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The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle

by Aristotle

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Book X1

See note, p. 43.

Fromnot being to being....Generation
Frombeing to not being....Destruction
Frombeing to being more....Increase
Frombeing to being less....Diminution
Frombeing here to being there..Change of Place
Frombeing in this way to beinginthatAlteration

Notes

2 See Book II. chap. ix.

3 See Book I. chap. v. ad finem.

4 The notion alluded to is that of the [greek: idea]: that there is no real substantial good except the [greek: auto agathon], and therefore whatever is so called is so named in right of its participation in that.

5 See note on page 136, 1. 15.

6 Movement is, according to Aristotle, of six kinds:

7 A may go to sleep quicker than B, but cannot do more sleep in a given time.

8 Compare Book III. chap. vi. [Greek: osper kai epi ton somaton, k. t. l.]

9 Which is of course a [Greek: genesis].

10 That is, subordinate Movements are complete before the whole Movement is.

11 Pleasure is so instantaneous a sensation, that it cannot be conceived divisible or incomplete; the longest continued Pleasure is only a succession of single sparks, so rapid as to give the appearance of a stream, of light.

12 A man is as effectually hindered from taking a walk by the [Greek: allotria haedouae] of reading a novel, as by the [Greek: oikeia lupae] of gout in the feet.

13 I have thus rendered [Greek: spoudae (ouk agnoon to hamartanomenon)]; but, though the English term does not represent the depth of the Greek one, it is some approximation to the truth to connect an earnest serious purpose with Happiness.

14 Bishop Butler, contra (Sermon XV.).
“Knowledge is not our proper Happiness. Whoever will in the least attend to the thing will see that it is the gaining, not the having, of it, which is the entertainment of the mind.” The two statements may however be reconciled. Aristotle may be well understood only to mean, that the pursuit of knowledge will be the pleasanter, the freer it is from the minor hindrances which attend on learning.

15 The clause immediately following indicates that Aristotle felt this statement to be at first sight startling, Happiness having been all the way through connected with [Greek: energeia], but the statement illustrates and confirms what was said in note on page 6, 1. 15.

16 That is to say, he aims at producing not merely a happy aggregate, but an aggregate of happy individuals. Compare what is said of Legislators in the last chapter of Book I and the first of Book II.

17 See note, page 146, 1. 17.

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