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

* Cf. YII. 14, 2 : " the opposite of this excessire pleasure [i.e. going without a wrong pleasure] is not pain, except to the man who sets his heart on this excessiTe pleasure."

96 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS OF AEISTOTLE. [Bk. IH.

them), nor generally in the wrong things, nor very much in any of these things,* and when they are absent he is not pained, nor does he desire them, or desires them but moderately, not more than he ought, nor at the wrong time, etc. ; but those things which, being pleasant, at the same time conduce to health and good condition, he will desire moderately and in the right manner, and other pleasant things also, provided they are not injurious, or incompatible with what is noble, or beyond his means ; for he who cares for them then, cares for them more than is fitting, and the temperate man is not apt to do that, but rather to be guided by right reason.

Bbwprofli- 12. Profligacy seems to be more voluntary than l

•SntT" cowardice.

fo^rdice. For a man is impelled to the former by pleasure, to the latter by pain ; but pleasure is a thing we choose, while pain is a thing we avoid. Pain puts us beside 2 ourselves and upsets the nature of the sufferer, while pleasure has no such effect, but leaves free play to the will.

Profligacy is for these reasons more to be blamed than cowardice, and for another reason too, viz. that it is easier to train one's self to behave rightly on these occasions [i.e. those in which profligacy is displayed]; for such occasions are constantly occurring in our lives, and the training involves no risk; but with occasions of fear the contrary is the case.

Again, it would seem that the habit of mind or 3 character called cowardice is more voluntary than the particular acts in which it is exhibited. It is not * i.e. the pleasure of taste and touch.

p. 97

painful to be a coward, but the occasions which exhibit cowardice put men beside themselves through fear of pain, so that they throw away their arms and altogether disgrace themselves ; and hence these particular acts are even thought to be compulsoiy.

In the case of the profligate, on the contrary, the particular acts are voluntaiy (for they are done with appetite and desire), but the character itself less so ; for no one desires to be a profligate.

The term " profligacy " we apply also to childish faults,* for they have some sort of resemblance. It makes no difference for our present purpose which of the two is named after the other, but it is plain that the later is named after the earlier.

And the metaphor, I think, is not a bad one : what needs " chastening " or " correction " f is that which inclines to base things and which has great powers of expansion. Now, these characteristics are nowhere so strongly marked as in appetite and in childhood ; children too [as well as the profligate] live according to their appetites, and the desire for pleasant things is most pronounced in them. If then this element be not submissive and obedient to the governing principle, it will make great head : for the desire for pleasant things is insatiable, and in an irrational being is ready to satisfy itself in any way, and the exercise of the appetite increases the natural tendency: and if the desires are great and intense they will even thrust out reason altogether : so it is needful that they be few and moderate, and in no respect opposed to reason.

* Of coarse the English term is not so used, t KoKaffis, chastening; eucoXoiTTOj, nnchastened, incorrigible.

H

p. 98

But when this part of our nature is in this state 8 we call it submissive and "chastened;" for as a child should live in subjection to his tutor, so should the appetites be subject to reason.

And so the appetites of the temperate man should 9 be in harmony with his reason ; for the aim of both is that which is noble : the temperate man desires what he ought, and as he ought, and when he ought ; and this again is what reason prescribes.

This, then, may be taken as an account of temperance.