§1.4.1. If we suppose that living well and being happy are identical, will we in that case be endowing other living beings with these, too?1 For if it is natural for them to live their lives without impediment, what prevents us from saying that they also live well?25 Also, whether one supposes that living well is being in a good state or performing the function appropriate to oneself, both alternatives will apply to other living beings as well.3 For it would be possible to be in a good state or to perform one’s function by nature; for example, musically disposed animals, who are otherwise in a good state, certainly sing naturally, and10 have a life that is in this respect choice-worthy for them.
So, if we suppose that being happy is a certain goal,4 that is, the ultimate goal of natural desire,5 we would in that case be endowing with happiness those who achieve this ultimate goal, where, for those who arrive there, the nature within them rests having been present their entire life and15 having been fulfilled from beginning to end. Someone might disapprove of extending happiness to other living beings – for to do this is to endow with happiness even the basest living beings,6 and plants, too, since they are themselves alive, that is, they have a life that also unfolds in the direction of a goal.
But, first, will it not seem absurd20 for him to be saying that other living beings do not live well because they do not seem to be worth much to him? And one would not be forced to attribute to plants that which one attributes to living beings in general, because they have no sense-perception.7 And then, one might include plants if indeed they are alive, too; there is life that is good and life that is25 the opposite, which in the case of plants is being in a good state or not, for example, bearing fruit or not bearing fruit.8 If, then, pleasure is the goal and living well consists in this,9 it is absurd for someone to deny that other living beings live well. If freedom from disturbance is the goal, the same applies.10 And it applies to ‘living according to nature’ if one were to say that this is living well.11
§1.4.2. Those who do not include plants because they do not have sense-perception will by that token risk not including all living beings,12 for if they say that sense-perception is this – being not unaware of one’s state – then the state should be good prior to5 being aware.13 For example, being in a natural state is good even if one is not aware of being in that state, and similarly being in one’s proper state, even if one is not yet cognizant that it is proper and that it is pleasurable – for it should be pleasurable. So, if the state is good and it is present, that which has it is thereby living well. So, why should we add sense-perception? We should not, unless in response they attribute good not to a state or10 condition that has come to be, but to the cognizance, or sense-perception, of this.
But if they say this, they will be saying that it is the sense-perception itself that is good, that is, the actuality of the perceptual life regardless of what things are apprehended. But if they attribute good to the combination of both, so that it is the sense-perception of a certain type of object,15 how can they say that the combination is good when each member of the combination is neutral? But if it is the state that is good, and living well is the condition wherein someone is cognizant that the good is present to him, we should ask them if such a one lives well just by being cognizant that this is actually present to him, or if he should also be cognizant not only that its presence is pleasurable but that it is good, too.
But if he must be cognizant that it is20 the good, living well is at once no longer the function of sense-perception but of an ability different from and greater than sense-perception. So, living well will not belong to those who are experiencing pleasure, but to one who has the ability to recognize that the good is pleasure. But then the cause of living well will actually not be pleasure, but being able to discern that pleasure is good. And25 that which does the discerning is better than that which is in the state, for that is reason or intellect whereas pleasure is a state, and nowhere is the non-rational superior to reason.
How, then, will reason, excluding itself, suppose something else located in a contrary genus to be superior to it? For it seems that those who deny that plants live well and those who claim that living well consists in a certain type of sense-perception30 lack awareness that they are seeking living well in something greater and that they are supposing the better life to consist in a life of greater clarity.
Those who say that living well is found in the rational life, not simply in life, nor even perceptual life, would perhaps be correct.14 But it is appropriate35 to ask them why they thus place happiness only in the rational living being: ‘Do you add15 the qualification “rational” because reason is more efficient and more easily able to discover and procure the basic natural needs, or would you still do this even if it were not able to discover or procure these? But if you say this because reason is better able than anything else to discover these, happiness will belong even to living beings40 without reason provided they are able to acquire the basic natural needs. And then reason would become subordinate and would not be choice-worthy in itself, nor in turn would its perfection, which we say is what virtue is.16 But if you say that reason is more honourable not because it is better at meeting the basic natural needs, but because it is desirable in itself,45 you should say what other function it has and what its nature is and what makes it perfect.’
For it should not be contemplation of these basic natural needs that makes it perfect, but something else of another nature that makes it perfect, and it is itself not one of these basic natural needs, nor does it come from the source from which these basic50 natural needs arise, nor, generally, is it of this kind, but it is better than all these. In fact, I do not see how they will account for its being honourable. But until they find a nature better than those things at which they are now stopping, let them remain at this level, where they want to remain, being at a loss to say55 how living well belongs to those capable of attaining this by meeting these basic natural needs.17
§1.4.3. But as for us, let us state from the beginning what we take happiness to be. Having indeed supposed that happiness is something that is found in life,18 if we made ‘living’ univocal in all cases, we would be claiming that all living beings are capable of acquiring happiness, and that those that are5 actually living well are those in which is present some identical thing, something which all living beings are capable of acquiring by nature. In doing this, we would not be endowing rational beings with the ability to live well while denying it to non-rational beings, for life was assumed to be something common to both and something which, by being receptive of the identical thing, was intended to be capable of achieving happiness – if indeed happiness was to be found in any sort of life.
Hence,10 I think that those who say that happiness occurs in a rational life, by supposing that it is not found in life in general, do not realize that they are presuming that being happy is not just living. They would be forced to say that the rational capacity in which happiness consists is a quality of life. But for them, the substrate of this quality was a life that is rational15, for happiness consists in the whole [rationality plus life], so that it consists in some other ‘form’ of life [and not just life]. I mean this not in the sense of a logical distinction within a genus, but in the sense in which we speak of one thing being prior and another being posterior.19
So, the term ‘life’ is spoken of in many ways, differentiated according to the primary way, the secondary way, and20 so on in order. The term ‘living’ is said equivocally, that is, it is said in one way of a plant and in another of a non-rational animal, according to the clarity and dimness of the lives they have.20 Analogously, it is clear that ‘living well’ is said homonymously, too. And if one sense of the term ‘living’ is a reflection of another, it is also clear that one sense of ‘living well’ is a reflection of another.
If, then, living well21 belongs to something living fully –25 meaning to something that is in no way deficient in life – being happy will belong only to one living fully, for the best will belong to this, if indeed that which is really best in life, that is, the perfect life, is something that exists. For in this way, the goodness that exists in happiness would not be something superadded nor will something else from somewhere else30 provide the substrate for its being good. For what, added to a perfect life, would turn it into the best life? But if someone will say that what does this is the nature of the Good,22 that is a congenial argument to us, but now we are not seeking the cause of goodness, but that in which it exists.
It has been said many times that the perfect life and the true and real life is in that intellectual nature35 and that the other sorts of life are imperfect and reflections of life and do not exist perfectly or purely, and are no more lives than the opposite of this.23 And now let it be said summarily that so long as all living beings are from one source and they do not have life in the same way that it does, it is necessary that the source is the primary life, that is, the40 most perfect life.
§1.4.4. If, then, it is possible for a human being to have the perfect life, a human being who has this life is happy. If not, one would suppose happiness to be found among the gods, if such a life is found among them alone. So, since we are now saying that this happiness is found5 among human beings, we should examine how this is so.
What I mean is this: it is clear also from other considerations that the fact that a human being has a perfect life does not mean that he only has a perceptual life, but rather that he has a faculty of calculative reasoning and a genuine intellect as well. But is it the case that he is one thing and this life is another?
In fact, he is not a human being at all if he has10 this neither in potency nor in actuality, where we actually locate happiness. But will we say that he has this perfect form of life in himself as a part of himself?
In fact, one who has it in potency has it as a part, whereas the one who has actually achieved happiness is this in actuality and15 has transformed himself in the direction of being identical with this. Everything else is just something he happens to be wearing, which no one would actually suppose to be a part of him, since he does not want to wear these things. They would be parts of him if they were connected to him according to his will.
So, what is the good for this human being?
In fact, it is, for him, what he possesses. And the transcendent cause of goodness in him24 which is20 good in one way, is present to him in another. Evidence for the fact that this is so is that one who is like this does not seek anything else. What else would he seek? It would, of course, not be something worse; the best is already in him. The way of life of one living in this way, then, is self-sufficient.25 And if he is virtuous, he has what he needs in order to be happy and to possess25 the good, for there is no good that he does not have.
What he seeks he seeks as something necessary, and not for himself but for one of the things that belong to him, for he is seeking something for the body that is attached to him. And even if that body is alive so that what belongs to it belongs to a living being, namely, this body, it does not belong to such a human being. He knows these things [what the body needs] and gives what he gives to it30 without taking anything away from his own life. So, his happiness will not be diminished by adverse fortune, for this sort of life remains as it is. And when relatives and friends are dying, he knows what death is; the dying themselves do, too, if they are virtuous. Even if the dying of relatives and close ones35 causes pain, it does not pain him, but only that in him which is apart from intellect, that whose pains he will not accept.
§1.4.5. What, then, about pains and illnesses and things generally that prevent us from acting? And what if the virtuous were actually not even consciously aware? For this could happen as a result of drugs or illness. How, in all these cases, would one actually be able to live well and be happy? Poverty and5 loss of reputation should be set aside, although with regard to such things, someone might bring up above all the notorious misfortunes of Priam.26 For if he bore them, and even bore them easily, at least he did not will them. But the happy life should be willed.27
Then, they28 might object that the10 virtuous person is not identical with just the soul, given that we are not counting his corporeal nature as part of his substantiality.29 For they might say that they are ready to accept our position so long as states of the body are referred to him and so are his acts of choosing and avoiding arising in him due to the body. But if pleasure is counted as a part of the happy15 life, how could someone be happy who has grief due to misfortunes and pains, even if the person to whom these things were happening were virtuous? On the contrary, [they will say] such a happy and self-sufficient condition belongs to the gods, whereas since human beings have an additional inferior element, it is necessary to look for happiness in the whole that comes to be, and not just in a part.20 If one part is in a bad state, it would force the other and better part to be impeded in its own affairs because the affairs of the other part are not in a good state. If this is not the case, one ought to cut off the body or even the body’s sense-perception and in this way seek the self-sufficiency needed for being happy.
§1.4.6. But if the argument conceded that being happy consists in not suffering or being sick or experiencing bad fortune or falling into great upheavals, it would not be possible for anyone to be happy when any of the contrary states was present. If, however, happiness consists in the5 possession of the true good, why should we set this aside and not look to this in judging the happy person but seek other things which are not counted in being happy? For if happiness were found in a jumble of goods and necessities or even things not necessary, though they are said to be good, one would have to seek to make these10 present, too. But if the goal is some one thing and must not be many – for in that case, one would be seeking not a goal but several goals – one must have that alone which is final and most honourable and which the soul seeks to envelop in itself.30
This search and the will are not for that which does not belong to the final goal. For15 these things are not in the soul’s nature, but since they are merely present, calculative reasoning flees them and manages to get rid of them or seeks to acquire them. The soul’s desire is for that which is better than itself, by which, when it arrives, the soul is satisfied and at rest, and this is really the life that is willed. Will would not be for any of the necessities to be present, if20 one considers ‘will’ in the principal sense, and does not misuse the term as when we do think it worthwhile for these things to be present, too. We do, generally, avoid evils, but this kind of avoidance is not, I suppose, willed. For what is willed is rather not to need this avoidance.31
These necessities25 provide evidence of this whenever they are present, for example, health and absence of pain. What is compelling about these? Indeed, when health is present we have disdain for this, and the same thing goes for the absence of pain. When they are present, they are not compelling nor do they add anything to being happy; but when they are absent, due to the presence of pains, they are sought, reasonably enough, as necessities,30 although we should not say that they are goods.32 So, they should not be counted with the goal, but when they are absent and their contraries are present, the goal must be preserved uncontaminated by them.
§1.4.7. Why, then, does the happy person want these things to be present and avoid their opposites?
In fact, we will say that it is not because of their contribution to being happy, but because of their contribution to existence. They avoid their contraries either because they contribute to non-existence or because they are an impediment to the5 goal when they are present – not in the sense of eliminating it, but because one who has the ideal wants only to have this, not something else along with it, something whose presence does not eliminate the ideal but is nevertheless present along with it. Generally, it is not the case that, if a happy person wants something not to be present, though it is, something of his happiness is diminished.10
In fact, if this were not so, he would alter or diminish in his happiness each day, for example, if he lost a slave or, indeed, any one of his possessions. And there would be thousands of things which turn out other than the way he would have liked, but do not at all displace the goal when it is present to him.
It is, rather, a question of significant matters, they say, not trivial ones. But what would15 significant human matters be such that they are not disdained by one who has ascended to a realm higher than all these and is no longer dependent on anything below? Since he does not think that occurrences of good fortune would be significant, no matter how great they may be – for example, kingship or the rule of states and tribes, or the colonization and20 founding of states, even if that should come about by him – why should he think that the fall from power or the destruction of his state would be something great?33 But if he actually thought that these were great evils, or evil at all, his belief would be ridiculous, and he would no longer be virtuous, thinking that pieces of wood and stone and, by Zeus, the deaths of mortals are great matters – he who,25 we say, ought to hold the belief that death is better than life with a body.34
If he himself should be sacrificed, will he think that his death is evil because he has died at the altars? Even if he is not buried, his body will, I suppose, completely decay whether under the earth or on it. And if he thinks it is a bad thing if he is buried30 anonymously and without lavish expense, not having been thought worthy of a lofty monument, what pettiness! But if he is captured, ‘before you the road is open’35 if it is not possible to be happy. If members of his family are captured, ‘his daughters-in-law and daughters dragged off’,36 well, what would we say if he died not having seen anything like this?35 Would he then exit with the belief that none of these things could possibly occur? That would be absurd. How could he believe that it is not possible that such things should befall his family? If this is so, then, why would he believe that, if such things should occur, he would not be happy?
In fact, even while believing these things he is happy,40 so he is happy when they actually happen, too. For he would know in his heart that the nature of this universe is such that it brings with it such events, and it is necessary that we submit. And, anyhow, many people will actually act better having become prisoners.37 And if they are oppressed by this, they can depart this life. If they remain, they either do so reasonably and there is nothing frightening in this, or they do so unreasonably45 when they should not, and they are responsible. For it is actually not because of the folly of others, even relatives, that he will fall into evil, nor is it on the good and bad fortunes of others that he will depend.
§1.4.8. And as for his own sufferings, when they are excessive, so long as he is able to bear them, he will bear them. But when they are unbearable, they will take him away.38 And his suffering will not be pitiable, but the light in him will continue to shine like the light of a lantern when the wind is5 blowing outside in a great fierceness of rain and winter storm.39 But what if he loses conscious awareness or the suffering continues to increase so that, though it is excessive, it does not kill him? If it continues, he will consider what he must do, for his autonomy would not be removed in these circumstances. It is necessary to realize that such things do not10 appear to the virtuous person as they appear to others, and that none of these nor any other things reaches the interior of this person, neither sufferings nor pains.
And when pains strike others? Granted, there would be a susceptibility in our soul. And evidence of this is that we think it a gain if the suffering of others is concealed from us and,15 should we die first, we think it a gain to have died first, not considering the suffering of those left behind, but only the fact that an end is brought to our own. And right here is where our susceptibility lies, something we should eliminate, but not allowing ourselves to be afraid lest they come to pass. If someone were to say that it is our nature to be like this, so as to be pained at the20 upheavals of our family, let it be acknowledged that not everyone is like this, and anyway that, contrary to the many, it belongs to virtue to lead that which is common to our nature to the better and more beautiful. And it is more beautiful not to give in to those things commonly considered to be fearful. For one should not ward off amateurishly the blows of chance but25 be ready like a great athlete who knows it is in the nature of some to find these things intolerable, whereas for him they are bearable and unthreatening rather like the things that frighten a child. Does he, then, want these things?
In fact, even when things he does not want are present, he faces them with virtue, which makes his soul30 hard to be moved or affected.
§1.4.9. But what about when the virtuous person has lost conscious awareness having been overwhelmed either by sickness or by magic crafts? But if they will maintain that he is virtuous in this state and in a way like someone asleep, what prevents him from being happy?40 Well, they do not5 deny him happiness when he is asleep or argue away this time and say that he was not happy for his entire life. But if they will say that he is not virtuous, they are no longer making the argument about the virtuous person. We, however, suppose him to be virtuous and are considering if he is happy, so long as he is virtuous.
10 Then let him be virtuous, they say. If he is neither perceiving this nor acting according to virtue, how would he be happy? But if he does not perceive that he is healthy, he is nonetheless healthy, and if he does not perceive that he is handsome, he is nonetheless handsome. If, though, he does not perceive that he is wise, would he be any the less wise? He would be, I suppose, unless someone were to say that15 perceiving must be part of wisdom, and that conscious awareness must be present to him; for being happy resides in the actualization of wisdom.
This argument, then, would perhaps be asserting something reasonable if practical wisdom and wisdom were things added from outside. But if the real existence of wisdom is in some substance or, rather, in the substantiality of the person, the substantiality itself is20 not destroyed in one who is asleep or, generally, in a state where he lacks what is called conscious awareness. The very activity of the substance is in him, and since such activity has nothing to do with sleeping, he would be active and, insofar as he is like this, at that time virtuous. The activity itself would not elude him completely, but only some25 part of him. For example, in the case of the activity of the faculty of growth, an apprehension of this activity does not come to the rest of the human being through the faculty of sense-perception. Yet if we were indeed our faculty of growth, we would be active. As it is, this is not what we are; we are the activity of thinking such that30 when that is acting, we are acting.
§1.4.10. Perhaps we are not aware of the activity of thinking because it does not concern anything sensible. For it seems that sense-perception is like an intermediary in regard to sensibles when the activity of thinking is about them, too. But why will the intellect itself not be active along with the soul that attends it – the soul which is prior to sense-perception and to self-awareness generally?5 For the result of the act should be prior to apprehension if indeed it is the case that ‘thinking and Being are identical’.41 And the apprehension would seem to exist or to occur when the thought bends back upon itself and the activity which is the life of the soul is in a way reflected back just as in a mirror which has a smooth, bright, and10 still surface.42
In these circumstances, then, when the mirror is present, the image occurs, but when it is not present or the circumstances are not right, that of which the image is an image is still present. In the same way, for the soul, too, when this sort of thing in us in which images of discursive thinking and of intellect are reflected is still, they are seen and, in a way, like sense-perception, known with the15 prior knowledge that it is intellect and discursive thinking that are active. But when this situation is shattered by a disturbance in the harmony of the body, discursive thinking and intellect think without an image and then there is intellection without imagination. So, thinking comes to be in this way when something20 is thought with imagination, even though thinking itself is not imagination.43
Someone could find that when we are awake there are many beautiful activities, types of contemplation, and actions such that when we theorize and when we act, they do not make us consciously aware of them. For it is not necessary for one who is reading to be25 consciously aware that he is reading – indeed, it is especially then that he reads intently. Nor is the man consciously aware that he is being brave and that he is acting according to bravery when he is acting. And there are thousands of other cases like this. So, the acts of conscious awareness risk making weaker the very activities which we are consciously aware of performing,30 whereas only when they are purified do we act more fully and live more fully and, I suppose, it is indeed in such a state that those who have become virtuous live more fully, not dissipated in sense-perception, but collected in the identical thing, in oneself.
§1.4.11. If some should say that this is not living, we will reply that it is living, though the happiness of this person escapes them just as does his life, too. If they are not persuaded, we think they should imagine someone living and being5 virtuous in this way, and to enquire whether he is happy, not to diminish what living is in order to seek what living well is, nor to eliminate the human being to seek human happiness, nor conceding that the virtuous person has reverted to his internal life, to seek to discover it in external activities, nor, generally, to seek to discover what he wills10 in external things.44 For in this way, there would really exist no happiness if one were to say that the externals are willed and that the virtuous person wills these, for he would want all human beings to do well and not experience evil in anything. But this does not happen, though he is nevertheless happy. But if someone were to say that it would be making him irrational15 if he wanted these things – for it is not possible that there should not be evils – it is clear that he will be conceding to us that the will of the virtuous person reverts to the interior.
§1.4.12. And when they ask about that which is pleasurable in such a life, they will not think it right to ask whether the pleasures of the licentious or the pleasures of the body are present – for it is impossible for these to be present; they do away with being happy. Excessive joy, too – for5 why should this be present? But they are asking only about those pleasures that go along with the presence of goods, so pleasures not found in motions nor in the coming to be of anything.45 For the goods are already present, and he is present to himself. And that which is pleasurable is stable and this is contentment. The virtuous person is always content and his state is one of tranquillity, his disposition is lovable, and no one of the things said to be10 evil disturbs him, if he is virtuous. If, though, someone seeks to discover some other form of pleasure in the virtuous life, he is not seeking the virtuous life.
§1.4.13. Nor would the activities of the virtuous be impeded by fortune, but they change as fortunes change, though they are all, nevertheless, beautiful and perhaps all the more beautiful as they are circumstantial.46 As for theoretical activities, those that are concerned with particulars might be impeded, for example, those that require5 enquiries and investigations. But ‘the greatest study’47 is always available to the virtuous and always with him, and all the more so even if he were inside what is called ‘the bull of Phalaris’, which, no matter how many times it is claimed to be ‘pleasurable’, is hardly so.48 For according to them, that which says this is that which is in pain,10 whereas according to us, that which is in pain is one thing, but that which accompanies this is another, and even if he by necessity accompanies it, he would not be bereft of the vision of the universal Good.
§1.4.14. Evidence that the human being, especially the virtuous human being, is not the complex [of body and soul] is found in his separation from the body and in his disdain for the so-called goods of the body. Thinking that happiness extends to the life of the human being is ridiculous,5 given that happiness is living well, something which is bound up with the soul. This is an activity but not of the entire soul – it is, actually, not found in the faculty of growth, which would put it in contact with the body, for being happy is indeed not found in the size of the body or its robustness – nor is it found in having good sense-perception10 since an abundance of these goods can weigh down the human being and draw him to them. There arises in the virtuous a sort of compensatory weight on the other side towards the best which diminishes corporeal goods and makes them inferior, in order that this human being can show himself to be other than the things outside him.
Let the human being who lives in the world of corporeal goods be beautiful15 and tall and wealthy and the sort of ruler over people that one can be here,49 yet he ought not to be envied for these things, since he was deceived by them. But the wise person would perhaps not even have these to begin with, though if he did, he will lessen their impact, if indeed he cares for himself. He will lessen their impact and extinguish the advantages of the body20 by his lack of interest in them, and he will let their power over him die. Although he will protect the health of his body, he will not wish to be altogether inexperienced with sickness, nor indeed inexperienced with pains. On the contrary, if these do not come to him when he is young, he will wish to learn about them, and when he is already old, he will not be disturbed either by pains or pleasures, or25 by anything of this world whether it be pleasant or the opposite, in order that he should not pay attention to the body. But when in a painful state, he will deploy the power of containment that is in him against the pain, nor will he take there to be any addition to his happiness in pleasures and healthy and carefree states, or a removal or diminution of it30 in their opposites. For since one contrary does not add to his happiness, how can the other remove it?
§1.4.15. But if there were two wise persons, one in whom were present so-called natural goods and one in whom were present the opposite, will we say that the happiness that is present in them is equal? We will say yes, if indeed they were equally wise. But what if the body of one were beautiful and he possessed all the goods that are not conducive5 to wisdom or, generally, to virtue and to the vision of the best or to that which is best, what do we say about this? Well, the person who has these cannot flatter himself that he is happier than one who does not have them. For the surfeit of them wouldn’t even serve the goal of knowing how to play the flute.
Actually, we are considering the happy person10 with our own weakness, reckoning things to be frightening and dangerous which the happy person would not. Indeed, he would not be wise or happy who was not rid of the imagination of all such things and who did not have confidence in himself that he had become someone else in a way because he will never have any evil. For in this way he will15 also be fearless in regard to all things.
In fact, if he is afraid at all, he is not perfect in virtue, but will only be halfway there. And when there is an involuntary fear in him or it occurs in him prior to his making a judgement, if this should happen with his mind elsewhere, the wise person, attending to it, will drive it away from himself, and he will put a stop to the pains of what is in a way the child acting up in himself,20 either by threats or by reasoning; but it will be a threat made in an unaffected state like a child shocked into silence by a severe look. Such a person is not unfriendly or unfamiliar. For such a person is like this in regard to himself and in his own affairs. Then, giving to his friends such things as he gives to himself, he would be especially a friend,25 one in possession of Intellect.
§1.4.16. If anyone will not place the virtuous person aloft here in this Intellect, and instead brings him down into chance events and fears that they will happen to him, he is not attending to the virtuous person such as we judge him to be, but rather the equitable human being, giving him a mixture of5 good and evil, and giving to such a person a mixed life of some good and evil, a life such as does not occur easily.50 This person, if he should come to be, would not be worthy to be named ‘happy’ since he does not have greatness, neither that found in the value of wisdom nor in the purity of goodness. It is not possible, then, to live happily in the composite of body and soul.10 For Plato, too, rightly judged it appropriate that one who intends to be wise and happy should receive his good from the intelligible world above and, looking at that, to assimilate himself to that and to live according to that.51
He should, then, have this alone as a goal, and change other things as he changes places; not because he acquires any advantage15 with regard to being happy from the place he occupies, but in a way guessing about his circumstances if he were, for example, to establish himself in one place rather than another. He must give to this embodied life what it needs, insofar as he can, he himself being other than it, and not be prevented even from abandoning this life. Indeed, he will abandon it at the right natural moment, being sovereign, too, in20 deliberating over this. So, for him, some deeds will contribute to happiness, whereas some are not for the sake of the goal and, generally, did not come from him but from that which is yoked to him, which he will tend to and endure as long as he is able, like a musician his lyre, as long as it may be useful. If he cannot, he will change it for another, or he will abandon the use of25 lyres and will cease to play it, having another job that requires no lyre and will let it lie unregarded while he sings without an instrument.52 And after all it was not in vain that the instrument was given to him in the first place. For he has already used it for himself many times.
1 See Ar., EN 1.8.1098b21; SVF 3.17 (= Michael of Ephesus, In EN 598.30–32).
2 See Ar., EN 7.14.1153b11.
3 See Ar., EN 2.5.1106a23; 10.7.1177a16–17.
4 See Ar., EN 10.6.1176a31–32; Alex. Aphr., De an. mant. 152.17–22.
5 See SVF 3.65 (= Alex. Aphr., De an. mant. 162.32–163.36).
6 See Sext. Emp., M. 11.97, where the objection is directed against Epicureans.
7 See Ar., EN 1.6.1097b33–1098a2.
8 See SVF 3.178 (= D.L., 7.85).
9 Probably, given the above, a reference to the Epicurean view.
10 See D.L., 10.128, quoted from Epicurus’ Ep. Men.
11 See SVF 1.183 (= Plutarch, De comm. not. 1069f); 3.16 (= Stobaeus, Ecl. 77.16).
12 See Ar., EN 10.9.1178b28.
13 See Pl., Phil. 33D8–9.
14 See Ar., EN 1.6.1098a3–7; SVF 3.687 (= D.L., 7.130).
15 Reading προσλαμβάνετε with Armstrong.
16 See Ar., Phys. 7.2. 247a2.
17 Cf. 5.9.1.10–16.
18 See Ar., Meta. 9.8.1050b1–2.
19 See Ar., Cat. 13.14b33–15a1; Meta. 2.3.999a6–7.
20 See Ar., DA 1.5.410a13 where the question of homonymy regards ‘soul’, not ‘life’.
21 Reading εὖ with HS4 to pick up the question initiating the treatise.
22 See Pl., Phil. 60B10.
23 Cf. 6.7.15.1–10; 6.6.18. See Pl., Soph. 248E6–249A1.
24 I.e., the Good.
25 See Pl., Rep. 387D5–E1; Ar., EN 10.6.1176b5–6.
26 See Ar., EN 1.10.1100a8, 1101a8.
27 See Alex. Aphr., De an mant. 159.18.
28 I.e., Peripatetics.
29 See Ar., EN 1.8.1098b14.
30 Reading αὑτῇ.
31 See Ar., EN 3.4.1111b26–28.
32 See Pl., Lg. 858A1–5.
33 See Epictetus, Disc. 1.28.14 and 1.28.26–28.
34 See Pl., Rep. 387D5–6.
35 See Homer, Il. 9.43.
36 See Homer, Il. 22.62, 65.
37 See Ar., EN 1.11.1100b30–33.
38 See Epicurus, fr. 447.
39 Reading ἔσται <καὶ> ἐν τῷ ἀλγεῖν, ἀλλὰ τὸ αὐτοῦ [καὶ ἐν τῷ] ἔνδον γέγγος οἵον with HS4. See Pl., Rep. 496D6–8 with Empedocles, fr. B84.1–6 DK.
40 Plotinus is referring to the Stoic position. This position contradicts Ar., EN 1.13.1102b5–7; 10.6.1176a33–35.
41 Cf. 3.8.8.8; 5.1.8.17–18; 5.6.6.22–23; 5.9.5.29–30; 6.7.4.18 and numerous paraphrases elsewhere. See Parmenides, fr. 28 B 3 DK.
42 See Pl., Tim. 71A5–B5.
43 See Ar., DA 3.7.431a16–17, 8.432a12–14.
44 See Epictetus, Disc. 1.4.18.
45 See Pl., Rep. 583E9–11.
46 See SVF 3.496 (= D.L., 7.108).
47 See Pl., Rep. 505A2.
48 See SVF 3.586 (= Gregorius Nazianzenus, Epist. 32); Seneca, Ep. ad Luc. 66.18 (on Epicureans). Seneca claims that Epicurus conceded that the wise person will say that it is a pleasure to be inside the bull of Phalaris. See Cicero, Tusc. 2.7.17.
49 See Pl., Tht. 176A7–8.
50 See Pl., Phil. 22D6.
51 See Pl., Tht. 176B1; Symp. 212A1; Rep. 365B1, 427D5–6, 613B1.
52 See Alex. Aphr., De an. mant. 112.25–113.2.