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1248b]
[1]
just as the
blind remember better, being released from having their faculty of
memory engaged with objects of sight.
1It is clear, then, that there are two kinds of good
fortune—one divine, owing to which the fortunate man's
success is thought to be due to the aid of God, and this is the man
who is successful in accordance with his impulse, while the other is
he who succeeds against his impulse. Both persons are irrational. The
former kind is more continuous good fortune, the latter is not
continuous.
We have, then, previously
spoken about each virtue in particular; and as we have distinguished
their meaning separately, we must also describe in detail the virtue
constituted from them, to which we now give the name
2 of nobility.
3
Now it is manifest that one who is to obtain this appellation truly
must possess the particular virtues; for it is impossible for it to be
otherwise in the case of any other matter either—for
instance, no one is healthy in his whole body but not in any part of
it, but all the parts, or most of them and the most important, must
necessarily be in the same condition as the whole. Now being good and being noble
are really different not only in their names but also in themselves.
For all goods have Ends that are desirable in and for
themselves.
[20]
Of these, all those are fine
which are laudable as existing for their own sakes, for these are the
Ends which are both the motives of laudable actions and laudable
themselves—justice itself and its actions, and temperate
actions, for temperance also is laudable; but health is not laudable,
for its effect is not, nor is vigorous action laudable, for strength
is not—these things are good but they are not laudable.
And similarly
induction makes this clear in the other cases also. Therefore a man is
good for whom the things good by nature are good. For the things men
fight about and think the greatest, honor and wealth and bodily
excellences and pieces of good fortune and powers, are good by nature
but may possibly be harmful to some men owing to their characters. If
a man is foolish or unjust or profligate he would gain no profit by
employing them, any more than an invalid would benefit from using the
diet of a man in good health, or a weakling and cripple from the
equipment of a healthy man and of a sound one. A man is noble because he
possesses those good things that are fine for their own sake and
because he is a doer of fine deeds even for their own sake; and the
fine things are the virtues and the actions that arise from
virtue.
But there is also a state of character that
is the 'civic' character, such as the Spartans have or others like
them may have; and this character is of the following sort. There are
those who think that one ought, it is true, to possess goodness, but
for the sake of the things that are naturally good;