1 Aristotle 1 · Handed down at the Lyceum, taken from his own writings
Aristotle, born at Stagira in 384 before this era, died at Chalcis in 322. His father was physician to the king of Macedon. He entered the Academy at seventeen and stayed twenty years, leaving only when Plato died. He taught Alexander. In 335 he founded the Lyceum at Athens. In 323 the Athenians charged him with impiety and he left the city, saying he would not let Athens sin twice against philosophy — he knew that Socrates had not left. He died of illness the next year. He is not a witness: he never met the Teacher, he is the student of a student. What survives of him is lecture notes, not the works he published in his lifetime; those are wholly lost. On God he reasons out an unmoved mover — reasoned to, not worshipped — and no argument of his closes on divine will. What is taken here is from his own books: the Order wants words that can be checked, not a name that can be cited. Further: in the fourth chapter he stands directly against the Teacher. The Teacher said no one does wrong knowing it is wrong; he says that does not square with what anyone can see, and offers another account. The Order does not reconcile them. The Teacher is in the four gospels, his objection is here, and the reader decides after reading both.
1.1Let me begin with a question most people do not ask: what is the good for a human being?
1.2The question must be put rightly before anything can come out of it. I put it thus: has a human being a work of his own?
1.3The flute-player has his work, the sculptor has his, the carpenter has his.
1.4Whatever has a work, its good lies in doing that work well. A good flute-player is one who plays the flute well.
1.5What then of a human being? The eye has its work, the hand has its work, the foot has its work.
1.6Are we to say that every part has a work of its own, and the whole man none?
1.7I do not believe it.
1.8What then is the work of a human being? Not living — plants live too.
1.9Not sensing — beasts sense too.
1.10One thing is left: acting according to reason. The work of a human being is to set actually in motion that part of him which can give an account.
1.11So the good for a human being is to do this well, and to do it over a long time.
1.12From which comes something that matters: happiness is not a feeling. It is an activity.
1.13Not what happens to you. What you do.
1.14A man asleep is no less virtuous than a man awake. But that stretch of time does not count.
1.15One swallow does not make a spring, nor does one fine day.
1.16Neither does one day, nor a short span of days, make a man happy.
1.17So the question to ask is not "am I glad at this moment," but "is what I have been doing these years the work of a human being?"