If it be true that nothing which exists in one manner by nature can be changed by habit so as to exist in another manner, I do not see how the assertion contained in the passage above cited out of the Magna Moralia can be reconciled with it, where we are told — “For even things which exist by nature partake of change. Thus if we all should practise throwing with the left hand, we should become ambidextrous: but still it is the left hand by nature, and the right hand is not the less better by nature than the left, although we should do everything with the left as we do with the right.� (Mag. Mor. i. 34, ut sup.) In the one case he illustrates the meaning of natural properties by the comparative aptitudes of the right and left hand: in the other by the downward tendency of the stone. The idea is plainly different in the one case and in the other.
On the other hand, there seems to be not less variance between the one passage quoted out of the Nicomacheian Ethics and the other. For in the passage last quoted, we are told that none of the ethical virtues is generated in us by nature — neither by nature, nor contrary to nature: nature makes us fit to receive them, habit introduces and creates them — an observation perfectly true and accurate. But if this was the sentiment of Aristotle, how could he also believe that the pleasures arising out of the active manifestation of ethical virtue were the natural pleasures of man? If ethical virtue does not come by nature, the pleasures belonging to it cannot come by nature either.
On the whole, these three passages present a variance which I am unable to reconcile in the meaning which Aristotle annexes to the very equivocal word — nature.
Although Aristotle tells us that the active exercise of the functions of the soul according to virtue confers happiness, yet he admits that a certain measure of external comfort and advantages must be superadded as an indispensable auxiliary and instrument. Disgusting ugliness, bad health, low birth, loss of friends and relatives or vicious conduct of friends and relatives, together with many other misfortunes, are sufficient to sully the blessed condition of the most virtuous man (ῥυπαίνουσι τὸ μακάριον — i. 8) — for which reason it is that some persons have ranked both virtue and good fortune as co-ordinate ingredients equally essential to happiness: and have doubted also whether it can ever be acquired either by teaching, or by training, or by any other method except chance or Divine inspiration. To suppose that so magnificent a boon is conferred by chance, would be an absurdity: it is a boon not unworthy indeed of the Divine nature to confer; but still the magnificence of it will appear equally great and equally undeniable, if we suppose it to be acquired by teaching or training. And this is really the proper account to give of the way in which Happiness is acquired: for the grand and primary element in it, is the virtuous agency of the soul, which is undoubtedly acquired by training: while external advantages, though indispensable up to a certain limit, are acquired only as secondary helps and instruments. The creation of these virtuous habits among the citizens is one of the chief objects of political science and legislation: when once acquired, they are the most lasting and ineffaceable of all human possessions: and as they are created by special training, they may be imparted to every man not disqualified by some natural defect of organization, and may thus be widely diffused throughout the community (i. 9).
This is an important property. If happiness be supposed to be derived from the possession of wealth or honour or power, it can only be possessed by a small number of persons. For these three considered as objects of human desire, are essentially comparative. A man does not think himself rich, or honoured, or powerful, unless he becomes so to a degree above the multitude of his companions and neighbours.
Aristotle insists most earnestly that the only way of acquiring the character proper for happiness is by a course of early and incessant training in virtuous action. Moral teaching, he says, will do little or nothing, unless it be preceded by, or at least coupled with, moral training. Motives must be applied sufficient to ensure performance of what is virtuous and abstinence from what is vicious, until such a course of conduct becomes habitual, and until a disposition is created to persevere in them. It is the business of the politician and the legislator to employ their means of working upon the citizens for the purpose of enforcing this training. It is not with virtue (he says) as it is with those faculties which we receive ready-made from nature, as for example, the external senses. We do not acquire the faculty of sight by often seeing, but we have it from nature and then exercise it: whereas with regard to virtue, we obtain our virtues by means of a previous course of virtuous action, just as we learn other arts. For those things which we must learn in order to do, we learn by actually doing: thus by building we become builders, and by harping we become harpers: by doing just and temperate and courageous actions, we become just and temperate and courageous. All legislators try, some in a better and others in a worse manner, to ethise (ἐθίζοντες) — to create habits among — the citizens for the purpose of making them good. “In one word habits are created by repeated action, wherefore our actions must be determined in a suitable way, for according as they differ, so will our habits differ. Nor is the difference small whether we are ethised in one way or in another, from our youth upwards: the difference is very great, or rather it is everythingâ€� (ii. 1).
Neither an ox, nor a horse, can acquire such habits, and therefore neither of them can be called happy: even a child cannot be called so, except from the hope and anticipation of what he will become in future years.
It may appear somewhat singular that Aristotle characterises a child as incapable of happiness, since in common language a child when healthy and well treated is described as peculiarly happy. But happiness, as Aristotle understands it, is something measured more by the estimate of the judicious spectator than by the sentiment of the man in whose bosom it resides. No person is entitled to be called happy, whom the intelligent and reflective observer does not macarise (or eudæmonise), or whose condition he would not desire more or less to make his own. Now the life of a child, even though replete with all the enjoyments belonging to childhood, is not such as any person in the state of mind of a mature citizen could bring himself to accept (i. 10, x. 3). The test to which Aristotle appeals, either tacitly or openly, seems always to be the judgment of the serious man (i. 8, x. 5). It is no sufficient proof of happiness that the person who feels it is completely satisfied with his condition and does not desire anything beyond. Such self-satisfaction is indeed necessary, but is not by itself sufficient: it must be farther confirmed by the judgment of persons without — not of the multitude, who are apt to judge by a wrong standard — nor of princes, who are equally incompetent, and who have never tasted the relish of pure and liberal pleasures (x. 6) — but of the virtuous and worthy, who have arrived at the most perfect condition attainable by human beings (x. 5, x. 6, x. 8).
The different standard adopted by the many and by the more discerning few, in estimating human happiness, is again touched upon in Politica, vii. 1. It is in some respects treated more clearly and simply in this passage than in the Ethics. Both the Many and the Few (he says) agree that in order to constitute Happiness, there must be a coincidence of the three distinct kinds of Good things — The Mental — The Corporeal — The External. But with respect to the proportions in which the three ought to be intermingled, a difference of opinion arises. Most persons are satisfied with a very moderate portion of mental excellence, while they are immoderate in their desire for wealth and power (“For of virtue they think that they have a sufficiency, whatever be the quantity they have; but of wealth and possessions they seek the excess without bound.� — Pol. vii. 1). On the other hand, the opinion sanctioned by the few of a higher order of mind, and adopted by Aristotle, was, that Happiness was possessed in a higher degree by those who were richly set forth with moral and intellectual excellence and only moderately provided with external advantages, than by those in regard to whom the proportion was reversed (ib.). The same difference of estimate, between the few and the many, is touched upon Polit. vii. 13, where he says that men in general esteem external advantages to be the causes of happiness: which is just as if they were to say that the cause why a musician played well was his lyre, and not his proficiency in the art.
In this chapter of the Politica (vii. 13), he refers to the Ethica in a singular manner. Having stated that the point of first importance is, to determine wherein happiness consists, he proceeds to say — “We have said also in the Ethics, if there be any good in that treatise (εἴ τι τῶν λόγων ἐκείνων ὄφελος), that it (happiness) is the active exertion and perfected habit of virtue.â€� — This is a singular expression — “if there be any good in the Ethicsâ€� — it seems rather to fall in with the several passages in that treatise in which he insists upon the inherent confusion and darkness of the subject-matter.