Chapter XVII.

It is obvious, moreover, that being Unjustly dealt by and dealing

Unjustly by others are both wrong; because the one is having less, the

other having more, than the mean, and the case is parallel to that of

the healthy in the healing art, and that of good condition in the art

of training: but still the dealing Unjustly by others is the worst of

the two, because this involves wickedness and is blameworthy;

wickedness, I mean, either wholly, or nearly so (for not all voluntary

wrong implies injustice), but the being Unjustly dealt by does not

involve wickedness or injustice.

In itself then, the being Unjustly dealt by is the least bad, but

accidentally it may be the greater evil of the two. However, scientific

statement cannot take in such considerations; a pleurisy, for instance,

is called a greater physical evil than a bruise: and yet this last may

be the greater accidentally; it may chance that a bruise received in a

fall may cause one to be captured by the enemy and slain.

Further: Just, in the way of metaphor and similitude, there may be I do

not say between a man and himself exactly but between certain parts of

his nature; but not Just of every kind, only such as belongs to the

relation of master and slave, or to that of the head of a family. For

all through this treatise the rational part of the Soul has been viewed

as distinct from the irrational.

Now, taking these into consideration, there is thought to be a

possibility of injustice towards one’s self, because herein it is

possible for men to suffer somewhat in contradiction of impulses really

their own; and so it is thought that there is Just of a certain kind

between these parts mutually, as between ruler and ruled.

Let this then be accepted as an account of the distinctions which we

recognise respecting Justice and the rest of the moral virtues.[30]

BOOK VI

Chapter I.

Having stated in a former part of this treatise that men should choose

the mean instead of either the excess or defect, and that the mean is

according to the dictates of Right Reason; we will now proceed to

explain this term.

For in all the habits which we have expressly mentioned, as likewise in

all the others, there is, so to speak, a mark with his eye fixed on

which the man who has Reason tightens or slacks his rope;[1] and there

is a certain limit of those mean states which we say are in accordance

with Right Reason, and lie between excess on the one hand and defect on

the other.

Now to speak thus is true enough but conveys no very definite meaning:

as, in fact, in all other pursuits requiring attention and diligence on

which skill and science are brought to bear; it is quite true of course

to say that men are neither to labour nor relax too much or too little,

but in moderation, and as Right Reason directs; yet if this were all a

man had he would not be greatly the wiser; as, for instance, if in

answer to the question, what are proper applications to the body, he

were to be told, “Oh! of course, whatever the science of medicine, and

in such manner as the physician, directs.”

And so in respect of the mental states it is requisite not merely that

this should be true which has been already stated, but further that it

should be expressly laid down what Right Reason is, and what is the

definition of it.

Chapter II.

Now in our division of the Excellences of the Soul, we said there were

two classes, the Moral and the Intellectual: the former we have already

gone through; and we will now proceed to speak of the others, premising

a few words respecting the Soul itself. It was stated before, you will

remember, that the Soul consists of two parts, the Rational, and

Irrational: we must now make a similar division of the Rational.

Let it be understood then that there are two parts of the Soul

possessed of Reason; one whereby we realise those existences whose

causes cannot be otherwise than they are, and one whereby we realise

those which can be otherwise than they are,[2] (for there must be,

answering to things generically different, generically different parts

of the soul naturally adapted to each, since these parts of the soul

possess their knowledge in virtue of a certain resemblance and

appropriateness in themselves to the objects of which they are

percipients);[3] and let us name the former, “that which is apt to

know,” the latter, “that which is apt to calculate” (because

deliberating and calculating are the same, and no one ever deliberates

about things which cannot be otherwise than they are: and so the

Calculative will be one part of the Rational faculty of the soul).

We must discover, then, which is the best state of each of these,

because that will be the Excellence of each; and this again is relative

to the work each has to do.[4]

There are in the Soul three functions on which depend moral action and

truth; Sense, Intellect, Appetition, whether vague Desire or definite

Will. Now of these Sense is the originating cause of no moral action,

as is seen from the fact that brutes have Sense but are in no way

partakers of moral action.[5]

[Intellect and Will are thus connected,] what in the Intellectual

operation is Affirmation and Negation that in the Will is Pursuit and

Avoidance, And so, since Moral Virtue is a State apt to exercise Moral

Choice and Moral Choice is Will consequent on deliberation, the Reason

must be true and the Will right, to constitute good Moral Choice, and

what the Reason affirms the Will must pursue.[6]

Now this Intellectual operation and this Truth is what bears upon Moral

Action; of course truth and falsehood must be the good and the bad of

that Intellectual Operation which is purely Speculative, and concerned

neither with action nor production, because this is manifestly the work

of every Intellectual faculty, while of the faculty which is of a mixed

Practical and Intellectual nature, the work is that Truth which, as I

have described above, corresponds to the right movement of the Will.

Now the starting-point of moral action is Moral Choice, (I mean, what

actually sets it in motion, not the final cause,)[7] and of Moral

Choice, Appetition, and Reason directed to a certain result: and thus

Moral Choice is neither independent of intellect, i. e. intellectual

operation, nor of a certain moral state: for right or wrong action

cannot be, independently of operation of the Intellect, and moral

character.

But operation of the Intellect by itself moves nothing, only when

directed to a certain result, i. e. exercised in Moral Action: (I say

nothing of its being exercised in production, because this function is

originated by the former: for every one who makes makes with a view to

somewhat further; and that which is or may be made, is not an End in

itself, but only relatively to somewhat else, and belonging to some

one:[8] whereas that which is or may be done is an End in itself,

because acting well is an End in itself, and this is the object of the

Will,) and so Moral Choice is either[9] Intellect put in a position of

Will-ing, or Appetition subjected to an Intellectual Process. And such

a Cause is Man.

But nothing which is done and past can be the object of Moral Choice;

for instance, no man chooses to have sacked Troy; because, in fact, no

one ever deliberates about what is past, but only about that which is

future, and which may therefore be influenced, whereas what has been

cannot not have been: and so Agathon is right in saying

“Of this alone is Deity bereft,

To make undone whatever hath been done.”

Thus then Truth is the work of both the Intellectual Parts of the Soul;

those states therefore are the Excellences of each in which each will

best attain truth.

Chapter III.

Commencing then from the point stated above we will now speak of these

Excellences again. Let those faculties whereby the Soul attains truth

in Affirmation or Negation, be assumed to be in number five:[10] viz.

Art, Knowledge, Practical Wisdom, Science, Intuition: (Supposition and

Opinion I do not include, because by these one may go wrong.)

What Knowledge is, is plain from the following of considerations, if

one is to speak accurately, instead of being led away by resemblances.

For we all conceive that what we strictly speaking know, cannot be

otherwise than it is, because as to those things which can be otherwise

than they are, we are uncertain whether they are or are not, the moment

they cease to be within the sphere of our actual observation.

So then, whatever comes within the range of Knowledge is by necessity,

and therefore eternal, (because all things are so which exist

necessarily,) and all eternal things are without beginning, and

indestructible.

Again, all Knowledge is thought to be capable of being taught, and what

comes within its range capable of being learned. And all teaching is

based upon previous knowledge; (a statement you will find in the

Analytics also,)[11] for there are two ways of teaching, by Syllogism

and by Induction. In fact. Induction is the source of universal

propositions, and Syllogism reasons from these universals.[12]

Syllogism then may reason from principles which cannot be themselves

proved Syllogistically: and therefore must by Induction.

So Knowledge is “a state or mental faculty apt to demonstrate

syllogistically,” &c. as in the Analytics:[13] because a man, strictly

and properly speaking, _knows_, when he establishes his conclusion in a

certain way, and the principles are known to him: for if they are not

better known to him than the conclusion, such knowledge as he has will

be merely accidental.

Let thus much be accepted as a definition of Knowledge.

Chapter IV.

Matter which may exist otherwise than it actually does in any given

case (commonly called Contingent) is of two kinds, that which is the

object of Making, and that which is the object of Doing; now Making and

Doing are two different things (as we show in the exoteric treatise),

and so that state of mind, conjoined with Reason, which is apt to Do,

is distinct from that also conjoined with Reason, which is apt to Make:

and for this reason they are not included one by the other, that is,

Doing is not Making, nor Making Doing.[14] Now[15] as Architecture is

an Art, and is the same as “a certain state of mind, conjoined with

Reason, which is apt to Make,” and as there is no Art which is not such

a state, nor any such state which is not an Art, Art, in its strict and

proper sense, must be “a state of mind, conjoined with true Reason, apt

to Make.”

Now all Art has to do with production, and contrivance, and seeing how

any of those things may be produced which may either be or not be, and

the origination of which rests with the maker and not with the thing

made.

And, so neither things which exist or come into being necessarily, nor

things in the way of nature, come under the province of Art, because

these are self-originating. And since Making and Doing are distinct,

Art must be concerned with the former and not the latter. And in a

certain sense Art and Fortune are concerned with the same things, as,

Agathon says by the way,

“Art Fortune loves, and is of her beloved.”

So Art, as has been stated, is “a certain state of mind, apt to Make,

conjoined with true Reason;” its absence, on the contrary, is the same

state conjoined with false Reason, and both are employed upon

Contingent matter.

Chapter V.

As for Practical Wisdom, we shall ascertain its nature by examining to

what kind of persons we in common language ascribe it.[16]

It is thought then to be the property of the Practically Wise man to be

able to deliberate well respecting what is good and expedient for

himself, not in any definite line,[17] as what is conducive to health

or strength, but what to living well. A proof of this is that we call

men Wise in this or that, when they calculate well with a view to some

good end in a case where there is no definite rule. And so, in a

general way of speaking, the man who is good at deliberation will be

Practically Wise. Now no man deliberates respecting things which cannot

be otherwise than they are, nor such as lie not within the range of his

own action: and so, since Knowledge requires strict demonstrative

reasoning, of which Contingent matter does not admit (I say Contingent

matter, because all matters of deliberation must be Contingent and

deliberation cannot take place with respect to things which are

Necessarily), Practical Wisdom cannot be Knowledge nor Art; nor the

former, because what falls under the province of Doing must be

Contingent; not the latter, because Doing and Making are different in

kind.

It remains then that it must be “a state of mind true, conjoined with

Reason, and apt to Do, having for its object those things which are

good or bad for Man:” because of Making something beyond itself is

always the object, but cannot be of Doing because the very well-doing

is in itself an End.

For this reason we think Pericles and men of that stamp to be

Practically Wise, because they can see what is good for themselves and

for men in general, and we also think those to be such who are skilled

in domestic management or civil government. In fact, this is the reason

why we call the habit of perfected self-mastery by the name which in

Greek it bears, etymologically signifying “that which preserves the

Practical Wisdom:” for what it does preserve is the Notion I have

mentioned, _i.e._ of one’s own true interest.[18]

For it is not every kind of Notion which the pleasant and the painful

corrupt and pervert, as, for instance, that “the three angles of every

rectilineal triangle are equal to two right angles,” but only those

bearing on moral action.

For the Principles of the matters of moral action are the final cause

of them:[19] now to the man who has been corrupted by reason of

pleasure or pain the Principle immediately becomes obscured, nor does

he see that it is his duty to choose and act in each instance with a

view to this final cause and by reason of it: for viciousness has a

tendency to destroy the moral Principle: and so Practical Wisdom must

be “a state conjoined with reason, true, having human good for its

object, and apt to do.”

Then again Art admits of degrees of excellence, but Practical Wisdom

does not:[20] and in Art he who goes wrong purposely is preferable to

him who does so unwittingly,[21] but not so in respect of Practical

Wisdom or the other Virtues. It plainly is then an Excellence of a

certain kind, and not an Art.

Now as there are two parts of the Soul which have Reason, it must be

the Excellence of the Opinionative [which we called before calculative

or deliberative], because both Opinion and Practical Wisdom are

exercised upon Contingent matter. And further, it is not simply a state

conjoined with Reason, as is proved by the fact that such a state may

be forgotten and so lost while Practical Wisdom cannot.

Chapter VI.

Now Knowledge is a conception concerning universals and Necessary

matter, and there are of course certain First Principles in all trains

of demonstrative reasoning (that is of all Knowledge because this is

connected with reasoning): that faculty, then, which takes in the first

principles of that which comes under the range of Knowledge, cannot be

either Knowledge, or Art, or Practical Wisdom: not Knowledge, because

what is the object of Knowledge must be derived from demonstrative

reasoning; not either of the other two, because they are exercised upon

Contingent matter only. Nor can it be Science which takes in these,

because the Scientific Man must in some cases depend on demonstrative

Reasoning.

It comes then to this: since the faculties whereby we always attain

truth and are never deceived when dealing with matter Necessary or even

Contingent are Knowledge, Practical Wisdom, Science, and Intuition, and

the faculty which takes in First Principles cannot be any of the three

first; the last, namely Intuition, must be it which performs this

function.

Chapter VII.

Science is a term we use principally in two meanings: in the first

place, in the Arts we ascribe it to those who carry their arts to the

highest accuracy;[22] Phidias, for instance, we call a Scientific or

cunning sculptor; Polycleitus a Scientific or cunning statuary;

meaning, in this instance, nothing else by Science than an excellence

of art: in the other sense, we think some to be Scientific in a general

way, not in any particular line or in any particular thing, just as

Homer says of a man in his Margites; “Him the Gods made neither a

digger of the ground, nor ploughman, nor in any other way Scientific.”

So it is plain that Science must mean the most accurate of all

Knowledge; but if so, then the Scientific man must not merely know the

deductions from the First Principles but be in possession of truth

respecting the First Principles. So that Science must be equivalent to

Intuition and Knowledge; it is, so to speak, Knowledge of the most

precious objects, _with a head on_.[23]

I say of the most precious things, because it is absurd to suppose

πολιτικὴ,[24] or Practical Wisdom, to be the highest, unless it can be

shown that Man is the most excellent of all that exists in the

Universe. Now if “healthy” and “good” are relative terms, differing

when applied to men or to fish, but “white” and “straight” are the same

always, men must allow that the Scientific is the same always, but the

Practically Wise varies: for whatever provides all things well for

itself, to this they would apply the term Practically Wise, and commit

these matters to it; which is the reason, by the way, that they call

some brutes Practically Wise, such that is as plainly have a faculty of

forethought respecting their own subsistence.

And it is quite plain that Science and πολιτικὴ cannot be identical:

because if men give the name of Science to that faculty which is

employed upon what is expedient for themselves, there will be many

instead of one, because there is not one and the same faculty employed

on the good of all animals collectively, unless in the same sense as

you may say there is one art of healing with respect to all living

beings.

If it is urged that man is superior to all other animals, that makes no

difference: for there are many other things more Godlike in their

nature than Man, as, most obviously, the elements of which the Universe

is composed.[25]

It is plain then that Science is the union of Knowledge and Intuition,

and has for its objects those things which are most precious in their

nature. Accordingly, Anexagoras, Thales, and men of that stamp, people

call Scientific, but not Practically Wise because they see them

ignorant of what concerns themselves; and they say that what they know

is quite out of the common run certainly, and wonderful, and hard, and

very fine no doubt, but still useless because they do not seek after

what is good for them as men.

Chapter VIII.

But Practical Wisdom is employed upon human matters, and such as are

objects of deliberation (for we say, that to deliberate well is most

peculiarly the work of the man who possesses this Wisdom), and no man

deliberates about things which cannot be otherwise than they are, nor

about any save those that have some definite End and this End good

resulting from Moral Action; and the man to whom we should give the

name of Good in Counsel, simply and without modification, is he who in

the way of calculation has a capacity for attaining that of practical

goods which is the best for Man.

Nor again does Practical Wisdom consist in a knowledge of general

principles only, but it is necessary that one should know also the

particular details, because it is apt to act, and action is concerned

with details: for which reason sometimes men who have not much

knowledge are more practical than others who have; among others, they

who derive all they know from actual experience: suppose a man to know,

for instance, that light meats are easy of digestion and wholesome, but

not what kinds of meat are light, he will not produce a healthy state;

that man will have a much better chance of doing so, who knows that the

flesh of birds is light and wholesome. Since then Practical Wisdom is

apt to act, one ought to have both kinds of knowledge, or, if only one,

the knowledge of details rather than of Principles. So there will be in

respect of Practical Wisdom the distinction of supreme and

subordinate.[26]

Further: πολιτικὴ and Practical Wisdom are the same mental state, but

the point of view is not the same.

Of Practical Wisdom exerted upon a community that which I would call

the Supreme is the faculty of Legislation; the subordinate, which is

concerned with the details, generally has the common name πολιτικὴ, and

its functions are Action and Deliberation (for the particular enactment

is a matter of action, being the ultimate issue of this branch of

Practical Wisdom, and therefore people commonly say, that these men

alone are really engaged in government, because they alone act, filling

the same place relatively to legislators, that workmen do to a

master).[27]

Again, that is thought to be Practical Wisdom in the most proper sense

which has for its object the interest of the Individual: and this

usually appropriates the common name: the others are called

respectively Domestic Management, Legislation, Executive Government

divided into two branches, Deliberative and Judicial.[28] Now of

course, knowledge for one’s self is one kind of knowledge, but it

admits of many shades of difference: and it is a common notion that the

man who knows and busies himself about his own concerns merely is the

man of Practical Wisdom, while they who extend their solicitude to

society at large are considered meddlesome.

Euripides has thus embodied this sentiment; “How,” says one of his

Characters, “How foolish am I, who whereas I might have shared equally,

idly numbered among the multitude of the army *** for them that are

busy and meddlesome [Jove hates],” because the generality of mankind

seek their own good and hold that this is their proper business. It is

then from this opinion that the notion has arisen that such men are the

Practically-Wise. And yet it is just possible that the good of the

individual cannot be secured independently of connection with a family

or a community. And again, how a man should manage his own affairs is

sometimes not quite plain, and must be made a matter of enquiry.[29]

A corroboration of what I have said is[30] the fact, that the young

come to be geometricians, and mathematicians, and Scientific in such

matters, but it is not thought that a young man can come to be

possessed of Practical Wisdom: now the reason is, that this Wisdom has

for its object particular facts, which come to be known from

experience, which a young man has not because it is produced only by

length of time.

By the way, a person might also enquire,[31] why a boy may be made a

mathematician but not Scientific or a natural philosopher. Is not this

the reason? that mathematics are taken in by the process of

abstraction, but the principles of Science[32] and natural philosophy

must be gained by experiment; and the latter young men talk of but do

not realise, while the nature of the former is plain and clear.

Again, in matter of practice, error attaches either to the general

rule, in the process of deliberation, or to the particular fact: for

instance, this would be a general rule, “All water of a certain gravity

is bad;” the particular fact, “this water is of that gravity.”

And that Practical Wisdom is not Knowledge is plain, for it has to do

with the ultimate issue,[33] as has been said, because every object of

action is of this nature.

To Intuition it is opposed, for this takes in those principles which

cannot be proved by reasoning, while Practical Wisdom is concerned with

the ultimate particular fact which cannot be realised by Knowledge but

by Sense; I do not mean one of the five senses, but the same by which

we take in the mathematical fact, that no rectilineal figure can be

contained by less than three lines, i.e. that a triangle is the

ultimate figure, because here also is a stopping point.

This however is Sense rather than Practical Wisdom, which is of another

kind.[34]

Chapter IX.

Now the acts of enquiring and deliberating differ, though deliberating

is a kind of enquiring. We ought to ascertain about Good Counsel

likewise what it is, whether a kind of Knowledge, or Opinion, or Happy

Conjecture, or some other kind of faculty. Knowledge it obviously is

not, because men do not enquire about what they know, and Good Counsel

is a kind of deliberation, and the man who is deliberating is enquiring

and calculating.

Neither is it Happy Conjecture; because this is independent of

reasoning, and a rapid operation; but men deliberate a long time, and

it is a common saying that one should execute speedily what has been

resolved upon in deliberation, but deliberate slowly.

Quick perception of causes[35] again is a different faculty from good

counsel, for it is a species of Happy Conjecture. Nor is Good Counsel

Opinion of any kind.

Well then, since he who deliberates ill goes wrong, and he who

deliberates well does so rightly, it is clear that Good Counsel is

rightness of some kind, but not of Knowledge nor of Opinion: for

Knowledge cannot be called right because it cannot be wrong, and

Rightness of Opinion is Truth: and again, all which is the object of

opinion is definitely marked out.[36]

Still, however, Good Counsel is not independent of Reason, Does it

remain then that it is a rightness of Intellectual Operation simply,

because this does not amount to an assertion; and the objection to

Opinion was that it is not a process of enquiry but already a definite

assertion; whereas whosoever deliberates, whether well or ill, is

engaged in enquiry and calculation.

Well, Good Counsel is a Rightness of deliberation, and so the first

question must regard the nature and objects of deliberation. Now

remember Rightness is an equivocal term; we plainly do not mean

Rightness of any kind whatever; the ἀκρατὴς, for instance, or the bad

man, will obtain by his calculation what he sets before him as an

object, and so he may be said to have deliberated _rightly_ in one

sense, but will have attained a great evil. Whereas to have deliberated

well is thought to be a good, because Good Counsel is Rightness of

deliberation of such a nature as is apt to attain good.

But even this again you may get by false reasoning, and hit upon the

right effect though not through right means,[37] your middle term being

fallacious: and so neither will this be yet Good Counsel in consequence

of which you get what you ought but not through proper means.

Again, one man may hit on a thing after long deliberation, another

quickly. And so that before described will not be yet Good Counsel, but

the Rightness must be with reference to what is expedient; and you must

have a proper end in view, pursue it in a right manner and right time.

Once more. One may deliberate well either generally or towards some

particular End.[38] Good counsel in the general then is that which goes

right towards that which is the End in a general way of consideration;

in particular, that which does so towards some particular End.

Since then deliberating well is a quality of men possessed of Practical

Wisdom, Good Counsel must be “Rightness in respect of what conduces to

a given End, of which[39] Practical Wisdom is the true conception.”

Chapter X.

There is too the faculty of Judiciousness, and also its absence, in

virtue of which we call men Judicious or the contrary.

Now Judiciousness is neither entirely identical with Knowledge or

Opinion (for then all would have been Judicious), nor is it any one

specific science, as medical science whose object matter is things

wholesome; or geometry whose object matter is magnitude: for it has not

for its object things which always exist and are immutable, nor of

those things which come into being just any which may chance; but those

in respect of which a man might doubt and deliberate.

And so it has the same object matter as Practical Wisdom; yet the two

faculties are not identical, because Practical Wisdom has the capacity

for commanding and taking the initiative, for its End is “what one

should do or not do:” but Judiciousness is only apt to decide upon

suggestions (though we do in Greek put “well” on to the faculty and its

concrete noun, these really mean exactly the same as the plain words),

and Judiciousness is neither the having Practical Wisdom, nor attaining

it: but just as learning is termed συνιέναι when a man uses his

knowledge, so judiciousness consists in employing the Opinionative

faculty in judging concerning those things which come within the

province of Practical Wisdom, when another enunciates them; and not

judging merely, but judging well (for εὐ and καλῶς mean exactly the

same thing). And the Greek name of this faculty is derived from the use

of the term συνιέναι in learning: μανθάνειν and συνιέναι being often

used as synonymous.

The faculty called γνώμη,[40] in right of which we call men εὐγνώμονες,

or say they have γνώμη, is “the right judgment of the equitable man.” A

proof of which is that we most commonly say that the equitable man has

a tendency to make allowance, and the making allowance in certain cases

is equitable. And συγγνώμη (the word denoting allowance) is right γνώμη

having a capacity of making equitable decisions, By “right” I mean that

of the Truthful man.

Chapter XI.

Now all these mental states[41] tend to the same object, as indeed

common language leads us to expect: I mean, we speak of γνώμη,

Judiciousness, Practical Wisdom, and Practical Intuition, attributing

the possession of γνώμη and Practical Intuition to the same Individuals

whom we denominate Practically-Wise and Judicious: because all these

faculties are employed upon the extremes,[42] i.e. on particular

details; and in right of his aptitude for deciding on the matters which

come within the province of the Practically-Wise, a man is Judicious

and possessed of good γνώμη; i.e. he is disposed to make allowance, for

considerations of equity are entertained by all good men alike in

transactions with their fellows.

And all matters of Moral Action belong to the class of particulars,

otherwise called extremes: for the man of Practical Wisdom must know

them, and Judiciousness and γνώμη are concerned with matters of Moral

Actions, which are extremes.

Intuition, moreover, takes in the extremes at both ends:[43] I mean,

the first and last terms must be taken in not by reasoning but by

Intuition [so that Intuition comes to be of two kinds], and that which

belongs to strict demonstrative reasonings takes in immutable, i.e.

Necessary, first terms; while that which is employed in practical

matters takes in the extreme, the Contingent, and the minor

Premiss:[44] for the minor Premisses are the source of the Final Cause,

Universals being made up out of Particulars.[45] To take in these, of

course, we must have Sense, i.e. in other words Practical Intuition.

And for this reason these are thought to be simply gifts of nature; and

whereas no man is thought to be Scientific by nature, men are thought

to have γνώμη, and Judiciousness, and Practical Intuition: a proof of

which is that we think these faculties are a consequence even of

particular ages, and this given age has Practical Intuition and γνώμη,

we say, as if under the notion that nature is the cause. And thus

Intuition is both the beginning and end, because the proofs are based

upon the one kind of extremes and concern the other.

And so[46] one should attend to the undemonstrable dicta and opinions

of the skilful, the old and the Practically-Wise, no less than to those

which are based on strict reasoning, because they see aright, having

gained their power of moral vision from experience.

Chapter XII.

Well, we have now stated the nature and objects of Practical Wisdom and

Science respectively, and that they belong each to a different part of

the Soul. But I can conceive a person questioning their utility.

“Science,” he would say, “concerns itself with none of the causes of

human happiness (for it has nothing to do with producing anything):

Practical Wisdom has this recommendation, I grant, but where is the

need of it, since its province is those things which are just and

honourable, and good for man, and these are the things which the good

man as such does; but we are not a bit the more apt to do them because

we know them, since the Moral Virtues are Habits; just as we are not

more apt to be healthy or in good condition from mere knowledge of what

relates to these (I mean,[47] of course, things so called not from

their producing health, etc., but from their evidencing it in a

particular subject), for we are not more apt to be healthy and in good

condition merely from knowing the art of medicine or training.

“If it be urged that _knowing what is_ good does not by itself make a

Practically-Wise man but _becoming_ good; still this Wisdom will be no

use either to those that are good, and so have it already, or to those

who have it not; because it will make no difference to them whether

they have it themselves or put themselves under the guidance of others

who have; and we might be contented to be in respect of this as in

respect of health: for though we wish to be healthy still we do not set

about learning the art of healing.

“Furthermore, it would seem to be strange that, though lower in the

scale than Science, it is to be its master; which it is, because

whatever produces results takes the rule and directs in each matter.”

This then is what we are to talk about, for these are the only points

now raised.

Now first we say that being respectively Excellences of different parts

of the Soul they must be choice-worthy, even on the supposition that

they neither of them produce results.

In the next place we say that they _do_ produce results; that Science

makes Happiness, not as the medical art but as healthiness makes

health:[48] because, being a part of Virtue in its most extensive

sense, it makes a man happy by being possessed and by working.

Next, Man’s work _as Man_ is accomplished by virtue of Practical Wisdom

and Moral Virtue, the latter giving the right aim and direction, the

former the right means to its attainment;[49] but of the fourth part of

the Soul, the mere nutritive principle, there is no such Excellence,

because nothing is in its power to do or leave undone.[50]

As to our not being more apt to do what is noble and just by reason of

possessing Practical Wisdom, we must begin a little higher up,[51]

taking this for our starting-point. As we say that men may do things in

themselves just and yet not be just men; for instance, when men do what

the laws require of them, either against their will, or by reason of

ignorance or something else, at all events not for the sake of the

things themselves; and yet they do what they ought and all that the

good man should do; so it seems that to be a good man one must do each

act in a particular frame of mind, I mean from Moral Choice and for the

sake of the things themselves which are done. Now it is Virtue which

makes the Moral Choice right, but whatever is naturally required to

carry out that Choice comes under the province not of Virtue but of a

different faculty. We must halt, as it were, awhile, and speak more

clearly on these points.

There is then a certain faculty, commonly named Cleverness, of such a

nature as to be able to do and attain whatever conduces to _any_ given

purpose: now if that purpose be a good one the faculty is praiseworthy;

if otherwise, it goes by a name which, denoting strictly the ability,

implies the willingness to do _anything_; we accordingly call the

Practically-Wise Clever, and also those who can and will do

anything.[52]

Now Practical Wisdom is not identical with Cleverness, nor is it

without this power of adapting means to ends: but this Eye of the Soul

(as we may call it) does not attain its proper state without goodness,

as we have said before and as is quite plain, because the syllogisms

into which Moral Action may be analysed have for their Major

Premiss,[53] “since —— is the End and the Chief Good”[54] (fill up the

blank with just anything you please, for we merely want to exhibit the

Form, so that anything will do), but _how_ this blank should be filled

is seen only by the good man: because Vice distorts the moral vision

and causes men to be deceived in respect of practical principles.[55]

It is clear, therefore, that a man cannot be a Practically-Wise,

without being a good, man.

We must enquire again also about Virtue: for it may be divided into

Natural Virtue and Matured, which two bear to each other a relation

similar to that which Practical Wisdom bears to Cleverness, one not of

identity but resemblance. I speak of Natural Virtue, because men hold

that each of the moral dispositions attach to us all somehow by nature:

we have dispositions[56] towards justice, self-mastery and courage, for

instance, immediately from our birth: but still we seek Goodness in its

highest sense as something distinct from these, and that these

dispositions should attach to us in a somewhat different fashion.[57]

Children and brutes have these natural states, but then they are

plainly hurtful unless combined with an intellectual element: at least

thus much is matter of actual experience and observation, that as a

strong body destitute of sight must, if set in motion, fall violently

because it has not sight, so it is also in the case we are considering:

but if it can get the intellectual element it then excels in acting.

Just so the Natural State of Virtue, being like this strong body, will

then be Virtue in the highest sense when it too is combined with the

intellectual element.

So that, as in the case of the Opinionative faculty, there are two

forms, Cleverness and Practical Wisdom; so also in the case of the

Moral there are two, Natural Virtue and Matured; and of these the

latter cannot be formed without Practical Wisdom.[58]

This leads some to say that all the Virtues are merely intellectual

Practical Wisdom, and Socrates was partly right in his enquiry and

partly wrong: wrong in that he thought all the Virtues were merely

intellectual Practical Wisdom, right in saying they were not

independent of that faculty.

A proof of which is that now all, in defining Virtue, add on the

“state” [mentioning also to what standard it has reference, namely

that] “which is accordant with Right Reason:” now “right” means in

accordance with Practical Wisdom. So then all seem to have an

instinctive notion that that state which is in accordance with

Practical Wisdom is Virtue; however, we must make a slight change in

their statement, because that state is Virtue, not merely which is in

accordance with but which implies the possession of Right Reason;

which, upon such matters, is Practical Wisdom. The difference between

us and Socrates is this: he thought the Virtues were reasoning

processes (_i.e._ that they were all instances of Knowledge in its

strict sense), but we say they imply the possession of Reason.

From what has been said then it is clear that one cannot be, strictly

speaking, good without Practical Wisdom nor Practically-Wise without

moral goodness.

And by the distinction between Natural and Matured Virtue one can meet

the reasoning by which it might be argued “that the Virtues are

separable because the same man is not by nature most inclined to all at

once so that he will have acquired this one before he has that other:”

we would reply that this is possible with respect to the Natural

Virtues but not with respect to those in right of which a man is

denominated simply good: because they will all belong to him together

with the one faculty of Practical Wisdom.

It is plain too that even had it not been apt to act we should have

needed it, because it is the Excellence of a part of the Soul; and that

the moral choice cannot be right independently of Practical Wisdom and

Moral Goodness; because this gives the right End, that causes the doing

these things which conduce to the End.

Then again, it is not Master of Science (i.e. of the superior part of

the Soul), just as neither is the healing art Master of health; for it

does not make use of it, but looks how it may come to be: so it

commands for the sake of it but does not command it.

The objection is, in fact, about as valid as if a man should say

πολιτικὴ governs the gods because it gives orders about all things in

the communty.

APPENDIX

On ἐπισπήμη, from I. Post. Analyt. chap. i. and ii.

(Such parts only are translated as throw light on the Ethics.)

All teaching, and all intellectual learning, proceeds on the basis of

previous knowledge, as will appear on an examination of all. The

Mathematical Sciences, and every other system, draw their conclusions

in this method. So too of reasonings, whether by syllogism, or

induction: for both teach through what is previously known, the former

assuming the premisses as from wise men, the latter proving universals

from the evidentness of the particulars. In like manner too

rhetoricians persuade, either through examples (which amounts to

induction), or through enthymemes (which amounts to syllogism).

CHAP. II

Well, we suppose that we _know_ things (in the strict and proper sense

of the word) when we suppose ourselves to know the cause by reason of

which the thing is to be the cause of it; and that this cannot be

otherwise. It is plain that the idea intended to be conveyed by the

term _knowing_ is something of this kind; because they who do not

really know suppose themselves thus related to the matter in hand and

they who do know really are so that of whatsoever there is properly

speaking Knowledge this cannot be otherwise than it is Whether or no

there is another way of knowing we will say afterwards, but we do say

that we know through demonstration, by which I mean a syllogism apt to

produce Knowledge, i.e. in right of which through having it, we know.

If Knowledge then is such as we have described it, the Knowledge

produced by demonstrative reasoning must be drawn from premisses _true_

and _first_, and _incapable of syllogistic proof_, and _better known_,

and _prior in order of time_, and _causes of the conclusion_, for so

the principles will be akin to the conclusion demonstrated.

(Syllogism, of course there may be without such premisses, but it will

not be demonstration because it will not produce knowledge).

_True_, they must be, because it is impossible to know that which is

not.

_First_, that is indemonstrable, because, if demonstrable, he cannot be

said to _know_ them who has no demonstration of them for knowing such

things as are demonstrable is the same as having demonstration of them.

_Causes_ they must be, and _better known_, and _prior_ in time,

_causes_, because we then know when we are acquainted with the cause,

and _prior_, if causes, and _known beforehand_, not merely comprehended

in idea but known to exist (The terms prior, and better known, bear two

senses for _prior by nature_ and _prior relatively to ourselves_ are

not the same, nor _better known by nature_, and _better known to us_ I

mean, by _prior_ and _better known relatively to ourselves_, such

things as are nearer to sensation, but abstractedly so such as are

further Those are furthest which are most universal those nearest which

are particulars, and these are mutually opposed.)

And by _first_, I mean _principles akin to the conclusion_, for

principle means the same as first And the principle or first step in

demonstration is a proposition incapable of syllogistic proof, _i.e._

one to which there is none prior. Now of such syllogistic principles I

call that a θέσις which you cannot demonstrate, and which is

unnecessary with a view to learning something else. That which is

necessary in order to learn something else is an Axiom.

Further, since one is to believe and know the thing by having a

syllogism of the kind called demonstration, and what constitutes it to

be such is the nature of the premisses, it is necessary not merely to

_know before_, but to _know better than the conclusion_, either all or

at least some of, the principles, because that which is the cause of a

quality inhering in something else always inheres itself more as the

cause of our loving is itself more lovable. So, since the principles

are the cause of our knowing and behoving we know and believe them

more, because by reason of them we know also the conclusion following.

Further: the man who is to have the Knowledge which comes through

demonstration must not merely know and believe his principles better

than he does his conclusion, but he must believe nothing more firmly

than the contradictories of those principles out of which the contrary

fallacy may be constructed: since he who _knows_, is to be simply and

absolutely infallible.

BOOK VII

Chapter I.

Next we must take a different point to start from,[1] and observe that

of what is to be avoided in respect of moral character there are three

forms; Vice, Imperfect Self-Control, and Brutishness. Of the two former

it is plain what the contraries are, for we call the one Virtue, the

other Self-Control; and as answering to Brutishness it will be most

suitable to assign Superhuman, i.e. heroical and godlike Virtue, as, in

Homer, Priam says of Hector “that he was very excellent, nor was he

like the offspring of mortal man, but of a god.” and so, if, as is

commonly said, men are raised to the position of gods by reason of very

high excellence in Virtue, the state opposed to the Brutish will

plainly be of this nature: because as brutes are not virtuous or

vicious so neither are gods; but the state of these is something more

precious than Virtue, of the former something different in kind from

Vice.

And as, on the one hand, it is a rare thing for a man to be godlike (a

term the Lacedæmonians are accustomed to use when they admire a man

exceedingly; σεῖος ἀνὴρ they call him), so the brutish man is rare;

the character is found most among barbarians, and some cases of it are

caused by disease or maiming; also such men as exceed in vice all

ordinary measures we therefore designate by this opprobrious term.

Well, we must in a subsequent place make some mention of this

disposition, and Vice has been spoken of before: for the present we

must speak of Imperfect Self-Control and its kindred faults of Softness

and Luxury, on the one hand, and of Self-Control and Endurance on the

other; since we are to conceive of them, not as being the same states

exactly as Virtue and Vice respectively, nor again as differing in

kind.

And we should adopt the same course as before, i.e. state the

phenomena, and, after raising and discussing difficulties which suggest

themselves, then exhibit, if possible, all the opinions afloat

respecting these affections of the moral character; or, if not all, the

greater part and the most important: for we may consider we have

illustrated the matter sufficiently when the difficulties have been

solved, and such theories as are most approved are left as a residuum.

The chief points may be thus enumerated. It is thought,

I. That Self-Control and Endurance belong to the class of things good

and praiseworthy, while Imperfect Self-Control and Softness belong to

that of things low and blameworthy.

II. That the man of Self-Control is identical with the man who is apt

to abide by his resolution, and the man of Imperfect Self-Control with

him who is apt to depart from his resolution.

III. That the man of Imperfect Self-Control does things at the

instigation of his passions, knowing them to be wrong, while the man of

Self-Control, knowing his lusts to be wrong, refuses, by the influence

of reason, to follow their suggestions.

IV. That the man of Perfected Self-Mastery unites the qualities of

Self-Control and Endurance, and some say that every one who unites

these is a man of Perfect Self-Mastery, others do not.

V. Some confound the two characters of the man who has _no_

Self-Control, and the man of _Imperfect Self-Control_, while others

distinguish between them.

VI. It is sometimes said that the man of Practical Wisdom cannot be a

man of Imperfect Self-Control, sometimes that men who are Practically

Wise and Clever are of Imperfect Self-Control.

VII. Again, men are said to be of Imperfect Self-Control, not simply

but with the addition of the thing wherein, as in respect of anger, of

honour, and gain.

These then are pretty well the common statements.

Chapter II.

Now a man may raise a question as to the nature of the right conception

in violation of which a man fails of Self-Control.

That he can so fail when _knowing_ in the strict sense what is right

some say is impossible: for it is a strange thing, as Socrates thought,

that while Knowledge is present in his mind something else should

master him and drag him about like a slave. Socrates in fact contended

generally against the theory, maintaining there is no such state as

that of Imperfect Self-Control, for that no one acts contrary to what

is best conceiving it to be best but by reason of ignorance what is

best.

With all due respect to Socrates, his account of the matter is at

variance with plain facts, and we must enquire with respect to the

affection, if it be caused by ignorance what is the nature of the

ignorance: for that the man so failing does not suppose his acts to be

right before he is under the influence of passion is quite plain.[2]

There are people who partly agree with Socrates and partly not: that

nothing can be stronger than Knowledge they agree, but that no man acts

in contravention of his conviction of what is better they do not agree;

and so they say that it is not Knowledge, but only Opinion, which the

man in question has and yet yields to the instigation of his pleasures.

But then, if it is Opinion and not Knowledge, that is it the opposing

conception be not strong but only mild (as in the case of real doubt),

the not abiding by it in the face of strong lusts would be excusable:

but wickedness is not excusable, nor is anything which deserves blame.

Well then, is it Practical Wisdom which in this case offers opposition:

for that is the strongest principle? The supposition is absurd, for we

shall have the same man uniting Practical Wisdom and Imperfect

Self-Control, and surely no single person would maintain that it is

consistent with the character of Practical Wisdom to do voluntarily

what is very wrong; and besides we have shown before that the very mark

of a man of this character is aptitude to act, as distinguished from

mere knowledge of what is right; because he is a man conversant with

particular details, and possessed of all the other virtues.

Again, if the having strong and bad lusts is necessary to the idea of

the man of Self-Control, this character cannot be identical with the

man of Perfected Self-Mastery, because the having strong desires or bad

ones does not enter into the idea of this latter character: and yet the

man of Self-Control must have such: for suppose them good; then the

moral state which should hinder a man from following their suggestions

must be bad, and so Self-Control would not be in all cases good:

suppose them on the other hand to be weak and not wrong, it would be

nothing grand; nor anything great, supposing them to be wrong and weak.

Again, if Self-Control makes a man apt to abide by all opinions without

exception, it may be bad, as suppose the case of a false opinion: and

if Imperfect Self-Control makes a man apt to depart from all without

exception, we shall have cases where it will be good; take that of

Neoptolemus in the Philoctetes of Sophocles, for instance: he is to be

praised for not abiding by what he was persuaded to by Ulysses, because

he was pained at being guilty of falsehood.

Or again, false sophistical reasoning presents a difficulty: for

because men wish to prove paradoxes that they may be counted clever

when they succeed, the reasoning that has been used becomes a

difficulty: for the intellect is fettered; a man being unwilling to

abide by the conclusion because it does not please his judgment, but

unable to advance because he cannot disentangle the web of sophistical

reasoning.

Or again, it is conceivable on this supposition that folly joined with

Imperfect Self-Control may turn out, in a given case, goodness: for by

reason of his imperfection of self-control a man acts in a way which

contradicts his notions; now his notion is that what is really good is

bad and ought not to be done; and so he will eventually do what is good

and not what is bad.

Again, on the same supposition, the man who acting on conviction

pursues and chooses things because they are pleasant must be thought a

better man than he who does so not by reason of a quasi-rational

conviction but of Imperfect Self-Control: because he is more open to

cure by reason of the possibility of his receiving a contrary

conviction. But to the man of Imperfect Self-Control would apply the

proverb, “when water chokes, what should a man drink then?” for had he

never been convinced at all in respect of what he does,[3] then by a

conviction in a contrary direction he might have stopped in his course;

but now though he has had convictions he notwithstanding acts against

them.

Again, if any and every thing is the object-matter of Imperfect and

Perfect Self-Control, who is the man of Imperfect Self-Control simply?

because no one unites all cases of it, and we commonly say that some

men are so simply, not adding any particular thing in which they are

so.

Well, the difficulties raised are pretty near such as I have described

them, and of these theories we must remove some and leave others as

established; because the solving of a difficulty is a positive act of

establishing something as true.

Chapter III.

Now we must examine first whether men of Imperfect Self-Control act

with a knowledge of what is right or not: next, if with such knowledge,

in what sense; and next what are we to assume is the object-matter of

the man of Imperfect Self-Control, and of the man of Self-Control; I

mean, whether pleasure and pain of all kinds or certain definite ones;

and as to Self-Control and Endurance, whether these are designations of

the same character or different. And in like manner we must go into all

questions which are connected with the present.

But the real starting point of the enquiry is, whether the two

characters of Self-Control and Imperfect Self-Control are distinguished

by their object-matter, or their respective relations to it. I mean,

whether the man of Imperfect Self-Control is such simply by virtue of

having such and such object-matter; or not, but by virtue of his being

related to it in such and such a way, or by virtue of both: next,

whether Self-Control and Imperfect Self-Control are unlimited in their

object-matter: because he who is designated without any addition a man

of Imperfect Self-Control is not unlimited in his object-matter, but

has exactly the same as the man who has lost all Self-Control: nor is

he so designated because of his relation to this object-matter merely

(for then his character would be identical with that just mentioned,

loss of all Self-Control), but because of his relation to it being such

and such. For the man who has lost all Self-Control is led on with

deliberate moral choice, holding that it is his line to pursue pleasure

as it rises: while the man of Imperfect Self-Control does not think

that he ought to pursue it, but does pursue it all the same.

Now as to the notion that it is True Opinion and not Knowledge in

contravention of which men fail in Self-Control, it makes no difference

to the point in question, because some of those who hold Opinions have

no doubt about them but suppose themselves to have accurate Knowledge;

if then it is urged that men holding Opinions will be more likely than

men who have Knowledge to act in contravention of their conceptions, as

having but a moderate belief in them; we reply, Knowledge will not

differ in this respect from Opinion: because some men believe their own

Opinions no less firmly than others do their positive Knowledge:

Heraclitus is a case in point.

Rather the following is the account of it: the term _knowing_ has two

senses; both the man who does not use his Knowledge, and he who does,

are said to _know_: there will be a difference between a man’s acting

wrongly, who though possessed of Knowledge does not call it into

operation, and his doing so who has it and actually exercises it: the

latter is a strange case, but the mere having, if not exercising,

presents no anomaly.

Again, as there are two kinds of propositions affecting action,[4]

universal and particular, there is no reason why a man may not act

against his Knowledge, having both propositions in his mind, using the

universal but not the particular, for the particulars are the objects

of moral action.

There is a difference also in universal propositions;[5] a universal

proposition may relate partly to a man’s self and partly to the thing

in question: take the following for instance; “dry food is good for

every man,” this may have the two minor premisses, “this is a man,” and

“so and so is dry food;” but whether a given substance is so and so a

man either has not the Knowledge or does not exert it. According to

these different senses there will be an immense difference, so that for

a man to _know_ in the one sense, and yet act wrongly, would be nothing

strange, but in any of the other senses it would be a matter for

wonder.

Again, men may have Knowledge in a way different from any of those

which have been now stated: for we constantly see a man’s state so

differing by having and not using Knowledge, that he has it in a sense

and also has not; when a man is asleep, for instance, or mad, or drunk:

well, men under the actual operation of passion are in exactly similar

conditions; for anger, lust, and some other such-like things,

manifestly make changes even in the body, and in some they even cause

madness; it is plain then that we must say the men of Imperfect

Self-Control are in a state similar to these.

And their saying what embodies Knowledge is no proof of their actually

then exercising it, because they who are under the operation of these

passions repeat demonstrations; or verses of Empedocles,[6] just as

children, when first learning, string words together, but as yet know

nothing of their meaning, because they must grow into it, and this is a

process requiring time: so that we must suppose these men who fail in

Self-Control to say these moral sayings just as actors do.

Furthermore, a man may look at the account of the phænomenon in the

following way, from an examination of the actual working of the mind:

All action may be analysed into a syllogism, in which the one premiss

is an universal maxim and the other concerns particulars of which Sense

[moral or physical, as the case may be] is cognisant: now when one

results from these two, it follows necessarily that, as far as theory

goes the mind must assert the conclusion, and in practical propositions

the man must act accordingly.

For instance, let the universal be, “All that is sweet should be

tasted,” the particular, “This is sweet;” it follows necessarily that

he who is able and is not hindered should not only draw, but put in

practice, the conclusion “This is to be tasted.” When then there is in

the mind one universal proposition forbidding to taste, and the other

“All that is sweet is pleasant” with its minor “This is sweet” (which

is the one that really works), and desire happens to be in the man, the

first universal bids him avoid this but the desire leads him on to

taste; for it has the power of moving the various organs: and so it

results that he fails in Self-Control, in a certain sense under the

influence of Reason and Opinion not contrary in itself to Reason but

only accidentally so; because it is the desire that is contrary to

Right Reason, but not the Opinion:[7] and so for this reason brutes are

not accounted of Imperfect Self-Control, because they have no power of

conceiving universals but only of receiving and retaining particular

impressions.

As to the manner in which the ignorance is removed and the man of

Imperfect Self-Control recovers his Knowledge, the account is the same

as with respect to him who is drunk or asleep, and is not peculiar to

this affection, so physiologists[8] are the right people to apply to.

But whereas the minor premiss of every practical syllogism is an

opinion on matter cognisable by Sense and determines the actions; he

who is under the influence of passion either has not this, or so has it

that his having does not amount to _knowing_ but merely saying, as a

man when drunk might repeat Empedocles’ verses; and because the minor

term[9] is neither universal, nor is thought to have the power of

producing Knowledge in like manner as the universal term: and so the

result which Socrates was seeking comes out, that is to say, the

affection does not take place in the presence of that which is thought

to be specially and properly Knowledge, nor is this dragged about by

reason of the affection, but in the presence of that Knowledge which is

conveyed by Sense.

Let this account then be accepted of the question respecting the

failure in Self-Control, whether it is with Knowledge, and the manner

in which such failure is possible or not, though a man possesses

Knowledge.

Chapter IV.

The next question to be discussed is whether there is a character to be

designated by the term “of Imperfect Self-Control” simply, or whether

all who are so are to be accounted such, in respect of some particular

thing; and, if there is such a character, what is his object-matter.

Now that pleasures and pains are the object-matter of men of

Self-Control and of Endurance, and also of men of Imperfect

Self-Control and Softness, is plain.

Further, things which produce pleasure are either necessary, or objects

of choice in themselves but yet admitting of excess. All bodily things

which produce pleasure are necessary; and I call such those which

relate to food and other grosser appetities, in short such bodily

things as we assumed were the Object-matter of absence of Self-Control

and of Perfected Self-Mastery.

The other class of objects are not necessary, but objects of choice in

themselves: I mean, for instance, victory, honour, wealth, and

such-like good or pleasant things. And those who are excessive in their

liking for such things contrary to the principle of Right Reason which

is in their own breasts we do not designate men of Imperfect

Self-Control simply, but with the addition of the thing wherein, as in

respect of money, or gain, or honour, or anger, and not simply; because

we consider them as different characters and only having that title in

right of a kind of resemblance (as when we add to a man’s name

“conqueror in the Olympic games” the account of him as Man differs but

little from the account of him as the Man who conquered in the Olympic

games, but still it is different). And a proof of the real difference

between these so designated with an addition and those simply so called

is this, that Imperfect Self-Control is blamed, not as an error merely

but also as being a vice, either wholly or partially; but none of these

other cases is so blamed.

But of those who have for their object-matter the bodily enjoyments,

which we say are also the object-matter of the man of Perfected

Self-Mastery and the man who has lost all Self-Control, he that pursues

excessive pleasures and too much avoids[10] things which are painful

(as hunger and thirst, heat and cold, and everything connected with

touch and taste), not from moral choice but in spite of his moral

choice and intellectual conviction, is termed “a man of Imperfect

Self-Control,” not with the addition of any particular object-matter as

we do in respect of want of control of anger but simply.

And a proof that the term is thus applied is that the kindred term

“Soft” is used in respect of these enjoyments but not in respect of any

of those others. And for this reason we put into the same rank the man

of Imperfect Self-Control, the man who has lost it entirely, the man

who has it, and the man of Perfected Self-Mastery; but not any of those

other characters, because the former have for their object-matter the

same pleasures and pains: but though they have the same object-matter,

they are not related to it in the same way, but two of them act upon

moral choice, two without it. And so we should say that man is more

entirely given up to his passions who pursues excessive pleasures, and

avoids moderate pains, being either not at all, or at least but little,

urged by desire, than the man who does so because his desire is very

strong: because we think what would the former be likely to do if he

had the additional stimulus of youthful lust and violent pain

consequent on the want of those pleasures which we have denominated

necessary?

Well then, since of desires and pleasures there are some which are in

kind honourable and good (because things pleasant are divisible, as we

said before, into such as are naturally objects of choice, such as are

naturally objects of avoidance, and such as are in themselves

indifferent, money, gain, honour, victory, for instance); in respect of

all such and those that are indifferent, men are blamed not merely[11]

for being affected by or desiring or liking them, but for exceeding in

any way in these feelings.

And so they are blamed, whosoever in spite of Reason are mastered by,

that is pursue, any object, though in its nature noble and good; they,

for instance, who are more earnest than they should be respecting

honour, or their children or parents; not but what these are good

objects and men are praised for being earnest about them: but still

they admit of excess; for instance, if any one, as Niobe did, should

fight even against the gods, or feel towards his father as Satyrus, who

got therefrom the nickname of φιλοπάτωρ, because he was thought to be

very foolish.

Now depravity there is none in regard of these things, for the reason

assigned above, that each of them in itself is a thing naturally

choice-worthy, yet the excesses in respect of them are wrong and matter

for blame: and similarly there is no Imperfect Self-Control in respect

of these things; that being not merely a thing that should be avoided

but blameworthy.

But because of the resemblance of the affection to the Imperfection of

Self-Control the term is used with the addition in each case of the

particular object-matter, just as men call a man a bad physician, or

bad actor, whom they would not think of calling simply bad. As then in

these cases we do not apply the term simply because each of the states

is not a vice, but only like a vice in the way of analogy,[12] so it is

plain that in respect of Imperfect Self-Control and Self-Control we

must limit the names to those states which have the same object-matter

as Perfected Self-Mastery and utter loss of Self-Control, and that we

do apply it to the case of anger only in the way of resemblance: for

which reason, with an addition, we designate a man of Imperfect

Self-Control in respect of anger, as of honour or of gain.

Chapter V.

As there are some things naturally pleasant, and of these two kinds;

those, namely, which are pleasant generally, and those which are so

relatively to particular kinds of animals and men; so there are others

which are not naturally pleasant but which come to be so in consequence

either of maimings, or custom, or depraved natural tastes: and one may

observe moral states similar to those we have been speaking of, having

respectively these classes of things for their object-matter.

I mean the Brutish, as in the case of the female who, they say, would

rip up women with child and eat the foetus; or the tastes which are

found among the savage tribes bordering on the Pontus, some liking raw

flesh, and some being cannibals, and some lending one another their

children to make feasts of; or what is said of Phalaris. These are

instances of Brutish states, caused in some by disease or madness;

take, for instance, the man who sacrificed and ate his mother, or him

who devoured the liver of his fellow-servant. Instances again of those

caused by disease or by custom, would be, plucking out of hair, or

eating one’s nails, or eating coals and earth.[13] Now wherever nature

is really the cause no one would think of calling men of Imperfect

Self-Control, ... nor, in like manner, such as are in a diseased state

through custom.

The having any of these inclinations is something foreign to what is

denominated Vice, just as Brutishness is: and when a man has them his

mastering them is not properly Self-Control, nor his being mastered by

them Imperfection of Self-Control in the proper sense, but only in the

way of resemblance; just as we may say a man of ungovernable wrath

fails of Self-Control in respect of anger but not simply fails of

Self-Control. For all excessive folly, cowardice, absence of

Self-Control, or irritability, are either Brutish or morbid. The man,

for instance, who is naturally afraid of all things, even if a mouse

should stir, is cowardly after a Brutish sort; there was a man again

who, by reason of disease, was afraid of a cat: and of the fools, they

who are naturally destitute of Reason and live only by Sense are

Brutish, as are some tribes of the far-off barbarians, while others who

are so by reason of diseases, epileptic or frantic, are in morbid

states.

So then, of these inclinations, a man may sometimes merely have one

without yielding to it: I mean, suppose that Phalaris had restrained

his unnatural desire to eat a child: or he may both have and yield to

it. As then Vice when such as belongs to human nature is called Vice

simply, while the other is so called with the addition of “brutish” or

“morbid,” but not simply Vice, so manifestly there is Brutish and

Morbid Imperfection of Self-Control, but that alone is entitled to the

name without any qualification which is of the nature of utter absence

of Self-Control, as it is found in Man.

Chapter VI.

It is plain then that the object-matter of Imperfect Self-Control and

Self-Control is restricted to the same as that of utter absence of

Self-Control and that of Perfected Self-Mastery, and that the rest is

the object-matter of a different species so named metaphorically and

not simply: we will now examine the position, “that Imperfect

Self-Control in respect of Anger is less disgraceful than that in

respect of Lusts.”

In the first place, it seems that Anger does in a way listen to Reason

but mishears it; as quick servants who run out before they have heard

the whole of what is said and then mistake the order; dogs, again, bark

at the slightest stir, before they have seen whether it be friend or

foe; just so Anger, by reason of its natural heat and quickness,

listening to Reason, but without having heard the command of Reason,

rushes to its revenge. That is to say, Reason or some impression on the

mind shows there is insolence or contempt[14] in the offender, and then

Anger, reasoning as it were that one ought to fight against what is

such, fires up immediately: whereas Lust, if Reason or Sense, as the

case may be, merely says a thing is sweet, rushes to the enjoyment of

it: and so Anger follows Reason in a manner, but Lust does not and is

therefore more disgraceful: because he that cannot control his anger

yields in a manner to Reason, but the other to his Lust and not to

Reason at all.

Again, a man is more excusable for following such desires as are

natural, just as he is for following such Lusts as are common to all

and to that degree in which they are common. Now Anger and irritability

are more natural than Lusts when in excess and for objects not

necessary. (This was the ground of the defence the man made who beat

his father, “My father,” he said, “used to beat his, and his father his

again, and this little fellow here,” pointing to his child, “will beat

me when he is grown a man: it runs in the family.” And the father, as

he was being dragged along, bid his son leave off beating him at the

door, because he had himself been used to drag his father so far and no

farther.)

Again, characters are less unjust in proportion as they involve less

insidiousness. Now the Angry man is not insidious, nor is Anger, but

quite open: but Lust is: as they say of Venus,

“Cyprus-born Goddess, _weaver of deceits_”

Or Homer of the girdle called the Cestus,

“Persuasiveness _cheating_ e’en the subtlest mind.”

And so since this kind of Imperfect Self-Control is more unjust, it is

also more disgraceful than that in respect of Anger, and is simply

Imperfect Self-Control, and Vice in a certain sense.

Again, no man feels pain in being insolent, but every one who acts

through Anger does act with pain; and he who acts insolently does it

with pleasure. If then those things are most unjust with which we have

most right to be angry, then Imperfect Self-Control, arising from Lust,

is more so than that arising from Anger: because in Anger there is no

insolence.[15]

Well then, it is clear that Imperfect Self-Control in respect of Lusts

is more disgraceful than that in respect of Anger, and that the

object-matter of Self-Control, and the Imperfection of it, are bodily

Lusts and pleasures; but of these last we must take into account the

differences; for, as was said at the commencement, some are proper to

the human race and natural both in kind and degree, others Brutish, and

others caused by maimings and diseases.

Now the first of these only are the object-matter of Perfected

Self-Mastery and utter absence of Self-Control; and therefore we never

attribute either of these states to Brutes (except metaphorically, and

whenever any one kind of animal differs entirely from another in

insolence, mischievousness, or voracity), because they have not moral

choice or process of deliberation, but are quite different from that

kind of creature just as are madmen from other men.

Brutishness is not so low in the scale as Vice, yet it is to be

regarded with more fear: because it is not that the highest principle

has been corrupted, as in the human creature, but the subject has it

not at all.

It is much the same, therefore, as if one should compare an inanimate

with an animate being, which were the worse: for the badness of that

which has no principle of origination is always less harmful; now

Intellect is a principle of origination. A similar case would be the

comparing injustice and an unjust man together: for in different ways

each is the worst: a bad man would produce ten thousand times as much

harm as a bad brute.

Chapter VII.

Now with respect to the pleasures and pains which come to a man through

Touch and Taste, and the desiring or avoiding such (which we determined

before to constitute the object-matter of the states of utter absence

of Self-Control and Perfected Self-Mastery), one may be so disposed as

to yield to temptations to which most men would be superior, or to be

superior to those to which most men would yield: in respect of

pleasures, these characters will be respectively the man of Imperfect

Self-Control, and the man of Self-Control; and, in respect of pains,

the man of Softness and the man of Endurance: but the moral state of

most men is something between the two, even though they lean somewhat

to the worse characters.

Again, since of the pleasures indicated some are necessary and some are

not, others are so to a certain degree but not the excess or defect of

them, and similarly also of Lusts and pains, the man who pursues the

excess of pleasant things, or such as are in themselves excess, or from

moral choice, for their own sake, and not for anything else which is to

result from them, is a man utterly void of Self-Control: for he must be

incapable of remorse, and so incurable, because he that has not remorse

is incurable. (He that has too little love of pleasure is the opposite

character, and the man of Perfected Self-Mastery the mean character.)

He is of a similar character who avoids the bodily pains, not because

he _cannot_, but because he _chooses not to_, withstand them.

But of the characters who go wrong without _choosing_ so to do, the one

is led on by reason of pleasure, the other because he avoids the pain

it would cost him to deny his lust; and so they are different the one

from the other. Now every one would pronounce a man worse for doing

something base without any impulse of desire, or with a very slight

one, than for doing the same from the impulse of a very strong desire;

for striking a man when not angry than if he did so in wrath: because

one naturally says, “What would he have done had he been under the

influence of passion?” (and on this ground, by the bye, the man utterly

void of Self-Control is worse than he who has it imperfectly). However,

of the two characters which have been mentioned,[16] [as included in

that of utter absence of Self-Control], the one is rather Softness, the

other properly the man of no Self-Control.

Furthermore, to the character of Imperfect Self-Control is opposed that

of Self-Control, and to that of Softness that of Endurance: because

Endurance consists in continued resistance but Self-Control in actual

mastery, and continued resistance and actual mastery are as different

as not being conquered is from conquering; and so Self-Control is more

choice-worthy than Endurance.

Again, he who fails when exposed to those temptations against which the

common run of men hold out, and are well able to do so, is Soft and

Luxurious (Luxury being a kind of Softness): the kind of man, I mean,

to let his robe drag in the dirt to avoid the trouble of lifting it,

and who, aping the sick man, does not however suppose himself wretched

though he is like a wretched man. So it is too with respect to

Self-Control and the Imperfection of it: if a man yields to pleasures

or pains which are violent and excessive it is no matter for wonder,

but rather for allowance if he made what resistance he could (instances

are, Philoctetes in Theodectes’ drama when wounded by the viper; or

Cercyon in the Alope of Carcinus, or men who in trying to suppress

laughter burst into a loud continuous fit of it, as happened, you

remember, to Xenophantus), but it is a matter for wonder when a man

yields to and cannot contend against those pleasures or pains which the

common herd are able to resist; always supposing his failure not to be

owing to natural constitution or disease, I mean, as the Scythian kings

are constitutionally Soft, or the natural difference between the sexes.

Again, the man who is a slave to amusement is commonly thought to be

destitute of Self-Control, but he really is Soft; because amusement is

an act of relaxing, being an act of resting, and the character in

question is one of those who exceed due bounds in respect of this.

Moreover of Imperfect Self-Control there are two forms, Precipitancy

and Weakness: those who have it in the latter form though they have

made resolutions do not abide by them by reason of passion; the others

are led by passion because they have never formed any resolutions at

all: while there are some who, like those who by tickling themselves

beforehand get rid of ticklishness, having felt and seen beforehand the

approach of temptation, and roused up themselves and their resolution,

yield not to passion; whether the temptation be somewhat pleasant or

somewhat painful. The Precipitate form of Imperfect Self-Control they

are most liable to who are constitutionally of a sharp or melancholy

temperament: because the one by reason of the swiftness, the other by

reason of the violence, of their passions, do not wait for Reason,

because they are disposed to follow whatever notion is impressed upon

their minds.

Again, the man utterly destitute of Self-Control, as was observed

before, is not given to remorse: for it is part of his character that

he abides by his moral choice: but the man of Imperfect Self-Control is

almost made up of remorse: and so the case is not as we determined it

before, but the former is incurable and the latter may be cured: for

depravity is like chronic diseases, dropsy and consumption for

instance, but Imperfect Self-Control is like acute disorders: the

former being a continuous evil, the latter not so. And, in fact,

Imperfect Self-Control and Confirmed Vice are different in kind: the

latter being imperceptible to its victim, the former not so.[17]

But, of the different forms of Imperfect Self-Control, those are better

who are carried off their feet by a sudden access of temptation than

they who have Reason but do not abide by it; these last being overcome

by passion less in degree, and not wholly without premeditation as are

the others: for the man of Imperfect Self-Control is like those who are

soon intoxicated and by little wine and less than the common run of

men.

Well then, that Imperfection of Self-Control is not Confirmed

Viciousness is plain: and yet perhaps it is such in a way, because in

one sense it is contrary to moral choice and in another the result of

it:[18] at all events, in respect of the actions, the case is much like

what Demodocus said of the Miletians. “The people of Miletus are not

fools, but they do just the kind of things that fools do;” and so they

of Imperfect Self-Control are not unjust, but they do unjust acts.

But to resume. Since the man of Imperfect Self-Control is of such a

character as to follow bodily pleasures in excess and in defiance of

Right Reason, without acting on any deliberate conviction, whereas the

man utterly destitute of Self-Control does act upon a conviction which

rests on his natural inclination to follow after these pleasures; the

former may be easily persuaded to a different course, but the latter

not: for Virtue and Vice respectively preserve and corrupt the moral

principle; now the motive is the principle or starting point in moral

actions, just as axioms and postulates are in mathematics: and neither

in morals nor mathematics is it Reason which is apt to teach the

principle; but Excellence, either natural or acquired by custom, in

holding right notions with respect to the principle. He who does this

in morals is the man of Perfected Self-Mastery, and the contrary

character is the man utterly destitute of Self-Control.

Again, there is a character liable to be taken off his feet in defiance

of Right Reason because of passion; whom passion so far masters as to

prevent his acting in accordance with Right Reason, but not so far as

to make him be convinced that it is his proper line to follow after

such pleasures without limit: this character is the man of Imperfect

Self- Control, better than he who is utterly destitute of it, and not a

bad man simply and without qualification: because in him the highest

and best part, i.e. principle, is preserved: and there is another

character opposed to him who is apt to abide by his resolutions, and

not to depart from them; at all events, not at the instigation of

passion.

It is evident then from all this, that Self-Control is a good state and

the Imperfection of it a bad one.

Chapter VIII.

Next comes the question, whether a man is a man of Self-Control for

abiding by his conclusions and moral choice be they of what kind they

may, or only by the right one; or again, a man of Imperfect

Self-Control for not abiding by his conclusions and moral choice be

they of whatever kind; or, to put the case we did before, is he such

for not abiding by false conclusions and wrong moral choice?

Is not this the truth, that _incidentally_ it is by conclusions and

moral choice of any kind that the one character abides and the other

does not, but _per se_ true conclusions and right moral choice:[19] to

explain what is meant by incidentally, and _per se_; suppose a man

chooses or pursues this thing for the sake of that, he is said to

pursue and choose that _per se_, but this only incidentally. For the

term _per se_ we use commonly the word “simply,” and so, in a way, it

is opinion of any kind soever by which the two characters respectively

abide or not, but he is “simply” entitled to the designations who

abides or not by the true opinion.

There are also people, who have a trick of abiding by their, own

opinions, who are commonly called Positive, as they who are hard to be

persuaded, and whose convictions are not easily changed: now these

people bear some resemblance to the character of Self-Control, just as

the prodigal to the liberal or the rash man to the brave, but they are

different in many points. The man of Self-Control does not change by

reason of passion and lust, yet when occasion so requires he will be

easy of persuasion: but the Positive man changes not at the call of

Reason, though many of this class take up certain desires and are led

by their pleasures. Among the class of Positive are the Opinionated,

the Ignorant, and the Bearish: the first, from the motives of pleasure

and pain: I mean, they have the pleasurable feeling of a kind of

victory in not having their convictions changed, and they are pained

when their decrees, so to speak, are reversed: so that, in fact, they

rather resemble the man of Imperfect Self-Control than the man of

Self-Control.

Again, there are some who depart from their resolutions not by reason

of any Imperfection of Self-Control; take, for instance, Neoptolemus in

the Philoctetes of Sophocles. Here certainly pleasure was the motive of

his departure from his resolution, but then it was one of a noble sort:

for to be truthful was noble in his eyes and he had been persuaded by

Ulysses to lie.

So it is not every one who acts from the motive of pleasure who is

utterly destitute of Self-Control or base or of Imperfect Self-Control,

only he who acts from the impulse of a base pleasure.

Chapter IX.

Moreover as there is a character who takes less pleasure than he ought

in bodily enjoyments, and he also fails to abide by the conclusion of

his Reason,[20] the man of Self-Control is the mean between him and the

man of Imperfect Self-Control: that is to say, the latter fails to

abide by them because of somewhat too much, the former because of

somewhat too little; while the man of Self-Control abides by them, and

never changes by reason of anything else than such conclusions.

Now of course since Self-Control is good both the contrary States must

be bad, as indeed they plainly are: but because the one of them is seen

in few persons, and but rarely in them, Self-Control comes to be viewed

as if opposed only to the Imperfection of it, just as Perfected

Self-Mastery is thought to be opposed only to utter want of

Self-Control.

Again, as many terms are used in the way of similitude, so people have

come to talk of the Self-Control of the man of Perfected Self-Mastery

in the way of similitude: for the man of Self-Control and the man of

Perfected Self-Mastery have this in common, that they do nothing

against Right Reason on the impulse of bodily pleasures, but then the

former has bad desires, the latter not; and the latter is so

constituted as not even to feel pleasure contrary to his Reason, the

former feels but does not yield to it.

Like again are the man of Imperfect Self-Control and he who is utterly

destitute of it, though in reality distinct: both follow bodily

pleasures, but the latter under a notion that it is the proper line for

him to take, his former without any such notion.

And it is not possible for the same man to be at once a man of

Practical Wisdom and of Imperfect Self-Control: because the character

of Practical Wisdom includes, as we showed before, goodness of moral

character. And again, it is not knowledge merely, but aptitude for

action, which constitutes Practical Wisdom: and of this aptitude the

man of Imperfect Self-Control is destitute. But there is no reason why

the Clever man should not be of Imperfect Self-Control: and the reason

why some men are occasionally thought to be men of Practical Wisdom,

and yet of Imperfect Self-Control, is this, that Cleverness differs

from Practical Wisdom in the way I stated in a former book, and is very

near it so far as the intellectual element is concerned but differs in

respect of the moral choice.

Nor is the man of Imperfect Self-Control like the man who both has and

calls into exercise his knowledge, but like the man who, having it, is

overpowered by sleep or wine. Again, he acts voluntarily (because he

knows, in a certain sense, what he does and the result of it), but he

is not a confirmed bad man, for his moral choice is good, so he is at

all events only half bad. Nor is he unjust, because he does not act

with deliberate intent: for of the two chief forms of the character,

the one is not apt to abide by his deliberate resolutions, and the

other, the man of constitutional strength of passion, is not apt to

deliberate at all.

So in fact the man of Imperfect Self-Control is like a community which

makes all proper enactments, and has admirable laws, only does not act

on them, verifying the scoff of Anaxandrides,

“That State did will it, which cares nought for laws;”

whereas the bad man is like one which acts upon its laws, but then

unfortunately they are bad ones.

Imperfection of Self-Control and Self-Control, after all, are above the

average state of men; because he of the latter character is more true

to his Reason, and the former less so, than is in the power of most

men.

Again, of the two forms of Imperfect Self-Control that is more easily

cured which they have who are constitutionally of strong passions, than

that of those who form resolutions and break them; and they that are so

through habituation than they that are so naturally; since of course

custom is easier to change than nature, because the very resemblance of

custom to nature is what constitutes the difficulty of changing it; as

Evenus says,

“Practice, I say, my friend, doth long endure,

And at the last is even very nature.”

We have now said then what Self-Control is, what Imperfection of

Self-Control, what Endurance, and what Softness, and how these states

are mutually related.

APPENDIX.

Book VII. Chapters 12 to 15. (Bekker.)

To consider the subject of Pleasure and Pain falls within the province

of the Social-Science Philosopher, since he it is who has to fix the

Master-End which is to guide us in dominating any object absolutely

evil or good.

But we may say more: an enquiry into their nature is absolutely

necessary. First, because we maintained that Moral Virtue and Moral

Vice are both concerned with Pains and Pleasures: next, because the

greater part of mankind assert that Happiness must include Pleasure

(which by the way accounts for the word they use, μακάριος; χαίρειν

being the root of that word).

Now some hold that no one Pleasure is good, either in itself or as a

matter of result, because Good and Pleasure are not identical. Others

that some Pleasures are good but the greater number bad. There is yet a

third view; granting that every Pleasure is good, still the Chief Good

cannot possibly be Pleasure.

In support of the first opinion (that Pleasure is utterly not-good) it

is urged that:

1. Every Pleasure is a sensible process towards a complete state; but

no such process is akin to the end to be attained: _e.g._ no process of

building to the completed house.

2. The man of Perfected Self-Mastery avoids Pleasures.

3. The man of Practical Wisdom aims at avoiding Pain, not at attaining

Pleasure.

4. Pleasures are an impediment to thought, and the more so the more

keenly they are felt. An obvious instance will readily occur.

5. Pleasure cannot be referred to any Art: and yet every good is the

result of some Art.

6. Children and brutes pursue Pleasures.

In support of the second (that not all Pleasures are good), That there

are some base and matter of reproach, and some even hurtful: because

some things that are pleasant produce disease.

In support of the third (that Pleasure is not the Chief Good), That it

is not an End but a process towards creating an End.

This is, I think, a fair account of current views on the matter.

But that the reasons alleged do not prove it either to be not-good or

the Chief Good is plain from the following considerations.

First. Good being either absolute or relative, of course the natures

and states embodying it will be so too; therefore also the movements

and the processes of creation. So, of those which are thought to be bad

some will be bad absolutely, but relatively not bad, perhaps even

choice-worthy; some not even choice-worthy relatively to any particular

person, only at certain times or for a short time but not in themselves

choice-worthy.

Others again are not even Pleasures at all though they produce that

impression on the mind: all such I mean as imply pain and whose purpose

is cure; those of sick people, for instance.

Next, since Good may be either an active working or a state, those

[κινήσεις or γενέσεις] which tend to place us in our natural state are

pleasant incidentally because of that tendency: but the active working

is really in the desires excited in the remaining (sound) part of our

state or nature: for there are Pleasures which have no connection with

pain or desire: the acts of contemplative intellect, for instance, in

which case there is no deficiency in the nature or state of him who

performs the acts.

A proof of this is that the same pleasant thing does not produce the

sensation of Pleasure when the natural state is being filled up or

completed as when it is already in its normal condition: in this latter

case what give the sensation are things pleasant _per se_, in the

former even those things which are contrary. I mean, you find people

taking pleasure in sharp or bitter things of which no one is naturally

or in itself pleasant; of course not therefore the Pleasures arising

from them, because it is obvious that as is the classification of

pleasant things such must be that of the Pleasures arising from them.

Next, it does not follow that there must be something else better than

any given pleasure because (as some say) the End must be better than

the process which creates it. For it is not true that all Pleasures are

processes or even attended by any process, but (some are) active

workings or even Ends: in fact they result not from our coming to be

something but from our using our powers. Again, it is not true that the

End is, in every case, distinct from the process: it is true only in

the case of such processes as conduce to the perfecting of the natural

state.

For which reason it is wrong to say that Pleasure is “a sensible

process of production.” For “process etc.” should be substituted

“active working of the natural state,” for “sensible” “unimpeded.” The

reason of its being thought to be a “process etc.” is that it is good

in the highest sense: people confusing “active working” and “process,”

whereas they really are distinct.

Next, as to the argument that there are bad Pleasures because some

things which are pleasant are also hurtful to health, it is the same as

saying that some healthful things are bad for “business.” In this

sense, of course, both may be said to be bad, but then this does not

make them out to be bad _simpliciter_: the exercise of the pure

Intellect sometimes hurts a man’s health: but what hinders Practical

Wisdom or any state whatever is, not the Pleasure peculiar to, but some

Pleasure foreign to it: the Pleasures arising from the exercise of the

pure Intellect or from learning only promote each.

Next. “No Pleasure is the work of any Art.” What else would you expect?

No active working is the work of any Art, only the faculty of so

working. Still the perfumer’s Art or the cook’s are thought to belong

to Pleasure.

Next. “The man of Perfected Self-Mastery avoids Pleasures.” “The man of

Practical Wisdom aims at escaping Pain rather than at attaining

Pleasure.”

“Children and brutes pursue Pleasures.”

One answer will do for all.

We have already said in what sense all Pleasures are good _per se_ and

in what sense not all are good: it is the latter class that brutes and

children pursue, such as are accompanied by desire and pain, that is

the bodily Pleasures (which answer to this description) and the

excesses of them: in short, those in respect of which the man utterly

destitute of Self-Control is thus utterly destitute. And it is the

absence of the pain arising from these Pleasures that the man of

Practical Wisdom aims at. It follows that these Pleasures are what the

man of Perfected Self-Mastery avoids: for obviously he has Pleasures

peculiarly his own.

Then again, it is allowed that Pain is an evil and a thing to be

avoided partly as bad _per se_, partly as being a hindrance in some

particular way. Now the contrary of that which is to be avoided, _quâ_

it is to be avoided, _i.e._ evil, is good. Pleasure then must be _a_

good.

The attempted answer of Speusippus, “that Pleasure may be opposed and

yet not contrary to Pain, just as the greater portion of any magnitude

is contrary to the less but only opposed to the exact half,” will not

hold: for he cannot say that Pleasure is identical with evil of any

kind.

Again. Granting that some Pleasures are low, there is no reason why

some particular Pleasure may not be very good, just as some particular

Science may be although there are some which are low.

Perhaps it even follows, since each state may have active working

unimpeded, whether the active workings of all be Happiness or that of

some one of them, that this active working, if it be unimpeded, must be

choice-worthy: now Pleasure is exactly this. So that the Chief Good may

be Pleasure of some kind, though most Pleasures be (let us assume) low

_per se_.

And for this reason all men think the happy life is pleasant, and

interweave Pleasure with Happiness. Reasonably enough: because

Happiness is perfect, but no impeded active working is perfect; and

therefore the happy man needs as an addition the goods of the body and

the goods external and fortune that in these points he may not be

fettered. As for those who say that he who is being tortured on the

wheel, or falls into great misfortunes is happy provided only he be

good, they talk nonsense, whether they mean to do so or not. On the

other hand, because fortune is needed as an addition, some hold good

fortune to be identical with Happiness: which it is not, for even this

in excess is a hindrance, and perhaps then has no right to be called

good fortune since it is good only in so far as it contributes to

Happiness.

The fact that all animals, brute and human alike, pursue Pleasure, is

some presumption of its being in a sense the Chief Good;

(“There must be something in what most folks say,”) only as one and the

same nature or state neither is nor is thought to be the best, so

neither do all pursue the same Pleasure, Pleasure nevertheless all do.

Nay further, what they pursue is, perhaps, not what they think nor what

they would say they pursue, but really one and the same: for in all

there is some instinct above themselves. But the bodily Pleasures have

received the name exclusively, because theirs is the most frequent form

and that which is universally partaken of; and so, because to many

these alone are known they believe them to be the only ones which

exist.

It is plain too that, unless Pleasure and its active working be good,

it will not be true that the happy man’s life embodies Pleasure: for

why will he want it on the supposition that it is not good and that he

can live even with Pain? because, assuming that Pleasure is not good,

then Pain is neither evil nor good, and so why should he avoid it?

Besides, the life of the good man is not more pleasurable than any

other unless it be granted that his active workings are so too.

Some enquiry into the bodily Pleasures is also necessary for those who

say that some Pleasures, to be sure, are highly choice-worthy (the good

ones to wit), but not the bodily Pleasures; that is, those which are

the object-matter of the man utterly destitute of Self-Control.

If so, we ask, why are the contrary Pains bad? they cannot be (on their

assumption) because the contrary of bad is good.

May we not say that the necessary bodily Pleasures are good in the

sense in which that which is not-bad is good? or that they are good

only up to a certain point? because such states or movements as cannot

have too much of the better cannot have too much of Pleasure, but those

which can of the former can also of the latter. Now the bodily

Pleasures do admit of excess: in fact the low bad man is such because

he pursues the excess of them instead of those which are necessary

(meat, drink, and the objects of other animal appetites do give

pleasure to all, but not in right manner or degree to all). But his

relation to Pain is exactly the contrary: it is not excessive Pain, but

Pain at all, that he avoids [which makes him to be in this way too a

bad low man], because only in the case of him who pursues excessive

Pleasure is Pain contrary to excessive Pleasure.

It is not enough however merely to state the truth, we should also show

how the false view arises; because this strengthens conviction. I mean,

when we have given a probable reason why that impresses people as true

which really is not true, it gives them a stronger conviction of the

truth. And so we must now explain why the bodily Pleasures appear to

people to be more choice-worthy than any others.

The first obvious reason is, that bodily Pleasure drives out Pain; and

because Pain is felt in excess men pursue Pleasure in excess, _i.e._

generally bodily Pleasure, under the notion of its being a remedy for

that Pain. These remedies, moreover, come to be violent ones; which is

the very reason they are pursued, since the impression they produce on

the mind is owing to their being looked at side by side with their

contrary.

And, as has been said before, there are the two following reasons why

bodily Pleasure is thought to be not-good.

1. Some Pleasures of this class are actings of a low nature, whether

congenital as in brutes, or acquired by custom as in low bad men.

2. Others are in the nature of cures, cures that is of some deficiency;

now of course it is better to have [the healthy state] originally than

that it should accrue afterwards.

(But some Pleasures result when natural states are being perfected:

these therefore are good as a matter of result.)

Again, the very fact of their being violent causes them to be pursued

by such as can relish no others: such men in fact create violent

thirsts for themselves (if harmless ones then we find no fault, if

harmful then it is bad and low) because they have no other things to

take pleasure in, and the neutral state is distasteful to some people

constitutionally; for toil of some kind is inseparable from life, as

physiologists testify, telling us that the acts of seeing or hearing

are painful, only that we are used to the pain and do not find it out.

Similarly in youth the constant growth produces a state much like that

of vinous intoxication, and youth is pleasant. Again, men of the

melancholic temperament constantly need some remedial process (because

the body, from its temperament, is constantly being worried), and they

are in a chronic state of violent desire. But Pleasure drives out Pain;

not only such Pleasure as is directly contrary to Pain but even any

Pleasure provided it be strong: and this is how men come to be utterly

destitute of Self-Mastery, _i.e._ low and bad.

But those Pleasures which are unconnected with Pains do not admit of

excess: _i.e._ such as belong to objects which are naturally pleasant

and not merely as a matter of result: by the latter class I mean such

as are remedial, and the reason why these are thought to be pleasant is

that the cure results from the action in some way of that part of the

constitution which remains sound. By “pleasant naturally” I mean such

as put into action a nature which is pleasant.

The reason why no one and the same thing is invariably pleasant is that

our nature is, not simple, but complex, involving something different

from itself (so far as we are corruptible beings). Suppose then that

one part of this nature be doing something, this something is, to the

other part, unnatural: but, if there be an equilibrium of the two

natures, then whatever is being done is indifferent. It is obvious that

if there be any whose nature is simple and not complex, to such a being

the same course of acting will always be the most pleasurable.

For this reason it is that the Divinity feels Pleasure which is always

one, _i.e._ simple: not motion merely but also motionlessness acts, and

Pleasure resides rather in the absence than in the presence of motion.

The reason why the Poet’s dictum “change is of all things most

pleasant” is true, is “a baseness in our blood;” for as the bad man is

easily changeable, bad must be also the nature that craves change,

_i.e._ it is neither simple nor good.

We have now said our say about Self-Control and its opposite; and about

Pleasure and Pain. What each is, and how the one set is good the other

bad. We have yet to speak of Friendship.

BOOK VIII

Chapter I.

Next would seem properly to follow a dissertation on Friendship:

because, in the first place, it is either itself a virtue or connected

with virtue; and next it is a thing most necessary for life, since no

one would choose to live without friends though he should have all the

other good things in the world: and, in fact, men who are rich or

possessed of authority and influence are thought to have special need

of friends: for where is the use of such prosperity if there be taken

away the doing of kindnesses of which friends are the most usual and

most commendable objects? Or how can it be kept or preserved without

friends? because the greater it is so much the more slippery and

hazardous: in poverty moreover and all other adversities men think

friends to be their only refuge.

Furthermore, Friendship helps the young to keep from error: the old, in

respect of attention and such deficiencies in action as their weakness

makes them liable to; and those who are in their prime, in respect of

noble deeds (“They _two_ together going,” Homer says, you may

remember), because they are thus more able to devise plans and carry

them out.

Again, it seems to be implanted in us by Nature: as, for instance, in

the parent towards the offspring and the offspring towards the parent

(not merely in the human species, but likewise in birds and most

animals), and in those of the same tribe towards one another, and

specially in men of the same nation; for which reason we commend those

men who love their fellows: and one may see in the course of travel how

close of kin and how friendly man is to man.

Furthermore, Friendship seems to be the bond of Social Communities, and

legislators seem to be more anxious to secure it than Justice even. I

mean, Unanimity is somewhat like to Friendship, and this they certainly

aim at and specially drive out faction as being inimical.

Again, where people are in Friendship Justice is not required;[1] but,

on the other hand, though they are just they need Friendship in

addition, and that principle which is most truly just is thought to

partake of the nature of Friendship.

Lastly, not only is it a thing necessary but honourable likewise: since

we praise those who are fond of friends, and the having numerous

friends is thought a matter of credit to a man; some go so far as to

hold, that “good man” and “friend” are terms synonymous.

Chapter II.

Yet the disputed points respecting it are not few: some men lay down

that it is a kind of resemblance, and that men who are like one another

are friends: whence come the common sayings, “Like will to like,”

“Birds of a feather,” and so on. Others, on the contrary, say, that all

such come under the maxim, “Two of a trade never agree.”[2]

Again, some men push their enquiries on these points higher and reason

physically: as Euripides, who says,

“The earth by drought consumed doth love the rain,

And the great heaven, overcharged with rain,

Doth love to fall in showers upon the earth.”

Heraclitus, again, maintains, that “contrariety is expedient, and that

the best agreement arises from things differing, and that all things

come into being in the way of the principle of antagonism.”

Empedocles, among others, in direct opposition to these, affirms, that

“like aims at like.”

These physical questions we will take leave to omit, inasmuch as they

are foreign to the present enquiry; and we will examine such as are

proper to man and concern moral characters and feelings: as, for

instance, “Does Friendship arise among all without distinction, or is

it impossible for bad men to be friends?” and, “Is there but one

species of Friendship, or several?” for they who ground the opinion

that there is but one on the fact that Friendship admits of degrees

hold that upon insufficient proof; because things which are different

in species admit likewise of degrees (on this point we have spoken

before).

Chapter III.

Our view will soon be cleared on these points when we have ascertained

what is properly the object-matter of Friendship: for it is thought

that not everything indiscriminately, but some peculiar matter alone,

is the object of this affection; that is to say, what is good, or

pleasurable, or useful. Now it would seem that that is useful through

which accrues any good or pleasure, and so the objects of Friendship,

as absolute Ends, are the good and the pleasurable.

A question here arises; whether it is good absolutely or that which is

good to the individuals, for which men feel Friendship (these two being

sometimes distinct): and similarly in respect of the pleasurable. It

seems then that each individual feels it towards that which is good to

himself, and that abstractedly it is the real good which is the object

of Friendship, and to each individual that which is good to each. It

comes then to this; that each individual feels Friendship not for what

_is_ but for that which _conveys to his mind the impression of being_

good to himself. But this will make no real difference, because that

which is truly the object of Friendship will also convey this

impression to the mind.

There are then three causes from which men feel Friendship: but the

term is not applied to the case of fondness for things inanimate

because there is no requital of the affection nor desire for the good

of those objects: it certainly savours of the ridiculous to say that a

man fond of wine wishes well to it: the only sense in which it is true

being that he wishes it to be kept safe and sound for his own use and

benefit.[3] But to the friend they say one should wish all good for his

sake. And when men do thus wish good to another (he not reciprocating

the feeling), people call them Kindly; because Friendship they describe

as being “Kindliness between persons who reciprocate it.” But must they

not add that the feeling must be mutually known? for many men are

kindly disposed towards those whom they have never seen but whom they

conceive to be amiable or useful: and this notion amounts to the same

thing as a real feeling between them.

Well, these are plainly Kindly-disposed towards one another: but how

can one call them friends while their mutual feelings are unknown to

one another? to complete the idea of Friendship, then, it is requisite

that they have kindly feelings towards one another, and wish one

another good from one of the aforementioned causes, and that these

kindly feelings should be mutually known.

Chapter IV.

As the motives to Friendship differ in kind so do the respective

feelings and Friendships. The species then of Friendship are three, in

number equal to the objects of it, since in the line of each there may

be “mutual affection mutually known.”

Now they who have Friendship for one another desire one another’s good

according to the motive of their Friendship; accordingly they whose

motive is utility have no Friendship for one another really, but only

in so far as some good arises to them from one another.

And they whose motive is pleasure are in like case: I mean, they have

Friendship for men of easy pleasantry, not because they are of a given

character but because they are pleasant to themselves. So then they

whose motive to Friendship is utility love their friends for what is

good to themselves; they whose motive is pleasure do so for what is

pleasurable to themselves; that is to say, not in so far as the friend

beloved _is_ but in so far as he is useful or pleasurable. These

Friendships then are a matter of result: since the object is not

beloved in that he is the man he is but in that he furnishes advantage

or pleasure as the case may be.

Such Friendships are of course very liable to dissolution if the

parties do not continue alike: I mean, that the others cease to have

any Friendship for them when they are no longer pleasurable or useful.

Now it is the nature of utility not to be permanent but constantly

varying: so, of course, when the motive which made them friends is

vanished, the Friendship likewise dissolves; since it existed only

relatively to those circumstances.