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Aristotle: The Nicomachean Ethics

Aristotle · translated by D. P. Chase · 4th century BC; translation 1847, Everyman edition 1911

Happiness, virtue as a mean, friendship and contemplation: the ethics Aquinas built on.

Edition: Project Gutenberg · www.gutenberg.org

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From the opening: Introduction

The _Ethics_ of Aristotle is one half of a single treatise of which his _Politics_ is the other half. Both deal with one and the same subject. This subject is what Aristotle calls in one place the “philosophy of human affairs;” but more frequently Political or Social Science. In the two works taken together we have their author’s whole theory of human conduct or practical activity, that is, of all human activity which is not directed merely to knowledge or truth. The two parts of this treatise are mutually complementary, but in a literary sense each is independent and self-contained. The proem to the _Ethics_ is an introduction to the whole subject, not merely to the first part; the last chapter of the _Ethics_ points forward to the _Politics_, and sketches for that part of the treatise the order of enquiry to be pursued (an order which in the actual treatise is not adhered to).

The principle of distribution of the subject-matter between the two works is far from obvious, and has been much debated. Not much can be gathered from their titles, which in any case were not given to them by their author. Nor do these titles suggest any very compact unity in the works to which they are applied: the plural forms, which survive so oddly in English (Ethic_s_, Politic_s_), were intended to indicate the treatment within a single work of a _group_ of connected questions. The unity of the first group arises from their centring round the topic of character, that of the second from their connection with the existence and life of the city or state. We have thus to regard the _Ethics_ as dealing with one group of problems and the _Politics_ with a second, both falling within the wide compass of Political Science. Each of these groups falls into sub-groups which roughly correspond to the several books in each work. The tendency to take up one by one the various problems which had suggested themselves in the wide field obscures both the unity of the subject-matter and its proper articulation. But it is to be remembered that what is offered us is avowedly rather an enquiry than an exposition of hard and fast doctrine.

Nevertheless each work aims at a relative completeness, and it is important to observe the relation of each to the other. The distinction is not that the one treats of Moral and the other of Political Philosophy, nor again that the one deals with the moral activity…

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Contents (68 sections)

  1. Opening
  2. Title page
  3. Introduction
  4. Introduction (continued)
  5. Chapters I–II
  6. Chapter III
  7. Chapters IV–V
  8. Chapters VI–VII
  9. Chapters VIII–IX
  10. Chapters X–XI
  11. Chapters I–II
  12. Chapters III–V
  13. Chapters VI–VII
  14. Chapters VIII–IX
  15. Chapters I–II
  16. Chapters III–V
  17. Chapters VI–VII
  18. Chapters VIII–X
  19. Chapter XI
  20. Chapters XII–XIII
  21. Chapter XIV
  22. Chapter I
  23. Chapters II–III
  24. Chapter IV
  25. Chapters V–VII
  26. Chapters VIII–IX
  27. Chapters X–XI
  28. Chapters I–III
  29. Chapters IV–VII
  30. Chapters VIII–IX
  31. Chapters X–XI
  32. Chapters XII–XIV
  33. Chapters XV–XVII
  34. Chapters I–III
  35. Chapters IV–VII
  36. Chapters VIII–IX
  37. Chapters X–XII
  38. Appendix
  39. Chapters I–II
  40. Chapter III
  41. Chapters IV–V
  42. Chapters VI–VII
  43. Chapters VIII–IX
  44. APPENDIX. Book VII. Chapters 12 to 15. (Bekker.)
  45. Chapters I–IV
  46. Chapters V–VI
  47. Chapters VII–VIII
  48. Chapters IX–XI
  49. Chapters XII–XIII
  50. Chapter XIV
  51. Chapters I–II
  52. Chapters III–IV
  53. Chapters V–VII
  54. Chapters VIII–IX
  55. Chapters X–XII
  56. Chapters I–II
  57. Chapters III–IV
  58. Chapters V–VI
  59. Chapters VII–VIII
  60. Book I
  61. Book II
  62. Book III
  63. Book V
  64. Book VI
  65. Book VII
  66. Book VIII
  67. Book IX
  68. Book X

How to cite it

Chicago
Aristotle. Aristotle: The Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by D. P. Chase. Project Gutenberg, 4th century BC; translation 1847, Everyman edition 1911. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8438
MLA
Aristotle. Aristotle: The Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by D. P. Chase, Project Gutenberg, 4th century BC; translation 1847, Everyman edition 1911. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8438
APA
Aristotle (4th century BC; translation 1847, Everyman edition 1911). Aristotle: The Nicomachean Ethics (D. P. Chase, Trans.). Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8438

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