state or as a working. For the state or habit may possibly exist in a
subject without effecting any good, as, for instance, in him who is
asleep, or in any other way inactive; but the working cannot so, for it
will of necessity act, and act well. And as at the Olympic games it is
not the finest and strongest men who are crowned, but they who enter the
lists, for out of these the prize-men are selected; so too in life, of
the honourable and the good, it is they who act who rightly win the
prizes.

Their life too is in itself pleasant: for the feeling of pleasure is a
mental sensation, and that is to each pleasant of which he is said to be
fond: a horse, for instance, to him who is fond of horses, and a sight
to him who is fond of sights: and so in like manner just acts to him who
is fond of justice, and more generally the things in accordance with
virtue to him who is fond of virtue. Now in the case of the multitude of
men the things which they individually esteem pleasant clash, because
they are not such by nature, whereas to the lovers of nobleness those
things are pleasant which are such by nature: but the actions in
accordance with virtue are of this kind, so that they are pleasant both
to the individuals and also in themselves.

So then their life has no need of pleasure as a kind of additional
appendage, but involves pleasure in itself. For, besides what I have
just mentioned, a man is not a good man at all who feels no pleasure in
noble actions, just as no one would call that man just who does not feel
pleasure in acting justly, or liberal who does not in liberal actions,
and similarly in the case of the other virtues which might be
enumerated: and if this be so, then the actions in accordance with
virtue must be in themselves pleasurable. Then again they are certainly
good and noble, and each of these in the highest degree; if we are to