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

5, 1-8] THE WILL. 75

seems partly false and partly true : no one indeed is blessed against his will ; but vice is voluntary.

If we deny this, we must dispute the statements made just now, and must contend that man is not the originator and the parent of his actions, as of his children.

But if those statements commend themselves to us, and if we are unable to trace our acts to any other sources than those that depend upon ourselves, then that whose source is within us must itself depend upon us and be voluntary.

This seems to be attested, moreover, by each one of us in private life, and also by the legislators; for they correct and punish those that do evil (except when it is done under compulsion, or through ignorance for which the agent is not responsible), and honour those that do noble deeds, evidently intending to encourage the one sort and discourage the other. But no one encourages us to do that which does not depend on ourselves, and which is not voluntary : it would be useless to be persuaded not to feel heat or pain or hunger and so on, as we should feel them all the same. I say " ignorance for which the agent is not responsible," for the ignorance itself is punished by the law, if the agent appear to be responsible for his ignorance, e.g. for an offence committed in a fit of drunkenness the penalty is doubled: for the origin ^of the offence lies in the man himself; he might have ivoided the intoxication, which was the cause of his lorance. Again, ignorance of any of the ordinances |of the law, which a man ought to know and easily fccan know, does not avert punishment. And so inp. 76 other cases, where ignorance seems to be the result of 9 negligence, the offender is punished, since it lay with him to remove this ignorance; for he might have taken the requisite trouble.

It may be objected that it was the man's character lo not to take the trouble.

We reply that men are themselves responsible for acquiring such a character by a dissolute life, and for being unjust or profligate in consequence of repeated acts of wrong, or of spending their time in drinking and so on. For it is repeated acts of a particular kind that give a man a particular character.

This is shown by the way in which men train 11 themselves for any kind of contest or performance : they practise continually.

Not to know, then, that repeated acts of this or 12 that kind produce a corresponding character or habit, shows an utter want of sense.

Moreover, it is absurd to say that he who acts 13 unjustly does not wish to be unjust, or that he who behaves profligately does not wish to be profligate.

If then a man knowingly does acts which must 14 make him unjust, he will be voluntarily unjust; but it does not follow that, if he wishes it, he can cease to be unjust and be just, any more than he who is sick can, if he wishes it, be whole. And it may be that he is voluntarily sick, through living incontinently and disobeying the doctor. At one time, then, he had the option not to be sick, but he no longer has it now that he has thrown away his health. When you have discharged a stone it is no longer in your power to call it back ; but nevertheless the throwing and5, 9-17.] THE WILL. 77 casting away of that stone rests with you; for the beginning of its flight depended upon you.*