Book 1
3
since none of the other animals, which are inferior in nature to men, share in the designation happy, for a horse is not happy, nor is a bird nor a fish nor any other existing thing whose designation does not indicate that it possesses in its nature a share of something divine, but it is by some other mode of participating in things good that one of them has a better life and another a worse.
4
But the fact that this is so must be considered later.This promise is not kept. At the present let us say that among things good some are within the range of action for a human being and others are not. And we make this distinction for the reason that some existing things do not participate in change at all, and therefore some good things do not, and these are perhaps in their nature the best things; and some things, though practicable, are only practicable for beings superior to us.
5
And inasmuch as practicable has two meanings (for both the Ends for which we act and the actions that we do as means to those Ends have to do with action—for example we class among things practicable both health and wealth and the pursuits that are followed for the sake of health and wealth, healthy exercise and lucrative business), it is clear that happiness must be set down as the best of the things practicable for a human being.
