11

GOOD FORTUNE

SINCE NOT ONLY WISDOM AND VIRTUE PRODUCE WELLDOING, but we say also that the fortunate do well, thus supposing [1247a] that good fortune produces well-doing and the same results as knowledge, we must inquire whether or not it is by nature that one man is fortunate and another not, and what is the truth about these things. For that there are fortunate men we see: though foolish they are often successful in matters [5] which fortune controls. Again, in matters involving craftsmanship, fortune too largely enters—for instance, generalship and navigation. So are they like this because of a certain state of character, or is it not because of their own qualities that they get fortunate results? At present men take the former view, regarding some people as being so by nature: [10] nature produces men with certain qualities so that they differ from birth—just as some are blue-eyed and some black-eyed ***,1 so are some fortunate and others unfortunate. For that they do not succeed through wisdom is plain; for wisdom is not irrational but can give a reason why it acts as it does; but they cannot say why they succeed—that [15] would be craftsmanship. Further, it is evident that they are foolish not about other things (that would not be in the least absurd: for instance, Hippocrates was a geometer, but in other respects was thought stupid and foolish, and once on a voyage was robbed of much money by the customs-collectors [20] at Byzantium, owing to his simplicity, as we are told)—rather, they are foolish in the very matters in which they are fortunate. For of ship-owners it is not the cleverest who are the most fortunate—rather, it is as in throwing dice, where one throws nothing and another throws a six,2 according to his natural good fortune.

Or is it because they are loved, as they say, by a god, success [25] being something coming from without, as a badly built vessel often sails better, not owing to itself but because it has a good helmsman? So the fortunate man³ has a good helmsman, namely, a spirit. But it is absurd that a god or a spirit should love such a man and not the best and most wise of men. If, then, success must be due either to nature or to intelligence [30] or to some sort of protection, and the latter two are excluded, then the fortunate must be so by nature.

And yet nature is the cause of what is always or for the most part so, fortune of the contrary. If, then, it is thought that unexpected success is due to fortune—and that one is fortunate, if at all, then because of fortune—the cause is not [35] the sort that produces always or usually the same result.⁴ Further, if a person succeeds or fails because he is a certain sort of man, just as a man sees badly because he is blue-eyed, then it is not fortune but nature that is the cause; and so he is not fortunate but rather naturally endowed. So we must say that the people we call fortunate are not so because of fortune. [1247b] Therefore they are not fortunate; for the fortunate are those whose⁵ goods are caused by good fortune.

But if this is so, then does fortune not exist at all? Or does it exist but is not a cause? It must both exist and be a cause. It will, then, cause good things and bad things to certain people. But if it is to be wholly removed, and we ought to say that [5] nothing happens by fortune, and if we say that fortune is a cause because, though there is some other cause, we do not see it (that is why in defining fortune some make it a cause beyond human calculation, taking it to be a natural factor)—this would be another question.

Since we see people who are fortunate once only, why [10] should they not succeed again and again for the same reason?6 For the same cause produces the same effect.⁷ Then this will not be a matter of fortune. Rather, when the same event follows from⁸ indefinite and undetermined antecedents, it will be good or bad, but there will not be knowledge of it by experience,⁹ since otherwise some would have [15] learned to be fortunate, or even—as Socrates said—all types of knowledge would have been kinds of good fortune. What, then, prevents such things happening to a man often in succession, not because they must but as (say) one might continually throw a lucky number with the dice?

What then? Are there not in the soul impulses, some from calculation and others from irrational desire, the latter being [20] 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 (like singers¹⁰ who have not learned how to sing), and if they do well by nature and move without the aid of reason in the direction¹¹ given them by nature, and crave for what they ought and when they ought and how they ought—such [25] men will be successful, even if they are foolish and irrational, just as the others will sing¹² well though not able to teach singing. And those men are fortunate who for the most part succeed without the aid of reason. Men, then, who are fortunate will be so by nature.

Perhaps, however, good fortune is spoken of in several ways. For some things are done from impulse and are due to [30] choice, and others not but rather the contrary; and if, in the former cases, they succeed where they seem to have calculated badly, we say that they have been fortunate; and again, in the latter cases, if they wanted a different or lesser good than they got.13 The former may be fortunate by nature; for the impulse and the desire were for what they ought to be, [35] and they succeeded, but the calculation was silly. People in this case, when their calculation seems incorrect and fortune is the cause of it, are saved by their desire, which is correct; but sometimes a man calculates again in this way owing to appetite and turns out unfortunate. But in the other cases [1248a] how can the good fortune be due to a natural endowment in desire and appetite? Yet surely the good fortune here and in the other case is the same, or else there is more than one sort of good fortune and chance is of two kinds.¹⁴

Since we see some men fortunate against all knowledge and correct calculation, it is plain that the cause of good fortune must be something different. But is it good fortune or [5] not by which¹⁵ a man craves for what he ought and when he ought, though for him¹⁶ human calculation could not lead to this? For that for which the appetite is natural¹⁷ is not altogether uncalculating, though it is corrupted by something. A man, then, is thought to be fortunate, because fortune is the cause of things against reason, and this is against reason (for [10] it is against knowledge and the universal). But probably it does not spring from fortune, but seems so for the above reason. So this argument shows not that good fortune is due to nature, but that not all who seem to be fortunate are successful owing to fortune, but rather owing to nature; nor does it show that fortune is not the cause of anything—only [15] not of all that it seems to be the cause of.

One might raise the problem whether fortune is the cause of someone’s craving what he ought and when he ought. If so, will it not be the cause of everything, even of thought and deliberation? For one does not deliberate after previous deliberation which itself presupposed deliberation: rather, [20] there is some originating principle. Nor does one think after thinking previously to thinking, and so ad infinitum. Intelligence, then, is not the origin of thinking nor deliberation of deliberation. What, then, can be the origin except fortune? Thus everything will come from fortune.

Perhaps there is an origin with no other outside it, and this can act in this sort of way by being such as it is.18 The object of our investigation is this: what is the origin of movement [25] in the soul? The answer is plain: as in the universe, so in the soul, it is god. For in a sense the divine element in us moves everything. The origin of reasoning is not reasoning but something greater. What could be greater even than knowledge and intelligence but god? For virtue is an instrument of intelligence. And for this reason, as I said earlier,¹⁹ [30] those are called fortunate who, whatever they start on,²⁰ succeed in it although they lack reason. And deliberation is of no advantage to them; for they have in them an originating principle that is better than intelligence and deliberation, while the others have reason but not this: they have inspiration but they cannot deliberate. For, though lacking reason, they succeed, and, more than that of wise men and philosophers, their divination is speedy.21 One might almost assume²² that it is divination based on reasoning; but some of them do it by experience, others by a habitual use of reflection;²³ and these belong to the divine element,²⁴ which sees well both the future and the present, even in those in whom the reason is disengaged. That is why the atrabilious [1248b] dream well. For the originating principle seems to become stronger when the reason is disengaged—just as the blind remember better, being disengaged from the visible,²⁵ since their memory is stronger.

It is evident, then, that there are two kinds of good fortune, the one divine (that is why the fortunate seem to succeed owing to god) and the other natural. Men of this sort [5] succeed in accordance with their impulse, the others against to their impulse, but both lack reason. And the one has persistent good fortune, the other not.

 

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1 The manuscripts here have some nonsensical words which defeat emendation.

2 Adding ἕξ after βάλλει (Jackson). Susemihl prints πολύ (‘much’) after the Latin translation.

3 Omitting ἀλλά (Fritzsche), reading οὕτως (Fritzsche) for οὗτος, and adding ὁ before εὐτυχής (Susemihl’s suggestion).

4 The text of this sentence is uncertain.

5 Reading εὐτυχεῖς… ὅσοις (Jackson) for τυχῆς… ὅσων.

6 Omitting ἀλλά and reading τὸ αὐτὸ κατορθώσαιεν (Jackson) for τὸ ἀποκατορθῶσαι ἕν.

7 Reading τοῦ… αὐτοῦ τὸ αὐτό (Spengel) for τὸ… αὐτὸ τοῦτο.

8 Adding ἀπό before ἀπείρων (Jackson).

9 Reading ἐμπειρίαν (after the Latin translation) for ἀπειρίαν.

10 Reading ᾠδικοί (Sylburg) for ἄδικοι. (But the text of the whole sentence is uncertain.)

11 Adding ᾗ before ἡ φύσις (Jackson—Susemihl marks a lacuna).

12 Reading ᾄσονται (Sylburg) for ἔσονται.

13 The text of this sentence is uncertain.

14 Placing καὶ τυχὴ διττή after εὐτυχίαι (Spengel).

15 Reading ᾗ (Sylburg) for ἡ.

16 Reading ᾧ (Jackson) for τό.

17 Reading οὗ γε (Jackson) for οὔτε (which Susemihl emends to οὐδέ).

18 With Walzer reading διὰ τό for διὰ τί (which Susemihl excises) and omitting τῷ.

19 Omitting οἱ (Jackson).

20 Adding ἅ after οἵ (Jackson).

21 The text of this sentence is uncertain.

22 Reading ὑπολαβεῖν (Ross) for ἀπολαβεῖν.

23 The text of this sentence is uncertain.

24 Reading θείῳ (Spengel) for the received θέῳ (‘god’).

25 The text is uncertain.