Control
and Endurance, whether these are designations of the same character or
different. And in like manner we must go into all questions which are
connected with the present.
But the real starting point of the enquiry is, whether the two characters of
Self-Control and Imperfect Self-Control are distinguished by their object-
matter, or their respective relations to it. I mean, whether the man of
Imperfect Self-Control is such simply by virtue of having such and such
object-matter; or not, but by virtue of his being related to it in such and such
a way, or by virtue of both: next, whether Self-Control and Imperfect Self-
Control are unlimited in their object-matter: because he who is designated
without any addition a man of Imperfect Self-Control is not unlimited in his
object-matter, but has exactly the same as the man who has lost all Self-
Control: nor is he so designated because of his relation to this object-matter
merely (for then his character would be identical with that just mentioned,
loss of all Self-Control), but because of his relation to it being such and
such. For the man who has lost all Self-Control is led on with deliberate
moral choice, holding that it is his line to pursue pleasure as it rises: while
the man of Imperfect Self-Control does not think that he ought to pursue it,
but does pursue it all the same.
Now as to the notion that it is True Opinion and not Knowledge in
contravention of which men fail in Self-Control, it makes no difference to
the point in question, because some of those who hold Opinions have no

doubt about them but suppose themselves to have accurate Knowledge; if
then it is urged that men holding Opinions will be more likely than men
who have Knowledge to act in contravention of their conceptions, as having
but a moderate belief in them; we reply, Knowledge will not differ in this
respect from Opinion: because some men believe their own Opinions no
less firmly than others do their positive Knowledge: Heraclitus is a case in
point.
Rather the following is the account of it: the term knowing has two
senses; both the man who does not use his Knowledge, and he who does,
are said to know: there will be a difference between a man’s acting wrongly,
who though possessed of Knowledge does not call it into operation, and his
doing so who has it and actually exercises it: the latter is a strange case, but
the mere having, if not exercising, presents no anomaly.
Again, as there are two kinds of propositions affecting action,[4] universal
and particular, there is no reason why a man may not act against his
Knowledge, having both propositions in his mind, using the universal but
not the particular, for the particulars are the objects of moral action.
There is a difference also in universal propositions;[5] a universal
proposition may relate partly to a man’s self and partly to the thing in
question: take the following for instance; “dry food is good for every man,”
this may have the two minor premisses, “this is a man,” and “so and so is
dry food;” but whether a given substance is so and so a man either has not
the Knowledge or does not exert it. According to these different senses
there will be an immense difference, so that for a man to know in the one
sense, and yet act wrongly, would be nothing strange, but in any of the other
senses it would be a matter for wonder.
Again, men may have Knowledge in a way different from any of those
which have been now stated: for we constantly see a man’s state so
differing by having and not using Knowledge, that he has it in a sense and
also has not; when a man is asleep, for instance, or mad, or drunk: well,
men under the actual operation of passion are in exactly similar conditions;
for anger, lust, and some other such-like things, manifestly make changes
even in the body, and in some they even cause madness; it is plain then that
we must say the men of Imperfect Self-Control are in a state similar to
these.

And their saying what embodies Knowledge is no proof of their actually
then exercising it, because they who are under the operation of these
passions repeat demonstrations; or verses of Empedocles,[6] just as children,
when first learning, string words together, but as yet know nothing of their
meaning, because they must grow into it, and this is a process requiring
time: so that we must suppose these men who fail in Self-Control to say
these moral sayings just as actors do.
Furthermore, a man may look at the account of the phænomenon in the
following way, from an examination of the actual working of the mind: All
action may be analysed into a syllogism, in which the one premiss is an
universal maxim and the other concerns particulars of which Sense [moral
or physical, as the case may be] is cognisant: now when one results from
these two, it follows necessarily that, as far as theory goes the mind must
assert the conclusion, and in practical propositions the man must act
accordingly.
For instance, let the universal be, “All that is sweet should be tasted,” the
particular, “This is sweet;” it follows necessarily that he who is able and is
not hindered should not only draw, but put in practice, the conclusion “This
is to be tasted.” When then there is in the mind one universal proposition
forbidding to taste, and the other “All that is sweet is pleasant” with its
minor “This is sweet” (which is the one that really works), and desire
happens to be in the man, the first universal bids him avoid this but the
desire leads him on to taste; for it has the power of moving the various
organs: and so it results that he fails in Self-Control, in a certain sense under
the influence of Reason and Opinion not contrary in itself to Reason but
only accidentally so; because it is the desire that is contrary to Right
Reason, but not the Opinion:[7] and so for this reason brutes are not
accounted of Imperfect Self-Control, because they have no power of
conceiving universals but only of receiving and retaining particular
impressions.
As to the manner in which the ignorance is removed and the man of
Imperfect Self-Control recovers his Knowledge, the account is the same as
with respect to him who is drunk or asleep, and is not peculiar to this
affection, so physiologists[8] are the right people to apply to. But whereas
the minor premiss of every practical syllogism is an opinion on matter
cognisable by Sense and determines the actions; he who is under the

influence of passion either has not this, or so has it that his having does not
amount to knowing but merely saying, as a man when drunk might repeat
Empedocles’ verses; and because the minor term[9] is neither universal, nor
is thought to have the power of producing Knowledge in like manner as the
universal term: and so the result which Socrates was seeking comes out,
that is to say, the affection does not take place in the presence of that which
is thought to be specially and properly Knowledge, nor is this dragged
about by reason of the affection, but in the presence of that Knowledge
which is conveyed by Sense.
Let this account then be accepted of the question respecting the failure in
Self-Control, whether it is with Knowledge, and the manner in which such
failure is possible or not, though a man possesses Knowledge.

Chapter IV.
The next question to be discussed is whether there is a character to be
designated by the term “of Imperfect Self-Control” simply, or whether all
who are so are to be accounted such, in respect of some particular thing;
and, if there is such a character, what is his object-matter.
Now that pleasures and pains are the object-matter of men of Self-
Control and of Endurance, and also of men of Imperfect Self-Control and
Softness, is plain.
Further, things which produce pleasure are either necessary, or objects of
choice in themselves but yet admitting of excess. All bodily things which
produce pleasure are necessary; and I call such those which relate to food
and other grosser appetities, in short such bodily things as we assumed were
the Object-matter of absence of Self-Control and of Perfected Self-Mastery.
The other class of objects are not necessary, but objects of choice in
themselves: I mean, for instance, victory, honour, wealth, and such-like
good or pleasant things. And those who are excessive in their liking for
such things contrary to the principle of Right Reason which is in their own
breasts we do not designate men of Imperfect Self-Control simply, but with
the addition of the thing wherein, as in respect of money, or gain, or honour,
or anger, and not simply; because we consider them as different characters
and only having that title in right of a kind of resemblance (as when we add
to a man’s name “conqueror in the Olympic games” the account of him as

Man differs but little from the account of him as the Man who conquered in
the Olympic games, but still it is different). And a proof of the real
difference between these so designated with an addition and those simply so
called is this, that Imperfect Self-Control is blamed, not as an error merely
but also as being a vice, either wholly or partially; but none of these other
cases is so blamed.
But of those who have for their object-matter the bodily enjoyments,
which we say are also the object-matter of the man of Perfected Self-
Mastery and the man who has lost all Self-Control, he that pursues
excessive pleasures and too much avoids[10] things which are painful (as
hunger and thirst, heat and cold, and everything connected with touch and
taste), not from moral choice but in spite of his moral choice and
intellectual conviction, is termed “a man of Imperfect Self-Control,” not
with the addition of any particular object-matter as we do in respect of want
of control of anger but simply.
And a proof that the term is thus applied is that the kindred term “Soft” is
used in respect of these enjoyments but not in respect of any of those others.
And for this reason we put into the same rank the man of Imperfect Self-
Control, the man who has lost it entirely, the man who has it, and the man
of Perfected Self-Mastery; but not any of those other characters, because
the former have for their object-matter the same pleasures and pains: but
though they have the same object-matter, they are not related to it in the
same way, but two of them act upon moral choice, two without it. And so
we should say that man is more entirely given up to his passions who
pursues excessive pleasures, and avoids moderate pains, being either not at
all, or at least but little, urged by desire, than the man who does so because
his desire is very strong: because we think what would the former be likely
to do if he had the additional stimulus of youthful lust and violent pain
consequent on the want of those pleasures which we have denominated
necessary?
Well then, since of desires and pleasures there are some which are in kind
honourable and good (because things pleasant are divisible, as we said
before, into such as are naturally objects of choice, such as are naturally
objects of avoidance, and such as are in themselves indifferent, money,
gain, honour, victory, for instance); in respect of all such and those that are

indifferent, men are blamed not merely[11] for being affected by or desiring
or liking them, but for exceeding in any way in these feelings.
And so they are blamed, whosoever in spite of Reason are mastered by,
that is pursue, any object, though in its nature noble and good; they, for
instance, who are more earnest than they should be respecting honour, or
their children or parents; not but what these are good objects and men are
praised for being earnest about them: but still they admit of excess; for
instance, if any one, as Niobe did, should fight even against the gods, or
feel towards his father as Satyrus, who got therefrom the nickname of
φιλοπάτωρ, because he was thought to be very foolish.
Now depravity there is none in regard of these things, for the reason
assigned above, that each of them in itself is a thing naturally choice-
worthy, yet the excesses in respect of them are wrong and matter for blame:
and similarly there is no Imperfect Self-Control in respect of these things;
that being not merely a thing that should be avoided but blameworthy.
But because of the resemblance of the affection to the Imperfection of
Self-Control the term is used with the addition in each case of the particular
object-matter, just as men call a man a bad physician, or bad actor, whom
they would not think of calling simply bad. As then in these cases we do not
apply the term simply because each of the states is not a vice, but only like
a vice in the way of analogy,[12] so it is plain that in respect of Imperfect
Self-Control and Self-Control we must limit the names to those states which
have the same object-matter as Perfected Self-Mastery and utter loss of
Self-Control, and that we do apply it to the case of anger only in the way of
resemblance: for which reason, with an addition, we designate a man of
Imperfect Self-Control in respect of anger, as of honour or of gain.

Chapter V.
As there are some things naturally pleasant, and of these two kinds;
those, namely, which are pleasant generally, and those which are so
relatively to particular kinds of animals and men; so there are others which
are not naturally pleasant but which come to be so in consequence either of
maimings, or custom, or depraved natural tastes: and one may observe
moral states similar to those we have been speaking of, having respectively
these classes of things for their object-matter.

I mean the Brutish, as in the case of the female who, they say, would rip
up women with child and eat the foetus; or the tastes which are found
among the savage tribes bordering on the Pontus, some liking raw flesh,
and some being cannibals, and some lending one another their children to
make feasts of; or what is said of Phalaris. These are instances of Brutish
states, caused in some by disease or madness; take, for instance, the man
who sacrificed and ate his mother, or him who devoured the liver of his
fellow-servant. Instances again of those caused by disease or by custom,
would be, plucking out of hair, or eating one’s nails, or eating coals and
earth.[13] Now wherever nature is really the cause no one would think of
calling men of Imperfect Self-Control, ... nor, in like manner, such as are in
a diseased state through custom.
The having any of these inclinations is something foreign to what is
denominated Vice, just as Brutishness is: and when a man has them his
mastering them is not properly Self-Control, nor his being mastered by
them Imperfection of Self-Control in the proper sense, but only in the way
of resemblance; just as we may say a man of ungovernable wrath fails of
Self-Control in respect of anger but not simply fails of Self-Control. For all
excessive folly, cowardice, absence of Self-Control, or irritability, are either
Brutish or morbid. The man, for instance, who is naturally afraid of all
things, even if a mouse should stir, is cowardly after a Brutish sort; there
was a man again who, by reason of disease, was afraid of a cat: and of the
fools, they who are naturally destitute of Reason and live only by Sense are
Brutish, as are some tribes of the far-off barbarians, while others who are so
by reason of diseases, epileptic or frantic, are in morbid states.
So then, of these inclinations, a man may sometimes merely have one
without yielding to it: I mean, suppose that Phalaris had restrained his
unnatural desire to eat a child: or he may both have and yield to it. As then
Vice when such as belongs to human nature is called Vice simply, while the
other is so called with the addition of “brutish” or “morbid,” but not simply
Vice, so manifestly there is Brutish and Morbid Imperfection of Self-
Control, but that alone is entitled to the name without any qualification
which is of the nature of utter absence of Self-Control, as it is found in
Man.

Chapter VI.

It is plain then that the object-matter of Imperfect Self-Control and Self-
Control is restricted to the same as that of utter absence of Self-Control and
that of Perfected Self-Mastery, and that the rest is the object-matter of a
different species so named metaphorically and not simply: we will now
examine the position, “that Imperfect Self-Control in respect of Anger is
less disgraceful than that in respect of Lusts.”
In the first place, it seems that Anger does in a way listen to Reason but
mishears it; as quick servants who run out before they have heard the whole
of what is said and then mistake the order; dogs, again, bark at the slightest
stir, before they have seen whether it be friend or foe; just so Anger, by
reason of its natural heat and quickness, listening to Reason, but without
having heard the command of Reason, rushes to its revenge. That is to say,
Reason or some impression on the mind shows there is insolence or
contempt[14] in the offender, and then Anger, reasoning as it were that one
ought to fight against what is such, fires up immediately: whereas Lust, if
Reason or Sense, as the case may be, merely says a thing is sweet, rushes to
the enjoyment of it: and so Anger follows Reason in a manner, but Lust
does not and is therefore more disgraceful: because he that cannot control
his anger yields in a manner to Reason, but the other to his Lust and not to
Reason at all.
Again, a man is more excusable for following such desires as are natural,
just as he is for following such Lusts as are common to all and to that
degree in which they are common. Now Anger and irritability are more
natural than Lusts when in excess and for objects not necessary. (This was
the ground of the defence the man made who beat his father, “My father,”
he said, “used to beat his, and his father his again, and this little fellow
here,” pointing to his child, “will beat me when he is grown a man: it runs
in the family.” And the father, as he was being dragged along, bid his son
leave off beating him at the door, because he had himself been used to drag
his father so far and no farther.)
Again, characters are less unjust in proportion as they involve less
insidiousness. Now the Angry man is not insidious, nor is Anger, but quite
open: but Lust is: as they say of Venus,
“Cyprus-born Goddess, weaver of deceits”

Or Homer of the girdle called the Cestus,

“Persuasiveness cheating e’en the subtlest mind.”

And so since this kind of Imperfect Self-Control is more unjust, it is also
more disgraceful than that in respect of Anger, and is simply Imperfect Self-
Control, and Vice in a certain sense.
Again, no man feels pain in being insolent, but every one who acts
through Anger does act with pain; and he who acts insolently does it with
pleasure. If then those things are most unjust with which we have most right
to be angry, then Imperfect Self-Control, arising from Lust, is more so than
that arising from Anger: because in Anger there is no insolence.[15]
Well then, it is clear that Imperfect Self-Control in respect of Lusts is
more disgraceful than that in respect of Anger, and that the object-matter of
Self-Control, and the Imperfection of it, are bodily Lusts and pleasures; but
of these last we must take into account the differences; for, as was said at
the commencement, some are proper to the human race and natural both in
kind and degree, others Brutish, and others caused by maimings and
diseases.
Now the first of these only are the object-matter of Perfected Self-
Mastery and utter absence of Self-Control; and therefore we never attribute
either of these states to Brutes (except metaphorically, and whenever any
one kind of animal differs entirely from another in insolence,
mischievousness, or voracity), because they have not moral choice or
process of deliberation, but are quite different from that kind of creature just
as are madmen from other men.
Brutishness is not so low in the scale as Vice, yet it is to be regarded with
more fear: because it is not that the highest principle has been corrupted, as
in the human creature, but the subject has it not at all.
It is much the same, therefore, as if one should compare an inanimate
with an animate being, which were the worse: for the badness of that which
has no principle of origination is always less harmful; now Intellect is a
principle of origination. A similar case would be the comparing injustice
and an unjust man together: for in different ways each is the worst: a bad
man would produce ten thousand times as much harm as a bad brute.

Chapter VII.

Now with respect to the pleasures and pains which come to a man
through Touch and Taste, and the desiring or avoiding such (which we
determined before to constitute the object-matter of the states of utter
absence of Self-Control and Perfected Self-Mastery), one may be so
disposed as to yield to temptations to which most men would be superior, or
to be superior to those to which most men would yield: in respect of
pleasures, these characters will be respectively the man of Imperfect Self-
Control, and the man of Self-Control; and, in respect of pains, the man of
Softness and the man of Endurance: but the moral state of most men is
something between the two, even though they lean somewhat to the worse
characters.
Again, since of the pleasures indicated some are necessary and some are
not, others are so to a certain degree but not the excess or defect of them,
and similarly also of Lusts and pains, the man who pursues the excess of
pleasant things, or such as are in themselves excess, or from moral choice,
for their own sake, and not for anything else which is to result from them, is
a man utterly void of Self-Control: for he must be incapable of remorse, and
so incurable, because he that has not remorse is incurable. (He that has too
little love of pleasure is the opposite character, and the man of Perfected
Self-Mastery the mean character.) He is of a similar character who avoids
the bodily pains, not because he cannot, but because he chooses not to,
withstand them.
But of the characters who go wrong without choosing so to do, the one is
led on by reason of pleasure, the other because he avoids the pain it would
cost him to deny his lust; and so they are different the one from the other.
Now every one would pronounce a man worse for doing something base
without any impulse of desire, or with a very slight one, than for doing the
same from the impulse of a very strong desire; for striking a man when not
angry than if he did so in wrath: because one naturally says, “What would
he have done had he been under the influence of passion?” (and on this
ground, by the bye, the man utterly void of Self-Control is worse than he
who has it imperfectly). However, of the two characters which have been
mentioned,[16] [as included in that of utter absence of Self-Control], the one
is rather Softness, the other properly the man of no Self-Control.
Furthermore, to the character of Imperfect Self-Control is opposed that of
Self-Control, and to that of Softness that of Endurance: because Endurance

consists in continued resistance but Self-Control in actual mastery, and
continued resistance and actual mastery are as different as not being
conquered is from conquering; and so Self-Control is more choice-worthy
than Endurance.
Again, he who fails when exposed to those temptations against which the
common run of men hold out, and are well able to do so, is Soft and
Luxurious (Luxury being a kind of Softness): the kind of man, I mean, to let
his robe drag in the dirt to avoid the trouble of lifting it, and who, aping the
sick man, does not however suppose himself wretched though he is like a
wretched man. So it is too with respect to Self-Control and the Imperfection
of it: if a man yields to pleasures or pains which are violent and excessive it
is no matter for wonder, but rather for allowance if he made what resistance
he could (instances are, Philoctetes in Theodectes’ drama when wounded by
the viper; or Cercyon in the Alope of Carcinus, or men who in trying to
suppress laughter burst into a loud continuous fit of it, as happened, you
remember, to Xenophantus), but it is a matter for wonder when a man yields
to and cannot contend against those pleasures or pains which the common
herd are able to resist; always supposing his failure not to be owing to
natural constitution or disease, I mean, as the Scythian kings are
constitutionally Soft, or the natural difference between the sexes.
Again, the man who is a slave to amusement is commonly thought to be
destitute of Self-Control, but he really is Soft; because amusement is an act
of relaxing, being an act of resting, and the character in question is one of
those who exceed due bounds in respect of this.
Moreover of Imperfect Self-Control there are two forms, Precipitancy
and Weakness: those who have it in the latter form though they have made
resolutions do not abide by them by reason of passion; the others are led by
passion because they have never formed any resolutions at all: while there
are some who, like those who by tickling themselves beforehand get rid of
ticklishness, having felt and seen beforehand the approach of temptation,
and roused up themselves and their resolution, yield not to passion; whether
the temptation be somewhat pleasant or somewhat painful. The Precipitate
form of Imperfect Self-Control they are most liable to who are
constitutionally of a sharp or melancholy temperament: because the one by
reason of the swiftness, the other by reason of the violence, of their

passions, do not wait for Reason, because they are disposed to follow
whatever notion is impressed upon their minds.
Again, the man utterly destitute of Self-Control, as was observed before,
is not given to remorse: for it is part of his character that he abides by his
moral choice: but the man of Imperfect Self-Control is almost made up of
remorse: and so the case is not as we determined it before, but the former is
incurable and the latter may be cured: for depravity is like chronic diseases,
dropsy and consumption for instance, but Imperfect Self-Control is like
acute disorders: the former being a continuous evil, the latter not so. And, in
fact, Imperfect Self-Control and Confirmed Vice are different in kind: the
latter being imperceptible to its victim, the former not so.[17]
But, of the different forms of Imperfect Self-Control, those are better
who are carried off their feet by a sudden access of temptation than they
who have Reason but do not abide by it; these last being overcome by
passion less in degree, and not wholly without premeditation as are the
others: for the man of Imperfect Self-Control is like those who are soon
intoxicated and by little wine and less than the common run of men.
Well then, that Imperfection of Self-Control is not Confirmed
Viciousness is plain: and yet perhaps it is such in a way, because in one
sense it is contrary to moral choice and in another the result of it:[18] at all
events, in respect of the actions, the case is much like what Demodocus said
of the Miletians. “The people of Miletus are not fools, but they do just the
kind of things that fools do;” and so they of Imperfect Self-Control are not
unjust, but they do unjust acts.
But to resume. Since the man of Imperfect Self-Control is of such a
character as to follow bodily pleasures in excess and in defiance of Right
Reason, without acting on any deliberate conviction, whereas the man
utterly destitute of Self-Control does act upon a conviction which rests on
his natural inclination to follow after these pleasures; the former may be
easily persuaded to a different course, but the latter not: for Virtue and Vice
respectively preserve and corrupt the moral principle; now the motive is the
principle or starting point in moral actions, just as axioms and postulates are
in mathematics: and neither in morals nor mathematics is it Reason which is
apt to teach the principle; but Excellence, either natural or acquired by
custom, in holding right notions with respect to the principle. He who does

this in morals is the man of Perfected Self-Mastery, and the contrary
character is the man utterly destitute of Self-Control.
Again, there is a character liable to be taken off his feet in defiance of
Right Reason because of passion; whom passion so far masters as to
prevent his acting in accordance with Right Reason, but not so far as to
make him be convinced that it is his proper line to follow after such
pleasures without limit: this character is the man of Imperfect Self- Control,
better than he who is utterly destitute of it, and not a bad man simply and
without qualification: because in him the highest and best part, i.e.
principle, is preserved: and there is another character opposed to him who is
apt to abide by his resolutions, and not to depart from them; at all events,
not at the instigation of passion.
It is evident then from all this, that Self-Control is a good state and the
Imperfection of it a bad one.

Chapter VIII.
Next comes the question, whether a man is a man of Self-Control for
abiding by his conclusions and moral choice be they of what kind they may,
or only by the right one; or again, a man of Imperfect Self-Control for not
abiding by his conclusions and moral choice be they of whatever kind; or,
to put the case we did before, is he such for not abiding by false conclusions
and wrong moral choice?
Is not this the truth, that incidentally it is by conclusions and moral
choice of any kind that the one character abides and the other does not, but
per se true conclusions and right moral choice:[19] to explain what is meant
by incidentally, and per se; suppose a man chooses or pursues this thing for
the sake of that, he is said to pursue and choose that per se, but this only
incidentally. For the term per se we use commonly the word “simply,” and
so, in a way, it is opinion of any kind soever by which the two characters
respectively abide or not, but he is “simply” entitled to the designations
who abides or not by the true opinion.
There are also people, who have a trick of abiding by their, own opinions,
who are commonly called Positive, as they who are hard to be persuaded,
and whose convictions are not easily changed: now these people bear some
resemblance to the character of Self-Control, just as the prodigal to the

liberal or the rash man to the brave, but they are different in many points.
The man of Self-Control does not change by reason of passion and lust, yet
when occasion so requires he will be easy of persuasion: but the Positive
man changes not at the call of Reason, though many of this class take up
certain desires and are led by their pleasures. Among the class of Positive
are the Opinionated, the Ignorant, and the Bearish: the first, from the
motives of pleasure and pain: I mean, they have the pleasurable feeling of a
kind of victory in not having their convictions changed, and they are pained
when their decrees, so to speak, are reversed: so that, in fact, they rather
resemble the man of Imperfect Self-Control than the man of Self-Control.
Again, there are some who depart from their resolutions not by reason of
any Imperfection of Self-Control; take, for instance, Neoptolemus in the
Philoctetes of Sophocles. Here certainly pleasure was the motive of his
departure from his resolution, but then it was one of a noble sort: for to be
truthful was noble in his eyes and he had been persuaded by Ulysses to lie.
So it is not every one who acts from the motive of pleasure who is utterly
destitute of Self-Control or base or of Imperfect Self-Control, only he who
acts from the impulse of a base pleasure.

Chapter IX.
Moreover as there is a character who takes less pleasure than he ought in
bodily enjoyments, and he also fails to abide by the conclusion of his
Reason,[20] the man of Self-Control is the mean between him and the man of
Imperfect Self-Control: that is to say, the latter fails to abide by them
because of somewhat too much, the former because of somewhat too little;
while the man of Self-Control abides by them, and never changes by reason
of anything else than such conclusions.
Now of course since Self-Control is good both the contrary States must
be bad, as indeed they plainly are: but because the one of them is seen in
few persons, and but rarely in them, Self-Control comes to be viewed as if
opposed only to the Imperfection of it, just as Perfected Self-Mastery is
thought to be opposed only to utter want of Self-Control.
Again, as many terms are used in the way of similitude, so people have
come to talk of the Self-Control of the man of Perfected Self-Mastery in the
way of similitude: for the man of Self-Control and the man of Perfected

Self-Mastery have this in common, that they do nothing against Right
Reason on the impulse of bodily pleasures, but then the former has bad
desires, the latter not; and the latter is so constituted as not even to feel
pleasure contrary to his Reason, the former feels but does not yield to it.
Like again are the man of Imperfect Self-Control and he who is utterly
destitute of it, though in reality distinct: both follow bodily pleasures, but
the latter under a notion that it is the proper line for him to take, his former
without any such notion.
And it is not possible for the same man to be at once a man of Practical
Wisdom and of Imperfect Self-Control: because the character of Practical
Wisdom includes, as we showed before, goodness of moral character. And
again, it is not knowledge merely, but aptitude for action, which constitutes
Practical Wisdom: and of this aptitude the man of Imperfect Self-Control is
destitute. But there is no reason why the Clever man should not be of
Imperfect Self-Control: and the reason why some men are occasionally
thought to be men of Practical Wisdom, and yet of Imperfect Self-Control,
is this, that Cleverness differs from Practical Wisdom in the way I stated in
a former book, and is very near it so far as the intellectual element is
concerned but differs in respect of the moral choice.
Nor is the man of Imperfect Self-Control like the man who both has and
calls into exercise his knowledge, but like the man who, having it, is
overpowered by sleep or wine. Again, he acts voluntarily (because he
knows, in a certain sense, what he does and the result of it), but he is not a
confirmed bad man, for his moral choice is good, so he is at all events only
half bad. Nor is he unjust, because he does not act with deliberate intent: for
of the two chief forms of the character, the one is not apt to abide by his
deliberate resolutions, and the other, the man of constitutional strength of
passion, is not apt to deliberate at all.
So in fact the man of Imperfect Self-Control is like a community which
makes all proper enactments, and has admirable laws, only does not act on
them, verifying the scoff of Anaxandrides,
“That State did will it, which cares nought for laws;”

whereas the bad man is like one which acts upon its laws, but then
unfortunately they are bad ones.

Imperfection of Self-Control and Self-Control, after all, are above the
average state of men; because he of the latter character is more true to his
Reason, and the former less so, than is in the power of most men.
Again, of the two forms of Imperfect Self-Control that is more easily
cured which they have who are constitutionally of strong passions, than that
of those who form resolutions and break them; and they that are so through
habituation than they that are so naturally; since of course custom is easier
to change than nature, because the very resemblance of custom to nature is
what constitutes the difficulty of changing it; as Evenus says,
“Practice, I say, my friend, doth long endure,
And at the last is even very nature.”

We have now said then what Self-Control is, what Imperfection of Self-
Control, what Endurance, and what Softness, and how these states are
mutually related.

APPENDIX.
Book VII. Chapters 12 to 15. (Bekker.)
To consider the subject of Pleasure and Pain falls within the province of
the Social-Science Philosopher, since he it is who has to fix the Master-End
which is to guide us in dominating any object absolutely evil or good.
But we may say more: an enquiry into their nature is absolutely
necessary. First, because we maintained that Moral Virtue and Moral Vice
are both concerned with Pains and Pleasures: next, because the greater part
of mankind assert that Happiness must include Pleasure (which by the way
accounts for the word they use, μακάριος; χαίρειν being the root of that
word).
Now some hold that no one Pleasure is good, either in itself or as a
matter of result, because Good and Pleasure are not identical. Others that
some Pleasures are good but the greater number bad. There is yet a third
view; granting that every Pleasure is good, still the Chief Good cannot
possibly be Pleasure.
In support of the first opinion (that Pleasure is utterly not-good) it is
urged that:

1. Every Pleasure is a sensible process towards a complete state; but no
such process is akin to the end to be attained: e.g. no process of building to
the completed house.
2. The man of Perfected Self-Mastery avoids Pleasures.
3. The man of Practical Wisdom aims at avoiding Pain, not at attaining
Pleasure.
4. Pleasures are an impediment to thought, and the more so the more
keenly they are felt. An obvious instance will readily occur.
5. Pleasure cannot be referred to any Art: and yet every good is the result
of some Art.
6. Children and brutes pursue Pleasures.
In support of the second (that not all Pleasures are good), That there are
some base and matter of reproach, and some even hurtful: because some
things that are pleasant produce disease.
In support of the third (that Pleasure is not the Chief Good), That it is not
an End but a process towards creating an End.
This is, I think, a fair account of current views on the matter.
But that the reasons alleged do not prove it either to be not-good or the
Chief Good is plain from the following considerations.
First. Good being either absolute or relative, of course the natures and
states embodying it will be so too; therefore also the movements and the
processes of creation. So, of those which are thought to be bad some will be
bad absolutely, but relatively not bad, perhaps even choice-worthy; some
not even choice-worthy relatively to any particular person, only at certain
times or for a short time but not in themselves choice-worthy.
Others again are not even Pleasures at all though they produce that
impression on the mind: all such I mean as imply pain and whose purpose is
cure; those of sick people, for instance.
Next, since Good may be either an active working or a state, those
[κινήσεις or γενέσεις] which tend to place us in our natural state are
pleasant incidentally because of that tendency: but the active working is
really in the desires excited in the remaining (sound) part of our state or
nature: for there are Pleasures which have no connection with pain or

desire: the acts of contemplative intellect, for instance, in which case there
is no deficiency in the nature or state of him who performs the acts.
A proof of this is that the same pleasant thing does not produce the
sensation of Pleasure when the natural state is being filled up or completed
as when it is already in its normal condition: in this latter case what give the
sensation are things pleasant per se, in the former even those things which
are contrary. I mean, you find people taking pleasure in sharp or bitter
things of which no one is naturally or in itself pleasant; of course not
therefore the Pleasures arising from them, because it is obvious that as is
the classification of pleasant things such must be that of the Pleasures
arising from them.
Next, it does not follow that there must be something else better than any
given pleasure because (as some say) the End must be better than the
process which creates it. For it is not true that all Pleasures are processes or
even attended by any process, but (some are) active workings or even Ends:
in fact they result not from our coming to be something but from our using
our powers. Again, it is not true that the End is, in every case, distinct from
the process: it is true only in the case of such processes as conduce to the
perfecting of the natural state.
For which reason it is wrong to say that Pleasure is “a sensible process of
production.” For “process etc.” should be substituted “active working of the
natural state,” for “sensible” “unimpeded.” The reason of its being thought
to be a “process etc.” is that it is good in the highest sense: people
confusing “active working” and “process,” whereas they really are distinct.
Next, as to the argument that there are bad Pleasures because some things
which are pleasant are also hurtful to health, it is the same as saying that
some healthful things are bad for “business.” In this sense, of course, both
may be said to be bad, but then this does not make them out to be bad
simpliciter: the exercise of the pure Intellect sometimes hurts a man’s
health: but what hinders Practical Wisdom or any state whatever is, not the
Pleasure peculiar to, but some Pleasure foreign to it: the Pleasures arising
from the exercise of the pure Intellect or from learning only promote each.
Next. “No Pleasure is the work of any Art.” What else would you expect?
No active working is the work of any Art, only the faculty of so working.
Still the perfumer’s Art or the cook’s are thought to belong to Pleasure.

Next. “The man of Perfected Self-Mastery avoids Pleasures.” “The man
of Practical Wisdom aims at escaping Pain rather than at attaining
Pleasure.”
“Children and brutes pursue Pleasures.”
One answer will do for all.
We have already said in what sense all Pleasures are good per se and in
what sense not all are good: it is the latter class that brutes and children
pursue, such as are accompanied by desire and pain, that is the bodily
Pleasures (which answer to this description) and the excesses of them: in
short, those in respect of which the man utterly destitute of Self-Control is
thus utterly destitute. And it is the absence of the pain arising from these
Pleasures that the man of Practical Wisdom aims at. It follows that these
Pleasures are what the man of Perfected Self-Mastery avoids: for obviously
he has Pleasures peculiarly his own.
Then again, it is allowed that Pain is an evil and a thing to be avoided
partly as bad per se, partly as being a hindrance in some particular way.
Now the contrary of that which is to be avoided, quâ it is to be avoided, i.e.
evil, is good. Pleasure then must be a good.
The attempted answer of Speusippus, “that Pleasure may be opposed and
yet not contrary to Pain, just as the greater portion of any magnitude is
contrary to the less but only opposed to the exact half,” will not hold: for he
cannot say that Pleasure is identical with evil of any kind.
Again. Granting that some Pleasures are low, there is no reason why
some particular Pleasure may not be very good, just as some particular
Science may be although there are some which are low.
Perhaps it even follows, since each state may have active working
unimpeded, whether the active workings of all be Happiness or that of some
one of them, that this active working, if it be unimpeded, must be choice-
worthy: now Pleasure is exactly this. So that the Chief Good may be
Pleasure of some kind, though most Pleasures be (let us assume) low per se.
And for this reason all men think the happy life is pleasant, and
interweave Pleasure with Happiness. Reasonably enough: because
Happiness is perfect, but no impeded active working is perfect; and
therefore the happy man needs as an addition the goods of the body and the
goods external and fortune that in these points he may not be fettered. As

for those who say that he who is being tortured on the wheel, or falls into
great misfortunes is happy provided only he be good, they talk nonsense,
whether they mean to do so or not. On the other hand, because fortune is
needed as an addition, some hold good fortune to be identical with
Happiness: which it is not, for even this in excess is a hindrance, and
perhaps then has no right to be called good fortune since it is good only in
so far as it contributes to Happiness.
The fact that all animals, brute and human alike, pursue Pleasure, is some
presumption of its being in a sense the Chief Good;
(“There must be something in what most folks say,”) only as one and the
same nature or state neither is nor is thought to be the best, so neither do all
pursue the same Pleasure, Pleasure nevertheless all do. Nay further, what
they pursue is, perhaps, not what they think nor what they would say they
pursue, but really one and the same: for in all there is some instinct above
themselves. But the bodily Pleasures have received the name exclusively,
because theirs is the most frequent form and that which is universally
partaken of; and so, because to many these alone are known they believe
them to be the only ones which exist.
It is plain too that, unless Pleasure and its active working be good, it will
not be true that the happy man’s life embodies Pleasure: for why will he
want it on the supposition that it is not good and that he can live even with
Pain? because, assuming that Pleasure is not good, then Pain is neither evil
nor good, and so why should he avoid it?
Besides, the life of the good man is not more pleasurable than any other
unless it be granted that his active workings are so too.
Some enquiry into the bodily Pleasures is also necessary for those who
say that some Pleasures, to be sure, are highly choice-worthy (the good
ones to wit), but not the bodily Pleasures; that is, those which are the
object-matter of the man utterly destitute of Self-Control.
If so, we ask, why are the contrary Pains bad? they cannot be (on their
assumption) because the contrary of bad is good.
May we not say that the necessary bodily Pleasures are good in the sense
in which that which is not-bad is good? or that they are good only up to a
certain point? because such states or movements as cannot have too much
of the better cannot have too much of Pleasure, but those which can of the
former can also of the latter. Now the bodily Pleasures do admit of excess:

in fact the low bad man is such because he pursues the excess of them
instead of those which are necessary (meat, drink, and the objects of other
animal appetites do give pleasure to all, but not in right manner or degree to
all). But his relation to Pain is exactly the contrary: it is not excessive Pain,
but Pain at all, that he avoids [which makes him to be in this way too a bad
low man], because only in the case of him who pursues excessive Pleasure
is Pain contrary to excessive Pleasure.
It is not enough however merely to state the truth, we should also show
how the false view arises; because this strengthens conviction. I mean,
when we have given a probable reason why that impresses people as true
which really is not true, it gives them a stronger conviction of the truth. And
so we must now explain why the bodily Pleasures appear to people to be
more choice-worthy than any others.
The first obvious reason is, that bodily Pleasure drives out Pain; and
because Pain is felt in excess men pursue Pleasure in excess, i.e. generally
bodily Pleasure, under the notion of its being a remedy for that Pain. These
remedies, moreover, come to be violent ones; which is the very reason they
are pursued, since the impression they produce on the mind is owing to
their being looked at side by side with their contrary.
And, as has been said before, there are the two following reasons why
bodily Pleasure is thought to be not-good.
1. Some Pleasures of this class are actings of a low nature, whether
congenital as in brutes, or acquired by custom as in low bad men.
2. Others are in the nature of cures, cures that is of some deficiency; now
of course it is better to have [the healthy state] originally than that it should
accrue afterwards.
(But some Pleasures result when natural states are being perfected: these
therefore are good as a matter of result.)
Again, the very fact of their being violent causes them to be pursued by
such as can relish no others: such men in fact create violent thirsts for
themselves (if harmless ones then we find no fault, if harmful then it is bad
and low) because they have no other things to take pleasure in, and the
neutral state is distasteful to some people constitutionally; for toil of some
kind is inseparable from life, as physiologists testify, telling us that the acts
of seeing or hearing are painful, only that we are used to the pain and do not
find it out.

Similarly in youth the constant growth produces a state much like that of
vinous intoxication, and youth is pleasant. Again, men of the melancholic
temperament constantly need some remedial process (because the body,
from its temperament, is constantly being worried), and they are in a
chronic state of violent desire. But Pleasure drives out Pain; not only such
Pleasure as is directly contrary to Pain but even any Pleasure provided it be
strong: and this is how men come to be utterly destitute of Self-Mastery, i.e.
low and bad.
But those Pleasures which are unconnected with Pains do not admit of
excess: i.e. such as belong to objects which are naturally pleasant and not
merely as a matter of result: by the latter class I mean such as are remedial,
and the reason why these are thought to be pleasant is that the cure results
from the action in some way of that part of the constitution which remains
sound. By “pleasant naturally” I mean such as put into action a nature
which is pleasant.
The reason why no one and the same thing is invariably pleasant is that
our nature is, not simple, but complex, involving something different from
itself (so far as we are corruptible beings). Suppose then that one part of this
nature be doing something, this something is, to the other part, unnatural:
but, if there be an equilibrium of the two natures, then whatever is being
done is indifferent. It is obvious that if there be any whose nature is simple
and not complex, to such a being the same course of acting will always be
the most pleasurable.
For this reason it is that the Divinity feels Pleasure which is always one,
i.e. simple: not motion merely but also motionlessness acts, and Pleasure
resides rather in the absence than in the presence of motion.
The reason why the Poet’s dictum “change is of all things most pleasant”
is true, is “a baseness in our blood;” for as the bad man is easily changeable,
bad must be also the nature that craves change, i.e. it is neither simple nor
good.
We have now said our say about Self-Control and its opposite; and about
Pleasure and Pain. What each is, and how the one set is good the other bad.
We have yet to speak of Friendship.

BOOK VIII

Chapter I.
Next would seem properly to follow a dissertation on Friendship:
because, in the first place, it is either itself a virtue or connected with virtue;
and next it is a thing most necessary for life, since no one would choose to
live without friends though he should have all the other good things in the
world: and, in fact, men who are rich or possessed of authority and
influence are thought to have special need of friends: for where is the use of
such prosperity if there be taken away the doing of kindnesses of which
friends are the most usual and most commendable objects? Or how can it be
kept or preserved without friends? because the greater it is so much the
more slippery and hazardous: in poverty moreover and all other adversities
men think friends to be their only refuge.
Furthermore, Friendship helps the young to keep from error: the old, in
respect of attention and such deficiencies in action as their weakness makes
them liable to; and those who are in their prime, in respect of noble deeds
(“They two together going,” Homer says, you may remember), because they
are thus more able to devise plans and carry them out.
Again, it seems to be implanted in us by Nature: as, for instance, in the
parent towards the offspring and the offspring towards the parent (not
merely in the human species, but likewise in birds and most animals), and
in those of the same tribe towards one another, and specially in men of the
same nation; for which reason we commend those men who love their
fellows: and one may see in the course of travel how close of kin and how
friendly man is to man.
Furthermore, Friendship seems to be the bond of Social Communities,
and legislators seem to be more anxious to secure it than Justice even. I

mean, Unanimity is somewhat like to Friendship, and this they certainly
aim at and specially drive out faction as being inimical.
Again, where people are in Friendship Justice is not required;[1] but, on
the other hand, though they are just they need Friendship in addition, and
that principle which is most truly just is thought to partake of the nature of
Friendship.
Lastly, not only is it a thing necessary but honourable likewise: since we
praise those who are fond of friends, and the having numerous friends is
thought a matter of credit to a man; some go so far as to hold, that “good
man” and “friend” are terms synonymous.

Chapter II.
Yet the disputed points respecting it are not few: some men lay down that
it is a kind of resemblance, and that men who are like one another are
friends: whence come the common sayings, “Like will to like,” “Birds of a
feather,” and so on. Others, on the contrary, say, that all such come under
the maxim, “Two of a trade never agree.”[2]
Again, some men push their enquiries on these points higher and reason
physically: as Euripides, who says,
“The earth by drought consumed doth love the rain,
And the great heaven, overcharged with rain,
Doth love to fall in showers upon the earth.”

Heraclitus, again, maintains, that “contrariety is expedient, and that the best
agreement arises from things differing, and that all things come into being
in the way of the principle of antagonism.”
Empedocles, among others, in direct opposition to these, affirms, that
“like aims at like.”
These physical questions we will take leave to omit, inasmuch as they are
foreign to the present enquiry; and we will examine such as are proper to
man and concern moral characters and feelings: as, for instance, “Does
Friendship arise among all without distinction, or is it impossible for bad
men to be friends?” and, “Is there but one species of Friendship, or
several?” for they who ground the opinion that there is but one on the fact
that Friendship admits of degrees hold that upon insufficient proof; because

things which are different in species admit likewise of degrees (on this point
we have spoken before).

Chapter III.
Our view will soon be cleared on these points when we have ascertained
what is properly the object-matter of Friendship: for it is thought that not
everything indiscriminately, but some peculiar matter alone, is the object of
this affection; that is to say, what is good, or pleasurable, or useful. Now it
would seem that that is useful through which accrues any good or pleasure,
and so the objects of Friendship, as absolute Ends, are the good and the
pleasurable.
A question here arises; whether it is good absolutely or that which is
good to the individuals, for which men feel Friendship (these two being
sometimes distinct): and similarly in respect of the pleasurable. It seems
then that each individual feels it towards that which is good to himself, and
that abstractedly it is the real good which is the object of Friendship, and to
each individual that which is good to each. It comes then to this; that each
individual feels Friendship not for what is but for that which conveys to his
mind the impression of being good to himself. But this will make no real
difference, because that which is truly the object of Friendship will also
convey this impression to the mind.
There are then three causes from which men feel Friendship: but the term
is not applied to the case of fondness for things inanimate because there is
no requital of the affection nor desire for the good of those objects: it
certainly savours of the ridiculous to say that a man fond of wine wishes
well to it: the only sense in which it is true being that he wishes it to be kept
safe and sound for his own use and benefit.[3] But to the friend they say one
should wish all good for his sake. And when men do thus wish good to
another (he not reciprocating the feeling), people call them Kindly; because
Friendship they describe as being “Kindliness between persons who
reciprocate it.” But must they not add that the feeling must be mutually
known? for many men are kindly disposed towards those whom they have
never seen but whom they conceive to be amiable or useful: and this notion
amounts to the same thing as a real feeling between them.

Well, these are plainly Kindly-disposed towards one another: but how
can one call them friends while their mutual feelings are unknown to one
another? to complete the idea of Friendship, then, it is requisite that they
have kindly feelings towards one another, and wish one another good from
one of the aforementioned causes, and that these kindly feelings should be
mutually known.

Chapter IV.
As the motives to Friendship differ in kind so do the respective feelings
and Friendships. The species then of Friendship are three, in number equal
to the objects of it, since in the line of each there may be “mutual affection
mutually known.”
Now they who have Friendship for one another desire one another’s good
according to the motive of their Friendship; accordingly they whose motive
is utility have no Friendship for one another really, but only in so far as
some good arises to them from one another.
And they whose motive is pleasure are in like case: I mean, they have
Friendship for men of easy pleasantry, not because they are of a given
character but because they are pleasant to themselves. So then they whose
motive to Friendship is utility love their friends for what is good to
themselves; they whose motive is pleasure do so for what is pleasurable to
themselves; that is to say, not in so far as the friend beloved is but in so far
as he is useful or pleasurable. These Friendships then are a matter of result:
since the object is not beloved in that he is the man he is but in that he
furnishes advantage or pleasure as the case may be.
Such Friendships are of course very liable to dissolution if the parties do
not continue alike: I mean, that the others cease to have any Friendship for
them when they are no longer pleasurable or useful. Now it is the nature of
utility not to be permanent but constantly varying: so, of course, when the
motive which made them friends is vanished, the Friendship likewise
dissolves; since it existed only relatively to those circumstances.
Friendship of this kind is thought to exist principally among the old
(because men at that time of life pursue not what is pleasurable but what is
profitable); and in such, of men in their prime and of the young, as are
given to the pursuit of profit. They that are such have no intimate

intercourse with one another; for sometimes they are not even pleasurable
to one another; nor, in fact, do they desire such intercourse unless their
friends are profitable to them, because they are pleasurable only in so far as
they have hopes of advantage. With these Friendships is commonly ranked
that of hospitality.
But the Friendship of the young is thought to be based on the motive of
pleasure: because they live at the beck and call of passion and generally
pursue what is pleasurable to themselves and the object of the present
moment: and as their age changes so likewise do their pleasures.
This is the reason why they form and dissolve Friendships rapidly: since
the Friendship changes with the pleasurable object and such pleasure
changes quickly.
The young are also much given up to Love; this passion being, in great
measure, a matter of impulse and based on pleasure: for which cause they
conceive Friendships and quickly drop them, changing often in the same
day: but these wish for society and intimate intercourse with their friends,
since they thus attain the object of their Friendship.

Chapter V.
That then is perfect Friendship which subsists between those who are
good and whose similarity consists in their goodness: for these men wish
one another’s good in similar ways; in so far as they are good (and good
they are in themselves); and those are specially friends who wish good to
their friends for their sakes, because they feel thus towards them on their
own account and not as a mere matter of result; so the Friendship between
these men continues to subsist so long as they are good; and goodness, we
know, has in it a principle of permanence.
Moreover, each party is good abstractedly and also relatively to his
friend, for all good men are not only abstractedly good but also useful to
one another. Such friends are also mutually pleasurable because all good
men are so abstractedly, and also relatively to one another, inasmuch as to
each individual those actions are pleasurable which correspond to his
nature, and all such as are like them. Now when men are good these will be
always the same, or at least similar.

Friendship then under these circumstances is permanent, as we should
reasonably expect, since it combines in itself all the requisite qualifications
of friends. I mean, that Friendship of whatever kind is based upon good or
pleasure (either abstractedly or relatively to the person entertaining the
sentiment of Friendship), and results from a similarity of some sort; and to
this kind belong all the aforementioned requisites in the parties themselves,
because in this the parties are similar, and so on:[4] moreover, in it there is
the abstractedly good and the abstractedly pleasant, and as these are
specially the object-matter of Friendship so the feeling and the state of
Friendship is found most intense and most excellent in men thus qualified.
Rare it is probable Friendships of this kind will be, because men of this
kind are rare. Besides, all requisite qualifications being presupposed, there
is further required time and intimacy: for, as the proverb says, men cannot
know one another “till they have eaten the requisite quantity of salt
together;” nor can they in fact admit one another to intimacy, much less be
friends, till each has appeared to the other and been proved to be a fit object
of Friendship. They who speedily commence an interchange of friendly
actions may be said to wish to be friends, but they are not so unless they are
also proper objects of Friendship and mutually known to be such: that is to
say, a desire for Friendship may arise quickly but not Friendship itself.
Well, this Friendship is perfect both in respect of the time and in all other
points; and exactly the same and similar results accrue to each party from
the other; which ought to be the case between friends.
The friendship based upon the pleasurable is, so to say, a copy of this,
since the good are sources of pleasure to one another: and that based on
utility likewise, the good being also useful to one another. Between men
thus connected Friendships are most permanent when the same result
accrues to both from one another, pleasure, for instance; and not merely so
but from the same source, as in the case of two men of easy pleasantry; and
not as it is in that of a lover and the object of his affection, these not
deriving their pleasure from the same causes, but the former from seeing the
latter and the latter from receiving the attentions of the former: and when
the bloom of youth fades the Friendship sometimes ceases also, because
then the lover derives no pleasure from seeing and the object of his
affection ceases to receive the attentions which were paid before: in many

cases, however, people so connected continue friends, if being of similar
tempers they have come from custom to like one another’s disposition.
Where people do not interchange pleasure but profit in matters of Love,
the Friendship is both less intense in degree and also less permanent: in
fact, they who are friends because of advantage commonly part when the
advantage ceases; for, in reality, they never were friends of one another but
of the advantage.
So then it appears that from motives of pleasure or profit bad men may
be friends to one another, or good men to bad men or men of neutral
character to one of any character whatever: but disinterestedly, for the sake
of one another, plainly the good alone can be friends; because bad men have
no pleasure even in themselves unless in so far as some advantage arises.
And further, the Friendship of the good is alone superior to calumny; it
not being easy for men to believe a third person respecting one whom they
have long tried and proved: there is between good men mutual confidence,
and the feeling that one’s friend would never have done one wrong, and all
other such things as are expected in Friendship really worthy the name; but
in the other kinds there is nothing to prevent all such suspicions.
I call them Friendships, because since men commonly give the name of
friends to those who are connected from motives of profit (which is
justified by political language, for alliances between states are thought to be
contracted with a view to advantage), and to those who are attached to one
another by the motive of pleasure (as children are), we may perhaps also be
allowed to call such persons friends, and say there are several species of
Friendship; primarily and specially that of the good, in that they are good,
and the rest only in the way of resemblance: I mean, people connected
otherwise are friends in that way in which there arises to them somewhat
good and some mutual resemblance (because, we must remember the
pleasurable is good to those who are fond of it).
These secondary Friendships, however, do not combine very well; that is
to say, the same persons do not become friends by reason of advantage and
by reason of the pleasurable, for these matters of result are not often
combined. And Friendship having been divided into these kinds, bad men
will be friends by reason of pleasure or profit, this being their point of
resemblance; while the good are friends for one another’s sake, that is, in so
far as they are good.

These last may be termed abstractedly and simply friends, the former as a
matter of result and termed friends from their resemblance to these last.

Chapter VI.
Further; just as in respect of the different virtues some men are termed
good in respect of a certain inward state, others in respect of acts of
working, so is it in respect of Friendship: I mean, they who live together
take pleasure in, and impart good to, one another: but they who are asleep
or are locally separated do not perform acts, but only are in such a state as
to act in a friendly way if they acted at all: distance has in itself no direct
effect upon Friendship, but only prevents the acting it out: yet, if the
absence be protracted, it is thought to cause a forgetfulness even of the
Friendship: and hence it has been said, “many and many a Friendship doth
want of intercourse destroy.”
Accordingly, neither the old nor the morose appear to be calculated for
Friendship, because the pleasurableness in them is small, and no one can
spend his days in company with that which is positively painful or even not
pleasurable; since to avoid the painful and aim at the pleasurable is one of
the most obvious tendencies of human nature. They who get on with one
another very fairly, but are not in habits of intimacy, are rather like people
having kindly feelings towards one another than friends; nothing being so
characteristic of friends as the living with one another, because the
necessitous desire assistance, and the happy companionship, they being the
last persons in the world for solitary existence: but people cannot spend
their time together unless they are mutually pleasurable and take pleasure in
the same objects, a quality which is thought to appertain to the Friendship
of companionship.

Chapter VII.
The connection then subsisting between the good is Friendship par
excellence, as has already been frequently said: since that which is
abstractedly good or pleasant is thought to be an object of Friendship and

choice-worthy, and to each individual whatever is such to him; and the good
man to the good man for both these reasons.
(Now the entertaining the sentiment is like a feeling, but Friendship itself
like a state: because the former may have for its object even things
inanimate, but requital of Friendship is attended with moral choice which
proceeds from a moral state: and again, men wish good to the objects of
their Friendship for their sakes, not in the way of a mere feeling but of
moral state.)
And the good, in loving their friend, love their own good (inasmuch as
the good man, when brought into that relation, becomes a good to him with
whom he is so connected), so that either party loves his own good, and
repays his friend equally both in wishing well and in the pleasurable: for
equality is said to be a tie of Friendship. Well, these points belong most to
the Friendship between good men.
But between morose or elderly men Friendship is less apt to arise,
because they are somewhat awkward-tempered, and take less pleasure in
intercourse and society; these being thought to be specially friendly and
productive of Friendship: and so young men become friends quickly, old
men not so (because people do not become friends with any, unless they
take pleasure in them); and in like manner neither do the morose. Yet men
of these classes entertain kindly feelings towards one another: they wish
good to one another and render mutual assistance in respect of their needs,
but they are not quite friends, because they neither spend their time together
nor take pleasure in one another, which circumstances are thought specially
to belong to Friendship.
To be a friend to many people, in the way of the perfect Friendship, is not
possible; just as you cannot be in love with many at once: it is, so to speak,
a state of excess which naturally has but one object; and besides, it is not an
easy thing for one man to be very much pleased with many people at the
same time, nor perhaps to find many really good. Again, a man needs
experience, and to be in habits of close intimacy, which is very difficult.
But it is possible to please many on the score of advantage and pleasure:
because there are many men of the kind, and the services may be rendered
in a very short time.
Of the two imperfect kinds that which most resembles the perfect is the
Friendship based upon pleasure, in which the same results accrue from both

and they take pleasure in one another or in the same objects; such as are the
Friendships of the young, because a generous spirit is most found in these.
The Friendship because of advantage is the connecting link of shopkeepers.
Then again, the very happy have no need of persons who are profitable,
but of pleasant ones they have because they wish to have people to live
intimately with; and what is painful they bear for a short time indeed, but
continuously no one could support it, nay, not even the Chief Good itself, if
it were painful to him individually: and so they look out for pleasant
friends: perhaps they ought to require such to be good also; and good
moreover to themselves individually, because then they will have all the
proper requisites of Friendship.
Men in power are often seen to make use of several distinct friends: for
some are useful to them and others pleasurable, but the two are not often
united: because they do not, in fact, seek such as shall combine pleasantness
and goodness, nor such as shall be useful for honourable purposes: but with
a view to attain what is pleasant they look out for men of easy-pleasantry;
and again, for men who are clever at executing any business put into their
hands: and these qualifications are not commonly found united in the same
man.
It has been already stated that the good man unites the qualities of
pleasantness and usefulness: but then such a one will not be a friend to a
superior unless he be also his superior in goodness: for if this be not the
case, he cannot, being surpassed in one point, make things equal by a
proportionate degree of Friendship.[5] And characters who unite superiority
of station and goodness are not common.

Chapter VIII.
Now all the kinds of Friendship which have been already mentioned exist
in a state of equality, inasmuch as either the same results accrue to both and
they wish the same things to one another, or else they barter one thing
against another; pleasure, for instance, against profit: it has been said
already that Friendships of this latter kind are less intense in degree and less
permanent.
And it is their resemblance or dissimilarity to the same thing which
makes them to be thought to be and not to be Friendships: they show like

Friendships in right of their likeness to that which is based on virtue (the
one kind having the pleasurable, the other the profitable, both of which
belong also to the other); and again, they do not show like Friendships by
reason of their unlikeness to that true kind; which unlikeness consists
herein, that while that is above calumny and so permanent these quickly
change and differ in many other points.
But there is another form of Friendship, that, namely, in which the one
party is superior to the other; as between father and son, elder and younger,
husband and wife, ruler and ruled. These also differ one from another: I
mean, the Friendship between parents and children is not the same as
between ruler and the ruled, nor has the father the same towards the son as
the son towards the father, nor the husband towards the wife as she towards
him; because the work, and therefore the excellence, of each of these is
different, and different therefore are the causes of their feeling Friendship;
distinct and different therefore are their feelings and states of Friendship.
And the same results do not accrue to each from the other, nor in fact
ought they to be looked for: but, when children render to their parents what
they ought to the authors of their being, and parents to their sons what they
ought to their offspring, the Friendship between such parties will be
permanent and equitable.
Further; the feeling of Friendship should be in a due proportion in all
Friendships which are between superior and inferior; I mean, the better
man, or the more profitable, and so forth, should be the object of a stronger
feeling than he himself entertains, because when the feeling of Friendship
comes to be after a certain rate then equality in a certain sense is produced,
which is thought to be a requisite in Friendship.
(It must be remembered, however, that the equal is not in the same case
as regards Justice and Friendship: for in strict Justice the exactly
proportioned equal ranks first, and the actual numerically equal ranks
second, while in Friendship this is exactly reversed.)
And that equality is thus requisite is plainly shown by the occurrence of a
great difference of goodness or badness, or prosperity, or something else:
for in this case, people are not any longer friends, nay they do not even feel
that they ought to be. The clearest illustration is perhaps the case of the
gods, because they are most superior in all good things. It is obvious too, in
the case of kings, for they who are greatly their inferiors do not feel entitled

to be friends to them; nor do people very insignificant to be friends to those
of very high excellence or wisdom. Of course, in such cases it is out of the
question to attempt to define up to what point they may continue friends:
for you may remove many points of agreement and the Friendship last
nevertheless; but when one of the parties is very far separated (as a god
from men), it cannot continue any longer.
This has given room for a doubt, whether friends do really wish to their
friends the very highest goods, as that they may be gods: because, in case
the wish were accomplished, they would no longer have them for friends,
nor in fact would they have the good things they had, because friends are
good things. If then it has been rightly said that a friend wishes to his friend
good things for that friend’s sake, it must be understood that he is to remain
such as he now is: that is to say, he will wish the greatest good to him of
which as man he is capable: yet perhaps not all, because each man desires
good for himself most of all.
It is thought that desire for honour makes the mass of men wish rather to
be the objects of the feeling of Friendship than to entertain it themselves
(and for this reason they are fond of flatterers, a flatterer being a friend
inferior or at least pretending to be such and rather to entertain towards
another the feeling of Friendship than to be himself the object of it), since
the former is thought to be nearly the same as being honoured, which the
mass of men desire. And yet men seem to choose honour, not for its own
sake, but incidentally:[6] I mean, the common run of men delight to be
honoured by those in power because of the hope it raises; that is they think
they shall get from them anything they may happen to be in want of, so they
delight in honour as an earnest of future benefit. They again who grasp at
honour at the hands of the good and those who are really acquainted with
their merits desire to confirm their own opinion about themselves: so they
take pleasure in the conviction that they are good, which is based on the
sentence of those who assert it. But in being the objects of Friendship men
delight for its own sake, and so this may be judged to be higher than being
honoured and Friendship to be in itself choice-worthy. Friendship,
moreover, is thought to consist in feeling, rather than being the object of,
the sentiment of Friendship, which is proved by the delight mothers have in
the feeling: some there are who give their children to be adopted and
brought up by others, and knowing them bear this feeling towards them
never seeking to have it returned, if both are not possible; but seeming to be

content with seeing them well off and bearing this feeling themselves
towards them, even though they, by reason of ignorance, never render to
them any filial regard or love.
Since then Friendship stands rather in the entertaining, than in being the
object of, the sentiment, and they are praised who are fond of their friends,
it seems that entertaining the sentiment is the Excellence of friends; and so,
in whomsoever this exists in due proportion these are stable friends and
their Friendship is permanent. And in this way may they who are unequal
best be friends, because they may thus be made equal.
Equality, then, and similarity are a tie to Friendship, and specially the
similarity of goodness, because good men, being stable in themselves, are
also stable as regards others, and neither ask degrading services nor render
them, but, so to say, rather prevent them: for it is the part of the good
neither to do wrong themselves nor to allow their friends in so doing.
The bad, on the contrary, have no principle of stability: in fact, they do
not even continue like themselves: only they come to be friends for a short
time from taking delight in one another’s wickedness. Those connected by
motives of profit, or pleasure, hold together somewhat longer: so long, that
is to say, as they can give pleasure or profit mutually.
The Friendship based on motives of profit is thought to be most of all
formed out of contrary elements: the poor man, for instance, is thus a friend
of the rich, and the ignorant of the man of information; that is to say, a man
desiring that of which he is, as it happens, in want, gives something else in
exchange for it. To this same class we may refer the lover and beloved, the
beautiful and the ill-favoured. For this reason lovers sometimes show in a
ridiculous light by claiming to be the objects of as intense a feeling as they
themselves entertain: of course if they are equally fit objects of Friendship
they are perhaps entitled to claim this, but if they have nothing of the kind it
is ridiculous.
Perhaps, moreover, the contrary does not aim at its contrary for its own
sake but incidentally: the mean is really what is grasped at; it being good
for the dry, for instance, not to become wet but to attain the mean, and so of
the hot, etc.
However, let us drop these questions, because they are in fact somewhat
foreign to our purpose.

Chapter IX.
It seems too, as was stated at the commencement, that Friendship and
Justice have the same object-matter, and subsist between the same persons:
I mean that in every Communion there is thought to be some principle of
Justice and also some Friendship: men address as friends, for instance,
those who are their comrades by sea, or in war, and in like manner also
those who are brought into Communion with them in other ways: and the
Friendship, because also the Justice, is co-extensive with the Communion,
This justifies the common proverb, “the goods of friends are common,”
since Friendship rests upon Communion.
Now brothers and intimate companions have all in common, but other
people have their property separate, and some have more in common and
others less, because the Friendships likewise differ in degree. So too do the
various principles of Justice involved, not being the same between parents
and children as between brothers, nor between companions as between
fellow-citizens merely, and so on of all the other conceivable Friendships.
Different also are the principles of Injustice as regards these different
grades, and the acts become intensified by being done to friends; for
instance, it is worse to rob your companion than one who is merely a
fellow-citizen; to refuse help to a brother than to a stranger; and to strike
your father than any one else. So then the Justice naturally increases with
the degree of Friendship, as being between the same parties and of equal
extent.
All cases of Communion are parts, so to say, of the great Social one,
since in them men associate with a view to some advantage and to procure
some of those things which are needful for life; and the great Social
Communion is thought originally to have been associated and to continue
for the sake of some advantage: this being the point at which legislators
aim, affirming that to be just which is generally expedient.
All the other cases of Communion aim at advantage in particular points;
the crew of a vessel at that which is to result from the voyage which is
undertaken with a view to making money, or some such object; comrades in
war at that which is to result from the war, grasping either at wealth or
victory, or it may be a political position; and those of the same tribe, or
Demus, in like manner.

Some of them are thought to be formed for pleasure’s sake, those, for
instance, of bacchanals or club-fellows, which are with a view to Sacrifice
or merely company. But all these seem to be ranged under the great Social
one, inasmuch as the aim of this is, not merely the expediency of the
moment but, for life and at all times; with a view to which the members of
it institute sacrifices and their attendant assemblies, to render honour to the
gods and procure for themselves respite from toil combined with pleasure.
For it appears that sacrifices and religious assemblies in old times were
made as a kind of first-fruits after the ingathering of the crops, because at
such seasons they had most leisure.
So then it appears that all the instances of Communion are parts of the
great Social one: and corresponding Friendships will follow upon such
Communions.

Chapter X.
Of Political Constitutions there are three kinds; and equal in number are
the deflections from them, being, so to say, corruptions of them.
The former are Kingship, Aristocracy, and that which recognises the
principle of wealth, which it seems appropriate to call Timocracy (I give to
it the name of a political constitution because people commonly do so). Of
these the best is Monarchy, and Timocracy the worst.
From Monarchy the deflection is Despotism; both being Monarchies but
widely differing from each other; for the Despot looks to his own
advantage, but the King to that of his subjects: for he is in fact no King who
is not thoroughly independent and superior to the rest in all good things,
and he that is this has no further wants: he will not then have to look to his
own advantage but to that of his subjects, for he that is not in such a
position is a mere King elected by lot for the nonce.
But Despotism is on a contrary footing to this Kingship, because the
Despot pursues his own good: and in the case of this its inferiority is most
evident, and what is worse is contrary to what is best. The Transition to
Despotism is made from Kingship, Despotism being a corrupt form of
Monarchy, that is to say, the bad King comes to be a Despot.

From Aristocracy to Oligarchy the transition is made by the fault of the
Rulers in distributing the public property contrary to right proportion; and
giving either all that is good, or the greatest share, to themselves; and the
offices to the same persons always, making wealth their idol; thus a few
bear rule and they bad men in the place of the best.
From Timocracy the transition is to Democracy, they being contiguous:
for it is the nature of Timocracy to be in the hands of a multitude, and all in
the same grade of property are equal. Democracy is the least vicious of all,
since herein the form of the constitution undergoes least change.
Well, these are generally the changes to which the various Constitutions
are liable, being the least in degree and the easiest to make.
Likenesses, and, as it were, models of them, one may find even in
Domestic life: for instance, the Communion between a Father and his Sons
presents the figure of Kingship, because the children are the Father’s care:
and hence Homer names Jupiter Father because Kingship is intended to be a
paternal rule. Among the Persians, however, the Father’s rule is Despotic,
for they treat their Sons as slaves. (The relation of Master to Slaves is of the
nature of Despotism because the point regarded herein is the Master’s
interest): this now strikes me to be as it ought, but the Persian custom to be
mistaken; because for different persons there should be different rules.
Between Husband and Wife the relation takes the form of Aristocracy,
because he rules by right and in such points only as the Husband should,
and gives to the Wife all that befits her to have. Where the Husband lords it
in everything he changes the relation into an Oligarchy; because he does it
contrary to right and not as being the better of the two. In some instances
the Wives take the reins of government, being heiresses: here the rule is
carried on not in right of goodness but by reason of wealth and power, as it
is in Oligarchies.
Timocracy finds its type in the relation of Brothers: they being equal
except as to such differences as age introduces: for which reason, if they are
very different in age, the Friendship comes to be no longer a fraternal one:
while Democracy is represented specially by families which have no head
(all being there equal), or in which the proper head is weak and so every
member does that which is right in his own eyes.

Chapter XI.
Attendant then on each form of Political Constitution there plainly is
Friendship exactly co-extensive with the principle of Justice; that between a
King and his Subjects being in the relation of a superiority of benefit,
inasmuch as he benefits his subjects; it being assumed that he is a good king
and takes care of their welfare as a shepherd tends his flock; whence Homer
(to quote him again) calls Agamemnon, “shepherd of the people.” And of
this same kind is the Paternal Friendship, only that it exceeds the former in
the greatness of the benefits done; because the father is the author of being
(which is esteemed the greatest benefit) and of maintenance and education
(these things are also, by the way, ascribed to ancestors generally): and by
the law of nature the father has the right of rule over his sons, ancestors
over their descendants, and the king over his subjects.
These friendships are also between superiors and inferiors, for which
reason parents are not merely loved but also honoured. The principle of
Justice also between these parties is not exactly the same but according to
proportiton, because so also is the Friendship.
Now between Husband and Wife there is the same Friendship as in
Aristocracy: for the relation is determined by relative excellence, and the
better person has the greater good and each has what befits: so too also is
the principle of Justice between them.
The Fraternal Friendship is like that of Companions, because brothers are
equal and much of an age, and such persons have generally like feelings
and like dispositions. Like to this also is the Friendship of a Timocracy,
because the citizens are intended to be equal and equitable: rule, therefore,
passes from hand to hand, and is distributed on equal terms: so too is the
Friendship accordingly.
In the deflections from the constitutional forms, just as the principle of
Justice is but small so is the Friendship also: and least of all in the most
perverted form: in Despotism there is little or no Friendship. For generally
wherever the ruler and the ruled have nothing in common there is no
Friendship because there is no Justice; but the case is as between an artisan
and his tool, or between soul and body, and master and slave; all these are
benefited by those who use them, but towards things inanimate there is
neither Friendship nor Justice: nor even towards a horse or an ox, or a slave

quâ slave, because there is nothing in common: a slave as such is an
animate tool, a tool an inanimate slave. Quâ slave, then, there is no
Friendship towards him, only quâ man: for it is thought that there is some
principle of Justice between every man, and every other who can share in
law and be a party to an agreement; and so somewhat of Friendship, in so
far as he is man. So in Despotisms the Friendships and the principle of
Justice are inconsiderable in extent, but in Democracies they are most
considerable because they who are equal have much in common.

Chapter XII.
Now of course all Friendship is based upon Communion, as has been
already stated: but one would be inclined to separate off from the rest the
Friendship of Kindred, and that of Companions: whereas those of men of
the same city, or tribe, or crew, and all such, are more peculiarly, it would
seem, based upon Communion, inasmuch as they plainly exist in right of
some agreement expressed or implied: among these one may rank also the
Friendship of Hospitality,
The Friendship of Kindred is likewise of many kinds, and appears in all
its varieties to depend on the Parental: parents, I mean, love their children
as being a part of themselves, children love their parents as being
themselves somewhat derived from them. But parents know their offspring
more than these know that they are from the parents, and the source is more
closely bound to that which is produced than that which is produced is to
that which formed it: of course, whatever is derived from one’s self is
proper to that from which it is so derived (as, for instance, a tooth or a hair,
or any other thing whatever to him that has it): but the source to it is in no
degree proper, or in an inferior degree at least.
Then again the greater length of time comes in: the parents love their
offspring from the first moment of their being, but their offspring them only
after a lapse of time when they have attained intelligence or instinct. These
considerations serve also to show why mothers have greater strength of
affection than fathers.
Now parents love their children as themselves (since what is derived
from themselves becomes a kind of other Self by the fact of separation), but
children their parents as being sprung from them. And brothers love one

another from being sprung from the same; that is, their sameness with the
common stock creates a sameness with one another;[7] whence come the
phrases, “same blood,” “root,” and so on. In fact they are the same, in a
sense, even in the separate distinct individuals.
Then again the being brought up together, and the nearness of age, are a
great help towards Friendship, for a man likes one of his own age and
persons who are used to one another are companions, which accounts for
the resemblance between the Friendship of Brothers and that of
Companions.
And cousins and all other relatives derive their bond of union from these,
that is to say, from their community of origin: and the strength of this bond
varies according to their respective distances from the common ancestor.
Further: the Friendship felt by children towards parents, and by men
towards the gods, is as towards something good and above them; because
these have conferred the greatest possible benefits, in that they are the
causes of their being and being nourished, and of their having been
educated after they were brought into being.
And Friendship of this kind has also the pleasurable and the profitable
more than that between persons unconnected by blood, in proportion as
their life is also more shared in common. Then again in the Fraternal
Friendship there is all that there is in that of Companions, and more in the
good, and generally in those who are alike; in proportion as they are more
closely tied and from their very birth have a feeling of affection for one
another to begin with, and as they are more like in disposition who spring
from the same stock and have grown up together and been educated alike:
and besides this they have the greatest opportunities in respect of time for
proving one another, and can therefore depend most securely upon the trial.
Between Husband and Wife there is thought to be Friendship by a law of
nature: man being by nature disposed to pair, more than to associate in
Communities: in proportion as the family is prior in order of time and more
absolutely necessary than the Community. And procreation is more
common to him with other animals; all the other animals have Communion
thus far, but human creatures cohabit not merely for the sake of procreation
but also with a view to life in general:[8] because in this connection the
works are immediately divided, and some belong to the man, others to the

woman: thus they help one the other, putting what is peculiar to each into
the common stock.
And for these reasons this Friendship is thought to combine the profitable
and the pleasurable: it will be also based upon virtue if they are good
people; because each has goodness and they may take delight in this quality
in each other. Children too are thought to be a tie: accordingly the childless
sooner separate, for the children are a good common to both and anything
in common is a bond of union.
The question how a man is to live with his wife, or (more generally) one
friend with another, appears to be no other than this, how it is just that they
should: because plainly there is not the same principle of Justice between a
friend and friend, as between strangers, or companions, or mere chance
fellow-travellers.

Chapter XIII.
There are then, as was stated at the commencement of this book, three
kinds of Friendship, and in each there may be friends on a footing of
equality and friends in the relation of superior and inferior; we find, I mean,
that people who are alike in goodness, become friends, and better with
worse, and so also pleasant people; again, because of advantage people are
friends, either balancing exactly their mutual profitableness or differing
from one another herein. Well then, those who are equal should in right of
this equality be equalised also by the degree of their Friendship and the
other points, and those who are on a footing of inequality by rendering
Friendship in proportion to the superiority of the other party.
Fault-finding and blame arises, either solely or most naturally, in
Friendship of which utility is the motive: for they who are friends by reason
of goodness, are eager to do kindnesses to one another because this is a
natural result of goodness and Friendship; and when men are vying with
each other for this End there can be no fault-finding nor contention: since
no one is annoyed at one who entertains for him the sentiment of Friendship
and does kindnesses to him, but if of a refined mind he requites him with
kind actions. And suppose that one of the two exceeds the other, yet as he is
attaining his object he will not find fault with his friend, for good is the
object of each party.

Neither can there well be quarrels between men who are friends for
pleasure’s sake: because supposing them to delight in living together then
both attain their desire; or if not a man would be put in a ridiculous light
who should find fault with another for not pleasing him, since it is in his
power to forbear intercourse with him. But the Friendship because of
advantage is very liable to fault-finding; because, as the parties use one
another with a view to advantage, the requirements are continually
enlarging, and they think they have less than of right belongs to them, and
find fault because though justly entitled they do not get as much as they
want: while they who do the kindnesses, can never come up to the
requirements of those to whom they are being done.
It seems also, that as the Just is of two kinds, the unwritten and the legal,
so Friendship because of advantage is of two kinds, what may be called the
Moral, and the Legal: and the most fruitful source of complaints is that
parties contract obligations and discharge them not in the same line of
Friendship. The Legal is upon specified conditions, either purely
tradesmanlike from hand to hand or somewhat more gentlemanly as regards
time but still by agreement a quid pro quo.
In this Legal kind the obligation is clear and admits of no dispute, the
friendly element is the delay in requiring its discharge: and for this reason
in some countries no actions can be maintained at Law for the recovery of
such debts, it being held that they who have dealt on the footing of credit
must be content to abide the issue.
That which may be termed the Moral kind is not upon specified
conditions, but a man gives as to his friend and so on: but still he expects to
receive an equivalent, or even more, as though he had not given but lent: he
also will find fault, because he does not get the obligation discharged in the
same way as it was contracted.
Now this results from the fact, that all men, or the generality at least,
wish what is honourable, but, when tested, choose what is profitable; and
the doing kindnesses disinterestedly is honourable while receiving benefits
is profitable. In such cases one should, if able, make a return proportionate
to the good received, and do so willingly, because one ought not to make a
disinterested friend[9] of a man against his inclination: one should act, I say,
as having made a mistake originally in receiving kindness from one from
whom one ought not to have received it, he being not a friend nor doing the

act disinterestedly; one should therefore discharge one’s self of the
obligation as having received a kindness on specified terms: and if able a
man would engage to repay the kindness, while if he were unable even the
doer of it would not expect it of him: so that if he is able he ought to repay
it. But one ought at the first to ascertain from whom one is receiving
kindness, and on what understanding, that on that same understanding one
may accept it or not.
A question admitting of dispute is whether one is to measure a kindness
by the good done to the receiver of it, and make this the standard by which
to requite, or by the kind intention of the doer?
For they who have received kindnesses frequently plead in depreciation
that they have received from their benefactors such things as were small for
them to give, or such as they themselves could have got from others: while
the doers of the kindnesses affirm that they gave the best they had, and what
could not have been got from others, and under danger, or in such-like
straits.
May we not say, that as utility is the motive of the Friendship the
advantage conferred on the receiver must be the standard? because he it is
who requests the kindness and the other serves him in his need on the
understanding that he is to get an equivalent: the assistance rendered is then
exactly proportionate to the advantage which the receiver has obtained, and
he should therefore repay as much as he gained by it, or even more, this
being more creditable.
In Friendships based on goodness, the question, of course, is never
raised, but herein the motive of the doer seems to be the proper standard,
since virtue and moral character depend principally on motive.

Chapter XIV.
Quarrels arise also in those Friendships in which the parties are unequal
because each party thinks himself entitled to the greater share, and of
course, when this happens, the Friendship is broken up.
The man who is better than the other thinks that having the greater share
pertains to him of right, for that more is always awarded to the good man:
and similarly the man who is more profitable to another than that other to

him: “one who is useless,” they say, “ought not to share equally, for it
comes to a tax, and not a Friendship, unless the fruits of the Friendship are
reaped in proportion to the works done:” their notion being, that as in a
money partnership they who contribute more receive more so should it be
in Friendship likewise.
On the other hand, the needy man and the less virtuous advance the
opposite claim: they urge that “it is the very business of a good friend to
help those who are in need, else what is the use of having a good or
powerful friend if one is not to reap the advantage at all?”
Now each seems to advance a right claim and to be entitled to get more
out of the connection than the other, only not more of the same thing: but
the superior man should receive more respect, the needy man more profit:
respect being the reward of goodness and beneficence, profit being the aid
of need.
This is plainly the principle acted upon in Political Communities: he
receives no honour who gives no good to the common stock: for the
property of the Public is given to him who does good to the Public, and
honour is the property of the Public; it is not possible both to make money
out of the Public and receive honour likewise; because no one will put up
with the less in every respect: so to him who suffers loss as regards money
they award honour, but money to him who can be paid by gifts: since, as
has been stated before, the observing due proportion equalises and
preserves Friendship.
Like rules then should be observed in the intercourse of friends who are
unequal; and to him who advantages another in respect of money, or
goodness, that other should repay honour, making requital according to his
power; because Friendship requires what is possible, not what is strictly
due, this being not possible in all cases, as in the honours paid to the gods
and to parents: no man could ever make the due return in these cases, and
so he is thought to be a good man who pays respect according to his ability.
For this reason it may be judged never to be allowable for a son to
disown his father, whereas a father may his son: because he that owes is
bound to pay; now a son can never, by anything he has done, fully requite
the benefits first conferred on him by his father, and so is always a debtor.
But they to whom anything is owed may cast off their debtors: therefore the
father may his son. But at the same time it must perhaps be admitted, that it

seems no father ever would sever himself utterly from a son, except in a
case of exceeding depravity: because, independently of the natural
Friendship, it is like human nature not to put away from one’s self the
assistance which a son might render. But to the son, if depraved, assisting
his father is a thing to be avoided, or at least one which he will not be very
anxious to do; most men being willing enough to receive kindness, but
averse to doing it as unprofitable.
Let thus much suffice on these points.

BOOK IX

Chapter I.
Well, in all the Friendships the parties to which are dissimilar it is the
proportionate which equalises and preserves the Friendship, as has been
already stated: I mean, in the Social Friendship the cobbler, for instance,
gets an equivalent for his shoes after a certain rate; and the weaver, and all
others in like manner. Now in this case a common measure has been
provided in money, and to this accordingly all things are referred and by
this are measured: but in the Friendship of Love the complaint is sometimes
from the lover that, though he loves exceedingly, his love is not requited; he
having perhaps all the time nothing that can be the object of Friendship:
again, oftentimes from the object of love that he who as a suitor promised
any and every thing now performs nothing. These cases occur because the
Friendship of the lover for the beloved object is based upon pleasure, that of
the other for him upon utility, and in one of the parties the requisite quality
is not found: for, as these are respectively the grounds of the Friendship, the
Friendship comes to be broken up because the motives to it cease to exist:
the parties loved not one another but qualities in one another which are not
permanent, and so neither are the Friendships: whereas the Friendship based
upon the moral character of the parties, being independent and
disinterested, is permanent, as we have already stated.
Quarrels arise also when the parties realise different results and not those
which they desire; for the not attaining one’s special object is all one, in this
case, with getting nothing at all: as in the well-known case where a man
made promises to a musician, rising in proportion to the excellence of his
music; but when, the next morning, the musician claimed the performance
of his promises, he said that he had given him pleasure for pleasure: of
course, if each party had intended this, it would have been all right: but if
the one desires amusement and the other gain, and the one gets his object

but the other not, the dealing cannot be fair: because a man fixes his mind
upon what he happens to want, and will give so and so for that specific
thing.
The question then arises, who is to fix the rate? the man who first gives,
or the man who first takes? because, primâ facie, the man who first gives
seems to leave the rate to be fixed by the other party. This, they say, was in
fact the practice of Protagoras: when he taught a man anything he would bid
the learner estimate the worth of the knowledge gained by his own private
opinion; and then he used to take so much from him. In such cases some
people adopt the rule,
“With specified reward a friend should be content.”

They are certainly fairly found fault with who take the money in advance
and then do nothing of what they said they would do, their promises having
been so far beyond their ability; for such men do not perform what they
agreed, The Sophists, however, are perhaps obliged to take this course,
because no one would give a sixpence for their knowledge. These then, I
say, are fairly found fault with, because they do not what they have already
taken money for doing.
In cases where no stipulation as to the respective services is made they
who disinterestedly do the first service will not raise the question (as we
have said before), because it is the nature of Friendship, based on mutual
goodness to be reference to the intention of the other, the intention being
characteristic of the true friend and of goodness.
And it would seem the same rule should be laid down for those who are
connected with one another as teachers and learners of philosophy; for here
the value of the commodity cannot be measured by money, and, in fact, an
exactly equivalent price cannot be set upon it, but perhaps it is sufficient to
do what one can, as in the case of the gods or one’s parents.
But where the original giving is not upon these terms but avowedly for
some return, the most proper course is perhaps for the requital to be such as
both shall allow to be proportionate, and, where this cannot be, then for the
receiver to fix the value would seem to be not only necessary but also fair:
because when the first giver gets that which is equivalent to the advantage
received by the other, or to what he would have given to secure the pleasure
he has had, then he has the value from him: for not only is this seen to be

the course adopted in matters of buying and selling but also in some places
the law does not allow of actions upon voluntary dealings; on the principle
that when one man has trusted another he must be content to have the
obligation discharged in the same spirit as he originally contracted it: that is
to say, it is thought fairer for the trusted, than for the trusting, party, to fix
the value. For, in general, those who have and those who wish to get things
do not set the same value on them: what is their own, and what they give in
each case, appears to them worth a great deal: but yet the return is made
according to the estimate of those who have received first, it should perhaps
be added that the receiver should estimate what he has received, not by the
value he sets upon it now that he has it, but by that which he set upon it
before he obtained it.

Chapter II.
Questions also arise upon such points as the following: Whether one’s
father has an unlimited claim on one’s services and obedience, or whether
the sick man is to obey his physician? or, in an election of a general, the
warlike qualities of the candidates should be alone regarded?
In like manner whether one should do a service rather to one’s friend or
to a good man? whether one should rather requite a benefactor or give to
one’s companion, supposing that both are not within one’s power?
Is not the true answer that it is no easy task to determine all such
questions accurately, inasmuch as they involve numerous differences of all
kinds, in respect of amount and what is honourable and what is necessary?
It is obvious, of course, that no one person can unite in himself all claims.
Again, the requital of benefits is, in general, a higher duty than doing
unsolicited kindnesses to one’s companion; in other words, the discharging
of a debt is more obligatory upon one than the duty of giving to a
companion. And yet this rule may admit of exceptions; for instance, which
is the higher duty? for one who has been ransomed out of the hands of
robbers to ransom in return his ransomer, be he who he may, or to repay
him on his demand though he has not been taken by robbers, or to ransom
his own father? for it would seem that a man ought to ransom his father
even in preference to himself.

Well then, as has been said already, as a general rule the debt should be
discharged, but if in a particular case the giving greatly preponderates as
being either honourable or necessary, we must be swayed by these
considerations: I mean, in some cases the requital of the obligation
previously existing may not be equal; suppose, for instance, that the original
benefactor has conferred a kindness on a good man, knowing him to be
such, whereas this said good man has to repay it believing him to be a
scoundrel.
And again, in certain cases no obligation lies on a man to lend to one
who has lent to him; suppose, for instance, that a bad man lent to him, as
being a good man, under the notion that he should get repaid, whereas the
said good man has no hope of repayment from him being a bad man. Either
then the case is really as we have supposed it and then the claim is not
equal, or it is not so but supposed to be; and still in so acting people are not
to be thought to act wrongly. In short, as has been oftentimes stated before,
all statements regarding feelings and actions can be definite only in
proportion as their object-matter is so; it is of course quite obvious that all
people have not the same claim upon one, nor are the claims of one’s father
unlimited; just as Jupiter does not claim all kinds of sacrifice without
distinction: and since the claims of parents, brothers, companions, and
benefactors, are all different, we must give to each what belongs to and
befits each.
And this is seen to be the course commonly pursued: to marriages men
commonly invite their relatives, because these are from a common stock
and therefore all the actions in any way pertaining thereto are common also:
and to funerals men think that relatives ought to assemble in preference to
other people, for the same reason.
And it would seem that in respect of maintenance it is our duty to assist
our parents in preference to all others, as being their debtors, and because it
is more honourable to succour in these respects the authors of our existence
than ourselves. Honour likewise we ought to pay to our parents just as to
the gods, but then, not all kinds of honour: not the same, for instance, to a
father as to a mother: nor again to a father the honour due to a scientific
man or to a general but that which is a father’s due, and in like manner to a
mother that which is a mother’s.

To all our elders also the honour befitting their age, by rising up in their
presence, turning out of the way for them, and all similar marks of respect:
to our companions again, or brothers, frankness and free participation in all
we have. And to those of the same family, or tribe, or city, with ourselves,
and all similarly connected with us, we should constantly try to render their
due, and to discriminate what belongs to each in respect of nearness of
connection, or goodness, or intimacy: of course in the case of those of the
same class the discrimination is easier; in that of those who are in different
classes it is a matter of more trouble. This, however, should not be a reason
for giving up the attempt, but we must observe the distinctions so far as it is
practicable to do so.

Chapter III.
A question is also raised as to the propriety of dissolving or not
dissolving those Friendships the parties to which do not remain what they
were when the connection was formed.
Now surely in respect of those whose motive to Friendship is utility or
pleasure there can be nothing wrong in breaking up the connection when
they no longer have those qualities; because they were friends [not of one
another, but] of those qualities: and, these having failed, it is only
reasonable to expect that they should cease to entertain the sentiment.
But a man has reason to find fault if the other party, being really attached
to him because of advantage or pleasure, pretended to be so because of his
moral character: in fact, as we said at the commencement, the most
common source of quarrels between friends is their not being friends on the
same grounds as they suppose themselves to be.
Now when a man has been deceived in having supposed himself to excite
the sentiment of Friendship by reason of his moral character, the other party
doing nothing to indicate he has but himself to blame: but when he has been
deceived by the pretence of the other he has a right to find fault with the
man who has so deceived him, aye even more than with utterers of false
coin, in proportion to the greater preciousness of that which is the object-
matter of the villany.
But suppose a man takes up another as being a good man, who turns out,
and is found by him, to be a scoundrel, is he bound still to entertain

Friendship for him? or may we not say at once it is impossible? since it is
not everything which is the object-matter of Friendship, but only that which
is good; and so there is no obligation to be a bad man’s friend, nor, in fact,
ought one to be such: for one ought not to be a lover of evil, nor to be
assimilated to what is base; which would be implied, because we have said
before, like is friendly to like.
Are we then to break with him instantly? not in all cases; only where our
friends are incurably depraved; when there is a chance of amendment we
are bound to aid in repairing the moral character of our friends even more
than their substance, in proportion as it is better and more closely related to
Friendship. Still he who should break off the connection is not to be judged
to act wrongly, for he never was a friend to such a character as the other
now is, and therefore, since the man is changed and he cannot reduce him to
his original state, he backs out of the connection.
To put another case: suppose that one party remains what he was when
the Friendship was formed, while the other becomes morally improved and
widely different from his friend in goodness; is the improved character to
treat the other as a friend?
May we not say it is impossible? The case of course is clearest where
there is a great difference, as in the Friendships of boys: for suppose that of
two boyish friends the one still continues a boy in mind and the other
becomes a man of the highest character, how can they be friends? since they
neither are pleased with the same objects nor like and dislike the same
things: for these points will not belong to them as regards one another, and
without them it was assumed they cannot be friends because they cannot
live in intimacy: and of the case of those who cannot do so we have spoken
before.
Well then, is the improved party to bear himself towards his former
friend in no way differently to what he would have done had the connection
never existed?
Surely he ought to bear in mind the intimacy of past times, and just as we
think ourselves bound to do favours for our friends in preference to
strangers, so to those who have been friends and are so no longer we should
allow somewhat on the score of previous Friendship, whenever the cause of
severance is not excessive depravity on their part.

Chapter IV.
Now the friendly feelings which are exhibited towards our friends, and
by which Friendships are characterised, seem to have sprung out of those
which we entertain toward ourselves.
I mean, people define a friend to be “one who intends and does what is
good (or what he believes to be good) to another for that other’s sake,” or
“one who wishes his friend to be and to live for that friend’s own sake”
(which is the feeling of mothers towards their children, and of friends who
have come into collision). Others again, “one who lives with another and
chooses the same objects,” or “one who sympathises with his friend in his
sorrows and in his joys” (this too is especially the case with mothers).
Well, by some one of these marks people generally characterise
Friendship: and each of these the good man has towards himself, and all
others have them in so far as they suppose themselves to be good. (For, as
has been said before, goodness, that is the good man, seems to be a measure
to every one else.)
For he is at unity in himself, and with every part of his soul he desires the
same objects; and he wishes for himself both what is, and what he believes
to be, good; and he does it (it being characteristic of the good man to work
at what is good), and for the sake of himself, inasmuch as he does it for the
sake of his Intellectual Principle which is generally thought to be a man’s
Self. Again, he wishes himself And specially this Principle whereby he is an
intelligent being, to live and be preserved in life, because existence is a
good to him that is a good man.
But it is to himself that each individual wishes what is good, and no man,
conceiving the possibility of his becoming other than he now is, chooses
that that New Self should have all things indiscriminately: a god, for
instance, has at the present moment the Chief Good, but he has it in right of
being whatever he actually now is: and the Intelligent Principle must be
judged to be each man’s Self, or at least eminently so [though other
Principles help, of course, to constitute him the man he is].
Furthermore, the good man wishes to continue to live with himself; for
he can do it with pleasure, in that his memories of past actions are full of
delight and his anticipations of the future are good and such are pleasurable.
Then, again, he has good store of matter for his Intellect to contemplate,

and he most especially sympathises with his Self in its griefs and joys,
because the objects which give him pain and pleasure are at all times the
same, not one thing to-day and a different one to-morrow: because he is not
given to repentance,[1] if one may so speak. It is then because each of these
feelings are entertained by the good man towards his own Self and a friend
feels towards a friend as towards himself (a friend being in fact another
Self), that Friendship is thought to be some one of these things and they are
accounted friends in whom they are found. Whether or no there can really
be Friendship between a man and his Self is a question we will not at
present entertain: there may be thought to be Friendship, in so far as there
are two or more of the aforesaid requisites, and because the highest degree
of Friendship, in the usual acceptation of that term, resembles the feeling
entertained by a man towards himself.
But it may be urged that the aforesaid requisites are to all appearance
found in the common run of men, though they are men of a low stamp.
May it not be answered, that they share in them only in so far as they
please themselves, and conceive themselves to be good? for certainly, they
are not either really, or even apparently, found in any one of those who are
very depraved and villainous; we may almost say not even in those who are
bad men at all: for they are at variance with themselves and lust after
different things from those which in cool reason they wish for, just as men
who fail of Self-Control: I mean, they choose things which, though hurtful,
are pleasurable, in preference to those which in their own minds they
believe to be good: others again, from cowardice and indolence, decline to
do what still they are convinced is best for them: while they who from their
depravity have actually done many dreadful actions hate and avoid life, and
accordingly kill themselves: and the wicked seek others in whose company
to spend their time, but fly from themselves because they have many
unpleasant subjects of memory, and can only look forward to others like
them when in solitude but drown their remorse in the company of others:
and as they have nothing to raise the sentiment of Friendship so they never
feel it towards themselves.
Neither, in fact, can they who are of this character sympathise with their
Selves in their joys and sorrows, because their soul is, as it were, rent by
faction, and the one principle, by reason of the depravity in them, is grieved
at abstaining from certain things, while the other and better principle is

pleased thereat; and the one drags them this way and the other that way, as
though actually tearing them asunder.[2] And though it is impossible actually
to have at the same time the sensations of pain and pleasure; yet after a little
time the man is sorry for having been pleased, and he could wish that those
objects had not given him pleasure; for the wicked are full of remorse.
It is plain then that the wicked man cannot be in the position of a friend
even towards himself, because he has in himself nothing which can excite
the sentiment of Friendship. If then to be thus is exceedingly wretched it is
a man’s duty to flee from wickedness with all his might and to strive to be
good, because thus may he be friends with himself and may come to be a
friend to another.

Chapter V.
Kindly Feeling, though resembling Friendship, is not identical with it,
because it may exist in reference to those whom we do not know and
without the object of it being aware of its existence, which Friendship
cannot. (This, by the way, has also been said before.) And further, it is not
even Affection because it does not imply intensity nor yearning, which are
both consequences of Affection. Again Affection requires intimacy but
Kindly Feeling may arise quite suddenly, as happens sometimes in respect
of men against whom people are matched in any way, I mean they come to
be kindly disposed to them and sympathise in their wishes, but still they
would not join them in any action, because, as we said, they conceive this
feeling of kindness suddenly and so have but a superficial liking.
What it does seem to be is the starting point of a Friendship; just as
pleasure, received through the sight, is the commencement of Love: for no
one falls in love without being first pleased with the personal appearance of
the beloved object, and yet he who takes pleasure in it does not therefore
necessarily love, but when he wearies for the object in its absence and
desires its presence. Exactly in the same way men cannot be friends without
having passed through the stage of Kindly Feeling, and yet they who are in
that stage do not necessarily advance to Friendship: they merely have an
inert wish for the good of those toward whom they entertain the feeling, but
would not join them in any action, nor put themselves out of the way for
them. So that, in a metaphorical way of speaking, one might say that it is

dormant Friendship, and when it has endured for a space and ripened into
intimacy comes to be real Friendship; but not that whose object is
advantage or pleasure, because such motives cannot produce even Kindly
Feeling.
I mean, he who has received a kindness requites it by Kindly Feeling
towards his benefactor, and is right in so doing: but he who wishes another
to be prosperous, because he has hope of advantage through his
instrumentality, does not seem to be kindly disposed to that person but
rather to himself; just as neither is he his friend if he pays court to him for
any interested purpose.
Kindly Feeling always arises by reason of goodness and a certain
amiability, when one man gives another the notion of being a fine fellow, or
brave man, etc., as we said was the case sometimes with those matched
against one another.

Chapter VI.
Unity of Sentiment is also plainly connected with Friendship, and
therefore is not the same as Unity of Opinion, because this might exist even
between people unacquainted with one another.
Nor do men usually say people are united in sentiment merely because
they agree in opinion on any point, as, for instance, on points of
astronomical science (Unity of Sentiment herein not having any connection
with Friendship), but they say that Communities have Unity of Sentiment
when they agree respecting points of expediency and take the same line and
carry out what has been determined in common consultation.
Thus we see that Unity of Sentiment has for its object matters of action,
and such of these as are of importance, and of mutual, or, in the case of
single States, common, interest: when, for instance, all agree in the choice
of magistrates, or forming alliance with the Lacedæmonians, or appointing
Pittacus ruler (that is to say, supposing he himself was willing). But when
each wishes himself to be in power (as the brothers in the Phœnissæ), they
quarrel and form parties: for, plainly, Unity of Sentiment does not merely
imply that each entertains the same idea be it what it may, but that they do
so in respect of the same object, as when both the populace and the sensible

men of a State desire that the best men should be in office, because then all
attain their object.
Thus Unity of Sentiment is plainly a social Friendship, as it is also said to
be: since it has for its object-matter things expedient and relating to life.
And this Unity exists among the good: for they have it towards
themselves and towards one another, being, if I may be allowed the
expression, in the same position: I mean, the wishes of such men are steady
and do not ebb and flow like the Euripus, and they wish what is just and
expedient and aim at these things in common.
The bad, on the contrary, can as little have Unity of Sentiment as they
can be real friends, except to a very slight extent, desiring as they do unfair
advantage in things profitable while they shirk labour and service for the
common good: and while each man wishes for these things for himself he is
jealous of and hinders his neighbour: and as they do not watch over the
common good it is lost. The result is that they quarrel while they are for
keeping one another to work but are not willing to perform their just share.

Chapter VII.
Benefactors are commonly held to have more Friendship for the objects
of their kindness than these for them: and the fact is made a subject of
discussion and enquiry, as being contrary to reasonable expectation.
The account of the matter which satisfies most persons is that the one are
debtors and the others creditors: and therefore that, as in the case of actual
loans the debtors wish their creditors out of the way while the creditors are
anxious for the preservation of their debtors, so those who have done
kindnesses desire the continued existence of the people they have done
them to, under the notion of getting a return of their good offices, while
these are not particularly anxious about requital.
Epicharmus, I suspect, would very probably say that they who give this
solution judge from their own baseness; yet it certainly is like human
nature, for the generality of men have short memories on these points, and
aim rather at receiving than conferring benefits.
But the real cause, it would seem, rests upon nature, and the case is not
parallel to that of creditors; because in this there is no affection to the

persons, but merely a wish for their preservation with a view to the return:
whereas, in point of fact, they who have done kindnesses feel friendship
and love for those to whom they have done them, even though they neither
are, nor can by possibility hereafter be, in a position to serve their
benefactors.
And this is the case also with artisans; every one, I mean, feels more
affection for his own work than that work possibly could for him if it were
animate. It is perhaps specially the case with poets: for these entertain very
great affection for their poems, loving them as their own children. It is to
this kind of thing I should be inclined to compare the case of benefactors:
for the object of their kindness is their own work, and so they love this
more than this loves its creator.
And the account of this is that existence is to all a thing choice-worthy
and an object of affection; now we exist by acts of working, that is, by
living and acting; he then that has created a given work exists, it may be
said, by his act of working: therefore he loves his work because he loves
existence. And this is natural, for the work produced displays in act what
existed before potentially.
Then again, the benefactor has a sense of honour in right of his action, so
that he may well take pleasure in him in whom this resides; but to him who
has received the benefit there is nothing honourable in respect of his
benefactor, only something advantageous which is both less pleasant and
less the object of Friendship.
Again, pleasure is derived from the actual working out of a present
action, from the anticipation of a future one, and from the recollection of a
past one: but the highest pleasure and special object of affection is that
which attends on the actual working. Now the benefactor’s work abides (for
the honourable is enduring), but the advantage of him who has received the
kindness passes away.
Again, there is pleasure in recollecting honourable actions, but in
recollecting advantageous ones there is none at all or much less (by the way
though, the contrary is true of the expectation of advantage).
Further, the entertaining the feeling of Friendship is like acting on
another; but being the object of the feeling is like being acted upon.
So then, entertaining the sentiment of Friendship, and all feelings
connected with it, attend on those who, in the given case of a benefaction,

are the superior party.
Once more: all people value most what has cost them much labour in the
production; for instance, people who have themselves made their money are
fonder of it than those who have inherited it: and receiving kindness is, it
seems, unlaborious, but doing it is laborious. And this is the reason why the
female parents are most fond of their offspring; for their part in producing
them is attended with most labour, and they know more certainly that they
are theirs. This feeling would seem also to belong to benefactors.

Chapter VIII.
A question is also raised as to whether it is right to love one’s Self best,
or some one else: because men find fault with those who love themselves
best, and call them in a disparaging way lovers of Self; and the bad man is
thought to do everything he does for his own sake merely, and the more so
the more depraved he is; accordingly men reproach him with never doing
anything unselfish: whereas the good man acts from a sense of honour (and
the more so the better man he is), and for his friend’s sake, and is careless
of his own interest.
But with these theories facts are at variance, and not unnaturally: for it is
commonly said also that a man is to love most him who is most his friend,
and he is most a friend who wishes good to him to whom he wishes it for
that man’s sake even though no one knows. Now these conditions, and in
fact all the rest by which a friend is characterised, belong specially to each
individual in respect of his Self: for we have said before that all the friendly
feelings are derived to others from those which have Self primarily for their
object. And all the current proverbs support this view; for instance, “one
soul,” “the goods of friends are common,” “equality is a tie of Friendship,”
“the knee is nearer than the shin.” For all these things exist specially with
reference to a man’s own Self: he is specially a friend to himself and so he
is bound to love himself the most.
It is with good reason questioned which of the two parties one should
follow, both having plausibility on their side. Perhaps then, in respect of
theories of this kind, the proper course is to distinguish and define how far
each is true, and in what way. If we could ascertain the sense in which each
uses the term “Self-loving,” this point might be cleared up.

Well now, they who use it disparagingly give the name to those who, in
respect of wealth, and honours, and pleasures of the body, give to
themselves the larger share: because the mass of mankind grasp after these
and are earnest about them as being the best things; which is the reason why
they are matters of contention. They who are covetous in regard to these
gratify their lusts and passions in general, that is to say the irrational part of
their soul: now the mass of mankind are so disposed, for which reason the
appellation has taken its rise from that mass which is low and bad. Of
course they are justly reproached who are Self-loving in this sense.
And that the generality of men are accustomed to apply the term to
denominate those who do give such things to themselves is quite plain:
suppose, for instance, that a man were anxious to do, more than other men,
acts of justice, or self-mastery, or any other virtuous acts, and, in general,
were to secure to himself that which is abstractedly noble and honourable,
no one would call him Self-loving, nor blame him.
Yet might such an one be judged to be more truly Self-loving: certainly
he gives to himself the things which are most noble and most good, and
gratifies that Principle of his nature which is most rightfully authoritative,
and obeys it in everything: and just as that which possesses the highest
authority is thought to constitute a Community or any other system, so also
in the case of Man: and so he is most truly Self-loving who loves and
gratifies this Principle.
Again, men are said to have, or to fail of having, self-control, according
as the Intellect controls or not, it being plainly implied thereby that this
Principle constitutes each individual; and people are thought to have done
of themselves, and voluntarily, those things specially which are done with
Reason.
It is plain, therefore, that this Principle does, either entirely or specially
constitute the individual man, and that the good man specially loves this.
For this reason then he must be specially Self-loving, in a kind other than
that which is reproached, and as far superior to it as living in accordance
with Reason is to living at the beck and call of passion, and aiming at the
truly noble to aiming at apparent advantage.
Now all approve and commend those who are eminently earnest about
honourable actions, and if all would vie with one another in respect of the
καλὸν, and be intent upon doing what is most truly noble and honourable,

society at large would have all that is proper while each individual in
particular would have the greatest of goods, Virtue being assumed to be
such.
And so the good man ought to be Self-loving: because by doing what is
noble he will have advantage himself and will do good to others: but the
bad man ought not to be, because he will harm himself and his neighbours
by following low and evil passions. In the case of the bad man, what he
ought to do and what he does are at variance, but the good man does what
he ought to do, because all Intellect chooses what is best for itself and the
good man puts himself under the direction of Intellect.
Of the good man it is true likewise that he does many things for the sake
of his friends and his country, even to the extent of dying for them, if need
be: for money and honours, and, in short, all the good things which others
fight for, he will throw away while eager to secure to himself the καλὸν: he
will prefer a brief and great joy to a tame and enduring one, and to live
nobly for one year rather than ordinarily for many, and one great and noble
action to many trifling ones. And this is perhaps that which befals men who
die for their country and friends; they choose great glory for themselves:
and they will lavish their own money that their friends may receive more,
for hereby the friend gets the money but the man himself the καλὸν; so, in
fact he gives to himself the greater good. It is the same with honours and
offices; all these things he will give up to his friend, because this reflects
honour and praise on himself: and so with good reason is he esteemed a fine
character since he chooses the honourable before all things else. It is
possible also to give up the opportunities of action to a friend; and to have
caused a friend’s doing a thing may be more noble than having done it one’s
self.
In short, in all praiseworthy things the good man does plainly give to
himself a larger share of the honourable. In this sense it is right to be Self-
loving, in the vulgar acceptation of the term it is not.

Chapter IX.
A question is raised also respecting the Happy man, whether he will want
Friends, or no?

Some say that they who are blessed and independent have no need of
Friends, for they already have all that is good, and so, as being independent,
want nothing further: whereas the notion of a friend’s office is to be as it
were a second Self and procure for a man what he cannot get by himself:
hence the saying,
“When Fortune gives us good, what need we Friends?”

On the other hand, it looks absurd, while we are assigning to the Happy
man all other good things, not to give him Friends, which are, after all,
thought to be the greatest of external goods.
Again, if it is more characteristic of a friend to confer than to receive
kindnesses, and if to be beneficent belongs to the good man and to the
character of virtue, and if it is more noble to confer kindnesses on friends
than strangers, the good man will need objects for his benefactions. And out
of this last consideration springs a question whether the need of Friends be
greater in prosperity or adversity, since the unfortunate man wants people to
do him kindnesses and they who are fortunate want objects for their kind
acts.
Again, it is perhaps absurd to make our Happy man a solitary, because no
man would choose the possession of all goods in the world on the condition
of solitariness, man being a social animal and formed by nature for living
with others: of course the Happy man has this qualification since he has all
those things which are good by nature: and it is obvious that the society of
friends and good men must be preferable to that of strangers and ordinary
people, and we conclude, therefore, that the Happy man does need Friends.
But then, what do they mean whom we quoted first, and how are they
right? Is it not that the mass of mankind mean by Friends those who are
useful? and of course the Happy man will not need such because he has all
good things already; neither will he need such as are Friends with a view to
the pleasurable, or at least only to a slight extent; because his life, being
already pleasurable, does not want pleasure imported from without; and so,
since the Happy man does not need Friends of these kinds, he is thought not
to need any at all.
But it may be, this is not true: for it was stated originally, that Happiness
is a kind of Working; now Working plainly is something that must come
into being, not be already there like a mere piece of property.

If then the being happy consists in living and working, and the good
man’s working is in itself excellent and pleasurable (as we said at the
commencement of the treatise), and if what is our own reckons among
things pleasurable, and if we can view our neighbours better than ourselves
and their actions better than we can our own, then the actions of their
Friends who are good men are pleasurable to the good; inasmuch as they
have both the requisites which are naturally pleasant. So the man in the
highest state of happiness will need Friends of this kind, since he desires to
contemplate good actions, and actions of his own, which those of his friend,
being a good man, are.
Again, common opinion requires that the Happy man live with pleasure
to himself: now life is burthensome to a man in solitude, for it is not easy to
work continuously by one’s self, but in company with, and in regard to
others, it is easier, and therefore the working, being pleasurable in itself will
be more continuous (a thing which should be in respect of the Happy man);
for the good man, in that he is good takes pleasure in the actions which
accord with Virtue and is annoyed at those which spring from Vice, just as a
musical man is pleased with beautiful music and annoyed by bad. And
besides, as Theognis says, Virtue itself may be improved by practice, from
living with the good.
And, upon the following considerations more purely metaphysical, it will
probably appear that the good friend is naturally choice-worthy to the good
man. We have said before, that whatever is naturally good is also in itself
good and pleasant to the good man; now the fact of living, so far as animals
are concerned, is characterised generally by the power of sentience, in man
it is characterised by that of sentience, or of rationality (the faculty of
course being referred to the actual operation of the faculty, certainly the
main point is the actual operation of it); so that living seems mainly to
consist in the act of sentience or exerting rationality: now the fact of living
is in itself one of the things that are good and pleasant (for it is a definite
totality, and whatever is such belongs to the nature of good), but what is
naturally good is good to the good man: for which reason it seems to be
pleasant to all. (Of course one must not suppose a life which is depraved
and corrupted, nor one spent in pain, for that which is such is indefinite as
are its inherent qualities: however, what is to be said of pain will be clearer
in what is to follow.)

If then the fact of living is in itself good and pleasant (and this appears
from the fact that all desire it, and specially those who are good and in high
happiness; their course of life being most choice-worthy and their existence
most choice-worthy likewise), then also he that sees perceives that he sees;
and he that hears perceives that he hears; and he that walks perceives that
he walks; and in all the other instances in like manner there is a faculty
which reflects upon and perceives the fact that we are working, so that we
can perceive that we perceive and intellectually know that we intellectually
know: but to perceive that we perceive or that we intellectually know is to
perceive that we exist, since existence was defined to be perceiving or
intellectually knowing. Now to perceive that one lives is a thing pleasant in
itself, life being a thing naturally good, and the perceiving of the presence
in ourselves of things naturally good being pleasant.
Therefore the fact of living is choice-worthy, and to the good specially so
since existence is good and pleasant to them: for they receive pleasure from
the internal consciousness of that which in itself is good.
But the good man is to his friend as to himself, friend being but a name
for a second Self; therefore as his own existence is choice-worthy to each so
too, or similarly at least, is his friend’s existence. But the ground of one’s
own existence being choice-worthy is the perceiving of one’s self being
good, any such perception being in itself pleasant. Therefore one ought to
be thoroughly conscious of one’s friend’s existence, which will result from
living with him, that is sharing in his words and thoughts: for this is the
meaning of the term as applied to the human species, not mere feeding
together as in the case of brutes.
If then to the man in a high state of happiness existence is in itself
choice-worthy, being naturally good and pleasant, and so too a friend’s
existence, then the friend also must be among things choice-worthy. But
whatever is choice-worthy to a man he should have or else he will be in this
point deficient. The man therefore who is to come up to our notion “Happy”
will need good Friends.

Chapter X.
Are we then to make our friends as numerous as possible? or, as in
respect of acquaintance it is thought to have been well said “have not thou

many acquaintances yet be not without;” so too in respect of Friendship
may we adopt the precept, and say that a man should not be without friends,
nor again have exceeding many friends?
Now as for friends who are intended for use, the maxim I have quoted
will, it seems, fit in exceedingly well, because to requite the services of
many is a matter of labour, and a whole life would not be long enough to do
this for them. So that, if more numerous than what will suffice for one’s
own life, they become officious, and are hindrances in respect of living
well: and so we do not want them. And again of those who are to be for
pleasure a few are quite enough, just like sweetening in our food.
But of the good are we to make as many as ever we can, or is there any
measure of the number of friends, as there is of the number to constitute a
Political Community? I mean, you cannot make one out of ten men, and if
you increase the number to one hundred thousand it is not any longer a
Community. However, the number is not perhaps some one definite number
but any between certain extreme limits.
Well, of friends likewise there is a limited number, which perhaps may be
laid down to be the greatest number with whom it would be possible to
keep up intimacy; this being thought to be one of the greatest marks of
Friendship, and it being quite obvious that it is not possible to be intimate
with many, in other words, to part one’s self among many. And besides it
must be remembered that they also are to be friends to one another if they
are all to live together: but it is a matter of difficulty to find this in many
men at once.
It comes likewise to be difficult to bring home to one’s self the joys and
sorrows of many: because in all probability one would have to sympathise
at the same time with the joys of this one and the sorrows of that other.
Perhaps then it is well not to endeavour to have very many friends but so
many as are enough for intimacy: because, in fact, it would seem not to be
possible to be very much a friend to many at the same time: and, for the
same reason, not to be in love with many objects at the same time: love
being a kind of excessive Friendship which implies but one object: and all
strong emotions must be limited in the number towards whom they are felt.
And if we look to facts this seems to be so: for not many at a time
become friends in the way of companionship, all the famous Friendships of
the kind are between two persons: whereas they who have many friends,