北美華人

Happiness and Contemplation

Aristotle

If happiness is an activity in accordance with virtue, it is reasonable to assume that it is in accordance with the highest virtue, and this will be the virtue of the best part of us. Whether this is the intellect or something else that we regard as naturally ruling and guiding us, and possessing insight into things noble and divine -- either as being actually divine itself or as being more divine than any other part of us -- it is the activity of this part, in accordance with the virtue proper to it, that will be perfect happiness.

For contemplation is both the highest form of activity since the intellect is the highest thing in us, and the objects that it apprehends are the highest things that can be known, and also it is the most continuous, because we are more capable of continuous contemplation than we are of any practical activity.