The Nicomachean Ethics — trans. F. H. Peters (1881)

We deliberate, then, about things that are brought about by our own agency, but not always in the same way; e.g. about medicine and money-making, and about navigation more than about gymnastic, inasmuch as it is not yet reduced to so perfect a system, and so on ; but more about matters of art than matters 9 of science, as there is more doubt about them.

Matters of deliberation, then, are matters in lo which there are rules that generally hold good, but in which the result cannot be predicted, i.e. in which there is an element of uncertainty. In important matters we call in advisers, distrusting our own powers of judgment.

It is not about ends, but about means that we 11 deliberate. A physician does not deliberate whether he shall heal, nor an orator whether he shall persuade, nor a statesman whether he shall make a good system of laws, nor a man in any other profession about his end ; but, having some particular end in view, we consider how and by what means this end can be attained ; and if it appear that it can be attained by various means, we further consider which is the easiest and best ; but if it can only be attained by one means, we consider how it is to be attained by this means, and how this means itself is to be secured, and so on, until we come to the first link in the chain of causes, which is last in the order of discovery.

3, 8-16J THE WILL. 71

For in deliberation we seem to inquire and to analyze in the way described, just as we analyze a geometrical figure in order to leam how to construct it * (and though inquiry is not always deliberation — mathematical inquiry, for instance, is not^ — deliberation is always inquiry) ; that which is last in the analysis coming first in the order of construction.

13 If we come upon something impossible, we give up the plan ; e.g. if it needs money, and money cannot be got : but if it appear possible, we set to work. By possible I mean something that can be done by us ; and what can be done by our friends can in a manner be done by us ; for it is we who set our friends to work.

14 Sometimes we have to find out instruments, sometimes how to use them; and so on with the rest: sometimes we have to find out what agency will produce the desired eflfect, sometimes how or throuofh whom this agency is to be set at work.

15 Now, it appears that a man, as we have already said, originates his acts ; that he deliberates about that which he can do himself, and that what he does is done

16 for the sake of something else.t From this it follows i * If we have to constract a geometrical figure, we first " suppose it done," then analyze the imagined figure in order to see the conditions which it implies and which imply it, and continue the chain till we come to some thing (drawing of some lines) which we already know how to do.

t Cf. UI. 2, 9. We wish to be healthy, but that is not a thing we can " do " directly ; what we can do is but to take steps which we hope may lead to that end. There is no real inconsistency between this and the doctrine which Aristotle reiterates with so much emphasis, that the end is happines.s {(vicufwvia) , and that to be happy (ivhaiyiovuv) = to do well (e5 TpdTT(w) ; for since the real

72 NICOMAOHEAN ETHICS OF ARISTOTLE. [Bk. III.

that he does not deliberate about the end, but about the means to the end.

Again, he does not deliberate about particular facts, e.g. whether this be a loaf, or whether it be properlybaked : these are matters of immediate perception. And if he goes on deliberating for ever he will never come to a conclusion.

The object of deliberation and the object of choice 17 or purpose are the same, except that the latter is already fixed and determined; when we say, "this is chosen " or " purposed," we mean that it has been selected after deliberation. For we always stop in our inquiry how to do a thing when we have traced back the chain of causes to ourselves, and to the commanding part of ourselves ; for this is the part that chooses.

This may be illustrated by the ancient constitu- 18 tions which Homer describes ; for there the kings announce to the people what they have chosen.