Kitap 1
6
And it is also well to judge separately the statement of the cause and the demonstrated fact, both for the reason stated just now,1 above. that it is not proper in regard to all things to attend to theoretical arguments, but often rather to the facts of observation (whereas now when men are unable to refute an argument they are forced to believe what has been said), and also because often, although the result that seems to have been proved by the arguments is true, it is not true because of the cause asserted in the argument. For it is possible to prove truth by falsehood, as is clear from Analytics.i.e. a proposition that logically follows from premisses that are false may be a a true one: see Aristot. Anal. Pr. 53b 26ff., Aristot. Anal. Post. 88a 20ff. Aristotle’s simplest example is the syllogism A man is a stone, but a stone is an animal, therefore a man is an animal.
1
These prefatory remarks having also been made, let us proceed by starting first from the firststatements, which, as has been said, Aristot. Eud. Eth. 1216b 32ff. are not clearly expressed,afterwards seeking to discover clearly the essential nature of happiness.
2
Now it is agreed that happiness is the greatest and best of human goods (and we say human because there might very likely also be a happiness belonging to some higher being, for instance a god);
3
since none of the other animals, which are inferior in nature to men, share in the designation happy, for a horse is not happy, nor is a bird nor a fish nor any other existing thing whose designation does not indicate that it possesses in its nature a share of something divine, but it is by some other mode of participating in things good that one of them has a better life and another a worse.
