Rhetoric   

easy to do them. Things are done 'easily' when they are done either
without pain or quickly: the 'difficulty' of an act lies either in its
painfulness or in the long time it takes. Again, a thing is good if it
is as men wish; and they wish to have either no evil at an or at least
a balance of good over evil. This last will happen where the penalty
is either imperceptible or slight. Good, too, are things that are a
man's very own, possessed by no one else, exceptional; for this
increases the credit of having them. So are things which befit the
possessors, such as whatever is appropriate to their birth or
capacity, and whatever they feel they ought to have but lack-such
things may indeed be trifling, but none the less men deliberately make
them the goal of their action. And things easily effected; for these
are practicable (in the sense of being easy); such things are those in
which every one, or most people, or one's equals, or one's inferiors
have succeeded. Good also are the things by which we shall gratify our
friends or annoy our enemies; and the things chosen by those whom we
admire: and the things for which we are fitted by nature or
experience, since we think we shall succeed more easily in these: and
those in which no worthless man can succeed, for such things bring
greater praise: and those which we do in fact desire, for what we
desire is taken to be not only pleasant but also better. Further, a
man of a given disposition makes chiefly for the corresponding things:
lovers of victory make for victory, lovers of honour for honour,
money-loving men for money, and so with the rest. These, then, are the
sources from which we must derive our means of persuasion about Good
and Utility.
Part 7
Since, however, it often happens that people agree that two things are
both useful but do not agree about which is the more so, the next step
will be to treat of relative goodness and relative utility.
A thing which surpasses another may be regarded as being that other
thing plus something more, and that other thing which is surpassed as
being what is contained in the first thing. Now to call a thing
'greater' or 'more' always implies a comparison of it with one that is
'smaller' or 'less', while 'great' and 'small', 'much' and 'little',
are terms used in comparison with normal magnitude. The 'great' is
that which surpasses the normal, the 'small' is that which is
surpassed by the normal; and so with 'many' and 'few'.
Now we are applying the term 'good' to what is desirable for its own
sake and not for the sake of something else; to that at which all
things aim; to what they would choose if they could acquire
understanding and practical wisdom; and to that which tends to produce
or preserve such goods, or is always accompanied by them. Moreover,
that for the sake of which things are done is the end (an end being
that for the sake of which all else is done), and for each individual
that thing is a good which fulfils these conditions in regard to
himself. It follows, then, that a greater number of goods is a greater
good than one or than a smaller number, if that one or that smaller
number is included in the count; for then the larger number surpasses
the smaller, and the smaller quantity is surpassed as being contained
in the larger.
Again, if the largest member of one class surpasses the largest member
of another, then the one class surpasses the other; and if one class
surpasses another, then the largest member of the one surpasses the
largest member of the other. Thus, if the tallest man is taller than
the tallest woman, then men in general are taller than women.
Conversely, if men in general are taller than women, then the tallest
man is taller than the tallest woman. For the superiority of class
over class is proportionate to the superiority possessed by their
largest specimens. Again, where one good is always accompanied by
another, but does not always accompany it, it is greater than the
other, for the use of the second thing is implied in the use of the
first. A thing may be accompanied by another in three ways, either
simultaneously, subsequently, or potentially. Life accompanies health