Rhetoric   

political speaker must possess. Let us now go back and state the
premisses from which he will have to argue in favour of adopting or
rejecting measures regarding these and other matters.
Part 5
It may be said that every individual man and all men in common aim at
a certain end which determines what they choose and what they avoid.
This end, to sum it up briefly, is happiness and its constituents. Let
us, then, by way of illustration only, ascertain what is in general
the nature of happiness, and what are the elements of its constituent
parts. For all advice to do things or not to do them is concerned with
happiness and with the things that make for or against it; whatever
creates or increases happiness or some part of happiness, we ought to
do; whatever destroys or hampers happiness, or gives rise to its
opposite, we ought not to do.
We may define happiness as prosperity combined with virtue; or as
independence of life; or as the secure enjoyment of the maximum of
pleasure; or as a good condition of property and body, together with
the power of guarding one's property and body and making use of them.
That happiness is one or more of these things, pretty well everybody
agrees.
From this definition of happiness it follows that its constituent
parts are:-good birth, plenty of friends, good friends, wealth, good
children, plenty of children, a happy old age, also such bodily
excellences as health, beauty, strength, large stature, athletic
powers, together with fame, honour, good luck, and virtue. A man
cannot fail to be completely independent if he possesses these
internal and these external goods; for besides these there are no
others to have. (Goods of the soul and of the body are internal. Good
birth, friends, money, and honour are external.) Further, we think
that he should possess resources and luck, in order to make his life
really secure. As we have already ascertained what happiness in
general is, so now let us try to ascertain what of these parts of it
is.
Now good birth in a race or a state means that its members are
indigenous or ancient: that its earliest leaders were distinguished
men, and that from them have sprung many who were distinguished for
qualities that we admire.
The good birth of an individual, which may come either from the male
or the female side, implies that both parents are free citizens, and
that, as in the case of the state, the founders of the line have been
notable for virtue or wealth or something else which is highly prized,
and that many distinguished persons belong to the family, men and
women, young and old.
The phrases 'possession of good children' and 'of many children' bear
a quite clear meaning. Applied to a community, they mean that its
young men are numerous and of good a quality: good in regard to bodily
excellences, such as stature, beauty, strength, athletic powers; and
also in regard to the excellences of the soul, which in a young man
are temperance and courage. Applied to an individual, they mean that
his own children are numerous and have the good qualities we have
described. Both male and female are here included; the excellences of
the latter are, in body, beauty and stature; in soul, self-command and
an industry that is not sordid. Communities as well as individuals
should lack none of these perfections, in their women as well as in
their men. Where, as among the Lacedaemonians, the state of women is
bad, almost half of human life is spoilt.
The constituents of wealth are: plenty of coined money and territory;
the ownership of numerous, large, and beautiful estates; also the
ownership of numerous and beautiful implements, live stock, and
slaves. All these kinds of property are our own, are secure,
gentlemanly, and useful. The useful kinds are those that are
productive, the gentlemanly kinds are those that provide enjoyment. By
'productive' I mean those from which we get our income; by
'enjoyable', those from which we get nothing worth mentioning except