But, being a man, one will also need external prosperity; for our
nature is not self-sufficient for the purpose of contemplation, but
our body also must be healthy and must have food and other
attention. Still, we must not think that the man who is to be happy
will need many things or great things, merely because he cannot be
supremely happy without external goods; for self-sufficiency and
action do not involve excess, and we can do noble acts without
ruling earth and sea; for even with moderate advantages one can act
virtuously (this is manifest enough; for private persons are thought
to do worthy acts no less than despots-indeed even more); and it is
enough that we should have so much as that; for the life of the man
who is active in accordance with virtue will be happy. Solon, too, was
perhaps sketching well the happy man when he described him as
moderately furnished with externals but as having done (as Solon
thought) the noblest acts, and lived temperately; for one can with but
moderate possessions do what one ought. Anaxagoras also seems to
have supposed the happy man not to be rich nor a despot, when he
said that he would not be surprised if the happy man were to seem to
most people a strange person; for they judge by externals, since these
are all they perceive. The opinions of the wise seem, then, to
harmonize with our arguments. But while even such things carry some
conviction, the truth in practical matters is discerned from the facts
of life; for these are the decisive factor. We must therefore survey
what we have already said, bringing it to the test of the facts of
life, and if it harmonizes with the facts we must accept it, but if it
clashes with them we must suppose it to be mere theory. Now he who
exercises his reason and cultivates it seems to be both in the best
state of mind and most dear to the gods. For if the gods have any care
for human affairs, as they are thought to have, it would be reasonable
both that they should delight in that which was best and most akin
to them (i.e. reason) and that they should reward those who love and
honour this most, as caring for the things that are dear to them and
acting both rightly and nobly. And that all these attributes belong
most of all to the philosopher is manifest. He, therefore, is the
dearest to the gods. And he who is that will presumably be also the
happiest; so that in this way too the philosopher will more than any
other be happy.

                                 9

  If these matters and the virtues, and also friendship and
pleasure, have been dealt with sufficiently in outline, are we to
suppose that our programme has reached its end? Surely, as the
saying goes, where there are things to be done the end is not to
survey and recognize the various things, but rather to do them; with
regard to virtue, then, it is not enough to know, but we must try to
have and use it, or try any other way there may be of becoming good.
Now if arguments were in themselves enough to make men good, they
would justly, as Theognis says, have won very great rewards, and
such rewards should have been provided; but as things are, while
they seem to have power to encourage and stimulate the generous-minded
among our youth, and to make a character which is gently born, and a
true lover of what is noble, ready to be possessed by virtue, they are
not able to encourage the many to nobility and goodness. For these
do not by nature obey the sense of shame, but only fear, and do not
abstain from bad acts because of their baseness but through fear of
punishment; living by passion they pursue their own pleasures and
the means to them, and and the opposite pains, and have not even a
conception of what is noble and truly pleasant, since they have
never tasted it. What argument would remould such people? It is
hard, if not impossible, to remove by argument the traits that have
long since been incorporated in the character; and perhaps we must
be content if, when all the influences by which we are thought to
become good are present, we get some tincture of virtue.

  Now some think that we are made good by nature, others by
habituation, others by teaching. Nature's part evidently does not
depend on us, but as a result of some divine causes is present in
those who are truly fortunate; while argument and teaching, we may
suspect, are not powerful with all men, but the soul of the student
must first have been cultivated by means of habits for noble joy and
noble hatred, like earth which is to nourish the seed. For he who
lives as passion directs will not hear argument that dissuades him,
nor understand it if he does; and how can we persuade one in such a
state to change his ways? And in general passion seems to yield not to
argument but to force. The character, then, must somehow be there
already with a kinship to virtue, loving what is noble and hating what
is base.

  But it is difficult to get from youth up a right training for virtue
if one has not been brought up under right laws; for to live
temperately and hardily is not pleasant to most people, especially
when they are young. For this reason their nurture and occupations
should be fixed by law; for they will not be painful when they have
become customary. But it is surely not enough that when they are young
they should get the right nurture and attention; since they must, even
when they are grown up, practise and be habituated to them, we shall
need laws for this as well, and generally speaking to cover the
whole of life; for most people obey necessity rather than argument,
and punishments rather than the sense of what is noble.

  This is why some think that legislators ought to stimulate men to
virtue and urge them forward by the motive of the noble, on the
assumption that those who have been well advanced by the formation
of habits will attend to such influences; and that punishments and
penalties should be imposed on those who disobey and are of inferior
nature, while the incurably bad should be completely banished. A
good man (they think), since he lives with his mind fixed on what is
noble, will submit to argument, while a bad man, whose desire is for