What is Excellence?

Happiness is a kind of working of the soul in the way of perfect Excellence. So we must ask about Excellence.

Statesmen generally have spent most pains on this because he wishes to make the citizens good and obedient to the laws.

Examples of this class are the lawgivers of the Cretans and Spartans, etc.

Human Excellence is of the soul because we call Happiness as a working of the Soul.

So some knowledge of the nature of the Soul is necessary for the statesman, just as for the occulist a knowledge of the whole body, and the more so in proportion as πολιτικὴ is more precious and higher than the healing art:

Physicians of the higher class do busy themselves much with the knowledge of the body.

So then the statesman is to consider the nature of the Soul: but he must do so with these objects in view, and so far only as may suffice for the objects of his special enquiry: for to carry his speculations to a greater exactness is perhaps a task more laborious than falls within his province.

In fact, the few statements made on the subject in my popular treatises are quite enough, and accordingly we will adopt them here: as, that the Soul consists of two parts, the Irrational and the Rational (as to whether these are actually divided, as are the parts of the body, and everything that is capable of division; or are only metaphysically speaking two, being by nature inseparable, as are convex and concave circumferences, matters not in respect of our present purpose).

Of the Irrational, the one part seems common to other objects, and in fact vegetative; I mean the cause of nourishment and growth (for such a faculty of the Soul one would assume to exist in all things that receive nourishment, even in embryos, and this the same as in the perfect creatures; for this is more likely than that it should be a different one).

The Excellence of this manifestly is not peculiar to the human species but common to others: for this part and this faculty is thought to work most in time of sleep, and the good and bad man are least distinguishable while asleep; whence it is a common saying that during one half of life there is no difference between the happy and the wretched; and this accords with our anticipations, for sleep is an inactivity of the soul, in so far as it is denominated good or bad, except that in some wise some of its movements find their way through the veil and so the good come to have better dreams than ordinary men.

There seems to be another Irrational Nature of the Soul, which yet in a way partakes of Reason.

For in the man who controls his appetites, and in him who resolves to do so and fails, we praise the Reason or Rational part of the Soul, because it exhorts aright and to the best course: but clearly there is in them, beside the Reason, some other natural principle which fights with and strains against the Reason.

(For in plain terms, just as paralysed limbs of the body when their owners would move them to the right are borne aside in a contrary direction to the left, so is it in the case of the Soul, for the impulses of men who cannot control their appetites are to contrary points: the difference is that in the case of the body we do see what is borne aside but in the case of the soul we do not.

But, it may be, not the less[42] on that account are we to suppose that there is in the Soul also somewhat besides the Reason, which is opposed to this and goes against it; as to how it is different, that is irrelevant.)

But of Reason this too does evidently partake, as we have said: for instance, in the man of self-control it obeys Reason: and perhaps in the man of perfected self-mastery,[43] or the brave man, it is yet more obedient; in them it agrees entirely with the Reason.

So then the Irrational is plainly twofold: the one part, the merely vegetative, has no share of Reason, but that of desire, or appetition generally, does partake of it in a sense, in so far as it is obedient to it and capable of submitting to its rule.

So too in common phrase we say we have λόγος of our father or friends, and this in a different sense from that in which we say we have λόγος of mathematics.[44]

The Irrational is in some way persuaded by the Reason, admonition, and every act of rebuke and exhortation indicate.

If then we are to say that this also has Reason, then the Rational, as well as the Irrational, will be twofold, the one supremely and in itself, the other paying it a kind of filial regard.

The Excellence of Man then is divided into two:

1. The Intellectual

This includes pure science, intelligence, and practical wisdom

2. The Moral

This includes liberality, and perfected self-mastery

We praise a moral character by saying that he is meek and has self-mastery. We do not say that he is a scientific or intelligent man.