On the Resurrection of the Dead 24

Having examined the points proposed to some extent, it remains to consider the argument from the end. It already appears in what has been said, and needs only enough attention and addition that we may not seem to leave unmentioned anything we said briefly, and so harm our subject or the division we made at the beginning. For these reasons, and for what will be added to them, it will be enough simply to point out that everything, whether constituted by nature or made by art, must have its own proper end. The common notion of all people teaches us this, and the things before our eyes bear witness to it. Do we not see that farmers have one end before them and physicians another, and again that the plants that grow from the earth have one end, and the animals nourished on it and born in a natural sequence another? If this is evident, and a natural end must follow natural or artificial powers and the activities that come from them, then the end of human beings too, since their nature is distinctive, must be set apart from what is common to the others. For it is not right to suppose the same end for beings that have no share in rational judgment and for those who act according to the innate law and reason, living an intelligent life and practicing justice. Freedom from pain, then, would not be their proper end, since this would belong also to beings wholly without sensation; nor the enjoyment of what nourishes or delights the body, and an abundance of pleasures; otherwise the life of cattle would have to rank first, and the life of virtue would be incomplete. That, I think, is the proper end of cattle and grazing beasts, not of human beings, who have an immortal soul and rational judgment.