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Book II Chapter 7

Happiness and Material Means

Happiness arises from noble and preferred actions; hence it is noble throughout, just as performance on the pipes is skilled throughout.⁵⁷⁶ For employing material things does not compromise the purely noble character of happiness, any more than using instruments compromises the wholly skilled character of medical activity. For every action is some activity of the soul.⁵⁷⁷

Parts of Activity and Its Necessary Conditions

Since the agent also uses certain things to complete the intended aim, these should not be regarded as parts of the activity, although each of the two ⟨arts⟩ mentioned requires its corresponding means, as something productive for the art rather than as a part.⁵⁷⁸ For it is not correct to call the things without which any action is impossible parts of the activity. A part is conceived as a constituent of the whole; things without which it cannot be done are conceived as productive, because they promote and help achieve the end.⁵⁷⁹

The Good and Happiness

The good is divided into the noble, the beneficial, and the pleasant. These are the aims of particular actions; what arises from all of them is happiness.⁵⁸⁰ Happiness is “the exercise of complete virtue, provided for in a complete life,” or “the activity of a complete life in accordance with virtue,” or “the unhindered exercise of virtue amid things in accordance with nature.” The same thing is also the end.⁵⁸¹

Aim and End

If living happily is the end, while happiness is called the aim, and wealth is a good, while being wealthy … — for those who draw these distinctions for the sake of precision in names …⁵⁸² Nevertheless, one should follow the usage of the ancients and say that the end is “that for whose sake we do everything, while it is for the sake of nothing else,” or “the ultimate object of desire,” or “living in accordance with virtue amid bodily and external goods, either all of them or most of them and the most important.”⁵⁸³

Goods Evils and Indifferents

This, being the greatest and most complete of goods, is served by all the others. For one must admittedly count the things that contribute to it among goods, and those that oppose ⟨it among evils; things that neither contribute nor oppose⟩ belong neither among goods nor among evils, but among indifferents.⁵⁸⁴ Yet not every noble action belongs to happiness.⁵⁸⁵

Complete and Incomplete Virtue

They called happiness the exercise of “complete” virtue because they said that some virtues are complete and others incomplete. Complete are justice and nobility and goodness; incomplete are natural aptitude and progress.⁵⁸⁶ What is complete fits what is complete. The end, therefore, is the activity of virtue of such a kind that no part of it is missing.⁵⁸⁷

A Complete Life and Its Duration

They also added “in a complete life” to indicate that happiness occurs in men who have already reached maturity. For a youth is incomplete, and so is his life; hence happiness could not occur in him, nor, in general, in an incomplete period, but in a complete one.⁵⁸⁸ This period is complete when it extends as long as God has set for us at most. He has set it within a range, just as he has set bodily size.⁵⁸⁹

Duration and Completeness

Accordingly, just as a single verse could not constitute a dramatic performance, nor a single extension of the hand a dance, nor a single swallow make spring, so a short period could not constitute happiness.⁵⁹⁰ For happiness must be complete, constituted from completeness in the man, the duration, and the fortune allotted to him.⁵⁹¹

576.The rejected summary heading reads “From what things happiness arises.” Προηγουμένων is rendered “preferred,” as in II.7.11m.9–10: it concerns precedence in choice rather than actions that happened earlier in time. The repeated “throughout” preserves δι’ ὅλων. Wachsmuth records a proposed gap before the comparison with the pipes, but prints no additional wording or gap sign here; none is supplied in this edition.

577.Αὐλοί are musical wind instruments, rendered “pipes.” The argument then turns to medicine and its instruments. Ἐκβιβάζειν literally means to take outside; the English expresses the denial that employing material things removes happiness from the purity of the noble, or removes medical activity from the sphere of skill. Ὑλικά names material things or means, whereas ὄργανα names instruments. The distinction between activity and its means continues in the next paragraph. Wachsmuth notes that this section also survives in the Florilegium under an attribution to Didymus’s Epitome.

578.Wachsmuth prints τελείωσιν, completion, as his correction of τελειότητα, completeness or perfection. The supplied τεχνῶν is preserved as the bracketed “arts.” The distributive ἑκατέρα and ἑκάτερον refer to the two arts already mentioned and their corresponding means. Ποιητικόν assigns the means a productive role for the art; it does not make them constituent parts of the activity.

579.The distinction is between what constitutes a whole, συμπληρωτικόν, and what contributes causally toward the end, ποιητικόν. “Things without which” preserves the source’s repeated formulation for necessary conditions. This continues the account at II.7.14.6–7 and II.7.16.2: dependence on other goods does not by itself make those goods parts of happiness. This completes section II.7.17. The next section divides the good into the noble, the beneficial, and the pleasant, then discusses the aim and definitions of happiness.

580.The rejected summary heading reads “How many parts there are of the good; and on the aim.” As with the preceding later headings, the Greek brackets are retained and the heading is translated here. Καλόν, συμφέρον, and ἡδύ are the noble, beneficial, and pleasant respectively. The statement about their combination retains the compressed τὸ δ’ ἐκ πάντων αὐτῶν; it does not supply a further list of goods.

581.The three formulations are alternatives introduced by ἢ, “or.” Χρῆσις is exercise or use, whereas ἐνέργεια is activity. “Provided for” follows Wachsmuth’s printed correction χορηγουμένην in place of προηγουμένην. It anticipates the explanation of supporting goods below, rather than making “complete” mean merely a lifetime that has ended. The expressions complete virtue, complete life, and provided for are unpacked in the following paragraphs. Τέλος is the end toward which action is directed.

582.The opening sentence is damaged. Wachsmuth prints ὧν χρή, τοῖς after πλουτεῖν, and his apparatus records incompatible repairs and proposed gaps here and after χάριν. The English ellipses mark uncertain wording and connections, not deliberate abbreviation of sound Greek. The intelligible clauses and the reference to terminological precision are translated, but no conjectured completion is presented as the source. The Greek keeps every printed word. The secure contrast is between the noun happiness and living happily, and between wealth and being wealthy; Wachsmuth compares Stoic formulations earlier in the anthology.

583.The resumed prescription beginning ἀκολουθητέον is intelligible. All three definitions of the end are retained, including the final requirement for bodily and external goods. “Ultimate object of desire” renders τὸ ἔσχατον τῶν ὀρεκτῶν. The last alternative allows either all the goods or most and the most important of them; it does not say that any amount of external prosperity is sufficient. The source’s generic attribution to the ancients is retained.

584.The long supplement αὐτῷ τῶν κακῶν … ἐναντιούμενα is printed by Wachsmuth from Spengel and remains bracketed in both languages. The separately supplied τῶν is an article required by the Greek construction; its function is absorbed into “among evils.” The classification is relative to contribution to or opposition to the end. The term indifferent therefore occurs within this Peripatetic account, without importing the Stoic restriction of good to virtue.

585.Εὐδαιμονικήν means belonging to or productive of happiness. The negative qualifies “every”: the passage does not deny the nobility of an action that fails to make a life happy. The distinction becomes explicit in the subsequent examples of virtuous conduct amid misfortune and mistreatment.

586.Καλοκἀγαθία combines the noble and the good in one term, rendered “nobility and goodness.” Εὐφυΐα is natural aptitude or good natural endowment, and προκοπή progress. Both are explicitly placed among incomplete virtues in this account. Wachsmuth observes that progress is Stoic terminology also taken up by Peripatetics; the anthology’s terminology should not be flattened into one school’s definitions.

587.The repeated τέλειος is complete in the sense of lacking no constituent part. The final relative clause describes the virtue whose activity is the end. This explains the first qualification in the initial definition of happiness; it does not equate an undeveloped aptitude or mere progress with the complete exercise of virtue.

588.The passage explains completeness first by maturity rather than by a fixed number of years. Μειράκιον is a youth, contrasted with men who have already advanced in age. The claims are those of the ancient account. “In a complete life” translates the quoted phrase; the embedded δέ serves the connection of the Greek discussion rather than adding a new condition inside the definition.

589.Κατὰ πλάτος means within a breadth or range, here contrasted with one exact measure. The comparison is with bodily size. The supplied τὸ before πλεῖστον is retained in Greek; the English idiom “at most” absorbs its grammatical function. The source gives no numerical lifespan. Θεός is God; the later δαίμων is a separate word and is explained in the next note.

590.All three comparisons are retained. Ὑπόκρισις here is dramatic performance or acting, not hypocrisy. Each example distinguishes an isolated element from a complete activity or season. The spring comparison is printed as ἔαρ; the English does not replace it with the familiar modern form of the proverb about summer.

591.The single adjective τελείου governs the man, time, and δαίμων together. Here δαίμων is rendered “the fortune allotted to him,” expressing the governing lot or fortune in a life; the source has not introduced a separate doctrine about a personal demon. The translation preserves this third requirement alongside the person and duration, rather than reducing completeness to age alone.