

Where as his First Philosophy is applying this principle to the nature of reality, here he applies the same principle to the nature of man. The first principle of all principles is no contradiction. This also necessarily is the essence of his logic. The Aristotle-ness of Aristotle is simply applying the essence of his First Philosophy to everything else.


It is right that in the typical collections of the lectures of Aristotle that Nichomachean Ethics follows immediately after his First Philosophy (Metaphysics). It makes no difference whether the activities themselves are the ends of the actions, or something else apart from the activities, as in the case of the sciences just mentioned. But where such arts fall under a single capacity - as bridle-making and the other arts concerned with the equipment of horses fall under the art of riding, and this and every military action under strategy, in the same way other arts fall under yet others - in all of these the ends of the master arts are to be preferred to all the subordinate ends for it is for the sake of the former that the latter are pursued. Now, as there are many actions, arts, and sciences, their ends also are many the end of the medical art is health, that of shipbuilding a vessel, that of strategy victory, that of economics wealth. Where there are ends apart from the actions, it is the nature of the products to be better than the activities. But a certain difference is found among ends some are activities, others are products apart from the activities that produce them. EVERY art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.
