of Happiness, and, though he avowedly states it merely in outline his
account is pregnant with significance. Human Happiness lies in activity
or energising, and that in a way peculiar to man with his given nature
and his given circumstances, it is not theoretical, but practical: it is
the activity not of reason but still of a being who possesses reason and
applies it, and it presupposes in that being the development, and
not merely the natural possession, of certain relevant powers and
capacities. The last is the prime condition of successful living
and therefore of satisfaction, but Aristotle does not ignore other
conditions, such as length of life, wealth and good luck, the absence or
diminution of which render happiness not impossible, but difficult of
attainment.

It is interesting to compare this account of Happiness with Mill's
in _Utilitarianism_. Mill's is much the less consistent: at times
he distinguishes and at times he identifies, happiness, pleasure,
contentment, and satisfaction. He wavers between belief in its general
attainability and an absence of hopefulness. He mixes up in an arbitrary
way such ingredients as "not expecting more from life than it is capable
of bestowing," "mental cultivation," "improved laws," etc., and in fact
leaves the whole conception vague, blurred, and uncertain. Aristotle
draws the outline with a firmer hand and presents a more definite ideal.
He allows for the influence on happiness of conditions only partly, if
at all, within the control of man, but he clearly makes the man positive
determinant of man's happiness he in himself, and more particularly
in what he makes directly of his own nature, and so indirectly of his
circumstances. "'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus" But once
more this does not involve an artificial or abstract isolation of the
individual moral agent from his relation to other persons or things from
his context in society and nature, nor ignore the relative dependence of