THE GOOD
FIRST OF ALL, THEN, WE MUST SEE THAT EVERY SCIENCE and skill has an end, and that too a good one; for no science [35] or skill exists for the sake of the bad. Since then in every skill the end is good, it is plain that the end of the best will be best. [1182b] But politics is the best skill, so that the end of this will be the good.1 It is about good, then, as it seems, that we must speak—and about good not in the abstract but relatively to ourselves. For we have not to do with the good of the gods: to [5] speak about that is a different matter, and the inquiry is foreign to our present purpose. It is therefore about the political good that we must speak.
We must make a distinction here: about what sort of good have we to speak? For goodness is not simple: we call good either what is best in the case of each being, that is, what is desirable because of its own nature, or that by partaking in [10] which other things are good, that is, the Idea of good. Are we, then, to speak of the Idea of good? Or not of that, but of good as the element common to all goods? For this would seem to be different from the Idea. For the Idea is separate and by itself, whereas the common element exists in all: it therefore is not identical with what is separate. For that [15] which is apart and whose nature it is to be by itself cannot exist in all. Are we then to speak about this inherent good or not? And why?
What is common is what is shown by definition or by induction. Now the aim of defining is to state the substance of each thing, either what good is or what bad is,2 or whatever [20] else it may be. But the definition states that whatever is of such a kind as to be desirable for its own sake is good universally. And what is inherent in all goods is similar to the definition. And the definition says what is good,3 whereas no science or skill states of its own end that it is good: rather, it is [25] the business of another skill to consider this (for neither the doctor nor the housebuilder says that health or a house is good, but rather that one thing produces health, and how it produces it, and another thing a house). It is evident then that neither has the art of politics to do with the common element of good. For it is itself one science among the rest, and we have seen that it is not the business of any skill or science [30] to talk of this as its end. It is not therefore the business of the art of politics to speak of the common element of good corresponding to the definition.
Nor of the common element as arrived at by induction. Why not? Because when we want to prove some particular good,4 we either prove by the definition that the same account [35] applies to the good and to the thing which we want to prove to be good, or else we use induction. For instance, [1183a] when we want to prove that pride is a good, we say that justice is a good and courage is a good, and so of the virtues generally, and that pride is a virtue, so that pride also is a good. So the art of politics will not have to speak of the common good arrived at by induction, because the same impossible [5] consequences will ensue in this case as in that of the common good corresponding to the definition. For here also one will be saying what is good.5 It is clear therefore that what it has to speak about is the best good, and the best in the sense of the best for us.
In general, one can see that it is not the business of any one science or skill to consider every good. Why not? Because [10] good occurs in all the categories—in quiddity, quality, quantity, time, relation, and generally in all. But what is good at a given time is known in medicine by the doctor, in navigation by the pilot, and in each craft by each craftsman. For it is the doctor who knows when one ought to operate, [15] and the pilot when one ought to sail. And in each craft each craftsman will know the good time which concerns himself. For neither will the doctor know the good time in navigation nor the pilot that in medicine. For this reason too, then, we have not to speak about the common good; for time is common [20] to all the crafts. Similarly the relative good and the good which corresponds to other categories is common to all, and it does not belong to any skill or science to speak of what is good in each at a given time, nor is it the business of politics to speak about the common element of good. Our subject then is the good, in the sense of the best, and the best for us.
[25] Perhaps when one wants to prove something, one ought not to employ examples that are not evident, but rather illustrate the obscure by the evident, and the objects of thought by the objects of sense-perception (which are more evident). When, therefore, one undertakes to speak about the good, one ought not to speak about the Idea. And yet they think [30] that when they speak about the good they ought to speak about the Idea. For they say that they ought to speak about what is most good, and the thing-itself in each kind has the quality of that kind in the highest degree, so that the Idea will be the most good, as they think. Perhaps there is truth in such a contention; but all the same the science or skill of politics, about which we are now speaking, does not inquire [35] about this good but about that which is good for us.6 That is why it does not speak about the Ideal good.
But perhaps (you say)7 one may employ this good as an origin or principle to set out from in speaking about particular [1183b] goods? Even this is not correct. For the principles that are assumed must be appropriate. How absurd it would be if, when one wanted to prove that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, one were to assume, as a principle, that the soul is immortal. For it is not appropriate, and a principle must be appropriate and connected: as a matter [5] of fact, one can prove that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles quite as well without the immortality of the soul. In the same way in the case of goods, one can speculate about the rest without the Ideal good. That is why such a good is not an appropriate origin or principle.8
Neither was Socrates correct in making the virtues sciences. [10] For he thought that nothing ought to be in vain, but from the virtues being sciences he met with the result that the virtues were in vain. Why so? Because in the case of the sciences, as soon as one knows what the science is, it results that one is a scientist (for anyone who knows what medicine is, is thereby a doctor, and so with the other sciences). But [15] this result does not follow in the case of the virtues. For one who knows what justice is, is not thereby just, and similarly in the case of the rest. It follows then that either9 the virtues are actually in vain or they are not sciences.
NOW THAT WE HAVE SETTLED THESE POINTS, LET US TRY TO [20] say in how many ways we talk about good things. Goods may be divided into the valuable, the praiseworthy, and the potential. By the valuable I mean such a thing as the divine, the better (for instance, soul, intelligence), the more ancient, the origin, and so on. For those things are valuable to which value is accorded, and to all such things as these value is accorded. [25] Virtue then also is something valuable, at least when someone has become a virtuous man in consequence of it; for already such a one has come into the pattern of virtue. Other goods are praiseworthy—for example, virtues; for praise is bestowed in consequence of the actions that express them. Others goods are potential—for instance, office, riches, strength, beauty; for these are things which the virtuous [30] man can use well and the base man ill. That is why such goods are called potential. Goods indeed they are (for everything is judged by the use made of it by the virtuous man, not by that of the base); but in the case of these same goods fortune is the cause of their production (for from fortune come [35] riches, and also office, and generally all the things which rank as potential). The fourth and last class of goods is that which is preservative and productive of good, as exercise is of health, and other things of that sort.
But goods admit of another division too: some goods are everywhere and absolutely desirable, and some are not. For [1184a] instance, justice and the other virtues are everywhere and absolutely desirable, but strength, and riches, and power, and the like, are not so everywhere nor absolutely.
Again, there is another division: some goods are ends and some are not. For instance, health is an end, but the things [5] done for the sake of health are not ends. Wherever things stand in this relation, the end is always better: for instance, health is better than the means to health, and quite generally that for the sake of which the other things are done is, always and universally, better. Moreover, among ends themselves the complete is always better than the incomplete. A complete thing is one the presence of which leaves us in need of nothing: an incomplete thing is one despite the presence of which [10] we need something further—for instance, although justice is present, we need many things besides, but when happiness is present we need nothing more. This then is what we are looking for, viz. the chief good for us, which is a complete end. The complete end, then, is the good and end of goods.
[15] The next point is how we are to consider the chief good. Is it itself to be reckoned in with other goods? Surely that is absurd. For the chief good is the complete end, and the complete end, broadly speaking, would seem to be nothing else than happiness, and happiness we regard as made up of [20] many goods. So that if, in considering the chief good, you reckon in itself also, it will be better than itself, because it is itself best. For instance, take the means to health, and health, and consider which is the best of all these. Health is the best. If then this is the best of all, it is also better than itself; so that an absurdity results. Perhaps then this is not the [25] way in which we ought to consider the chief good. Then how? As separate?10 Is not this also absurd? For happiness is composed of certain goods. But to consider whether a given thing is better than its own components is absurd. For happiness is not something else apart from these, but just these.
[30] But perhaps the right method of inquiry may be by a comparison of the chief good, i.e., by comparing happiness itself, which is made up of these goods, with others which are not contained in it—would this be the right way of considering the chief good? But the chief good which we are now looking for is not of a simple nature. For instance, one might say that [35] wisdom is the best of all goods when they are compared one by one. But perhaps this is not the way in which we ought to look for the chief good. For it is the complete good we are looking for, and wisdom by itself is not complete. So the chief good which we are looking for is not this nor what is in this way best.
[1184b] Next, goods admit of another division: some goods are in the soul—for instance, the virtues; some in the body—for instance, health, beauty; and some external—riches, office, [5] honour, and suchlike. Of these those in the soul are best. But the goods in the soul are divided into three—wisdom, virtue, and pleasure.
Now we come to happiness, which we all declare to be, and which seems in fact to be, the end of goods and the most complete, and which we maintain to be identical with11 [10] doing well and living well. But the end is not single but twofold. For the end of some things is the activity and use itself (for instance, of sight); and the use is more desirable than the possession; for the use is the end. For no one would want to have sight, if he were never to see but always to have his eyes shut. And the same with hearing and the like. When, [15] then, a thing may be both used and possessed, the use is always better and more desirable than the possession. For use and activity are the end, whereas possession is for the sake of use. Next, if one examines this point in the case of all the sciences, he will see that it is not one science that makes a house and another that makes a good house, but rather the science [20] of housebuilding makes both; and what the housebuilder makes, that same thing his virtue enables him to make well. Similarly in all other cases.
1 Reading τὸ ἀγαθόν (Casaubon) for ἀγαθόν.
2 Reading ὅ τι twice (Stock) for ὅτι.
3 Reading ὅ τι (Stock) for ὅτι.
4 Adding κατά before μέρος (Stock).
5 Reading ὅ τι (Stock) for ὅτι.
6 The received text continues with the following sentence (which Cook Wilson excised): ‘For no science or skill pronounces its end to be good, so that politics does not do so.’
7 Retaining φησι (read by half the manuscripts).
8 Reading τοῦτο τὸ ἀγαθόν (Bonitz) for τούτου τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ.
9 Reading ἢ… ἤ… for καὶ… καί.
10 Reading αὐτό (after Spengel) for αὐτοῦ (‘separate from it’).
11 Reading τῷ for τό.