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

But unjustly to whom ? To the state surely, not to himself; for he suffers voluntarily, but no one can have an injustice done him voluntarily. And upon this ground the state actually punishes him, i.e. it pronounces a particular kind of disfranchisement upon the man who destroys himself, as one w^ho acts unjustly towards the state.

Again, if we take the word unjust in the other sense, in which it is used to desicmate not general badness, but a particular species of vice, we find that in this sense also it is impossible to act unjustly to one's self (This, we found, is different from the former sense of the word : the unjust man in this second sense is bad in the same way as the coward is bad, i.e. as ha\4ng a particular form of vice, not as having a completely vicious character, nor do we mean to say that he displays a completely vicious character when we say that he acts unjustly). For if it were possible, it would be possible for the same thing at the same time to be taken from and added to the same person. But this is impossible ; and, in fact, a just deed or an unjust deed always implies more persons than one.

p. 178

Further, an act of injustice, besides being voluntary, 5 if not deliberate, must be prior to hurt received ffor he who, having received some hurt, repays the same that he received is not held to act unjustly) ; but he who hurts himself suffers that very hurt at the same time that he inflicts it.

Again, if it were possible for a man to act unjustly 6 to himself, it would be possible to suffer injustice voluntarily.

Further, a man cannot act unjustly without doing an act of injustice of some particular kind ; but no one commits adultery with his own wife, or burglariously breaks through his own walls, or steals his own property.

But the whole question about acting unjustly to one's self is settled (without going into detail) by the answer we gave * to the question whether a man could voluntarily suffer injustice.

(It is plain that to suffer and to do injustice are 7 both bad, for the one is to get less and the other more than the mean amount, which corresponds to what is healthy in medicine, or to what promotes good condition in gymnastics: but, though both are bad, to do injustice is the worse; for to do injustice is blamable and implies vice (either completely formed vice, what we call vice simply, or else that which is on the way to become vice ; for a voluntary act of injustice does not always imply injustice), but to have injustice done to you is no token of a vicious and unjust character.

In itself, then, to be unjustly treated is less bad, 8 but there is nothing to prevent its being accidentally * Supra, cap. 9.

11, 5-9.] JUSTICE. 179

the greater eviL Science, however, does not concern itself with these accidents, but calls a pleurisy a greater malady than a stumble ; and yet the latter might, on occasion, accidentally become the greater, as, for instance, if a stumble were to cause you to fall and be caught by the enemy and slain.)

Though we cannot apply the term just to a man's behaviour towards himself, yet we can apply it metaphorically and in virtue of a certain resemblance to the relations between certain parts of a man's self — not, however, in all senses of the word just, but in that sense in which it is applied to the relations of master and slave, or husband and wife ; for this is the sort of relation that exists between the rational and the irrational parts of the souL

And it is this distinction of parts that leads people to fancy that there is such a thing as injustice to one's self: one part of a man can have something done to it by another part contrary to its desires; and so they think that the term just can be applied to the relations of these parts to one another, just as to the relations of ruler and ruled.*

We may now consider that we have concluded our examination of justice and the other moral virtues.

* Whereas, says Aristotle, we cannot speak at all of jnstice or injustice to one's self, and it is only by way of metaphor that we can apply the terms even to the relations of parts of the self — ^nofc strictly, since the parts are not persona.

BOOK VI.

THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES.