Kitap 1
7
On the other hand a limit has to be assumed in these relationships; for if the list be extended to one’s ancestors and descendants and to the friends of one’s friends, it will go on ad infinitum. But this is a point that must be considered later on; we take a self-sufficient thing to mean a thing which merely standing by itself alone renders life desirable lacking in nothing,A probable emendation gives renders life sufficient, that is, lacking in nothing. and such a thing we deem happiness to be.
8
Moreover, we think happiness the most desirable of all good things without being itself reckoned as one among the restSc. but as including all other good things as the end includes the means.; for if it were so reckoned, it is clear that we should consider it more desirable when even the smallest of other good things were combined with it, since this addition would result in a larger total of good, and of two goods the greater is always the more desirable.
8
Happiness, therefore, being found to be something final and self-sufficient, is the End at which all actions aim.
9
To say however that the Supreme Good is happiness will probably appear a truism; we still require a more explicit account of what constitutes happiness.
