The Politics of Aristotle

by Aristotle

  1399 · Here one might raise a question. One can use each thing both for its natural purpose and otherwise, and either per se or again per accidens, as, for instance, one might use the eye for seeing, and also for falsely seeing by squinting, [30] so that one thing appears as two. Both these uses are due to the eye being an eye, but it was possible to use the eye in another way—per accidens, e.g. if one could sell or eat it.100 Knowledge may be used similarly; it is possible to use it truly or to do what is wrong, e.g. when a man voluntarily writes incorrectly, thus using knowledge as ignorance, like a person using his hand as a foot—dancing-girls sometimes use the [35] foot as a hand and the hand as a foot. If, then, all the excellences are kinds of knowledge, one might use justice also as injustice, and so one would be unjust and do unjust actions from justice, as ignorant things may be done from knowledge. But [1246b1] if this is impossible, it is clear that the excellences are not species of knowledge. And even if ignorance cannot proceed from knowledge, but only error and the doing of the same things as proceed from ignorance, it must be remembered that from justice one will not act as from injustice. But since practical wisdom is knowledge [5] and something true, it may behave like knowledge; one might act foolishly though possessed of wisdom, and commit the errors of the foolish. But if the use of each thing as such were single, then in so acting men would still be acting wisely. Over other kinds of knowledge, then, there is something superior that diverts them; but how can there be any knowledge that diverts the highest knowledge of all? There is [10] no longer any knowledge to do this. But neither can excellence do it, for wisdom uses that; for the excellence of the ruling part uses that of the subject. Then what will it be? Perhaps the position is like that of incontinence, which is said to be a vice of the irrational part of the soul, and the incontinent man who has reason but is [15] intemperate. But if so, supposing appetite to be strong it will twist him and he will draw the opposite conclusion. Or is it obvious101 that if there is excellence in the irrational part, but ignorance in the rational, they are transformed? Thus it will be possible to use justice unjustly102 and badly, and wisdom foolishly—and therefore the opposite uses will also be possible. For it is absurd that vice occurring sometimes [20] in the irrational part should twist the excellence in the rational part and make the man ignorant, but that excellence in the irrational part, when ignorance is present in the rational, should not divert the latter and make the man judge wisely and as is right, and again, wisdom in the rational part should not make the intemperance in the irrational part act temperately. This seems the very essence of continence. And [25] therefore we shall also get wise action arising out of ignorance. But all these consequences are absurd, especially that of acting wisely out of ignorance, for we certainly do not see this in any other case, e.g. intemperance does not pervert one’s medical or grammatical knowledge. But at any rate we may say that not103 [30] ignorance, if opposite, (for it has no superiority), but excellence is rather related in this way to vice in general. For whatever the just man can do, the unjust can do; and in general powerlessness is covered by power. And so it is clear that wisdom and excellence go together, and that those are states of someone else,104 and the Socratic saying that nothing is stronger than wisdom is right. But when Socrates said this of knowledge he was wrong. For wisdom is an excellence and not a species of [35] knowledge, but another kind of cognition. . . .105

  14 · But since not only wisdom and excellence produce well-doing, but we say also that the fortunate do well, thus assuming that good fortune produces well-doing and the same results as knowledge, we must inquire whether it is or is not [1247a1] by nature that one man is fortunate, another not, and what is the truth about these things. For that there are fortunate men we see, who though foolish are often successful in matters controlled by fortune. Again, in matters involving art, chance [5] too largely enters, e.g. strategy and navigation. Does their success, then, arise from some mental condition, or do they effect fortunate results not because of their own qualities at all (at present men take the latter view, regarding them as having some special natural endowment); does nature, rather, make men with different qualities [10] so that they differ from birth; as some are blue-eyed and some black-eyed because they have some particular part of a particular nature,106 so are some lucky and others unlucky? For that they do not succeed through wisdom is clear, for wisdom is not irrational but can give a reason why it acts as it does; but they could not say why they succeed; that would be art. Further, it is clear that they succeed though foolish, [15] and not about other things—that would not be strange at all, e.g. Hippocrates was a geometer, but in other respects was thought silly and foolish, and once on a voyage was robbed of much money by the customs-collectors at Byzantium, owing to his silliness, as we are told—but foolish in the very business in which they are lucky. [20] For in navigation not the cleverest are the most fortunate, but it is as in throwing dice, where one throws nothing, another throws a high score, according to his natural luck. Or is it because he is loved, as the phrase is, by a god, success being something coming from without, as a worse-built vessel often sails better, not owing [25] to itself but because it has a good pilot? So, the fortunate man has a good pilot, namely, the divinity. But it is absurd that a god or divinity should love such a man and not the best and most wise of men. If, then, success must be due either to nature or intelligence or some sort of protection, and the latter two causes are out of the [30] question, then the fortunate must be so by nature. But, on the other hand, nature is the cause of what is always or for the most part so, fortune the opposite. If, then, it is thought that unexpected success is due to chance, but that, if it is through chance that one is fortunate, the cause of his fortune is not the sort of cause that produces always or usually the same result—further, if a person succeeds or fails because he [35] is a certain sort of man, just as a man sees badly because he is blue-eyed, then it follows that not fortune but nature is the cause; the man then is not fortunate but rather naturally gifted. So we must say that the people we call fortunate are not so through fortune; therefore they are not fortunate, for those goods only are in the [1247b1] disposal of fortune of which good fortune is the cause.

  But if this is so, shall we say that fortune does not exist at all, or that it exists but is not a cause? No, it must both exist and be a cause. It will, then, also cause good or evil to certain people. But whether it is to be wholly removed, and we ought [5] to say that nothing happens by chance, but do say that chance is a cause simply because, though there is some other cause, we do not see it (and therefore, in defining chance, some make it a cause incalculable to human reasoning, taking it to be a genuine reality)—this would be matter for another inquiry. But since we see people who are fortunate once only, why should they not be fortunate a second [10] time? Because they succeed once, they do so again. The cause is the same. Then this cannot be a matter of chance. But when the same event follows from indefinite and undetermined antecedents, it will be good or evil, but there will not be the science that comes by experience of it, since otherwise some would have learned to be lucky, [15] or even—as Socrates said—all the sciences would have been kinds of good luck. What, then, prevents such things happening to a man often in succession, not because they should, but as, say, dice might continually throw a lucky number? But again, are there not in the soul impulses, some from reason and others from [20] irrational desire, the latter being the earlier? For if the desire arising from appetite for the pleasant is natural, everything would by nature march towards the good. If, then, some have a natural endowment—as musical107 people, though they have not learned to sing, are fortunately endowed in this way—and move without reason in the direction108 given them by their nature, and desire that which they ought at the [25] time and in the manner they ought, such men are successful, even if they are foolish and irrational, just as the others will sing109 well though not able to teach singing. And such men are fortunate, namely those who generally succeed without the aid of reason. Men, then,
who are fortunate will be so by nature. Perhaps, however, ‘good fortune’ is a phrase with several senses. For some things are done from impulse and [30] are due to choice, and others not, but the opposite; and if, in the former cases, they succeed where they seem to have reasoned badly, we say that they have been lucky; and again, in the latter cases, if they wished for a different good than they got.110 Men who are lucky in the former way, then, may be fortunate by nature, for the [35] impulse and the desire was for the right object and succeeded, but the reasoning was silly; and people in this case, when it happens that their reasoning seems incorrect but desire is the cause of their reasoning, are saved by the rightness of their desire;111 but on another occasion a man reasons again in this way owing to appetite and turns out unfortunate.

  But in the other cases how can the good luck be due to a natural goodness in [248a1] desire and appetite? But surely the good fortune and chance spoken of here and in the other case are the same, or else there is more than one sort of good fortune, and chance is of two kinds.112 But since we see some men lucky contrary to all knowledge and right reasonings, it is clear that the cause of luck must be something different from these. But is it luck or not by which113 a man desires what and when he ought, [5] though for him114 human reasoning could not lead to this? For that is not altogether unreasonable, nor is the desire natural, though it is misled by something. The man, then, is thought to have good luck, because luck is the cause of things contrary to reason, and this is contrary to reason (for it is contrary to knowledge and the [10] universal). But probably it does not spring from chance, but seems so for the above reason. So that this argument shows not that good luck is due to nature, but that not all who seem to be lucky are successful owing to chance, but rather owing to nature; nor does it show that fortune is not the cause of anything, but only not of all [15] that it seems to be the cause of. This, however, one might question: whether fortune is the cause of just this, viz. desiring what and when one ought. But will it not in this case be the cause of everything, even of thought and deliberation? For one does not deliberate after previous deliberation which itself presupposed deliberation, but there is some starting-point; nor does one think after thinking previously to [20] thinking, and so ad infinitum. Thought, then, is not the starting-point of thinking nor deliberation of deliberation. What, then, can be the starting-point except chance? Thus everything would come from chance. Perhaps there is a starting-point with none other outside it, and this can act in this sort of way by being such as it is. The object of our search is this—what is the commencement of movement in the [25] soul? The answer is clear: as in the universe, so in the soul, it is god. For in a sense the divine element in us moves everything. The starting-point of reasoning is not reasoning, but something greater. What, then, could be greater even than knowledge and intellect but god? For excellence is an instrument of the intellect. And for this reason, as I said a while ago,115 those are called fortunate who, whatever they [30] start on,116 succeed in it without being good at reasoning. And deliberation is of no advantage to them, for they have in them a principle that is better than intellect and deliberation, while the others have not this but have intellect; they have inspiration, but they cannot deliberate. For, though lacking reason, they succeed, and like the prudent and wise, their divination is speedy; and we must mark off as included in it [35] all but the judgement that comes from reasoning;117 in some cases it is due to experience, in others to habituation in the use of reflection; and both experience and habituation use god. This quality sees well the future and the present, and these118 are the men in whom the reasoning-power is relaxed. Hence we have the melancholic men, the dreamers of what is true. For the moving principle seems to become stronger when the reasoning-power is relaxed. So the blind remember [1248b1] better, being freed from concern with the visible, since their memory is stronger. It is clear, then, that there are two kinds of good luck, the one divine—and so the lucky seem to succeed owing to god—, the other natural. Men of this sort seem to succeed [5] in following their impulse, the others to succeed contrary to their impulse; both are irrational, but the one is persistent good luck, the other not.

  15 · About each excellence by itself we have already spoken; now since we have distinguished their natures separately, we must describe clearly the excellence [10] that arises out of the combination of them, what we have already called nobility-and-goodness. That he who truly deserves this denomination must have the separate excellences is clear; it cannot be otherwise with other things either, for no one is healthy in his entire body and yet healthy in no part of it, but the most numerous [15] and important parts, if not all, must be in the same condition as the whole. Now goodness and nobility-and-goodness differ not only in name but also in themselves. For all goods have ends which are to be chosen for their own sake. Of these, we call [20] noble those which, existing all of them for their own sake, are praised. For these are those which are the source of praised acts and are themselves praised, such as justice itself and just acts; also temperate acts,119 for temperance is praised, but health is not praised, for its effect is not; nor vigorous action, for vigour is not. These [25] are good but not praised. Induction makes this clear about the rest, too. A good man, then, is one for whom the natural goods are good. For the goods men fight for and think the greatest—honour, wealth, bodily excellences, good fortune, and [30] power—are naturally good, but may be to some hurtful because of their dispositions. For neither the foolish nor the unjust nor the intemperate would get any good from the employment of them, any more than an invalid from the food of a healthy man, or one weak and maimed from the equipment of one in health and sound in all limbs. A man is noble and good because those goods which are noble are possessed [35] by him for themselves, and because he practises the noble and for its own sake, the noble being the excellences and the acts that proceed from excellence. There is also the civic disposition, such as the Laconians have, and others like them might have; its nature would be something like this—there are some who think one should have excellence but only for the sake of the natural goods, and so such men are good (for [1249a1] the natural goods are good for them), but they have not nobility and goodness. For it is not true of them that they acquire the noble for itself, that they choose acts good and noble at once120—more than this, that what is not noble by nature but good by [5] nature is noble to them; for objects are noble when a man’s motives for acting and choosing them are noble, because to the noble and good man the naturally good is noble—for what is just is noble, justice is proportion to merit, and he merits these things; or what is fitting is noble, and to him these things—wealth, high birth, and [10] power—are fitting. So that to the noble and good man things profitable are also noble; but to the many the profitable and the noble do not coincide, for things absolutely good are not good for them as they are for the good man; to the noble and good man they are also noble, for he does many noble deeds by reason of them.121 But the man [15] who thinks he ought to have the excellences for the sake of external goods does deeds that are noble only per accidens. Nobility and goodness, then, is perfect excellence.

  About pleasure, too, we have spoken, what it is and in what sense good; we have said that the absolutely pleasant is also noble, and the absolutely good pleasant. But pleasure only arises in action; therefore the truly happy man will also live most pleasantly: that this should be so is no idle demand of man. [20]

  But since the doctor has a standard by reference to which he distinguishes what is healthy for the body from what is not, and with reference to which each thing up to a certain point ought to be done and is healthy,122 while if less or more is done health is the result no longer, so in regard to actions and choice of what is naturally good but not praiseworthy, the good man should have a standard both of disposition and of choice and avoidance with regard to excess or deficiency of [1249b1] wealth and good fortune, the standard being—as above said—as reason directs; this corresponds to saying in regard to diet that the standard shou
ld be as medical science and its reason direct. But this, though true, is not illuminating. One must, [5] then, here as elsewhere, live with reference to the ruling principle and with reference to the formed habit and123 the activity of the ruling principle, as the slave must live with reference to that of the master, and each of us by the rule proper to him. But since man is by nature composed of a ruling and a subject part, each of us [10] should live according to the governing element within himself—but this is ambiguous, for medical science governs in one sense, health in another, the former existing for the latter. And so it is with the theoretic faculty; for god is not an imperative ruler, but is the end with a view to which wisdom issues its commands (the word ‘end’ is ambiguous, and has been distinguished elsewhere), for god needs nothing. [15] What choice, then, or possession of the natural goods—whether bodily goods, wealth, friends, or other things—will most produce the contemplation of god, that choice or possession is best; this is the noblest standard, but any that through deficiency or excess hinders one from the contemplation and service of god is bad; [20] this a man possesses in his soul, and this is the best standard for the soul—to perceive the irrational part of the soul, as such, as little as possible.