This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
View text chunked by:
- bekker page : bekker line
- book : chapter : section
activity (since the intellect is the
highest thing in us, and the objects with which the intellect deals are the highest things
that can be known) , and also it is the most continuous, for we can reflect more
continuously than we can carry on any form of action.
[3]
And
again we suppose that happiness must contain an element of pleasure; now activity in
accordance with wisdom is admittedly the most pleasant of the activities in accordance
with virtue: at all events it is held that philosophy or the pursuit of wisdom contains
pleasures of marvellous purity and permanence, and it is reasonable to suppose that the
enjoyment of knowledge is a still pleasanter occupation than the pursuit of it.
[4]
Also the activity of contemplation will be found to possess in the
highest degree the quality that is termed self-sufficiency; for while it is true that the
wise man equally with the just man and the rest requires the necessaries of life, yet,
these being adequately supplied, whereas the just man needs other persons towards whom or
with whose aid he may act justly, and so likewise do the temperate man and the brave man
and the others, the wise man on the contrary can also contemplate by himself, and the more
so the wiser he is; no doubt he will study better with the aid of fellow-workers, but
still he is the most self-sufficient of men.