take as right the judgment of the good man, for he judges as we have
said.

Thus then Happiness is most excellent, most noble, and most pleasant,
and these attributes are not separated as in the well-known Delian
inscription--

"Most noble is that which is most just, but best is health; And
naturally most pleasant is the obtaining one's desires."

For all these co-exist in the best acts of working: and we say that
Happiness is these, or one, that is, the best of them.

Still it is quite plain that it does require the addition of external
goods, as we have said: because without appliances it is impossible, or
at all events not easy, to do noble actions: for friends, money, and
political influence are in a manner instruments whereby many things
are done: some things there are again a deficiency in which mars
blessedness; good birth, for instance, or fine offspring, or even
personal beauty: for he is not at all capable of Happiness who is very
ugly, or is ill-born, or solitary and childless; and still less perhaps
supposing him to have very bad children or friends, or to have lost good
ones by death. As we have said already, the addition of prosperity of
this kind does seem necessary to complete the idea of Happiness; hence
some rank good fortune, and others virtue, with Happiness.

And hence too a question is raised, whether it is a thing that can be
learned, or acquired by habituation or discipline of some other kind, or
whether it comes in the way of divine dispensation, or even in the way
of chance.