BOOK VII

1

LET us now make a fresh beginning and point out that of moral states
to be avoided there are three kinds-vice, incontinence, brutishness.
The contraries of two of these are evident,-one we call virtue, the
other continence; to brutishness it would be most fitting to oppose
superhuman virtue, a heroic and divine kind of virtue, as Homer has
represented Priam saying of Hector that he was very good,

For he seemed not, he,
The child of a mortal man, but as one that of God's seed came.

Therefore if, as they say, men become gods by excess of virtue, of
this kind must evidently be the state opposed to the brutish state;
for as a brute has no vice or virtue, so neither has a god; his
state is higher than virtue, and that of a brute is a different kind
of state from vice.
Now, since it is rarely that a godlike man is found-to use the
epithet of the Spartans, who when they admire any one highly call
him a 'godlike man'-so too the brutish type is rarely found among men;
it is found chiefly among barbarians, but some brutish qualities are
also produced by disease or deformity; and we also call by this evil
name those men who go beyond all ordinary standards by reason of vice.
Of this kind of disposition, however, we must later make some mention,
while we have discussed vice before we must now discuss incontinence
and softness (or effeminacy), and continence and endurance; for we
must treat each of the two neither as identical with virtue or
wickedness, nor as a different genus. We must, as in all other
cases, set the observed facts before us and, after first discussing
the difficulties, go on to prove, if possible, the truth of all the
common opinions about these affections of the mind, or, failing
this, of the greater number and the most authoritative; for if we both
refute the objections and leave the common opinions undisturbed, we
shall have proved the case sufficiently.
Now (1) both continence and endurance are thought to be included
among things good and praiseworthy, and both incontinence and soft,
ness among things bad and blameworthy; and the same man is thought
to be continent and ready to abide by the result of his
calculations, or incontinent and ready to abandon them. And (2) the
incontinent man, knowing that what he does is bad, does it as a result
of passion, while the continent man, knowing that his appetites are
bad, refuses on account of his rational principle to follow them (3)
The temperate man all men call continent and disposed to endurance,
while the continent man some maintain to be always temperate but
others do not; and some call the self-indulgent man incontinent and
the incontinent man selfindulgent indiscriminately, while others
distinguish them. (4) The man of practical wisdom, they sometimes say,
cannot be incontinent, while sometimes they say that some who are
practically wise and clever are incontinent. Again (5) men are said to
be incontinent even with respect to anger, honour, and gain.-These,
then, are the things that are said.
2

Now we may ask (1) how a man who judges rightly can behave
incontinently. That he should behave so when he has knowledge, some
say is impossible; for it would be strange-so Socrates thought-if when
knowledge was in a man something else could master it and drag it
about like a slave. For Socrates was entirely opposed to the view in
question, holding that there is no such thing as incontinence; no one,
he said, when he judges acts against what he judges best-people act so
only by reason of ignorance. Now this view plainly contradicts the
observed facts, and we must inquire about what happens to such a
man; if he acts by reason of ignorance, what is the manner of his
ignorance? For that the man who behaves incontinently does not, before
he gets into this state, think he ought to act so, is evident. But
there are some who concede certain of Socrates' contentions but not
others; that nothing is stronger than knowledge they admit, but not
that on one acts contrary to what has seemed to him the better course,
and therefore they say that the incontinent man has not knowledge when
he is mastered by his pleasures, but opinion. But if it is opinion and
not knowledge, if it is not a strong conviction that resists but a
weak one, as in men who hesitate, we sympathize with their failure
to stand by such convictions against strong appetites; but we do not
sympathize with wickedness, nor with any of the other blameworthy
states. Is it then practical wisdom whose resistance is mastered? That
is the strongest of all states. But this is absurd; the same man
will be at once practically wise and incontinent, but no one would say
that it is the part of a practically wise man to do willingly the
basest acts. Besides, it has been shown before that the man of
practical wisdom is one who will act (for he is a man concerned with
the individual facts) and who has the other virtues.
(2) Further, if continence involves having strong and bad appetites,
the temperate man will not be continent nor the continent man
temperate; for a temperate man will have neither excessive nor bad
appetites. But the continent man must; for if the appetites are
good, the state of character that restrains us from following them
is bad, so that not all continence will be good; while if they are
weak and not bad, there is nothing admirable in resisting them, and if
they are weak and bad, there is nothing great in resisting these
either.
(3) Further, if continence makes a man ready to stand by any and
every opinion, it is bad, i.e. if it makes him stand even by a false
opinion; and if incontinence makes a man apt to abandon any and
every opinion, there will be a good incontinence, of which
Sophocles' Neoptolemus in the Philoctetes will be an instance; for
he is to be praised for not standing by what Odysseus persuaded him to
do, because he is pained at telling a lie.
(4) Further, the sophistic argument presents a difficulty; the
syllogism arising from men's wish to expose paradoxical results
arising from an opponent's view, in order that they may be admired
when they succeed, is one that puts us in a difficulty (for thought is
bound fast when it will not rest because the conclusion does not
satisfy it, and cannot advance because it cannot refute the argument).
There is an argument from which it follows that folly coupled with
incontinence is virtue; for a man does the opposite of what he judges,
owing to incontinence, but judges what is good to be evil and
something that he should not do, and consequence he will do what is
good and not what is evil.
(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, 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.
(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.
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), 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,
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, 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, 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 of Heraclitus. 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.
(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. And there are also two kinds of universal term; one is
predicable of the agent, 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. 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,
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
passions; for outbursts of anger and sexual appetites and some other
such passions, 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, 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.
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 case 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, 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), 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, and of one not contrary in itself,
but only incidentally-for the appetite is contrary, not the opinion-to
the right rule. It also follows that this is the reason why the
lower animals are not incontinent, viz. because they have no universal
judgement but only imagination and memory of particulars.
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 peculiar 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 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 utter the
verses of Empedocles. And because the last term is not universal nor
equally an object of scientific knowledge with the universal term, the
position that Socrates sought to establish 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.
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, 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, 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 defined self-indulgence and
temperance as being concerned), while the others are not necessary but
worthy of choice in themselves (e.g. victory, honour, wealth, 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, but yet it
was different.) 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, 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 judgement, is called incontinent, 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, they are not similarly related to them, but some of them make
a deliberate choice while the others do not.
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,
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 distinction-e.g. wealth, gain,
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, e.g. those who busy themselves more than
they ought about honour or about children and parents, (are not
wicked); for these too are good, 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.) 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. 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 no
shadness but only analogous to it, 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, 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, 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.
These states are brutish, but (B) others arise as a result of
disease (or, in some cases, of madness, as with the man who sacrificed
and ate his mother, or with the slave who ate the liver of his
fellow), and others are morbid states (C) resulting from custom,
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, 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. For every excessive state
whether of folly, of cowardice, of self-indulgence, 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, 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. 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, 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 selfindulgence 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.
(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, 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, if argument or perception merely says that an object is
pleasant, springs to the enjoyment of it. 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, 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, 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.
(2) Further, those who are more given to plotting against others are
more criminal. Now a passionate man is not given to plotting, 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':

And the whisper of wooing is there,
Whose subtlety stealeth the wits of the wise, how prudent soe'er.

Therefore if this form of incontinence is more criminal and
disgraceful than that in respect of anger, it is both incontinence
without qualification and in a sense vice.
(4) Further, no one commits wanton outrage with a feeling of pain,
but every one who acts in anger acts with pain, while the man who
commits outrage acts with pleasure. If, then, those acts at which it
is most just to be angry are more criminal than others, the
incontinence which is due to appetite is the more criminal; for
there is no wanton outrage involved in anger.
Plainly, then, the incontinence concerned with appetite is more
disgraceful than that concerned with anger, and continence and
incontinence are concerned with bodily appetites and pleasures; but we
must grasp the differences among the latter themselves. For, as has
been said at the beginning, some are human and natural both in kind
and in magnitude, others are brutish, and others are due to organic
injuries and diseases. Only with the first of these are temperance and
self-indulgence concerned; this is why we call the lower animals
neither temperate nor self-indulgent except by a metaphor, and only if
some one race of animals exceeds another as a whole in wantonness,
destructiveness, and omnivorous greed; these have no power of choice
or calculation, but they are departures from the natural norm, as,
among men, madmen are. Now brutishness is a less evil than vice,
though more alarming; for it is not that the better part has been
perverted, as in man,-they have no better part. Thus it is like
comparing a lifeless thing with a living in respect of badness; for
the badness of that which has no originative source of movement is
always less hurtful, and reason is an originative source. Thus it is
like comparing injustice in the abstract with an unjust man. Each is
in some sense worse; for a bad man will do ten thousand times as
much evil as a brute.
7

With regard to the pleasures and pains and appetites and aversions
arising through touch and taste, to which both self-indulgence and
temperance were formerly narrowed down, it possible to be in such a
state as to be defeated even by those of them which most people
master, or to master even those by which most people are defeated;
among these possibilities, those relating to pleasures are
incontinence and continence, those relating to pains softness and
endurance. The state of most people is intermediate, even if they lean
more towards the worse states.
Now, since some pleasures are necessary while others are not, and
are necessary up to a point while the excesses of them are not, nor
the deficiencies, and this is equally true of appetites and pains, the
man who pursues the excesses of things pleasant, or pursues to
excess necessary objects, and does so by choice, for their own sake
and not at all for the sake of any result distinct from them, is
self-indulgent; for such a man is of necessity unlikely to repent, and
therefore incurable, since a man who cannot repent cannot be cured.
The man who is deficient in his pursuit of them is the opposite of
self-indulgent; the man who is intermediate is temperate. Similarly,
there is the man who avoids bodily pains not because he is defeated by
them but by choice. (Of those who do not choose such acts, one kind of
man is led to them as a result of the pleasure involved, another
because he avoids the pain arising from the appetite, so that these
types differ from one another. Now any one would think worse of a
man with no appetite or with weak appetite were he to do something
disgraceful, than if he did it under the influence of powerful
appetite, and worse of him if he struck a blow not in anger than if he
did it in anger; for what would he have done if he had been strongly
affected? This is why the self-indulgent man is worse than the
incontinent.) of the states named, then, the latter is rather a kind
of softness; the former is self-indulgence. While to the incontinent
man is opposed the continent, to the soft is opposed the man of
endurance; for endurance consists in resisting, while continence
consists in conquering, and resisting and conquering are different, as
not being beaten is different from winning; this is why continence
is also more worthy of choice than endurance. Now the man who is
defective in respect of resistance to the things which most men both
resist and resist successfully is soft and effeminate; for
effeminacy too is a kind of softness; such a man trails his cloak to
avoid the pain of lifting it, and plays the invalid without thinking
himself wretched, though the man he imitates is a wretched man.
The case is similar with regard to continence and incontinence.
For if a man is defeated by violent and excessive pleasures or
pains, there is nothing wonderful in that; indeed we are ready to
pardon him if he has resisted, as Theodectes' Philoctetes does when
bitten by the snake, or Carcinus' Cercyon in the Alope, and as
people who try to restrain their laughter burst out into a guffaw,
as happened to Xenophantus. But it is surprising if a man is
defeated by and cannot resist pleasures or pains which most men can
hold out against, when this is not due to heredity or disease, like
the softness that is hereditary with the kings of the Scythians, or
that which distinguishes the female sex from the male.
The lover of amusement, too, is thought to be self-indulgent, but is
really soft. For amusement is a relaxation, since it is a rest from
work; and the lover of amusement is one of the people who go to excess
in this.
Of incontinence one kind is impetuosity, another weakness. For
some men after deliberating fail, owing to their emotion, to stand
by the conclusions of their deliberation, others because they have not
deliberated are led by their emotion; since some men (just as people
who first tickle others are not tickled themselves), if they have
first perceived and seen what is coming and have first roused
themselves and their calculative faculty, are not defeated by their
emotion, whether it be pleasant or painful. It is keen and excitable
people that suffer especially from the impetuous form of incontinence;
for the former by reason of their quickness and the latter by reason
of the violence of their passions do not await the argument, because
they are apt to follow their imagination.
8

The self-indulgent man, as was said, is not apt to repent; for he
stands by his choice; but incontinent man is likely to repent. This is
why the position is not as it was expressed in the formulation of
the problem, but the selfindulgent man is incurable and the
incontinent man curable; for wickedness is like a disease such as
dropsy or consumption, while incontinence is like epilepsy; the former
is a permanent, the latter an intermittent badness. And generally
incontinence and vice are different in kind; vice is unconscious of
itself, incontinence is not (of incontinent men themselves, those
who become temporarily beside themselves are better than those who
have the rational principle but do not abide by it, since the latter
are defeated by a weaker passion, and do not act without previous
deliberation like the others); for the incontinent man is like the
people who get drunk quickly and on little wine, i.e. on less than
most people.
Evidently, then, incontinence is not vice (though perhaps it is so
in a qualified sense); for incontinence is contrary to choice while
vice is in accordance with choice; not but what they are similar in
respect of the actions they lead to; as in the saying of Demodocus
about the Milesians, 'the Milesians are not without sense, but they do
the things that senseless people do', so too incontinent people are
not criminal, but they will do criminal acts.
Now, since the incontinent man is apt to pursue, not on
conviction, bodily pleasures that are excessive and contrary to the
right rule, while the self-indulgent man is convinced because he is
the sort of man to pursue them, it is on the contrary the former
that is easily persuaded to change his mind, while the latter is
not. For virtue and vice respectively preserve and destroy the first
principle, and in actions the final cause is the first principle, as
the hypotheses are in mathematics; neither in that case is it argument
that teaches the first principles, nor is it so here-virtue either
natural or produced by habituation is what teaches right opinion about
the first principle. Such a man as this, then, is temperate; his
contrary is the self-indulgent.
But there is a sort of man who is carried away as a result of
passion and contrary to the right rule-a man whom passion masters so
that he does not act according to the right rule, but does not
master to the extent of making him ready to believe that he ought to
pursue such pleasures without reserve; this is the incontinent man,
who is better than the self-indulgent man, and not bad without
qualification; for the best thing in him, the first principle, is
preserved. And contrary to him is another kind of man, he who abides
by his convictions and is not carried away, at least as a result of
passion. It is evident from these considerations that the latter is
a good state and the former a bad one.
9

Is the man continent who abides by any and every rule and any and
every choice, or the man who abides by the right choice, and is he
incontinent who abandons any and every choice and any and every
rule, or he who abandons the rule that is not false and the choice
that is right; this is how we put it before in our statement of the
problem. Or is it incidentally any and every choice but per se the
true rule and the right choice by which the one abides and the other
does not? If any one chooses or pursues this for the sake of that, per
se he pursues and chooses the latter, but incidentally the former. But
when we speak without qualification we mean what is per se.
Therefore in a sense the one abides by, and the other abandons, any
and every opinion; but without qualification, the true opinion.
There are some who are apt to abide by their opinion, who are called
strong-headed, viz. those who are hard to persuade in the first
instance and are not easily persuaded to change; these have in them
something like the continent man, as the prodigal is in a way like the
liberal man and the rash man like the confident man; but they are
different in many respects. For it is to passion and appetite that the
one will not yield, since on occasion the continent man will be easy
to persuade; but it is to argument that the others refuse to yield,
for they do form appetites and many of them are led by their
pleasures. Now the people who are strong-headed are the opinionated,
the ignorant, and the boorish-the opinionated being influenced by
pleasure and pain; for they delight in the victory they gain if they
are not persuaded to change, and are pained if their decisions
become null and void as decrees sometimes do; so that they are liker
the incontinent than the continent man.
But there are some who fail to abide by their resolutions, not as
a result of incontinence, e.g. Neoptolemus in Sophocles'
Philoctetes; yet it was for the sake of pleasure that he did not stand
fast-but a noble pleasure; for telling the truth was noble to him, but
he had been persuaded by Odysseus to tell the lie. For not every one
who does anything for the sake of pleasure is either self-indulgent or
bad or incontinent, but he who does it for a disgraceful pleasure.
Since there is also a sort of man who takes less delight than he
should in bodily things, and does not abide by the rule, he who is
intermediate between him and the incontinent man is the continent man;
for the incontinent man fails to abide by the rule because he delights
too much in them, and this man because he delights in them too little;
while the continent man abides by the rule and does not change on
either account. Now if continence is good, both the contrary states
must be bad, as they actually appear to be; but because the other
extreme is seen in few people and seldom, as temperance is thought
to be contrary only to self-indulgence, so is continence to
incontinence.
Since many names are applied analogically, it is by analogy that
we have come to speak of the 'continence' the temperate man; for
both the continent man and the temperate man are such as to do nothing
contrary to the rule for the sake of the bodily pleasures, but the
former has and the latter has not bad appetites, and the latter is
such as not to feel pleasure contrary to the rule, while the former is
such as to feel pleasure but not to be led by it. And the incontinent
and the self-indulgent man are also like another; they are different,
but both pursue bodily pleasures- the latter, however, also thinking
that he ought to do so, while the former does not think this.
10

Nor can the same man have practical wisdom and be incontinent; for
it has been shown' that a man is at the same time practically wise,
and good in respect of character. Further, a man has practical
wisdom not by knowing only but by being able to act; but the
incontinent man is unable to act-there is, however, nothing to prevent
a clever man from being incontinent; this is why it is sometimes
actually thought that some people have practical wisdom but are
incontinent, viz. because cleverness and practical wisdom differ in
the way we have described in our first discussions, and are near
together in respect of their reasoning, but differ in respect of their
purpose-nor yet is the incontinent man like the man who knows and is
contemplating a truth, but like the man who is asleep or drunk. And he
acts willingly (for he acts in a sense with knowledge both of what
he does and of the end to which he does it), but is not wicked,
since his purpose is good; so that he is half-wicked. And he is not
a criminal; for he does not act of malice aforethought; of the two
types of incontinent man the one does not abide by the conclusions
of his deliberation, while the excitable man does not deliberate at
all. And thus the incontinent man like a city which passes all the
right decrees and has good laws, but makes no use of them, as in
Anaxandrides' jesting remark,

The city willed it, that cares nought for laws;

but the wicked man is like a city that uses its laws, but has wicked
laws to use.
Now incontinence and continence are concerned with that which is
in excess of the state characteristic of most men; for the continent
man abides by his resolutions more and the incontinent man less than
most men can.
Of the forms of incontinence, that of excitable people is more
curable than that of those who deliberate but do not abide by their
decisions, and those who are incontinent through habituation are
more curable than those in whom incontinence is innate; for it is
easier to change a habit than to change one's nature; even habit is
hard to change just because it is like nature, as Evenus says:

I say that habit's but a long practice, friend,
And this becomes men's nature in the end.

We have now stated what continence, incontinence, endurance, and
softness are, and how these states are related to each other.

11

The study of pleasure and pain belongs to the province of the
political philosopher; for he is the architect of the end, with a view
to which we call one thing bad and another good without qualification.
Further, it is one of our necessary tasks to consider them; for not
only did we lay it down that moral virtue and vice are concerned
with pains and pleasures, but most people say that happiness
involves pleasure; this is why the blessed man is called by a name
derived from a word meaning enjoyment.
Now (1) some people think that no pleasure is a good, either in
itself or incidentally, since the good and pleasure are not the
same; (2) others think that some pleasures are good but that most
are bad. (3) Again there is a third view, that even if all pleasures
are good, yet the best thing in the world cannot be pleasure. (1)
The reasons given for the view that pleasure is not a good at all
are (a) that every pleasure is a perceptible process to a natural
state, and that no process is of the same kind as its end, e.g. no
process of building of the same kind as a house. (b) A temperate man
avoids pleasures. (c) A man of practical wisdom pursues what is free
from pain, not what is pleasant. (d) The pleasures are a hindrance
to thought, and the more so the more one delights in them, e.g. in
sexual pleasure; for no one could think of anything while absorbed
in this. (e) There is no art of pleasure; but every good is the
product of some art. (f) Children and the brutes pursue pleasures. (2)
The reasons for the view that not all pleasures are good are that
(a) there are pleasures that are actually base and objects of
reproach, and (b) there are harmful pleasures; for some pleasant
things are unhealthy. (3) The reason for the view that the best
thing in the world is not pleasure is that pleasure is not an end
but a process.
12

These are pretty much the things that are said. That it does not
follow from these grounds that pleasure is not a good, or even the
chief good, is plain from the following considerations. (A) (a) First,
since that which is good may be so in either of two senses (one
thing good simply and another good for a particular person), natural
constitutions and states of being, and therefore also the
corresponding movements and processes, will be correspondingly
divisible. Of those which are thought to be bad some will be bad if
taken without qualification but not bad for a particular person, but
worthy of his choice, and some will not be worthy of choice even for a
particular person, but only at a particular time and for a short
period, though not without qualification; while others are not even
pleasures, but seem to be so, viz. all those which involve pain and
whose end is curative, e.g. the processes that go on in sick persons.
(b) Further, one kind of good being activity and another being
state, the processes that restore us to our natural state are only
incidentally pleasant; for that matter the activity at work in the
appetites for them is the activity of so much of our state and
nature as has remained unimpaired; for there are actually pleasures
that involve no pain or appetite (e.g. those of contemplation), the
nature in such a case not being defective at all. That the others
are incidental is indicated by the fact that men do not enjoy the same
pleasant objects when their nature is in its settled state as they
do when it is being replenished, but in the former case they enjoy the
things that are pleasant without qualification, in the latter the
contraries of these as well; for then they enjoy even sharp and bitter
things, none of which is pleasant either by nature or without
qualification. The states they produce, therefore, are not pleasures
naturally or without qualification; for as pleasant things differ,
so do the pleasures arising from them.
(c) Again, it is not necessary that there should be something else
better than pleasure, as some say the end is better than the
process; for leasures are not processes nor do they all involve
process-they are activities and ends; nor do they arise when we are
becoming something, but when we are exercising some faculty; and not
all pleasures have an end different from themselves, but only the
pleasures of persons who are being led to the perfecting of their
nature. This is why it is not right to say that pleasure is
perceptible process, but it should rather be called activity of the
natural state, and instead of 'perceptible' 'unimpeded'. It is thought
by some people to be process just because they think it is in the
strict sense good; for they think that activity is process, which it
is not.
(B) The view that pleasures are bad because some pleasant things are
unhealthy is like saying that healthy things are bad because some
healthy things are bad for money-making; both are bad in the respect
mentioned, but they are not bad for that reason-indeed, thinking
itself is sometimes injurious to health.
Neither practical wisdom nor any state of being is impeded by the
pleasure arising from it; it is foreign pleasures that impede, for the
pleasures arising from thinking and learning will make us think and
learn all the more.
(C) The fact that no pleasure is the product of any art arises
naturally enough; there is no art of any other activity either, but
only of the corresponding faculty; though for that matter the arts
of the perfumer and the cook are thought to be arts of pleasure.
(D) The arguments based on the grounds that the temperate man avoids
pleasure and that the man of practical wisdom pursues the painless
life, and that children and the brutes pursue pleasure, are all
refuted by the same consideration. We have pointed out in what sense
pleasures are good without qualification and in what sense some are
not good; now both the brutes and children pursue pleasures of the
latter kind (and the man of practical wisdom pursues tranquil
freedom from that kind), viz. those which imply appetite and pain,
i.e. the bodily pleasures (for it is these that are of this nature)
and the excesses of them, in respect of which the self-indulgent man
is self-indulent. This is why the temperate man avoids these
pleasures; for even he has pleasures of his own.
13

But further (E) it is agreed that pain is bad and to be avoided; for
some pain is without qualification bad, and other pain is bad
because it is in some respect an impediment to us. Now the contrary of
that which is to be avoided, qua something to be avoided and bad, is
good. Pleasure, then, is necessarily a good. For the answer of
Speusippus, that pleasure is contrary both to pain and to good, as the
greater is contrary both to the less and to the equal, is not
successful; since he would not say that pleasure is essentially just a
species of evil.
And (F) if certain pleasures are bad, that does not prevent the
chief good from being some pleasure, just as the chief good may be
some form of knowledge though certain kinds of knowledge are bad.
Perhaps it is even necessary, if each disposition has unimpeded
activities, that, whether the activity (if unimpeded) of all our
dispositions or that of some one of them is happiness, this should
be the thing most worthy of our choice; and this activity is pleasure.
Thus the chief good would be some pleasure, though most pleasures
might perhaps be bad without qualification. And for this reason all
men think that the happy life is pleasant and weave pleasure into
their ideal of happiness-and reasonably too; for no activity is
perfect when it is impeded, and happiness is a perfect thing; this
is why the happy man needs the goods of the body and external goods,
i.e. those of fortune, viz. in order that he may not be impeded in
these ways. Those who say that the victim on the rack or the man who
falls into great misfortunes is happy if he is good, are, whether they
mean to or not, talking nonsense. Now because we need fortune as
well as other things, some people think good fortune the same thing as
happiness; but it is not that, for even good fortune itself when in
excess is an impediment, and perhaps should then be no longer called
good fortune; for its limit is fixed by reference to happiness.
And indeed the fact that all things, both brutes and men, pursue
pleasure is an indication of its being somehow the chief good:

No voice is wholly lost that many peoples...

But since no one nature or state either is or is thought the best
for all, neither do all pursue the same pleasure; yet all pursue
pleasure. And perhaps they actually pursue not the pleasure they think
they pursue nor that which they would say they pursue, but the same
pleasure; for all things have by nature something divine in them.
But the bodily pleasures have appropriated the name both because we
oftenest steer our course for them and because all men share in
them; thus because they alone are familiar, men think there are no
others.
It is evident also that if pleasure, i.e. the activity of our
faculties, is not a good, it will not be the case that the happy man
lives a pleasant life; for to what end should he need pleasure, if
it is not a good but the happy man may even live a painful life? For
pain is neither an evil nor a good, if pleasure is not; why then
should he avoid it? Therefore, too, the life of the good man will
not be pleasanter than that of any one else, if his activities are not
more pleasant.
14

(G) With regard to the bodily pleasures, those who say that some
pleasures are very much to be chosen, viz. the noble pleasures, but
not the bodily pleasures, i.e. those with which the self-indulgent man
is concerned, must consider why, then, the contrary pains are bad. For
the contrary of bad is good. Are the necessary pleasures good in the
sense in which even that which is not bad is good? Or are they good up
to a point? Is it that where you have states and processes of which
there cannot be too much, there cannot be too much of the
corresponding pleasure, and that where there can be too much of the
one there can be too much of the other also? Now there can be too much
of bodily goods, and the bad man is bad by virtue of pursuing the
excess, not by virtue of pursuing the necessary pleasures (for all men
enjoy in some way or other both dainty foods and wines and sexual
intercourse, but not all men do so as they ought). The contrary is the
case with pain; for he does not avoid the excess of it, he avoids it
altogether; and this is peculiar to him, for the alternative to excess
of pleasure is not pain, except to the man who pursues this excess.
Since we should state not only the truth, but also the cause of
error-for this contributes towards producing conviction, since when
a reasonable explanation is given of why the false view appears
true, this tends to produce belief in the true view-therefore we
must state why the bodily pleasures appear the more worthy of
choice. (a) Firstly, then, it is because they expel pain; owing to the
excesses of pain that men experience, they pursue excessive and in
general bodily pleasure as being a cure for the pain. Now curative
agencies produce intense feeling-which is the reason why they are
pursued-because they show up against the contrary pain. (Indeed
pleasure is thought not to be good for these two reasons, as has
been said, viz. that (a) some of them are activities belonging to a
bad nature-either congenital, as in the case of a brute, or due to
habit, i.e. those of bad men; while (b) others are meant to cure a
defective nature, and it is better to be in a healthy state than to be
getting into it, but these arise during the process of being made
perfect and are therefore only incidentally good.) (b) Further, they
are pursued because of their violence by those who cannot enjoy
other pleasures. (At all events they go out of their way to
manufacture thirsts somehow for themselves. When these are harmless,
the practice is irreproachable; when they are hurtful, it is bad.) For
they have nothing else to enjoy, and, besides, a neutral state is
painful to many people because of their nature. For the animal
nature is always in travail, as the students of natural science also
testify, saying that sight and hearing are painful; but we have become
used to this, as they maintain. Similarly, while, in youth, people
are, owing to the growth that is going on, in a situation like that of
drunken men, and youth is pleasant, on the other hand people of
excitable nature always need relief; for even their body is ever in
torment owing to its special composition, and they are always under
the influence of violent desire; but pain is driven out both by the
contrary pleasure, and by any chance pleasure if it be strong; and for
these reasons they become self-indulgent and bad. But the pleasures
that do not involve pains do not admit of excess; and these are
among the things pleasant by nature and not incidentally. By things
pleasant incidentally I mean those that act as cures (for because as a
result people are cured, through some action of the part that
remains healthy, for this reason the process is thought pleasant);
by things naturally pleasant I mean those that stimulate the action of
the healthy nature.
There is no one thing that is always pleasant, because our nature is
not simple but there is another element in us as well, inasmuch as
we are perishable creatures, so that if the one element does
something, this is unnatural to the other nature, and when the two
elements are evenly balanced, what is done seems neither painful nor
pleasant; for if the nature of anything were simple, the same action
would always be most pleasant to it. This is why God always enjoys a
single and simple pleasure; for there is not only an activity of
movement but an activity of immobility, and pleasure is found more
in rest than in movement. But 'change in all things is sweet', as
the poet says, because of some vice; for as it is the vicious man that
is changeable, so the nature that needs change is vicious; for it is
not simple nor good.
We have now discussed continence and incontinence, and pleasure
and pain, both what each is and in what sense some of them are good
and others bad; it remains to speak of friendship.