The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

a healthy man-nor
hot to a weak man and one in good condition. The same happens in
other cases. But in all such matters that which appears to the good
man is thought to be really so. If this is correct, as it seems to
be, and virtue and the good man as such are the measure of each
thing, those also will be pleasures which appear so to him, and
those things pleasant which he enjoys. If the things he finds
tiresome seem pleasant to some one, that is nothing surprising; for
men may be ruined and spoilt in many ways; but the things are not
pleasant, but only pleasant to these people and to people in this
condition. Those which are admittedly disgraceful plainly should
not be said to be pleasures, except to a perverted taste; but of
those that are thought to be good what kind of pleasure or what
pleasure should be said to be that proper to man? Is it not plain
from the corresponding activities? The pleasures follow these.
Whether, then, the perfect and supremely happy man has one or more
activities, the pleasures that perfect these will be said in the
strict sense to be pleasures proper to man, and the rest will be so
in a secondary and fractional way, as are the activities.
<
    div class="section" title="6">
6
    Now that we have spoken of the virtues, the forms of friendship,
and the varieties of pleasure, what remains is to discuss in
outline the nature of happiness, since this is what we state the
end of human nature to be. Our discussion will be the more concise
if we first sum up what we have said already. We said, then, that
it is not a disposition; for if it were it might belong to some one
who was asleep throughout his life, living the life of a plant, or,
again, to some one who was suffering the greatest misfortunes. If
these implications are unacceptable, and we must rather class
happiness as an activity, as we have said before, and if some
activities are necessary, and desirable for the sake of something
else, while others are so in themselves, evidently happiness must
be placed among those desirable in themselves, not among those
desirable for the sake of something else; for happiness does not
lack anything, but is self-sufficient. Now those activities are
desirable in themselves from which nothing is sought beyond the
activity. And of this nature virtuous actions are thought to be;
for to do noble and good deeds is a thing desirable for its own
sake.
    Pleasant amusements also are thought to be of this nature; we
choose them not for the sake of other things; for we are injured
rather than benefited by them, since we are led to neglect our
bodies and our property. But most of the people who are deemed
happy take refuge in such pastimes, which is the reason why those
who are ready-witted at them are highly esteemed at the courts of
tyrants; they make themselves pleasant companions in the tyrants’
favourite pursuits, and that is the sort of man they want. Now
these things are thought to be of the nature of happiness because
people in despotic positions spend their leisure in them, but
perhaps such people prove nothing; for virtue and reason, from
which good activities flow, do not depend on despotic position;
nor, if these people, who have never tasted pure and generous
pleasure, take refuge in the bodily pleasures, should these for
that reason be thought more desirable; for boys, too, think the
things that are valued among themselves are the best. It is to be
expected, then, that, as different things seem valuable to boys and
to men, so they should to bad men and to good. Now, as we have
often maintained, those things are both valuable and pleasant which
are such to the good man; and to each man the activity in
accordance with his own disposition is most desirable, and,
therefore, to the good man that which is in accordance with virtue.
Happiness, therefore, does not lie in amusement; it would, indeed,
be strange if the end were amusement, and one were to take trouble
and suffer hardship all one’s life in order to amuse oneself. For,
in a word, everything that we choose we choose for the sake of
something else-except happiness, which is an end. Now to exert
oneself and work for the sake of amusement seems silly and utterly
childish. But to amuse oneself in order that one may exert oneself,
as Anacharsis puts it, seems right; for amusement is a sort of
relaxation, and we need relaxation because we cannot work
continuously. Relaxation, then, is not an end; for it is taken for
the sake of activity.
    The happy