Rhetoric   

simultaneously (but not health life), knowledge accompanies the act of
learning subsequently, cheating accompanies sacrilege potentially,
since a man who has committed sacrilege is always capable of cheating.
Again, when two things each surpass a third, that which does so by the
greater amount is the greater of the two; for it must surpass the
greater as well as the less of the other two. A thing productive of a
greater good than another is productive of is itself a greater good
than that other. For this conception of 'productive of a greater' has
been implied in our argument. Likewise, that which is produced by a
greater good is itself a greater good; thus, if what is wholesome is
more desirable and a greater good than what gives pleasure, health too
must be a greater good than pleasure. Again, a thing which is
desirable in itself is a greater good than a thing which is not
desirable in itself, as for example bodily strength than what is
wholesome, since the latter is not pursued for its own sake, whereas
the former is; and this was our definition of the good. Again, if one
of two things is an end, and the other is not, the former is the
greater good, as being chosen for its own sake and not for the sake of
something else; as, for example, exercise is chosen for the sake of
physical well-being. And of two things that which stands less in need
of the other, or of other things, is the greater good, since it is
more self-sufficing. (That which stands 'less' in need of others is
that which needs either fewer or easier things.) So when one thing
does not exist or cannot come into existence without a second, while
the second can exist without the first, the second is the better. That
which does not need something else is more self-sufficing than that
which does, and presents itself as a greater good for that reason.
Again, that which is a beginning of other things is a greater good
than that which is not, and that which is a cause is a greater good
than that which is not; the reason being the same in each case, namely
that without a cause and a beginning nothing can exist or come into
existence. Again, where there are two sets of consequences arising
from two different beginnings or causes, the consequences of the more
important beginning or cause are themselves the more important; and
conversely, that beginning or cause is itself the more important which
has the more important consequences. Now it is plain, from all that
has been said, that one thing may be shown to be more important than
another from two opposite points of view: it may appear the more
important (1) because it is a beginning and the other thing is not,
and also (2) because it is not a beginning and the other thing is-on
the ground that the end is more important and is not a beginning. So
Leodamas, when accusing Callistratus, said that the man who prompted
the deed was more guilty than the doer, since it would not have been
done if he had not planned it. On the other hand, when accusing
Chabrias he said that the doer was worse than the prompter, since
there would have been no deed without some one to do it; men, said he,
plot a thing only in order to carry it out.
Further, what is rare is a greater good than what is plentiful. Thus,
gold is a better thing than iron, though less useful: it is harder to
get, and therefore better worth getting. Reversely, it may be argued
that the plentiful is a better thing than the rare, because we can
make more use of it. For what is often useful surpasses what is seldom
useful, whence the saying:
"The best of things is water. "
More generally: the hard thing is better than the easy, because it is
rarer: and reversely, the easy thing is better than the hard, for it
is as we wish it to be. That is the greater good whose contrary is the
greater evil, and whose loss affects us more. Positive goodness and
badness are more important than the mere absence of goodness and
badness: for positive goodness and badness are ends, which the mere
absence of them cannot be. Further, in proportion as the functions of
things are noble or base, the things themselves are good or bad:
conversely, in proportion as the things themselves are good or bad,
their functions also are good or bad; for the nature of results