Chapter 1

|1323a14| The person who intends to make a proper inquiry about the best political constitution must first determine which kind of life is most choiceworthy, for when this is unclear, the best constitution must also be unclear. For it is appropriate that those people do best whose form of government is the best their circumstances will allow, unless something unexpected happens. That is why there must first be agreement on the kind of life that is most choiceworthy for all people, so to speak. |a20| After that, we must agree on whether the same choiceworthy life is lived in community with others and on one’s own, or whether they are different lives.

Believing that many things about the best life have been adequately explained, including the things said in our popular works, we must now use them. |a24| For with respect to at least one division—the division of goods into three classes: external goods, goods in the body, and goods in the soul—surely no one would dispute that it is necessary for blessedly happy people to have all of them. For no one would call “blessedly happy” the person who has no share of courage, temperance, justice, or wisdom, but who fears the flies buzzing around him, |a30| holds back from no extreme when he has an appetite for eating or drinking, ruins his dearest friends for a small amount of money, or similarly, with respect to his thought, is as foolish and deceived as a small child or a madman.

Although everyone would agree with these statements, |a35| people disagree on how much of these goods one should have and on which goods are the most important. For they believe that having any amount of virtue, however small, is enough, but they seek an unlimited excess of wealth, property, power, fame, and all such things. But we will say to them that, concerning these matters, it is easy to gain confidence in our position just by considering the facts. |a40| We see that people do not acquire and guard the virtues by means of external goods but external goods by means of the virtues. |1323b1| With respect to the happy life for human beings, whether this lies in enjoyment or virtue or both, we see that this belongs more to those whose character and thought are cultivated extremely well and who are moderate concerning the possession of external goods than to those who possess more external goods than they can use and who fall short in character and thought. |b6| However, this is easily seen by those who also examine the problem in accordance with reasoning. For external goods have a limit, as does a tool: each of them is useful for something. The excess of external goods must either harm or be of no benefit to their possessors. |b10| With each good of the soul, on the other hand, the more excessive it is, the more useful it is, if one must attribute to goods of the soul not only beauty but usefulness too. And in general it is also clear, we shall say, that the best condition of each thing relative to the best condition of other things corresponds to the ranking that holds among the things of which we say that these conditions are the conditions. |b16| Hence, if the soul is more important than either possessions or the body, both absolutely and for us, then the best condition of each of these must be ranked in the same way. Furthermore, they are naturally chosen for the sake of the soul, and everyone thinking properly chooses them for the soul’s sake, |b20| but not the soul for their sake.

Let us agree, then, that the amount of happiness bestowed upon each person is equal to his level of virtue, wisdom, and action in accordance with them. We may use God as a witness for this. God is happy and blessed not because of any of the external goods but because of himself and by having a nature of a certain kind. |b26| This is also the reason why good luck is necessarily different from happiness, for chance and luck are the cause of the goods external to the soul, but no one is just or temperate from luck or because of luck.

A related point, one depending on the same arguments, is that the happy city-state is the one that is best and acts finely. |b31| But it is impossible for those who do not do fine things to act finely, and there is no fine deed, whether of a man or a city-state, without virtue and wisdom. And the courage, justice, and wisdom of a city-state have the same capacity and form as those that each human being shares in who is said to be just, wise, and temperate. |b37|

Let these remarks serve as a preface to our account, for we cannot avoid touching upon these topics. Nor is it possible to go through all of the relevant arguments, for that is a task for a different lecture. |b40| But for now let this much be assumed: that the best life, both for each person separately and for city-states collectively, is the life with virtue supplied with enough resources to participate in virtuous actions. |1324a2| As for those who disagree with this, we will disregard them in our present investigation. Their concerns should be considered later on if someone happens not to be convinced by what has been said.