5

2

Both incontinence and continence imply something beyond the average character of men; for the one is more steadfast than most men can be, the other less.

Of the several kinds of incontinence, that of the melancholic temper is more curable than that of those who make resolutions but do not keep them, and that which proceeds from custom than that which rests on natural infirmity: it is easier to alter one's habit than to change one's nature. For the very reason why habits are hard to change is that they are a sort of second nature, as Euenus says

"Train men but long enough to what you will,

And that shall be their nature in the end."

We have now considered the nature of continence and incontinence, of hardiness and softness, and the relation of these types of character to each other.

CHAPTERS 11—14. OF PLEASURE.

now discuss

1 11. The consideration of pleasure and pain also we must falls within the scope of the political philosopher, pleasure. since he has to construct the end by reference to about it. which we call everything good or bad.

3

Moreover, this is one of the subjects we are bound to discuss; for we said that moral virtue and vice have to do with pleasures and pains, and most people say that happiness implies pleasure, which is the reason of the name μακάριος, blessed, from χαίρειν, το rejoice.

Now, (1) some people think that no pleasure' is

Opinions

Answers to arguments against goodness of pleasure. Ambiguity

good, either essentially or accidentally, for they say that good and pleasure are two distinct things; (2) others think that though some pleasures are good most are bad; (3) others, again, think that even though all pleasures be good, yet it is impossible that the supreme good can be pleasure.

(1) It is argued that pleasure cannot be good, (a) 4 because all pleasure is a felt transition to a natural state, but a transition or process is always generically different from an end, e.g. the process of building is generically different from a house; (b) because the temperate man avoids pleasures; (c) because the prudent man pursues the painless, not the pleasant; (d) because pleasures impede thinking, and that in proportion to their intensity (for instance, the sexual pleasures: no one engaged therein could think at all); (e) because there is no art of pleasure, and yet every good thing has an art devoted to its production; (ƒ) because pleasure is the pursuit of children and brutes.

(2) It is argued that not all pleasures are good, 5 because some are base and disgraceful, and even hurtful; for some pleasant things are unhealthy.

(3) It is argued that pleasure is not the supreme good, because it is not an end, but a process or

transition.

12. These, then, we may take to be the current 1 opinions on the subject; but that it does not follow therefrom that pleasure is not good, or even the

of good and highest good, may be shown as follows.

pleasant.

Pleasure not

a transition, but unim

In the first place, since "good" is used in two senses ("good in itself" and "relatively good "), natures and faculties will be called good in two

2

senses, and so also will motions and processes: and when they are called bad, this sometimes means that they are bad in themselves, though for particular persons not bad but desirable; sometimes that they are bad in themselves and not desirable even for particular persons, though desirable occasionally and for a little time; while some of them are not even pleasures, though they seem to be-I mean those that involve pain and are used medicinally, such as those of sick people.

In the second place, since the term good may be applied both to activities and to faculties, those activities that restore us to our natural faculties [or state] are accidentally pleasant.

*

But in the satisfaction of the animal appetites that which is active is [not that part which is in want, but] the rest of our faculties or of our nature; for there are pleasures which involve no previous pain or appetite, such as the activity of philosophic study, wherein our nature is not conscious of any want.

This is corroborated by the fact that while our natural wants are being filled we do not take delight in the same things which delight us when that process has been completed: when the want has been filled we take delight in things that are pleasant in themselves, while it is being filled in their opposites; for we then take delight in sharp and bitter things, none of which are naturally pleasant or pleasant in them

* Cf. infra, 14, 7. I have frequently in this chapter rendered is by faculty, in order to express the opposition to evépyela, activity or exercise of faculty; but no single word is satisfactory.

R

selves. The pleasures, then, which these things give are not real pleasures; for pleasures are related to one another as the things that produce them.

Again, it does not necessarily follow, as some 3 maintain, that there is something else better than pleasure, as the end is better than the process or transition to the end: for a pleasure is not a transition, nor does it always even imply a transition; but it is an activity [or exercise of faculty], and itself an end: further, it is not in becoming something, but in doing something that we feel pleasure: and, lastly, the end is not always something different from the process or transition, but it is only when something is being brought to the completion of its nature that this is the case.

For these reasons it is not proper to say that pleasure is a felt transition, but rather that it is an exercise of faculties that are in their natural state, substituting "unimpeded" for "felt."

Some people, indeed, think that pleasure is a transition, just because it is in the full sense good, supposing that the exercise of faculty is a transition; but it is in fact something different.*

To urge, again, that some pleasures are bad, because 4 some pleasant things are unhealthy, is like arguing that some things that are healthy are bad for money making. Both indeed are bad in this sense, but that

*The argument in full would be thus: pleasure is good; but good is exercise of faculty (èvépyeιa), and this is a process or transition (yéveσis); .. pleasure is a transition. But according to Aristotle the highest évépyeta involves no transition or motion at all (cf. 14, 8), and in every true èvépycia, even when a transition is involved, the end is attained at every moment. Cf. Met. ix. 6. 1048.

does not make them bad in themselves: even philosophic study is sometimes bad for one's health.

As to pleasure being an impediment to thinking, the fact is that neither prudence nor any other faculty is impeded by the pleasure proper to its exercise, but by other pleasures; the pleasure derived from study and learning will make us study and learn more.

That there should be no art devoted to the production of any kind of pleasure, is but natural; for art never produces an activity, but only makes it possible: the arts of perfumery and cookery, however, are usually considered to be arts of pleasure.

As to the arguments that the temperate man avoids pleasure, that the prudent man pursues the painless life, and that children and brutes pursue pleasure, they may all be met in the same way, viz. thus:

As we have already explained in what sense all pleasures are to be called good in themselves, and in what sense not good, we need only say that pleasures of a certain kind are pursued by brutes and by children, and that freedom from the corresponding pains is pursued by the prudent man—the pleasures, namely, that involve appetite and pain, i.e. the bodily pleasures (for these do so), and excess in them, the deliberate pursuit of which constitutes the profligate. These pleasures, then, the temperate man avoids; but he has pleasures of his own.

good, and

that consists

13. But all admit that pain is a bad thing and Pleasure is undesirable; partly bad in itself, partly bad as in the pleasure some sort an impediment to activity. But that which in the is opposed to what is undesirable, in that respect in activity is

highest