The Nicomachean ethics of Aristotle · Aristotle
BOOK VII
The solution then of the phænomenon of [Greek:——] is this that [Greek:——], by its direct action on the animal nature, swamps the suggestions of Right Reason. On the high ground of Universals, [Greek:——] i.e. [Greek:——] easily defeats [Greek:——]. The [Greek:——], an hour before he is in temptation, would never deliberately prefer the maxim “All that is sweet is to be tasted” to “All excess is to be avoided.” The [Greek:——] would. Horace has a good comment upon this (II Sat 2): Quæ virtus et quanta, bom, sit vivere parvo Discite, _non inter lances mensasque nitentes_ Verum hic _impransi_ mecum disquirite Compare also Proverbs XXIII. 31. “Look not thou upon the wine when it is red,” etc. [8] As we commonly speak, Metaphysicians. Physiology of course includes Metaphysics. [9] [Greek: oron]. Aristotle’s own account of this word (Prior Analyt ii. 1) is [Greek: eis on dialuetai hae protasis], but both in the account of [Greek: nous] and here it seems that the proposition itself is really indicated by it. [10] The Greek would give “avoids excessive pain,” but this is not true, for the excess of pain would be ground for excuse the warrant for translating as in the text, is the passage occurring just below [Greek: diokei tas uperbolas kai pheugei metrias lupas]. [11] Compare Bishop Butler on Particular Propensions, Analogy, Part I chap v sect. iv.
Or the words may be understood as referring to the class of wrong acts caused by avoidance of pain, whether deliberate or otherwise, and then of course the names of [Greek: malakia] and [Greek: akolasia] may be fitly given respectively. [17] “If we went into a hospital where all were sick or dying, we should think those least ill who were insensible to pain; a physician who knew the whole, would behold them with despair. And there is a mortification of the soul as well as of the body, in which the first symptoms of returning hope are pain and anguish” Sewell, Sermons to Young Men (Sermon xii.) [18] Before the time of trial comes the man deliberately makes his Moral Choice to act rightly, but, at the moment of acting, the powerful strain of desire makes him contravene this choice his Will does not act in accordance with the affirmation or negation of his Reason. His actions are therefore of the mixed kind. See Book III. chap. i, and note on page 128. [19] Let a man be punctual _on principle_ to any one engagement in the day, and he must, as a matter of course, keep all his others in their due places relatively to this one; and so will often wear an appearance of being needlessly punctilious in trifles. [20] Because he is destitute of these minor springs of action, which are intended to supply the defects of the higher principle. See Bishop Butler’s first Sermon on Compassion, and the conclusion of note on p. 129.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.