Kitap 1
5
We ought therefore to take this difference also into account, and still more perhaps the doubt that exists whether the dead really participate in good or evil at all. For the above considerations seem to show that even if any good or evil does penetrate to them, the effect is only small and trifling, either intrinsically or in relation to them, or if not trifling, at all events not of such magnitude and kind as to make the unhappy happy or to rob the happy of their blessedness.
6
It does then appear that the dead are influenced in some measure by the good fortune of their friends, and likewise by their misfortunes, but that the effect is not of such a kind or degree as to render the happy unhappy or vice versa.
1
These questions being settled, let us consider whether happiness is one of the things we praise or rather one of those that we honorThe definition of happiness is now shown to be supported by the current terms of moral approbation; apparently ἐπαινετον, praiseworthy or commendable, was appropriate to means , or things having relative value, and τίμιον, valued or revered, to ends, or things of absolute value.; for it is at all events clear that it is not a mere potentiality.i.e., not merely a potentiality of good but an actual good, whether as means or end.
2
Now it appears that a thing which we praise is always praised because it has a certain quality and stands in a certain relation to something. For we praise just men and brave men, in fact good men and virtue generally, because of their actions and the results they produce; and also we praise those who are strong of body, swift of foot and the like on account of their possessing certain natural qualities, and standing in a certain relation to something good and excellent.
