Nicomachean Ethics

Nicomachean Ethics
By Aristotle.
Translated by  F. H. Peters.




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Preface
Many more or less important alterations have been made in this translation, which was first published in 1881, as new editions have from time to time been called for. The present edition in particular has been revised throughout, and brought into accordance with Bywater’s text (Oxford, 1890), 1 which is coming to be recognized, not in Oxford only, as the received text of the Nicomachean Ethics. I wish gratefully to acknowledge the debt which, in common with all lovers of Aristotle, I owe to  Mr. Bywater, both for his edition and for his Contributions to the Textual Criticism of the Nicomachean Ethics (Oxford, 1892).
To  Mr. Stewart also I wish to express my gratitude, not only for much assistance derived from his admirable Notes on the Nicomachean Ethics (Oxford, 1892), but also for much kindly and helpful criticism in that work and in a review of my first edition (Mind, July, 1881). My old friends  Mr.  A. C. Bradley and  Mr.  J. Cook Wilson (professors now at Glasgow and Oxford respectively) will allow me to repeat my thanks for the valuable help they gave me when the first edition was passing through the press. To  Mr.  F. H. Hall of Oriel, and  Mr.  L. A. Selby Bigge of my own College, I am indebted for some corrections in a subsequent edition. To other translators and commentators I am also under many obligations, which I can only acknowledge in general terms.
When I have inserted in the text explanatory words of my own, I have enclosed them in square brackets thus [ ].



Editor’s Note
The original text had numbers in the margin to refer readers to particular lines. Because this was impractical to replicate in the ebook format, these have been omitted. Some of Peters’ notes have also had to be rewritten where they referred to these margin numbers.


Nicomachean Ethics


Book I

The End

I
Every art and every kind of inquiry, and likewise every act and purpose, seems to aim at some good: and so it has been well said that the good is that at which everything aims.
But a difference is observable among these aims or ends. What is aimed at is sometimes the exercise of a faculty, sometimes a certain result beyond that exercise. And where there is an end beyond the act, there the result is better than the exercise of the faculty.
Now since there are many kinds of actions and many arts and sciences, it follows that there are many ends also;  e.g. health is the end of medicine, ships of shipbuilding, victory of the art of war, and wealth of economy.
But when several of these are subordinated to some one art or science⁠—as the making of bridles and other trappings to the art of horsemanship, and this in turn, along with all else that the soldier does, to the art of war, and so on, 2⁠—then the end of the master-art is always more desired than