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[1247a]
[1]
but we also speak of the fortunate as faring well, which
implies that good fortune also engenders welfare in the same way as
knowledge does; we must therefore consider whether one man is
fortunate and another unfortunate by nature or not, and how it stands
with these matters. For
that some men are fortunate we see, since many though foolish succeed
in things in which luck is paramount, and some even in things which
involve skill although also containing a large element of
luck—for example strategy and navigation. Are, then, these men fortunate
as a result of a certain state of character, or are they enabled to
achieve fortunate results not by reason of a certain quality in
themselves? As it is, people think the latter, holding that some men
are successful by natural causes; but nature makes men of a certain
quality, and the fortunate and unfortunate are different even from
birth, in the same way as some men are blue-eyed and others black-eyed
because a particular part of them is of a particular quality.
For it is clear
that they do not succeed by means of wisdom, because wisdom is not
irrational but can give reason why it acts as it does, whereas they
could not say why they succeed—for that would be science;
and moreover it is
manifest that they succeed in spite of being unwise—not
unwise about other matters (for that would not be anything strange,
for example Hippocrates1 was skilled in geometry but was thought to be stupid and
unwise in other matters, and it is said that on a voyage owing to
foolishness he lost a great deal of money,
[20]
taken from him by the collectors of the
two-per-cent duty at Byzantium), but even though they are unwise about the
matters in which they are fortunate. For in navigation it is not the cleverest who
are fortunate, but (just as in throwing dice one man throws a blank
and another a six) a man is fortunate according as things were
arranged by nature.2 Or is it
because he is loved by God, as the phrase goes, and because success is
something from outside? as for instance a badly built ship often gets
through a voyage better, though not owing to itself, but because it
has a good man at the helm. But on this showing the fortunate man has the deity as steersman.
But it is strange that a god or deity should love a man of this sort,
and not the best and most prudent. If, then, the success of the lucky
must necessarily be due to either nature or intellect or some
guardianship, and of these three causes two are ruled out, those who
are fortunate will be so by nature. But again, nature of course is the cause of a thing
that happens either always or generally in the same way, whereas
fortune is the opposite. If, then, unexpected achievement seems a
matter of fortune, but, if a man is fortunate owing to fortune, it
would seem that the cause is not of such a sort as to produce the same
result always or generally— further, if a man's succeeding or not
succeeding is due to his being of a certain sort, as a man does not
see clearly because he has blue eyes, not fortune but nature is the
cause; therefore he is not a man who has good fortune but one who has
as it were a good nature. Hence we should have to say that the people
we call fortunate are so not by reason of fortune; therefore they are
not fortunate,
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