believe themselves to be good[1]: 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:1096a and the man who should live thus no one would call happy, except for mere disputation’s sake[2]
And for these let thus much suffice, for they have been treated of at sufficient length in my Encyclia.[3]
A third line of life is that of contemplation, concerning which we shall make our examination in the sequel.[4]
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[5]. So much then for these.
VI
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 inquiry is unpleasant, because they are friends of ours who have introduced these εἴδη. 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
- ↑ P. 6. l. 1. Or “prove themselves good,” as in the Prior Analytics, ii. 25, ἄπαντα πιστεύομεν κ. τ. λ.: but the other rendering is supported by a passage in Book VIII. chap. ix. ὁι δ’ὑπὸ τῶν ἐπιεικῶν καὶ εἰδότων ὀρεγόμενοι τιμῆς βεβαιῶσαι τὴν οἰκείαν δόξαν ἐφίενται περὶ αὐτῶν. χαίρουσι δὴ ὄτι εἰσὶν ἀγαθοί, πιστεύοντες τῆ τῶν λεγόντων κρίσει.
- ↑ P. 6, l. 11. θέσις meant originally some paradoxical statement by any philosopher of name enough to venture on one, but had come to mean any dialectical question. Topics, I. chap. ix.
- ↑ P. 6, l. 13. A lost work, supposed to have been so called, because containing miscellaneous questions.
- ↑ P. 6, l. 15. It is only quite at the close of the treatise that Aristotle refers to this, and allows that θεωρία constitutes the highest happiness because it is the exercise of the highest faculty in man: the reason of thus deferring the statement being that till the lower, that is the moral, nature has been reduced to perfect order, θεωρία cannot have place; though, had it been held out from the first, men would have been for making the experiment at once, without the trouble of self-discipline.
- ↑ P. 6, l. 22. Or, as some think, “many theories have been founded on them.”
