by Aristotle
Let this then be assumed, and also that excellence is the best state or condition or faculty of all things that have a use and work. This is clear by induction; for in all [1219a1] cases we lay this down: e.g. a garment has an excellence, for it has a work and use, and the best state of the garment is its excellence. Similarly a vessel, house, or anything else has an excellence; therefore so also has the soul, for it has a work. And [5] let us assume that the better state has the better work; and as the states are to one another, so let us assume the corresponding works to be to one another. And the work of anything is its end; it is clear, therefore, from this that the work is better than the state; for the end is best, as being end: for we assumed the best, the final [10] stage, to be the end for the sake of which all else exists. That the work, then, is better than the state or condition is plain.
But ‘work’ has two senses; for some things have a work beyond mere employment, as building has a house and not the act of building, medicine health [15] and not the act of curing and restoring to health; while the work of other things is just their employment, e.g. of vision seeing and of mathematical science contemplation. Hence, necessarily, in those whose work is their employment the employment is more valuable than the state.
Having made these distinctions, we say that the work of a thing is also the work [20] of its excellence, only not in the same sense, e.g. a shoe is the work both of the art of cobbling and of the action of cobbling. If, then, the art of cobbling and the good cobbler have an excellence, their work is a good shoe: and similarly with everything else.
Further, let the work of the soul be to produce living, this6 consisting in [25] employment and being awake—for slumber is a sort of inactivity and rest. Therefore, since the work must be one and the same both for the soul and for its excellence, the work of the excellence of the soul would be a good life. This, then, is the complete good, which (as we saw) was happiness. And it is clear from our assumptions (for these were that happiness was the best of things, and ends and the [30] best goods were in the soul; it is itself either a state or an activity . . .),7 and since the activity is better than the state, and the best activity than the best state, and excellence is the best state, that the activity of the excellence of the soul is the best thing. But happiness, we saw, was the best of things; therefore happiness is the [35] activity of a good soul. But since happiness was something complete, and living is either complete or incomplete and so also excellence—one excellence being a whole, the other a part—and the activity of what is incomplete is itself incomplete, therefore happiness would be the activity of a complete life in accordance with complete excellence.
And that we have rightly stated its genus and definition common opinions [1219b1] prove. For to do well and to live well is held to be identical with being happy, but each of these—living and doing—is an employment, an activity; for the practical life is one of using or employing, e.g. the smith produces a bridle, the good horseman uses it.
We find confirmation also in the common opinion that we cannot ascribe [5] happiness to an existence of a single day, or to a child, or to each of the ages of life; and therefore Solon’s advice holds good, never to call a man happy when living, but only when his life is ended. For nothing incomplete is happy, not being whole.
Further, praise is given to excellence because of its actions, but to actions something higher than praise, the encomium. And we crown the actual winners, not [10] those who have the power to win but do not actually win. Further, our judging the character of a man by his acts is a confirmation. Further, why is happiness not praised? Surely because other things are praised owing to this, either by their having reference to it or by their being parts of it. Therefore felicitation, praise, and [15] encomium differ; for encomium is discourse relative to the particular act, praise declares the general nature of the man, but felicitation is for the end. This clears up the difficulty sometimes raised—why for half their lives the good are no better than the bad, for all are alike when asleep; the cause is that sleep is an inactivity, not an activity of the soul. Therefore, even if there is some other part of the soul, e.g. the [20] vegetative, its excellence is not a part of entire excellence, any more than the excellence of the body is; for in sleep the vegetative part is more active, while the perceptive and the appetitive are incomplete in sleep. But as far as they do to some extent partake of movement, even the visions of the good are better than those of the bad, except so far as they are caused by disease or bodily defect. [25]
After this we must consider the soul. For excellence belongs to the soul and essentially so. But since we are looking for human excellence, let it be assumed that the parts of the soul partaking of reason are two, but that they partake not in the same way, but the one by its natural tendency to command, the other by its natural [30] tendency to obey and listen; if there is a part without reason in some other sense, let it be disregarded. It makes no difference whether the soul is divisible or indivisible, so long as it has different faculties, namely those mentioned above, just as the curved includes the concave and the convex, or, again, the straight and the white, [35] yet the straight is not white except incidentally and is not the same in substance.8
We also neglect any other part of the soul that there may be, e.g. the vegetative, for the above-mentioned parts are peculiar to the human soul; therefore the excellences of the nutritive part and that concerned with growth are not those of man. For, if we speak of him qua man, he must have the power of reasoning, a governing principle,9 action; but reason governs not reason, but desire and the [1220a1] passions; he must then have these parts. And just as general good condition of the body is compounded of the partial excellences, so also is the excellence of the soul, qua end.
But of excellence there are two species, the moral10 and the intellectual. For we [5] praise not only the just but also the intelligent and the wise. For we assumed that what is praiseworthy is either the excellence or its work, and these are not activities, but have activities. But since the intellectual excellences involve reason, they belong to that rational part of the soul which governs the soul by its possession of reason, while the moral belong to the part which is irrational but by its nature obedient to [10] the part possessing reason; for we do not describe the character of a man by saying that he is wise or clever, but by saying that he is gentle or bold.
After this we must first consider moral excellence, its nature, its parts—for our inquiry has been forced back on this—and how it is produced. We must make our [15] search as all do in other things—they search having something to start with; so here, by means of true but indistinct judgements, we should always try to attain to what is true and distinct. For we are now in the condition of one who describes health as the best condition of the body, or Coriscus as the darkest man in the market-place; for [20] what either of these is we do not know, but yet for the attainment of knowledge of either it is worth while to be in this condition. First, then, let it be laid down that the best state is produced by the best means, and that with regard to everything the best is done from the excellence of that thing (e.g. the exercises and food are best which [25] produce a good condition of body, and from such a condition men best perform exercises). Further, that every condition is produced and destroyed by some sort of application of the same things, e.g. health from food, exercises, and weather. This is clear from induction. Excellence too, then, is that sort of condition which is [30] produced by the best movements in the soul, and from which are produced the soul’s best works and feelings; and by the same things, if they happen in one way, it is produced, but if they happen in another, it is destroyed. The employment of excellence is relative to the same things by which it is increased and destroyed, and it puts us in the best attitude towards them. A proof that both excellence and [35] badness are concerned with the pleasant and the painful is that punishment being cure and operating through opposites, as the cure does in everything else, acts through these.
2 · That moral excellence, then,
is concerned with the pleasant and the painful is clear. But since the character, being as its name indicates something that [1220b1] grows by habit11—and that which is under guidance other than innate is trained to a habit by frequent movement of a particular kind—is the active principle present after this process, but in things inanimate we do not see this (for even if you throw a stone upwards ten thousand times, it will never go upward except by compulsion),—consider, [5] then, character to be this, viz. a quality in accordance with governing reason belonging to the irrational part of the soul which is yet able to obey the reason. Now we have to state in respect of what part of the soul we have character of this or that kind.12 It will be in respect of the faculties of passion, in virtue of which men are spoken of as subject to passion, and in respect of the habits, in virtue of which men are described, in reference to those passions, either as feeling them in [10] some way or as not feeling them. After this comes the division made in . . .13 into the passions, faculties, and habits. By passions I mean such as anger, fear, shame, sensual desire—in general, all that is usually followed of itself by sensuous pleasure [15] or pain. Quality does not depend on these—they are merely experienced—but on the faculties. By faculty I mean that in virtue of which men who act from their passions are called after them, e.g. are called irascible, insensible, amorous, bashful, shameless. And habits are the causes through which these faculties belong to us either in a reasonable way or the opposite, e.g. bravery, temperance, cowardice, [20] intemperance.
3 · After these distinctions we must notice that in everything continuous and divisible there is excess, deficiency and the mean, and these in relation to one another or in relation to us, e.g. in the gymnastic or medical arts, in those of building [25] and navigation, and in any sort of action, alike scientific and non-scientific, skilled and unskilled. For motion is continuous, and action is motion. In all cases the mean in relation to us is the best; for this is as knowledge and reason direct us. And this [30] everywhere also makes the best habit. This is clear both by induction and by reasoning. For opposites destroy one another, and extremes are opposite both to one another and to the mean; for the mean is to either extreme the other extreme, e.g. the equal is greater to the less, but less to the greater. Therefore moral excellence must have to do with the mean and be a sort of mean. We must then notice what sort [35] of mean excellence is and about what sort of means; let each be taken from the list by way of illustration, and studied:
irascibility
lack of feeling
gentleness
foolhardiness
cowardice
bravery
shamelessness
shyness
modesty [1221a1]
intemperance
insensibility
temperance
envy
(unnamed)
righteous indignation
gain
loss
the just
lavishness
meanness
liberality [5]
boastfulness
self-depreciation
sincerity
habit of flattery
habit of dislike
friendliness
servility
stubbornness
dignity
[luxuriousness
submission to evils
endurance]14
vanity
meanness of spirit
greatness of spirit [10]
extravagance
pettiness
magnificence
[cunning
simplicity
wisdom]15
These and similar are the passions that occur in the soul; they receive their names, some from being excesses, some from being defects. For the irascible is one [15] who is angry more than he ought to be, and more quickly, and with more people than he ought; the unfeeling is deficient in regard to persons, occasions, and manner. The man who fears neither what, nor when, nor as he ought is foolhardy; the man who fears what he ought not, and on the wrong occasions, and in the wrong manner is cowardly. . . . similarly, intemperate . . .16 one prone to sensual desire and [20] exceeding in all possible ways, while he who is deficient and does not feel desire even so far as is good for him and in accordance with nature, but is as much without feeling as a stone, is insensible. The man who makes profit from any source is greedy of gain; the man who makes it from none, or perhaps few, is a waster. The braggart is one who pretends to more than he possesses, the self-depreciator is one [25] who pretends to less. The man who is more ready than is proper to join in praise is a flatterer; the man who is less ready is grudging. To act in everything so as to give another pleasure is servility, but to give pleasure seldom and reluctantly is stubbornness. [Further, one who can endure no pain, even if it is good for him, is soft; one who can endure all pain alike has no name literally applicable to him, but [30] by metaphor is called hard, patient, or ready of submission.]17 The vain man is he who thinks himself worthy of more than he is, while the poor-spirited thinks himself worthy of less. Further, the lavish is he who exceeds, the mean is he who is deficient, in every sort of expenditure. Similar are the stingy and the purse-proud; the latter [35] exceeds what is fitting, the former falls short of it. [The rogue aims at gain in any way and from any source; the simple not even from the right source.]18 A man is envious when he feels pain at the sight of prosperity more often than he ought, for even those who deserve prosperity cause when prosperous pain to the envious; the [1221b1] opposite character has not so definite a name: he is one who shows excess in not grieving even at the prosperity of the undeserving, but accepts all, as gluttons accept all food, while his opposite is impatient through envy.
It is superfluous to add to the definition that the particular relations to each [5] thing should not be accidental; for no art, theoretical or productive, uses such additions to its definitions in speech or action; the addition is merely directed against logical quibbles against the arts. Take the above then, as simple definitions, which will be made more accurate when we speak of the opposite habits.
[10] But of these states themselves there are species with names differing according as the excess is in time, in degree, or in the object provoking the state: e.g. one is quick-tempered through feeling anger quicker than one ought, irascible and passionate through feeling it more, bitter through one’s tendency to retain one’s [15] anger, violent and abusive through the punishments one inflicts from anger . . . 19 Epicures, gluttons, drunkards are so named from having a tendency contrary to reason to indulgence in one or the other kind of nutriment.
Nor must we forget that some of the faults mentioned cannot be taken to depend on the manner of action, if manner means excess of passion: e.g. the [20] adulterer is not so called from his excessive intercourse with married women; ‘excess’ is inapplicable here, but the act is simply in itself wicked; the passion and its character are expressed in the same word. Similarly with assault. Hence men dispute the liability of their actions to be called by these names; they say that they had intercourse but did not commit adultery (for they acted ignorantly or by [25] compulsion), or that they gave a blow but committed no assault; and so they defend themselves against all other similar charges.
4 · Having got so far, we must next say that, since there are two parts of the soul, the excellences are divided correspondingly, those of the rational part being [30] the intellectual, whose function is truth, whether about a thing’s nature or genesis, while the others belong to the part irrational but appetitive—for not any and every part of the soul, supposing it to be divisible, is appetitive. Necessarily, then, the character must be bad or good by its pursuit or avoidance of certain pleasures and [35] pains. This is clear from our classification of the passions, powers, and states; for the powers and states are powers and states of the passions, and the passions are distinguished by pain and pleasure. So that for these reasons and also because of our previous propositions it follows that all moral excelle
nce has to do with pleasures and pains. For by whatever things a soul tends to become better or worse, it is with regard to and in relation to these things that it finds pleasure. But we say men are [1222a1] bad through pleasures and pains, either by the pursuit and avoidance of improper pleasures or pains or by their pursuit in an improper way. Therefore all readily define the excellences as insensibility or immobility as regards pleasures and pains, and vices as constituted by the opposites of these. [5]
5 · But since we have assumed that excellence is that sort of habit from which men have a tendency to do the best actions, and through which they are in the best disposition towards what is best; and best is what is in accordance with right reason, and this is the mean between excess and defect relative to us; it would follow [10] that moral excellence is a mean relative to each individual himself, and is concerned with certain means in pleasures and pains, in the pleasant and the painful. The mean will sometimes be in pleasures (for there too is excess and defect), sometimes in pains, sometimes in both. For he who is excessive in his feeling of delight exceeds [15] in the pleasant, but he who exceeds in his feeling of pain, in the painful—and this either absolutely or with reference to some standard, e.g. when he differs from the majority of men; but the good man feels as he ought. But since there is a habit in consequence of which its possessor will in some cases admit the excess, in others the defect of the same thing, it follows that as these acts are opposed to one another and [20] to the mean, so the habits will also be opposed to one another and to excellence.