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[7]
The following considerations also will show that perfect happiness is some form of
contemplative activity. The gods, as we conceive them, enjoy supreme felicity and
happiness. But what sort of actions can we attribute to them? Just actions? but will it
not seem ridiculous to think of them as making contracts, restoring deposits and the like?
Then brave actions—enduring terrors and running risks for the nobility of so
doing? Or liberal actions? but to whom will they give? Besides, it would be absurd to
suppose that they actually have a coinage or currency of some sort! And temperate
actions—what will these mean in their case? surely it would be derogatory to
praise them for not having evil desires! If we go through the list we shall find that all
forms of virtuous conduct seem trifling and unworthy of the gods. Yet nevertheless they
have always been conceived as, at all events, living, and therefore living actively, for
we cannot suppose they are always asleep like
Endymion. But for a living being, if we eliminate action, and a
fortiori creative action, what remains save contemplation? It follows that the
activity of God, which is transcendent in blessedness, is the activity of contemplation;
and therefore among human activities that which is most akin to the divine activity of
contemplation will be the greatest source of happiness.
Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 19, translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1934.
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