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

* Action in spite of knowledge presents no diCBculty (1) if that knowledge be not present at the time of action, § 5, or (2) if, though the major (or majors) be known and present, the minor (or one of the minors) be unknown or absent, § 6. But (3) other cases remain which can only be explained by a further distinction introduced in § 7 ; I.e. a man who has knowledge may at times be in a state in which his knowledge, though present, has lost its reality — in which, though he may repeat the old maxims, they mean no more to him than to one who talks in his sleep. § 7, I venture to think, is (like § 2) not a repetition or an alternative version, but an after-thought, which requires the rewriting of the whole passage.

218 NICOMAOHEAN ETHICS OF AEISTOTLE. [Bk VII.

just as learners string words together before they understand their meaning — the meaning must be ingrained in them, and that requires time. So we must hold that the incontinent repeat words in the same sort of way that actors do.

Again, one may inquire into the cause of this phenomenon [of incontinence] by arguments based upon its special nature,* as follows : — You may have

(1) a universal judgment, (2) a judgment about particular facts which fall at once within the province of sense or perception ; but when the two are joined together,! the conclusion must in matters of speculation be assented to by the mind, in matters of practice be carried out at once into act ; for instance, if you judge (1) " all sweet things are to be tasted,"

(2) " this thing before me is sweet " — a particular fact, — then, if you have the power and are not hindered, you cannot but at once put the conclusion [this is to be tasted] into practice.

Now, when you have on the one side the universal judgment forbidding you to taste, and on the other side the universal, "all sweet things are pleasant,"! and the particular judgment, " this thing before me is sweet," and this latter judgment is effectively present, or, in other words, appetite for the sweet is there — then, though the former train of reasoning bids you avoid this, appetite moves you [to

* (jjvcriKois, by arguments based npon the special nature of the subject-matter, opposed to XoyiKcis, by arguments of a general nature ; accordingly, in what follows both the elements of reason and desire are taken into account.

t In a practical syllogism.

;J: Notice that r,Sv here corresponds to yeifo-Bai Sti above.

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,ke it] ; for appetite is able to put the several bodily treans in motion.

And thus it appears that it is in a way under the influence of reason, that is to say of opinion, that people act incontinently — opinion, too, that is, not in itself, but only accidentally, opposed to right reason.

11 For it is the desire, not the opinion, that is opposed to right reason.*

And this is the reason why brutes cannot be incontinent ; they have no universal judgments, but only images and memories of particular facts.

t Of the svllogism which would forbid him to taste.

12 As to the process by which the incontinent man gets out of this ignorance and recovers his knowledge, the account of it will be the same as in the case of a man who is drunk or asleep, and will not be peculiar to this phenomenon ; and for such an accoimt we must go to the professors of natural science.

13 But since the minor premise f is an opinion or judgment about a fact of perception, and determines action, the incontinent man, when under the influence of passion, either has it not, or has it in a sense in which, as we explained, having is equivalent, not to

* The minor premise, " this is sweet," obvionsly is not " opposed to right reason ; " but is not the major premise ? In one of the two forms in which it here appears, viz. " all sweet things are pleasant," it certainly is not so opposed ; it merely states a fact of experience which the continent or temperate man assents to as much as the incontinent. In its other form, however, " all sweet things are to be tasted," the judgment is " opposed to right reason ; " but it is so because desire for an object condemned by reason has been added ; and thus it may be said that it is not the opinion, but the desire, which is opposed to right reason. It is a defect in the exposition here that the difference between these two forms of the major premise is not more expressly noticed.

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