The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics)

by Mckeon, Richard

  (5) Further, he who on conviction does and pursues and chooses what is pleasant would be thought to be better than one who does so as a result not of calculation but of incontinence; for he is easier to cure since he may be persuaded to change his mind. But to the incontinent man may be applied the proverb ‘when water chokes, what is one to wash it down with?’ If he had been persuaded of the rightness of what he does, (35) he would have desisted when he was persuaded to change his mind; but now he acts in spite of his being persuaded of something quite different. [1146b]

  (6) Further, if incontinence and continence are concerned with any and every kind of object, who is it that is incontinent in the unqualified sense? No one has all the forms of incontinence, but we say some people are incontinent without qualification. (5)

  3 Of some such kind are the difficulties that arise; some of these points must be refuted and the others left in possession of the field; for the solution of the difficulty is the discovery of the truth. (1) We must consider first, then, whether incontinent people act knowingly or not, and in what sense knowingly; then (2) with what sorts of object the incontinent and the continent man may be said to be concerned (i. e. whether with any and every pleasure and pain or with certain determinate kinds), (10) and whether the continent man and the man of endurance are the same or different; and similarly with regard to the other matters germane to this inquiry. The starting-point of our investigation is (a) the question whether the continent man and the incontinent are differentiated by their objects or by their attitude, i. e. whether the incontinent man is incontinent simply by being concerned with such and such objects, (15) or, instead, by his attitude, or, instead of that, by both these things; (b) the second question is whether incontinence and continence are concerned with any and every object or not. The man who is incontinent in the unqualified sense is neither concerned with any and every object, but with precisely those with which the self-indulgent man is concerned, (20) nor is he characterized by being simply related to these (for then his state would be the same as self-indulgence), but by being related to them in a certain way. For the one is led on in accordance with his own choice, thinking that he ought always to pursue the present pleasure; while the other does not think so, but yet pursues it.

  (1) As for the suggestion that it is true opinion and not knowledge against which we act incontinently, that makes no difference to the argument; for some people when in a state of opinion do not hesitate, (25) but think they know exactly. If, then, the notion is that owing to their weak conviction those who have opinion are more likely to act against their judgement than those who know, we answer that there need be no difference between knowledge and opinion in this respect; for some men are no less convinced of what they think than others of what they know; as is shown by the case of Heraclitus. (30) But (a), since we use the word ‘know’ in two senses (for both the man who has knowledge but is not using it and he who is using it are said to know), it will make a difference whether, when a man does what he should not, he has the knowledge but is not exercising it, or is exercising it; for the latter seems strange, but not the former. (35)

  (b) Further, since there are two kinds of premisses, there is nothing to prevent a man’s having both premisses and acting against his knowledge, provided that he is using only the universal premiss and not the particular; for it is particular acts that have to be done. [1147a] And there are also two kinds of universal term; one is predicable of the agent, (5) the other of the object; e. g. ‘dry food is good for every man’, and ‘I am a man’, or ‘such and such food is dry’; but whether ‘this food is such and such’, of this the incontinent man either has not or is not exercising the knowledge.9 There will, then, be, firstly, an enormous difference between these manners of knowing, so that to know in one way when we act incontinently would not seem anything strange, while to know in the other way would be extraordinary.

  And further (c) the possession of knowledge in another sense than those just named is something that happens to men; for within the case of having knowledge but not using it we see a difference of state, (10) admitting of the possibility of having knowledge in a sense and yet not having it, as in the instance of a man asleep, mad, or drunk. But now this is just the condition of men under the influence of passion; for outbursts of anger and sexual appetites and some other such passions, (15) it is evident, actually alter our bodily condition, and in some men even produce fits of madness. It is plain, then, that incontinent people must be said to be in a similar condition to men asleep, mad, or drunk. The fact that men use the language that flows from knowledge proves nothing; for even men under the influence of these passions utter scientific proofs and verses of Empedocles, (20) and those who have just begun to learn a science can string together its phrases, but do not yet know it; for it has to become part of themselves, and that takes time; so that we must suppose that the use of language by men in an incontinent state means no more than its utterance by actors on the stage.

  (d) Again, we may also view the cause as follows with reference to the facts of human nature. (25) The one opinion is universal, the other is concerned with the particular facts, and here we come to something within the sphere of perception; when a single opinion results from the two, the soul must in one type of case10 affirm the conclusion, while in the case of opinions concerned with production it must immediately act (e. g. if ‘everything sweet ought to be tasted’, and ‘this is sweet’, in the sense of being one of the particular sweet things, (30) the man who can act and is not prevented must at the same time actually act accordingly). When, then, the universal opinion is present in us forbidding us to taste, and there is also the opinion that ‘everything sweet is pleasant’, and that ‘this is sweet’ (now this is the opinion that is active),11 and when appetite happens to be present in us, the one opinion bids us avoid the object, but appetite leads us towards it (for it can move each of our bodily parts); so that it turns out that a man behaves incontinently under the influence (in a sense) of a rule and an opinion, (35) and of one not contrary in itself, but only incidentally—for the appetite is contrary, not the opinion—to the right rule. [1147b] It also follows that this is the reason why the lower animals are not incontinent, viz. because they have no universal judgment but only imagination and memory of particulars. (5)

  The explanation of how the ignorance is dissolved and the incontinent man regains his knowledge, is the same as in the case of the man drunk or asleep and is not particular to this condition; we must go to the students of natural science for it. Now, the last premiss both being an opinion about a perceptible object, and being what determines our actions, (10) this a man either has not when he is in the state of passion, or has it in the sense in which having knowledge did not mean knowing but only talking, as a drunken man may mutter the verses of Empedocles.12 And because the last term is not universal nor equally an object of scientific knowledge with the universal term, (15) the position that Socrates sought to establish13 actually seems to result; for it is not in the presence of what is thought to be knowledge proper that the affection of incontinence arises (nor is it this that is dragged about’ as a result of the state of passion), but in that of perceptual knowledge.14

  This must suffice as our answer to the question of action with and without knowledge, and how it is possible to behave incontinently with knowledge.

  4 (2) We must next discuss whether there is any one who is incontinent without qualification, (20) or all men who are incontinent are so in a particular sense, and if there is, with what sort of objects he is concerned. That both continent persons and persons of endurance, and incontinent and soft persons, are concerned with pleasures and pains, is evident.

  Now of the things that produce pleasure some are necessary, while others are worthy of choice in themselves but admit of excess, (25) the bodily causes of pleasure being necessary (by such I mean both those concerned with food and those concerned with sexual intercourse, i. e. the bodily matters with which we defined15 self-indulgence an
d temperance as being concerned), while the others are not necessary but worthy of choice in themselves (e. g. victory, honour, wealth, (30) and good and pleasant things of this sort). This being so, (a) those who go to excess with reference to the latter, contrary to the right rule which is in themselves, are not called incontinent simply, but incontinent with the qualification ‘in respect of money, gain, honour, or anger’,—not simply incontinent, on the ground that they are different from incontinent people and are called incontinent by reason of a resemblance. (Compare the case of Anthropos (Man), who won a contest at the Olympic games; in his case the general definition of man differed little from the definition peculiar to him, (35) but yet it was different.)16 [1148a] This is shown by the fact that incontinence either without qualification or in respect of some particular bodily pleasure is blamed not only as a fault but as a kind of vice, while none of the people who are incontinent in these other respects is so blamed.

  But (b) of the people who are incontinent with respect to bodily enjoyments, with which we say the temperate and the self-indulgent man are concerned, (5) he who pursues the excesses of things pleasant—and shuns those of things painful, of hunger and thirst and heat and cold and all the objects of touch and taste—not by choice but contrary to his choice and his judgment, is called incontinent, (10) not with the qualification ‘in respect of this or that’, e. g. of anger, but just simply. This is confirmed by the fact that men are called ‘soft’ with regard to these pleasures, but not with regard to any of the others. And for this reason we group together the incontinent and the self-indulgent, the continent and the temperate man—but not any of these other types—because they are concerned somehow with the same pleasures and pains; but though these are concerned with the same objects, (15) they are not similarly related to them, but some of them make a deliberate choice while the others do not.17

  This is why we should describe as self-indulgent rather the man who without appetite or with but a slight appetite pursues the excesses of pleasure and avoids moderate pains, than the man who does so because of his strong appetites; for what would the former do, (20) if he had in addition a vigorous appetite, and a violent pain at the lack of the ‘necessary’ objects?

  Now of appetites and pleasures some belong to the class of things generically noble and good—for some pleasant things are by nature worthy of choice, while others are contrary to these, and others are intermediate, to adopt our previous distinction18—e. g. wealth, gain, (25) victory, honour. And with reference to all objects whether of this or of the intermediate kind men are not blamed for being affected by them, for desiring and loving them, but for doing so in a certain way, i. e. for going to excess. (This is why all those who contrary to the rule either are mastered by or pursue one of the objects which are naturally noble and good, (30) e. g. those who busy themselves more than they ought about honour or about children and parents, [are not wicked]; for these too are goods, and those who busy themselves about them are praised; but yet there is an excess even in them—if like Niobe one were to fight even against the gods, or were to be as much devoted to one’s father as Satyrus nicknamed ‘the filial’, who was thought to be very silly on this point.19) [1148b] There is no wickedness, then, with regard to these objects, for the reason named, viz. because each of them is by nature a thing worthy of choice for its own sake; yet excesses in respect of them are bad and to be avoided. (5) Similarly there is no incontinence with regard to them; for incontinence is not only to be avoided but is also a thing worthy of blame; but owing to a similarity in the state of feeling people apply the name incontinence, adding in each case what it is in respect of, as we may describe as a bad doctor or a bad actor one whom we should not call bad, simply. As, then, in this case we do not apply the term without qualification because each of these conditions is not badness but only analogous to it, (10) so it is clear that in the other case also that alone must be taken to be incontinence and continence which is concerned with the same objects as temperance and self-indulgence, but we apply the term to anger by virtue of a resemblance; and this is why we say with a qualification ‘incontinent in respect of anger’ as we say ‘incontinent in respect of honour, or of gain’.

  5 (1) Some things are pleasant by nature, (15) and of these (a) some are so without qualification, and (b) others are so with reference to particular classes either of animals or of men; while (2) others are not pleasant by nature, but (a) some of them become so by reason of injuries to the system, and (b) others by reason of acquired habits, and (c) others by reason of originally bad natures. This being so, it is possible with regard to each of the latter kinds to discover similar states of character to those recognized with regard to the former; I mean (A) the brutish states,20 (20) as in the case of the female who, they say, rips open pregnant women and devours the infants, or of the things in which some of the tribes about the Black Sea that have gone savage are said to delight—in raw meat or in human flesh, or in lending their children to one another to feast upon—or of the story told of Phalaris.21

  These states are brutish, but (B) others arise as a result of disease22 (or, in some cases, of madness, as with the man who sacrificed and ate his mother, (25) or with the slave who ate the liver of his fellow), and others are morbid states (C) resulting from custom,23 e. g. the habit of plucking out the hair or of gnawing the nails, or even coals or earth, and in addition to these paederasty; for these arise in some by nature and in others, as in those who have been the victims of lust from childhood, (30) from habit.

  Now those in whom nature is the cause of such a state no one would call incontinent, any more than one would apply the epithet to women because of the passive part they play in copulation; nor would one apply it to those who are in a morbid condition as a result of habit. To have these various types of habit is beyond the limits of vice, as brutishness is too; for a man who has them to master or be mastered by them is not simple [continence or] incontinence but that which is so by analogy, as the man who is in this condition in respect of fits of anger is to be called incontinent in respect of that feeling, but not incontinent simply. [1149a]

  For every excessive state whether of folly, of cowardice, of self-indulgence, (5) or of bad temper, is either brutish or morbid; the man who is by nature apt to fear everything, even the squeak of a mouse, is cowardly with a brutish cowardice, while the man who feared a weasel did so in consequence of disease; and of foolish people those who by nature are thoughtless and live by their senses alone are brutish, like some races of the distant barbarians, (10) while those who are so as a result of disease (e. g. of epilepsy) or of madness are morbid. Of these characteristics it is possible to have some only at times, and not to be mastered by them, e. g. Phalaris may have restrained a desire to eat the flesh of a child or an appetite for unnatural sexual pleasure; but it is also possible to be mastered, not merely to have the feelings. (15) Thus, as the wickedness which is on the human level is called wickedness simply, while that which is not is called wickedness not simply but with the qualification ‘brutish’ or ‘morbid’, in the same way it is plain that some incontinence is brutish and some morbid, (20) while only that which corresponds to human self-indulgence is incontinence simply.

  That incontinence and continence, then, are concerned only with the same objects as self-indulgence and temperance and that what is concerned with other objects is a type distinct from incontinence, and called incontinence by a metaphor and not simply, is plain.

  6 That incontinence in respect of anger is less disgraceful than that in respect of the appetites is what we will now proceed to see. (25) (1) Anger seems to listen to argument to some extent, but to mishear it, as do hasty servants who run out before they have heard the whole of what one says, and then muddle the order, or as dogs bark if there is but a knock at the door, before looking to see if it is a friend; so anger by reason of the warmth and hastiness of its nature, (30) though it hears, does not hear an order, and springs to take revenge. For argument or imagination informs us that we
have been insulted or slighted, and anger, reasoning as it were that anything like this must be fought against, boils up straightway; while appetite, (35) if argument or perception merely says that an object is pleasant, springs to the enjoyment of it. [1149b] Therefore anger obeys the argument in a sense, but appetite does not. It is therefore more disgraceful; for the man who is incontinent in respect of anger is in a sense conquered by argument, while the other is conquered by appetite and not by argument.

  (2) Further, we pardon people more easily for following natural desires, (5) since we pardon them more easily for following such appetites as are common to all men, and in so far as they are common; now anger and bad temper are more natural than the appetites for excess, i. e. for unnecessary objects. Take for instance the man who defended himself on the charge of striking his father by saying ‘yes, but he struck his father, (10) and he struck his, and’ (pointing to his child) ‘this boy will strike me when he is a man; it runs in the family’; or the man who when he was being dragged along by his son bade him stop at the doorway, since he himself had dragged his father only as far as that.

  (3) Further, those who are more given to plotting against others are more criminal. Now a passionate man is not given to plotting, (15) nor is anger itself—it is open; but the nature of appetite is illustrated by what the poets call Aphrodite, ‘guile-weaving daughter of Cyprus’, and by Homer’s words about her ‘embroidered girdle’: