Kitap 1
4
Owing to this, different people give the name of happy to different persons, as was said before too; and AnaxagorasThe physical philosopher, 500-428 B.C., born at Clazomenae in Ionia, taught at Athens. of Clazomenae when asked Who is the happiest man? said None of those whom you think, but he would seem to you an odd sort of person. But Anaxagoras answered in that way because he saw that the man who put the question supposed it to be impossible to receive the appellation happy without being great and beautiful or rich, whereas he himself perhaps thought that the person who humanly speaking enjoys bliss is he that lives by the standard of justice without pain and in purity, or participates in some form of divine contemplation.i.e. the man who displays the virtues of Temperance, Justice and Wisdom (the fourth cardinal virtue, Courage, is omitted), enhanced by pleasure or freedom from pain. This passage illustrates how Aristotle prepared the way for the hedonism of Epicurus.
1
While there are many different things as to which it is not easy to make a right judgement, this is especially the case with one about which everybody thinks that it is very easy to judge and that anybody can decide—the question which of the things contained in being alive is preferable, and which when attained would fully satisfy a man’s desire. For many of life’s events are such that they cause men to throw life away,for instance, diseases, excessive pains, storms; so that it is clear that on account of these things any way it would actually be preferable, if someone offered us the choice, not to be born at all.Cf. Soph. O.C. 1225μὴ φῦναι τὸν ἅπαντα νικᾷ λόγον.
2
And in addition, the kind of life that people live while still children is not desirable—in fact no sensible person could endure to go back to it again.
