piness except
so far as that he partakes of life: for happiness does not consist in
such modes of passing life, but in energies according to virtue, as
has been said already.

If happiness be an energy according to virtue, it is reasonable to
suppose that it is according to the best virtue; and this must be the
virtue of the best part of man. Whether, then, this best part be the
intellect, or something else--which is thought naturally to bear rule
and to govern, and to possess ideas upon honorable and divine
subjects, or whether it is itself divine, or the most divine of any
property which we possess; the energy of this part according to its
proper virtue must be perfect happiness: and that this energy is
contemplative has been stated. This also would seem to agree with what
was said before, and with the truth: for this energy is the noblest;
since the intellect is the noblest thing within us, and of subjects of
knowledge, those are noblest with which the intellect is conversant.

It is also most continuous; for we are better able to contemplate
continuously than to do anything else continuously. We think also that
pleasure must be united to happiness: but of all the energies
according to virtue, that according to wisdom is confessedly the most
pleasant: at any rate, wisdom seems to contain pleasures worthy of
admiration, both in point of purity and stability: and it is
reasonable to suppose that his mode of life should be pleasanter to
those who know it than to those who are only seeking it. Again, that
which is called self-sufficiency must be most concerned with
contemplative happiness; for both the wise man and the just, and all
others, need the necessaries of life; but supposing them to be
sufficiently supplied with such goods, the just man requires persons
toward whom and with whom he may act justly; and in like manner the
temperate man, and the brave man, and so on with all the rest. But the
wise man, if even by himself, is able to contemplate; and the more so
the wiser he is; perhaps he will energize better, if he has
cooperators, but nevertheless he is most self-sufficient. This would
seem also to be the only energy which is loved for its own sake; for
it has no result beyond the act of contemplation; but from the active
energies, we gain more or less beyond the performance of the action.

Happiness seems also to consist in leisure; for we are busy in order
that we may have leisure; and we go to war in order