animal has its own peculiar
pleasures, as it has also its own peculiar manifestation and exercises.
Among the human race, the same things give pleasure to one individual
and pain to another. The things that appear sweet to the strong and
healthy man, do not appear sweet to one suffering from fever, or
weakly. Now, amidst this discrepancy, what _appears_ to the virtuous
and intelligent man, really _is_. His pleasures are the true and real
pleasures. Excellence, and the good man _quatenus_ good, are to be
taken as the standard. If what he abhors appears pleasurable to some
persons, we must not be surprised, since there are many depravations of
individuals, in one way or another; but these things are not pleasures
really, they are only pleasures to these depraved mortals (V.).

So far the theory of Pleasure. Aristotle now goes back to his starting
point--the nature of the Good, and Happiness. He re-states his
positions: That Happiness is an exercise or actuality [Greek:
energeia], and not an acquirement or state (hexis), That it belongs to
such exercises as are worthy of choice for their own sake, and not to
such as are worthy of choice for the sake of something else; That it is
perfect and self-sufficing, seeking nothing beyond itself, and leaving
no wants unsupplied. Hence he had concluded that it consisted in acting
according to virtue; for the honourable and good are chosen for their
own sake. But amusements are also sought for their own sake; Are these
also to be called happiness? No. It is true that they are much pursued
by those whom the vulgar envy--men of wealth and despots--who patronize
and reward the practitioners of amusement. But this proves nothing, for
we cannot adopt the choice of these despots, who have little virtue or
intellect, and have never known the taste of refined and liberal
pleasure. Children and mature men, bad men and virtuous, have each
their different pleasures; the virtuous and intelligent man finds a
life of excellence and the pleasures attached thereunto most worthy of
his choice, and such a man (Aristotle has declared more than once) is
our standard. It would indeed be childish to treat amusements as the
main end of life; they are the relaxation of the virtuous man, who
derives from them fresh vigour for the prosecution of the serious
business of life, which he cannot prosecute continuously. The serious
exercises of life are better than the comic, because they proceed from
the better par