HAPPINESS AND THE HUMAN GOOD
LET US TAKE UP OUR INQUIRY AND STATE, IN VIEW OF THE [15] fact that all knowledge and choice aims at some good, what it is that we say political science aims at and what is the highest of all goods among matters of action. Verbally, pretty well everyone agrees; for both the general run of people and the refined say that it is happiness, and assume that living well [20] and faring well are the same thing as being happy; but with regard to what happiness is they differ, and the general run do not give the same account as men of understanding do. For the former think it is some clear and evident thing, like pleasure or riches or honour—some one thing and some another, and often the same man identifies it with different things (with health when he is ill, with riches when he is [25] poor). But, conscious of their ignorance, they admire those who talk about some great thing that is above their heads. Now some thought that apart from these many goods there is another which is good in itself and which causes the goodness of all these.
To examine all the beliefs that have been held would no doubt be somewhat fruitless: it is enough to examine those [30] that are most prevalent or that seem to have some reason in their favour.
Let us not fail to notice, however, that there is a difference between arguments from the originating principles and those to the principles. For Plato was right in raising this problem and inquiring: ‘Are we on the way from the principles [1095b] or to the principles?’—as if in a race-course, from the judges’ stand to the end of the track or vice versa. For, while we must begin with what is familiar, things are so in two ways—some to us, some in the abstract. Perhaps, then, we [5] must begin with things familiar to us. That is why any adequate student of what is noble and just and generally about political matters must have been brought up in good habits. For the facts are principles, and if they are sufficiently plain to him, he will not need the reason why as well; and someone who has been well brought up possesses or can easily grasp the principles. And as for him who neither posseses nor can grasp them, let him hear the words of Hesiod:1
Far best is he who knows all things himself;
[10] Good, he that hearkens when men counsel right;
but he who neither knows, nor lays to heart
another’s wisdom, is a useless wight.
LET US RESUME OUR DISCUSSION AT THE POINT AT WHICH [15] we digressed. To judge from their lives, most men, and men of the most vulgar type, assume (not without reason) that the good and happiness are pleasure—that is why they cherish the life of the voluptuary. For there are three prominent types of life: the one just mentioned, the political, and thirdly the contemplative life.
[20] Now the mass of mankind are evidently quite slavish in their tastes, choosing a life suitable to cattle; but they get some reason for their view from the fact that many of those in positions of power share the tastes of Sardanapallus.
Those who are refined and active identify happiness with honour; for this is pretty much the end of the political life. But it seems too superficial to be what we are looking for, [25] since it is thought to depend on those who bestow honour rather than on him who receives it, whereas the good we divine to be something of one’s own and not easily taken away. Further, men seem to pursue honour in order that they may be convinced of their own goodness—at least, it is by men of wisdom that they look to be honoured, and among those who know them, and on the ground of their virtue. Plainly, [30] then, according to them at any rate, virtue is better. And perhaps one might even assume this rather than honour to be the end of the political life. But even this appears somewhat incomplete; for possession of virtue seems compatible with being asleep or inactive throughout one’s life and, further, [1096a] with the greatest sufferings and misfortunes. But a man who was living so no one would call happy, unless he were defending a thesis. But enough of this; for the subject has been sufficiently treated in our popular discussions.
[5] Third comes the contemplative life, which we shall consider later.
The life of money-making is one undertaken perforce, and riches are plainly not the good we are looking for; for they are useful and for the sake of something else. That is why one might rather assume that the aforenamed objects are ends; for they are cherished for themselves. But evidently not even [10] these are ends—although many arguments have been thrown down in support of them. Let us then dismiss them.
WE HAD PERHAPS BETTER CONSIDER THE UNIVERSAL good and consider the problem of what is meant by it, although such an inquiry is made an uphill one by the fact that the Forms have been introduced by friends of ours. Yet it might perhaps be thought that it is better, and we ought for [15] the sake of the truth to destroy even what is our own, especially as we are philosophers; for, while both are dear, piety requires us to honour truth above our friends.
Those who introduced this belief did not posit Ideas of things within which they recognized priority and posteriority (which is the reason why they did not set up an Idea of [20] the numbers). But things are called good both in quiddity2 and in relation, and that which is per se and substance is prior in nature to the relative (for the latter is like an off-shoot and accident of what is); so that there will not be an Idea common to all these goods. Further, since things are said to be good in as many ways as they are said to be (for [25] things are called good both in quiddity, as god and intelligence, and in quality, as the virtues, and in quantity, as that which is the appropriate amount, and in relation, as the useful, and in time, as the right opportunity, and in place, as habitat, and so on), plainly the good cannot be something universal, common and single; for then it would not have been predicated in all the categories but in one only. Further, [30] since of the things answering to one Idea there is one science, there would have been one science of all the goods; but as it is there are many sciences even of the things that fall under one category—for instance opportunity (for opportunity in war is studied by generalship and in disease by medicine), and the appropriate amount in food is studied by medicine and in exertion by gymnastics. And one might raise the problem of what in the world they mean by ‘a thing [1096b] itself’, if in man himself and in a particular man the account of man is one and the same. For in so far as they are men, they will in no respect differ; and if this is so, neither will there be a difference in so far as they are good. Again it will not be any the more good for being eternal, since that which [5] lasts long is no whiter than that which perishes in a day. (The Pythagoreans seem to give a more plausible account of the good, when they place the one in the column of goods; and it is they that Speusippus seems to have followed. But let us discuss these matters elsewhere.)
An objection to what we have said may be discerned in the [10] fact that they have not been speaking about all goods, and that the goods that are pursued and cherished for themselves are called good by reference to a single Form, while those which tend to produce or to preserve these somehow or to prevent their contraries are called so by reference to these, and in a different manner. Plainly, then, goods must be spoken of in two ways, and some must be good in themselves, [15] the others by reason of these. Let us separate, then, things good in themselves from things beneficial, and consider whether the former are called good by reference to a single Idea. What sort of goods would one call good in themselves? Is it those that are pursued even when isolated from others, such as intelligence, sight, and certain pleasures and honours? For even if we pursue these also for the sake of something else, yet one would place them among things good in [20] themselves. Or is nothing other than the Idea good in itself? In that case the Form will be pointless. But if the things we have named are also good in themselves, the description of the good will have to appear as something identical in them all, as that of whiteness is identical in snow and in white lead. But the description of the goodness of honour, wisdom, and [25] pleasure, differs from case to case. The good, therefore, is not something common answering to one Idea.
But then in what way are things called good? They are not like the things that only chance to have the same name. Then is it by being derived from one thing or by all contributing to one thing? Or rather by analogy? For as sight is in the body, [30] so is intelligence in the soul, and so on in other cases. But perhaps these subjects had better be dismissed for the present; for precision about them would be more appropriate to another branch of philosophy. And similarly with regard to the Idea: even if there is some one good which is predicated in common of goods or is capable of separate and independent existence, plainly it could not be a matter of human action or acquisition; but we are now looking for something of that sort. Perhaps, however, someone might think it worthwhile [1097a] to have knowledge of it with a view to the goods that are matters of action and acquisition; for having this as a sort of pattern we shall know better the goods that are good for us, and if we know them shall attain them. This argument has some plausibility, but it seems to clash with the procedure [5] of the sciences; for all of these, though they aim at some good and look to supply the deficiency of it, leave on one side the knowledge of it. Yet that all craftsmen should be ignorant of, and should not even look for so great an aid is not reasonable. It is problematic, too, to see how a weaver or a carpenter will be benefited in regard to his own craft by [10] knowing this goodness itself, or how the man who has viewed the Idea itself will be a better doctor or general. For a doctor seems not even to consider health in this way, but the health of man—or perhaps rather of a particular man; for it is individuals that he is healing. But enough of these topics.
[15] Let us again return to the good we are looking for and ask what it can be. It is evidently different in different actions and crafts: it is different in medicine, in generalship, and in the other crafts likewise. What then is the good of each of them? Surely that for whose sake everything else is done. In [20] medicine this is health, in generalship victory, in building a house, elsewhere something else, and in every action and choice the end; for it is for the sake of this that all men do whatever else they do. Therefore, if there is an end for all that we do, this will be the good in matters of action, and if there are more than one, these will be the goods.
So the argument has by a different course reached the [25] same point; but we must try to state this more illuminatingly. Since there are evidently several ends, and we choose some of them (for instance riches, flutes, and in general instruments) for the sake of something else, plainly not all ends are complete ends; but the chief good is evidently something complete. Therefore, if there is only one complete [30] end, this will be what we are looking for, and if there are several, the most complete of them. Now we call that which is in itself worthy of pursuit more complete than that which is worthy of pursuit for the sake of something else, and that which is never desirable for the sake of something else more complete than the things that are desirable both in themselves and for the sake of that other thing, and we call complete tout court that which is always desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else.
Now such a thing happiness, above all else, is held to be; [1097b] for this we choose always for itself and never for the sake of something else, whereas honour, pleasure, intelligence, and every virtue we choose indeed for themselves (for if nothing resulted from them we should still choose each of them), but [5] we choose them also for the sake of happiness, assuming that through them we shall be happy. But happiness no one chooses for the sake of these, nor, in general, for anything other than itself.
From the point of view of self-sufficiency the same result evidently follows; for the final good is thought to be self-sufficient. Now by self-sufficient we do not mean that which is sufficient for a man by himself living a solitary life, but also [10] for parents, children, wife, and in general for his friends and fellow citizens, since man is political by nature. But some limit must be set to this; for if we extend it to parents of parents3 and descendants and friends’ friends we are in for an infinite series. Let us examine this question, however, on another occasion; the self-sufficient we now define as that [15] which when isolated makes life desirable and lacking in nothing; and such we think happiness to be. Further we think it most desirable of all things, without being counted as one good thing among others—if so counted it is plainly more desirable by the addition of even the least of goods; for that which is added yields a superiority in goods, and of [20] goods the greater is always more desirable. Happiness, then, is something complete and self-sufficient, and is the end in matters of action.
Perhaps, however, to say that happiness is the chief good seems a platitude, and a clearer account of what it is is still desired. This might perhaps be given, if we could first grasp [25] what a man’s task is. For just as for a flute-player, a sculptor, or any craftsman, and, in general, for anyone who has a task and an action, the good and the ‘well’ is thought to reside in the task, so would it seem to be for man, if he has a task. Have the carpenter, then, and the tanner certain tasks and [30] actions, and man none? Is man naturally idle? Or as eye, hand, foot, and in general each of the parts evidently have a task, may one lay it down that man similarly has a task apart from all these? What then can this be? Life is evidently common even to plants, but we are looking for what is proper to [1098a] man. Let us exclude, therefore, the life of nutrition and growth. Next there would be a life of sense-perception, but it also is evidently common to the horse, the ox, and every animal. There remains, then, an active life of the element that has reason. (Of this element, one part has reason as [5] being obedient to it, the other as possessing it and exercising thought.) Since this too can be taken in two ways, we must state that life in the sense of activity is what we mean; for this seems to be the stricter use of the term. Now if the task of man is an activity of soul in accordance with reason, or not without reason, and if we say a so-and-so and a virtuous so-and-so have a task which is the same in kind (for instance, a [10] lyre-player and a good lyre-player, and so generally in all cases), superiority in respect of virtue being added to the task (for the task of a lyre-player is to play the lyre, and that of a good lyre-player is to do so well): if this is the case,4 the human good turns out to be activity of soul in conformity with virtue, and if there are several virtues, in conformity with the best and most complete.
But we must add ‘in a complete life’. For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.
[20] Let this serve as an outline of the good; for we must presumably first sketch it, and then later fill in the details. But it would seem that anyone is capable of carrying on and articulating what has once been well outlined, and that time is a good discoverer or collaborator in such matters. That is how [25] the advances of the crafts have been made; for anyone can add what is lacking.
We must also remember what has been said before, and not look for precision in all things alike but in each class of things such precision as accords with the subject-matter and so much as is appropriate to the inquiry. For a carpenter and [30] a geometer look for right angles in different ways: the former does so in so far as it is useful for his task, while the latter inquires what it is or what sort of thing it is; for he is a spectator of the truth. We must act in the same way, then, in other matters as well, so that our task may not be subordinated [1098b] to side-tasks. Nor must we demand the cause in all matters alike: it is enough in some cases that the fact be well established, as in the case of the originating principles—the fact is primary and a principle. Now of principles we consider some by induction, some by sense-perception, some by [5] a certain habituation, and others in other ways. We must try to investigate each sort in the natural way, and we must take pains to determine them aright, since they have a great influence on what follows. For the origin is thought to be more than half of the whole, and many of the questions we ask are cleared up by it.
We must consider it, however, in the light not only of our [10] conclusion and our premisses, but also of what is said about it; for with a true view all the facts harmonize, but with a false one they5 soon clash. Now goods have been divided into three classes, and some are described as external, others as relating to soul or to body; and we call those that relate to [15] soul most especially and strictly goods. But we are considering actions and activities relating to soul.6 Therefore our account must be sound, at least according to this belief, which is an old one and agreed on by the philosophers. It is correct also in that we identify the end with certain actions and activity; [20] for thus it falls among goods of the soul and not among external goods.
It also harmonizes with our account that the happy man lives well and fares well; for we have more or less defined happiness as a sort of living well and faring well. Also, the characteristics that are looked for in happiness all evidently hold of what we have said. For some people identify happiness with virtue, some with wisdom, others with a kind of [25] understanding, others with these, or one of these, accompanied by pleasure or not without pleasure; while others include also external prosperity. Now some of these views have been held by many men and men of old, others by a few reputable men; and it is not reasonable that either of these should be entirely mistaken, but rather that they should be right in at least some one respect or even in most respects.
[30] With those who identify happiness with virtue or some one virtue our account is in harmony; for virtue is expressed in the activity of virtue. But it makes, perhaps, no small difference whether we assume that the chief good lies in possession or in use, in state or in activity. For the state may [1099a] exist without producing any good result, as in a man who is asleep or in some other way inactive, but the activity cannot; for it will of necessity be acting, and acting well. And just as in the Olympic Games it is not the most handsome and the [5] strongest that are crowned but those who compete (for it is some of these that are victorious), so those who act correctly win the noble and good things in life.
Their life is also in itself pleasant. For pleasure is a state of soul, and to each man that which he is said to be a lover of is pleasant—for instance a horse to a lover of horses, and a [10] spectacle to a lover of shows—and in the same way just things are pleasant to the lover of justice and in general virtuous things to the lover of virtue. Now for most men their pleasures are in conflict with one another because they are not by nature pleasant. But the lovers of what is noble find pleasant the things that are by nature pleasant; and virtuous actions are such, so that these are pleasant both for such [15] men and also per se. Their life, therefore, has no further need of pleasure as a sort of adventitious charm: it has its pleasure in itself. For, besides what we have said, the man who does not delight in noble actions is not even good: no one would call a man just who did not delight in acting justly, nor any [20] man liberal who did not enjoy liberal actions; and similarly in all other cases. If this is so, virtuous actions must be in themselves pleasant. But they are also good and noble, and have each of these attributes in the highest degree, since the virtuous man assesses them well and he assesses in the way we have described.
Happiness, then, is the best, noblest, and most pleasant [25] thing, and these attributes are not severed as in the inscription at Delos—
Most noble is that which is justest, and best is health;
But pleasantest is it to win what we love.
[30] For all these attributes belong to the best activities; and these, or one—the best—of these, we identify with happiness.
Yet evidently, as we said, it needs the external goods as well; for it is impossible, or not easy, to perform noble acts [1099b] without the proper equipment. In many actions we use friends and riches and political power as instruments; and there are some things the lack of which takes the lustre from blessedness, such as good birth, satisfactory children, beauty—for the man who is very ugly in appearance or ill-born [5] or solitary and childless is hardly happy, and perhaps a man would be still less so if he had thoroughly bad children or friends or had lost good children or friends by death. As we said, then, happiness seems to need this sort of prosperity in addition; for which reason some identify happiness with good fortune.7
For this reason also the problem is raised, whether happiness [10] is to be acquired by learning or by habituation or some other sort of training, or comes from some divine providence or again by fortune. Now if there is any gift of the gods to men, it is reasonable that happiness should be god-given, and the most surely god-given of all human things inasmuch as it is the best. But this question would perhaps be more appropriate to another inquiry: happiness, however, even if it [15] is not god-sent but comes as a result of virtue and some process of learning or training, is evidently among the most divine things; for that which is the prize and end of virtue seems to be the chief good and something divine and blessed.
It will also be widely shared; for all who are not disabled [20] as regards virtue may win it by a certain kind of learning and care. If it is better to be happy thus than by fortune, it is reasonable that things should be so, since everything that depends on the action of nature is by nature as good as it can be, and similarly everything that depends on craftsmanship or any cause, and especially if it depends on the best of all causes. To entrust to fortune what is greatest and most noble [25] would be a very defective arrangement.
The answer to the question is evident also from the definition; for it has been said to be a certain kind of activity of soul.8 Of the remaining goods, some are necessary and others are naturally collaborative and useful as instruments. And this will be found to agree with what we said at the outset; [30] for we stated the end of political science to be the best end, and political science spends most of its care on making the citizens to be of a certain character, namely good and capable of noble acts.
It is reasonable, then, that we call neither ox nor horse [1100a] nor any other of the animals happy; for none of them is capable of sharing in such activity. For this reason also a boy is not happy; for he is not yet capable of such acts, owing to his age; and boys who are called happy are being felicitated by reason of the hopes we have for them. For there is required, [5] as we said, not only complete virtue but also a complete life, since many changes occur in life, and all manner of fortunes, and the most prosperous may encounter great disasters in old age, as is told of Priam in the Trojan Cycle; and one who has experienced such fortunes and has ended wretchedly no one calls happy.
[10] MUST NO ONE AT ALL, THEN, BE CALLED HAPPY WHILE HE lives? Must we, as Solon says, see the end? And if we are to lay this down, is it also the case that a man is happy when he is dead? Or is not this quite absurd, especially for us who say [15] that happiness is an activity? But if we do not call the dead happy, and if Solon means not this but that one can then safely call a man blessed as being at last beyond evils and misfortunes, this also affords matter for discussion; for both evil and good are thought to exist for a dead man, as much as [20] for one who is alive but does not perceive them—for instance honours and dishonours and the successes and misfortunes of children and in general of descendants. This also presents a problem; for though a man has lived blessedly up to old age and has had a death that befits his life, many reverses [25] may befall his descendants—some of them may be good and attain a life they are worthy of, while with others the contrary may be the case; and plainly too the degrees of relationship between them and their ancestors may vary indefinitely. It would be absurd, then, if the dead man were to share in these changes and become at one time happy, at another [30] wretched; while it would also be absurd if the fortunes of the descendants did not for some time have some effect on their ancestors.
But we must return to our first problem; for perhaps the present question might be considered from that point of view. Now if we must see the end and only then call a man blessed, not as being blessed but as having been so before, surely it is absurd that when he is happy what holds of him [1100b] will not be true of him because we do not want to call living men happy, on account of the changes that may befall them, and because we have supposed happiness to be something lasting and by no means easily changed, while one and the same man may suffer many turns of fortune’s wheel. For [5] plainly if we were to follow his fortunes, we should often call the same man happy and again wretched, making the happy man out to be a chameleon and insecurely based. Or is following his fortunes in this way quite incorrect? Doing well or badly does not depend on these, but human life, as we [10] said, needs these as well, while virtuous activities or their contrary control happiness or the contrary.
The problem we have now discussed testifies in favour of our definition. For no human task has as much firmness as virtuous activities do (they are thought to be more lasting [15] even than knowledge), and of these themselves the most valuable are more lasting because those who are blessed spend their life most readily and most continuously in them; for this seems to be the reason why we do not forget them. The attribute in question, then, will belong to the happy man, and he will be happy throughout his life; for always, or in preference to everything else, he will do and contemplate [20] what is virtuous, and he will bear the fortunes of life most nobly and altogether decorously, if he is truly good and foursquare beyond blame.
Now many things happen by fortune, things differing in importance: small pieces of good fortune or of its opposite [25] plainly do not weigh down the scales of life one way or the other, but a multitude of great ones if they turn out well will make life more blessed (for not only are they themselves such as to add adornment to life, but the way a man deals with them may be noble and virtuous), while if they turn out ill they crush and maim blessedness (for they both bring pain [30] with them and hinder many activities). Yet even in these nobility shines through, when a man bears gracefully many great misfortunes, not through insensitivity but through breeding and pride.
If, as we said, it is activities that control life, no blessed man can become wretched; for he will never perform actions [1101a] that are hateful and base. For the man who is truly good and wise, we think, bears all the fortunes of life becomingly and always acts as nobly as the circumstances allow, just as a good general makes the best military use of the army at his command and a shoemaker makes the best shoes out of the [5] hides that are given him; and so with all other craftsmen. And if this is the case, the happy man can never become wretched—though he will not be blessed if he meets with fortunes like those of Priam.
Nor, again, is he many-coloured and changeable; for he [10] will not be moved from his happy state easily or by any ordinary misadventures but only by many great ones—and in that case he will not recover his happiness in a short time but (if at all) only in a long and complete one in which he has attained great and noble successes.
What then prevents our saying that he is happy who exercises [15] himself in conformity with complete virtue and is sufficiently equipped with external goods, not for some chance period but throughout a complete life? Or must we add ‘and who will live thus and die as befits his life’? Certainly the future is obscure to us, while happiness, we claim, is an end and something in every way complete. If so, we shall call [20] blessed those among living men in whom these conditions are, and are to be, fulfilled—but humanly blessed. So much for these questions.
THAT THE FORTUNES OF DESCENDANTS AND OF ALL A MAN’S friends should not affect his happiness at all seems a very unfriendly doctrine, and one contrary to the beliefs men hold; but since the events that happen are numerous and admit of [25] all sorts of difference, and some come more near to us and others less so, it is evidently a long—indeed an endless—task to discuss each in detail: a general outline will perhaps suffice. If, then, as some of a man’s own misfortunes have a certain weight and influence on his life while others seem [30] lighter, so too it is with those of all our friends, and if it makes a difference whether the various experiences are had by the living or by the dead (much more even than whether lawless and terrible deeds are presupposed in a tragedy or done on the stage), this difference also must be taken into account; or rather, perhaps, we must take into account that [1101b] it is a problem whether the dead share in any good or evil. For it seems, from these considerations, that even if anything whether good or the contrary penetrates to them, it must be something dim and small, either in the abstract or for them, or if not, at least it must be such in degree and kind [5] as not to make happy those who are not happy nor to take away their blessedness from those who are. The successes and misfortunes of friends, then, seem to have some effects on the dead, but effects of such a kind and degree as neither to make the happy unhappy nor to produce any other change of the kind.
[10] THESE QUESTIONS HAVING BEEN ANSWERED, LET US CONSIDER whether happiness is among the things that are praiseworthy or rather among the things that are valuable; for plainly it is not to be placed among capacities. Everything that is praiseworthy seems to be praiseworthy because it is of a certain character and is related somehow to something else; for we praise the just man and the courageous man and [15] in general both the good man and virtue because of the actions and deeds involved, and we praise the strong man and the good runner, and so on, because he is of a certain kind and is related in a certain way to something good and virtuous. This is plain also from the praises of the gods; for although it is evidently ridiculous that the gods should be referred [20] to our standard, this is done because praise involves a reference, as we said. But if praise is for things such as we have described, plainly what applies to the best things is not praise, but something greater and better, as is indeed evident; for what we do to the gods and the most divine of men [25] is to call them blessed and happy. And so too with good things: no one praises happiness as he does justice, but rather calls it blessed, as being something more divine and better.
Eudoxus also seems to have been right in his method of advocating the supremacy of pleasure: he thought that the fact that, though a good, it is not praised indicated it to be [30] better than the things that are praiseworthy, and that this is what god and the good are; for by reference to these all other things are judged. Praise is appropriate to virtue; for from virtue men perform noble actions. Encomia are bestowed on deeds, whether of the body or of the soul. Perhaps precision in these matters is more appropriate to those who have made a study of encomia; but to us it is plain from what has [1102a] been said that happiness is among the things that are valuable and complete. It seems to be so also from the fact that it is an originating principle; for it is for the sake of this that we all do everything else, and the principle and cause of goods is, we claim, something valuable and divine.
1 Works and Days 293–297.
2 Deleting, with Spengel, καὶ ἐν τῷ πόσῳ (‘and in quantity’).
3 Adding τῶν γονεῶν (Rassow).
4 At this point the manuscripts have the following passage, which Bywater deletes as a repetition:
… and if we state that the task of man is a certain kind of life, and that this is an activity of soul or actions involving reason, and that the task of [15] a good man is the good and noble performance of these, and if any action is well performed when it is performed in accordance with the appropriate virtue: if this is the case …
5 Deleting τἀληθές (Rassow). The received text reads: ‘The true soon clashes with the false’.
6 Deleting ψυχικάς (Goebel). The received text reads: ‘But we consider that actions and activities of the soul are concerned with the soul’.
7 Deleting, with Giphanius, the clause which follows in the received text: ‘… though others identify it with virtue’.
8 Deleting κατ᾽ ἀρετήν. The received text gives: ‘… a certain kind of activity of soul in accordance with virtue’.