6. (It is generally agreed that) all calamities, sufferings, griefs and similar evils are aggravated in proportion to their duration. If then, in all these cases, evil be increased with time, why should not the same circumstance obtain in the contrary case? Why should happiness also not be increased?[56] Referring to griefs and sufferings, it might reasonably be said that they are increased by duration. When, for example, sickness is prolonged, and becomes a habitual condition, the body suffers more and more profoundly as time goes on. If, however, evil ever remain at the same degree, it does not grow worse, and there is no need of complaining but of the present. Consideration of the past evil amounts to considering the traces left by evil, the morbid disposition whose intensity is increased by time, because its seriousness is proportionate to its duration. In this case it is not the length of time, but the aggravation of the evil which adds to the misfortune. But the new degree (of intensity) does not subsist simultaneously with the old, and it is unreasonable to predicate an increase as summation of what is no more to what now is. On the contrary, it is the fixed characteristic of happiness to have a fixed term, to remain ever the same. Here also the only increase possibly due to duration of time depends on the relation between an increase in virtue and one in happiness; and the element to be reckoned with here is not the number of years of happiness, but the degree of virtue finally acquired. AS ADDITION IS POSSIBLE WITH TIME, WHY CANNOT HAPPINESS INCREASE?