Categoria: Tratado 36 (I,5)

1. Is it possible to think that Happiness increases with Time, Happiness which is always taken as a present thing? The memory of former felicity may surely be ruled out of count, for Happiness is not a thing of words, but a definite condition which must be actually present like the very fact and act…

2. It may be objected that our will towards living and towards expressive activity is constant, and that each attainment of such expression is an increase in Happiness. But in the first place, by this reckoning every to-morrow’s well-being will be greater than to-day’s, every later instalment successively larger that an earlier; at once time…

3. Yes, but if the well-being has lasted a long time, if that present spectacle has been a longer time before the eyes? If in the greater length of time the man has seen more deeply, time has certainly done something for him, but if all the process has brought him no further vision, then…

4. Still the one life has known pleasure longer than the other? But pleasure cannot be fairly reckoned in with Happiness- unless indeed by pleasure is meant the unhindered Act (of the true man), in which case this pleasure is simply our “Happiness.” And even pleasure, though it exist continuously, has never anything but the…

5. We are asked to believe, then, it will be objected, that if one man has been happy from first to last, another only at the last, and a third, beginning with happiness, has lost it, their shares are equal? This is straying from the question: we were comparing the happy among themselves: now we…

6. Well, but take the unhappy man: must not increase of time bring an increase of his unhappiness? Do not all troubles- long-lasting pains, sorrows, and everything of that type- yield a greater sum of misery in the longer time? And if thus in misery the evil is augmented by time why should not time…

7. But if we are to consider only the present and may not call in the past to make the total, why do we not reckon so in the case of time itself, where, in fact, we do not hesitate to add the past to the present and call the total greater? Why not suppose…

8. It may be urged that the actual presence of past experiences, kept present by Memory, gives the advantage to the man of the longer felicity. But, Memory of what sort of experiences? Memory either of formerly attained wisdom and virtue- in which case we have a better man and the argument from memory is…

10. But, it may be said, length of time produces an abundance of good actions missed by the man whose attainment of the happy state is recent- if indeed we can think at all of a state of happiness where good actions have been few. Now to make multiplicity, whether in time or in action,…

9. But is there not something to be said for the memory of the various forms of beauty? That is the resource of a man whose life is without beauty in the present, so that, for lack of it now, he grasps at the memory of what has been.

1. La felicidad ¿se acrecienta con el tiempo pese a que la felicidad es concebida siempre en dependencia del presente? Además el recuerdo de haber sido feliz nada puede influir, y el ser feliz no consiste en decirlo, sino en estar en una cierta disposición. Ahora bien, la disposición, como también la actividad de la…

FIRST ENNEAD, BOOK FIVE. Does Happiness Increase With Time? HAPPINESS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH DURATION OF TIME. 1. Does happiness increase with duration of time? No: for the feeling of happiness exists only in the present. The memory of past happiness could not add anything to happiness itself. Happiness is not a word, but…

10. —Pero la prolongación del tiempo ocasiona numerosas acciones nobles, en las que no tiene parte el que es feliz por poco tiempo, si hay que llamar feliz en absoluto a quien no lo es gracias a que sus acciones nobles son muchas. —Pero decir que la felicidad resulta de multitud de tiempos y de…

9. —Pero si el recuerdo fuera de las cosas excelentes, ¿cómo negar que, en este caso, tendría sentido? —Pero eso es propio de un hombre que, en la actualidad, está falto de las cosas excelentes y que, por no tenerlas ahora, busca el recuerdo de las pasadas. [9] Si l’on se rappelait des actes vertueux,…

8. Y si alguno dijera que el recuerdo [mneme] de las cosas pasadas, perviviendo en el presente, incrementa la dicha de quien haya vivido en la felicidad [eudaimonia] durante más tiempo [Chronos], ¿qué querría decir con lo del recuerdo [mneme]? Porque o es el recuerdo de la sabiduría [phronesis] habida anteriormente, de modo que lo…

7. —Pero si no hay que tener en cuenta más que lo presenté sin sumarlo con lo pasado, ¿por qué no hacemos lo mismo en el caso del tiempo, sino que, sumando el pasado con el presente, decimos que es mayor? ¿Por qué, pues, no hemos de decir que la felicidad es tan grande como…