The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics) (178 page)

13
     
[1153b]
But further (E) it is agreed that pain is bad and to be avoided; for some pain is without qualification bad, and other pain is bad because it is in some respect an impediment to us. Now the contrary of that which is to be avoided,
qua
something to be avoided and bad, is good. Pleasure, then, is necessarily a good. For the answer of Speusippus, that pleasure is contrary both to pain and to good,
(5)
as the greater is contrary both to the less and to the equal, is not successful; since he would not say that pleasure is essentially just a species of evil.

And (F)
⁴³
if certain pleasures are bad, that does not prevent the chief good from being some pleasure, just as the chief good may be some form of knowledge though certain kinds of knowledge are bad. Perhaps it is even necessary, if each disposition has unimpeded activities,
(10)
that, whether the activity (if unimpeded) of all our dispositions or that of some one of them is happiness, this should be the thing most worthy of our choice; and this activity is pleasure. Thus the chief good would be some pleasure, though most pleasures might perhaps be bad without qualification. And for this reason all men think that the happy life is pleasant and weave pleasure into their ideal of happiness—and reasonably too; for no activity is perfect when it is impeded,
(15)
and happiness is a perfect thing; this is why the happy man needs the goods of the body and external goods, i. e. those of fortune, viz. in order that he may not be impeded in these ways. Those who say that the victim on the rack or the man who falls into great misfortunes is happy if he is good, are, whether they mean to or not, talking nonsense.
(20)
Now because we need fortune as well as other things, some people
think good fortune the same thing as happiness; but it is not that, for even good fortune itself when in excess is an impediment, and perhaps should then be no longer called good fortune; for its limit is fixed by reference to happiness.

And indeed the fact that all things,
(25)
both brutes and men, pursue pleasure is an indication of its being somehow the chief good:

But since no one nature or state either is or is thought the best for all,
(30)
neither do all pursue the same pleasure; yet all pursue pleasure. And perhaps they actually pursue not the pleasure they think they pursue nor that which they would say they pursue, but the same pleasure; for all things have by nature something divine in them. But the bodily pleasures have appropriated the name both because we oftenest steer our course for them and because all men share in them; thus because they alone are familiar,
(35)
men think there are no others.
[1154a]

It is evident also that if pleasure, i. e. the activity of our faculties, is not a good, it will not be the case that the happy man lives a pleasant life; for to what end should he need pleasure, if it is not a good but the happy man may even live a painful life? For pain is neither an evil nor a good,
(5)
if pleasure is not; why then should he avoid it? Therefore, too, the life of the good man will not be pleasanter than that of any one else, if his activities are not more pleasant.

14
     (G)
⁴⁴
With regard to the bodily pleasures, those who say that
some
pleasures are very much to be chosen, viz. the noble pleasures,
(10)
but not the bodily pleasures, i. e. those with which the self-indulgent man is concerned, must consider why, then, the contrary things are bad. For the contrary of bad is good. Are the necessary pleasures good in the sense in which even that which is not bad is good? Or are they good up to a point? Is it that where you have states and processes of which there cannot be too much, there cannot be too much of the corresponding pleasure, and that where there can be too much of the one there can be too much of the other also? Now there can be too much of bodily goods,
(15)
and the bad man is bad by virtue of pursuing the excess, not by virtue of pursuing the necessary pleasures (for
all
men enjoy in some way or other both dainty foods and wines and sexual intercourse, but not all men do so as they ought). The contrary is the case with pain; for he does not avoid the excess of it,
(20)
he avoids it altogether; and this is peculiar to him, for the alternative to excess of pleasure is not pain, except to the man who pursues this excess.

Since we should state not only the truth, but also the cause of error—for this contributes towards producing conviction, since when a reasonable explanation is given of why the false view appears true, this tends to produce belief in the true view—therefore we must state why the bodily pleasures appear the more worthy of choice.
(25)
(
a
) Firstly, then, it is because they expel pain; owing to the excesses of pain that men experience, they pursue excessive and in general bodily pleasure as being a cure for the pain.
(30)
Now curative agencies produce intense feeling—which is the reason why they are pursued—because they show up against the contrary pain. (Indeed pleasure is thought not to be good for these two reasons, as has been said,
⁴⁵
viz. that (
a
) some of them are activities belonging to a bad nature—either congenital, as in the case of a brute, or due to habit, i. e. those of bad men; while (β) others are meant to cure a defective nature, and it is better to be in a healthy state than to be getting into it, but these arise during the process of being made perfect and are therefore only incidentally good.)
[1154b]
(
b
) Further, they are pursued because of their violence by those who cannot enjoy other pleasures. (At all events they go out of their way to manufacture thirsts somehow for themselves. When these are harmless, the practice is irreproachable; when they are hurtful, it is bad.) For they have nothing else to enjoy, and, besides,
(5)
a neutral state is painful to many people because of their nature. For the animal nature is always in travail, as the students of natural science also testify, saying that sight and hearing are painful; but we have become used to this, as they maintain. Similarly, while, in youth, people are, owing to the growth that is going on, in a situation like that of drunken men, and youth is pleasant,
⁴⁶
on the other hand people of excitable nature
⁴⁷
always need relief; for even their body is ever in torment owing to its special composition,
(10)
and they are always under the influence of violent desire; but pain is driven out both by the contrary pleasure, and by any chance pleasure if it be strong; and for these reasons they become self-indulgent and bad.
(15)
But the pleasures that do not involve pains do not admit of excess; and these are among the things pleasant by nature and not incidentally. By things pleasant incidentally I mean those that act as cures (for because as a result people are cured, through some action of the part that remains healthy, for this reason the process is thought pleasant); by things naturally pleasant I mean those that stimulate the action of the healthy nature.

There is no one thing that is always pleasant,
(20)
because our nature is not simple but there is another element in us as well, inasmuch as we are perishable creatures, so that if the one element does something, this is unnatural to the other nature, and when the two elements are evenly balanced, what is done seems neither painful nor pleasant; for if the nature of anything were simple,
(25)
the same action would always be most pleasant to it. This is why God always enjoys a single and simple pleasure; for there is not only an activity of movement but an activity of immobility, and pleasure is found more in rest than in movement. But ‘change in all things is sweet’, as the poet says, because of some vice; for as it is the vicious man that is changeable,
(30)
so the nature that needs change is vicious; for it is not simple nor good.

We have now discussed continence and incontinence, and pleasure and pain, both what each is and in what sense some of them are good and others bad; it remains to speak of friendship.

¹
Il
. xxiv. 258 f.

²
Ch. 5.

³
Bks. II–V.

⁴
Pl.
Prot.
352
B, C
.

⁵
1140
^b
4–6.

⁶
1141
^b
16, 1142
^a
24.

⁷
1144
^b
30–1145
^a
2.

⁸
ll. 895–916.

⁹
i. e., if I am to be able to deduce from (
a
) ‘dry food is good for all men’ that ‘this food is good for me’, I must have (
b
) the premiss ‘I am a man’ and (
c
) the premisses (i) ‘
x
food is dry’, (ii) ‘this food is
x
’. I cannot fail to know (
b
), and I may know (
c
i); but if I do not know (
c
ii), or know it only ‘at the back of my my mind’, I shall not draw the conclusion.

¹⁰
i. e. in scientific reasoning.

¹¹
i. e. determines action (Cf.
^b
10).

¹²
Cf.
^a
10–24.

¹³
1145
^b
22–24.

¹⁴
Even before the minor premiss of the practical syllogism has been obscured by passion, the incontinent man has not scientific knowledge in the strict sense, since his minor premiss is not universal but has for its subject a sensible particular, e. g. ‘this glass of wine’.

¹⁵
III. 10.

¹⁶
i. e. the definition appropriate to him was not ‘rational animal’ but ‘rational animal who won the boxing contest at Olympia in 456
B. C
.’

¹⁷
i. e. the temperate and the self-indulgent, not the continent and the incontinent.

¹⁸
1147
^b
23–31, where, however, the ‘contraries’ are not mentioned.

¹⁹
Nothing is really known about the Satyrus referred to, but Prof. Burnet’s suggestion that he was a king of Bosporus who deified his father seems probable.

²⁰
Answering to (2
c
).

²¹
sc.
and the bull. But Cf. 1149
^a
14.

²²
Answering to (2
a
).

²³
Answering to (2
b
).

²⁴
Il
. xiv. 214, 217.

²⁵
1148
^b
15–31.

²⁶
And therefore cannot be called self-indulgent properly, but
can
be so called by a metaphor.

²⁷
III. 10.

²⁸
In ll. 19–25.

²⁹
Not softness proper, which is non-deliberate avoidance of pain (ll. 13–15).

^30
a
21.

³¹
1146
^a
31-
^b
2.

³²
i. e. the assumptions of the existence of the primary objects of mathematics, such as the straight line or the unit.

³³
1146
^a
16–31.

³⁴
1144
^a
11-
^b
32.

³⁵
1144
^a
23-
^b
4.

³⁶
1104
^b
8–1105
^a
13.

³⁷
makarios
from
mala chairein!

³⁸
(A) is the answer to (1
a
) and (3).

³⁹
Answer to (2
b
) and (1
d
).

⁴⁰
Answer to (1
e
).

⁴¹
Answer to (1
b
), (1
c
), (1
f
).

⁴²
1152
^b
26–1153
^a
7.

⁴³
Answer to (2
a
).

⁴⁴
Answer to (2).

⁴⁵
1152
^b
26–33.

⁴⁶
i. e. the growth or replenishment that is going on produces exhilaration and pleasure.

⁴⁷
Lit., melancholic people, those characterized by an excess of black bile.

1
     
[1155a]
After what we have said, a discussion of friendship would naturally follow, since it is a virtue or implies virtue,
(5)
and is besides most necessary with a view to living. For without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods; even rich men and those in possession of office and of dominating power are thought to need friends most of all; for what is the use of such prosperity without the opportunity of beneficence, which is exercised chiefly and in its most laudable form towards friends? Or how can prosperity be guarded and preserved without friends? The greater it is,
(10)
the more exposed is it to risk. And in poverty and in other misfortunes men think friends are the only refuge. It helps the young, too, to keep from error; it aids older people by ministering to their needs and supplementing the activities that are failing from weakness; those in the prime of life it stimulates to noble actions—‘two going together’
¹
—for with friends men are more able both to think and to act.
(15)
Again, parent seems by nature to feel it for offspring and offspring for parent, not only among men but among birds and among most animals; it is felt mutually by members of the same race,
(20)
and especially by men, whence we praise lovers of their fellowmen. We may see even in our travels how near and dear every man is to every other. Friendship seems too to hold states together, and lawgivers to care more for it than for justice; for unanimity seems to be something like friendship, and this they aim
at most of all, and expel faction as their worst enemy; and when men are friends they have no need of justice,
(25)
while when they are just they need friendship as well, and the truest form of justice is thought to be a friendly quality.

But it is not only necessary but also noble; for we praise those who love their friends, and it is thought to be a fine thing to have many friends; and again we think it is the same people that are good men and are friends.
(30)

Not a few things about friendship are matters of debate. Some define it as a kind of likeness and say like people are friends, whence come the sayings ‘like to like’, ‘birds of a feather flock together’,
(35)
and so on; others on the contrary say ‘two of a trade never agree’.
[1155b]
On this very question they inquire for deeper and more physical causes, Euripides saying that ‘parched earth loves the rain, and stately heaven when filled with rain loves to fall to earth’, and Heraclitus that ‘it is what opposes that helps’ and ‘from different tones comes the fairest tune’ and ‘all things are produced through strife’; while Empedocles,
(5)
as well as others, expresses the opposite view that like aims at like. The physical problems we may leave alone (for they do not belong to the present inquiry); let us examine those which are human and involve character and feeling,
(10)
e. g. whether friendship can arise between any two people or people cannot be friends if they are wicked, and whether there is one species of friendship or more than one. Those who think there is only one because it admits of degrees have relied on an inadequate indication; for even things different in species admit of degree.
(15)
We have discussed this matter previously.