CHAPTER SIX

But let us observe

30
also that the lack of self-restraint related to spirit- 25
edness is less shameful than that pertaining to desires. For spiritedness
seems to hear reason in some way, but to mishear it, like swift servants
who run off before they hear what is said in its entirety and then err in
carrying out the command, or as dogs bark if there is merely a knock
at the door, before examining whether it is a friend. So spiritedness, be- 30
cause ofits heated and swift nature, hears something, and though it does
not hear an order, it sets off after revenge. For speech or imagination has
made clear that there is a hubristic insult or slight; and spiritedness, as if i
t
inferred from a syllogism that one ought to wage war against such a thing,
immediately becomes harsh. But as for desire, if reason or sense percep- 35
tion merely says that something is pleasant, it sets off after enjoyment.
As a result, spiritedness follows reason in a way, but desire does not. De- 1149
b
sire, then, is more shameful. For someone who lacks self-restraint when it
comes to spiritedness is in a way conquered by reason, whereas the other
person is conquered by desire and not by reason.
Further, there is greater sympathy [or forgiveness] for someone who
follows the natural longings, since there is more sympathy also for those
who follow such desires as are common to all and insofar as they are common. Spiritedness and harshness are more natural than are the desires for
what is excessive, that is, the unnecessary desires-just like the person
who defended himself for striking his father by saying, ''And he struck his
father, and his father struck his;' and, pointing to his own son, said, "and 10
he will strike me, when he becomes a man: it runs in our family!" And the
man who was being dragged by his son bade him stop by the doors, for he
himself dragged his own father only that far.
Further, those who hatch plots are more unjust [than are those who
act from spiritedness]. The man characterized by spiritedness, then, is
not a plotter, nor is spiritedness itself; rather, it is open, whereas desire is
1s
30 Or, "contemplate:' BOOK 7, CHAPTER 6
just as they assert of Aphrodite: "a weaver of wiles, Cyprus-born;'
31
and as
Homer says of her embroidered girdle, "its alluring words, which stole the
mind even of one who is most sensible.'m As a result, if in fact this lack of
self-restraint is more unjust and more shameful than that bound up with
spiritedness, it is also lack of self-restraint unqualifiedly and, in a way, vic
e
as well.
20 Further, no one acts hubristically while feeling pain, but everyone who
does something in anger, does so while feeling pain, whereas the hubristic person acts with pleasure. If, then, those things are more unjust, at
which it is especially just to be angry, so also is the lack of self-restraint
connected with desire, for in spiritedness there is no hubris. It is clear,
then, that the lack of self-restraint pertaining to desire is more shame25 ful than that pertaining to spiritedness, and that there is in fact a selfrestraint and lack of self-restraint pertaining to bodily desires and pleasures.
But one must grasp the distinctions among these very desires and pleasures. For, just as was said at the beginning, some are human and natural in both kind and magnitude, but others are brutish, and some arise
30 through defects and diseases. Of these, it is only with the first ones that
moderation and licentiousness are concerned. Hence too we do not say

ofbrute animals that they are either moderate or licentious, except metaphorically, and only if some one kind of animal differs as a whole from another in hubris, destructiveness, and voraciousness. For they do not pos35 sess choice or calculation but do depart from the natural, just as madmen
1150a do among human beings. But brutishness is a lesser thing than vice, even
though it is more frightening, for the better part [of the soul] has not
been ruined in the case of a brute animal, as it has been in a human being
who is vicious; rather, the brute animal does not have that better part. It
is similar, then, to comparing an inanimate thing to an animate one, as to
which is worse: baseness that does not possess its own starting point [or
5 principle] is always less harmful than that which does possess it, and intellect is such a starting point. It is akin, then, to comparing injustice itself t
o
an unjust human being, for there is a way in which each is worse than the
other: a bad human being could produce ten thousand times more bad
things than could a brute animal.
31
The author ofthis line is unknown.
32 Homer, Iliad 14.214, 217. BOOK 7, CHAPTER 7 [149
CHAPTER SEVEN
But as for the pleasures, pains, desires, and aversions that arise through 10
touch and taste-which both licentiousness and moderation were earlier
defined as being concerned with-it is possible for someone to be such
as to be defeated by those that the majority of people
33
are stronger than;
and it is possible to be such as to overpower those by which the majority are defeated. In these cases, one person lacks self-restraint concerning
pleasures, another is self-restrained, one person is soft when it comes to
pains, another steadfast. But the characteristic belonging to most people
is in between these, even if people incline more toward the worse char- 1s
acteristics.
Now, some pleasures are necessary, others not, and the former are necessary only up to a certain point (those that are excessive are not necessary, and neither are the deficient ones); and what concerns desires and
pains is similar. Given all this, the person who pursues the excessive pleasures, in an excessive way or through choice, doing so for the sake of the 20
pleasures themselves and for nothing else that results from them, is licentious . For this person necessarily feels no regret and so is incurable, since
the person without regret is incurable. But he who falls short is the opposite, he who is in the middle, moderate. And similar is the case of someone who avoids the bodily pains not because he is defeated by them but
through choice.
Now, among those who do not choose, one type is led by pleasure, an- 25
other by avoiding the pain arising from desire, and so they differ from
each other. It would seem to everyone to be worse if someone should do
something shameful, though he felt no desire for it or only a mild one,
than if he should so act because of a strong desire, just as it would seem
to be worse if someone should strike another without being angry at him
than if he did so in anger. For what would such a person do, were he in the 30
grip of a passion? Hence the licentious person is worse than the one lacking self-restraint. So, of the characteristics mentioned, the one is rather a
form of softness, whereas the other person is licentious.
He who lacks self-restraint lies opposite the self-restrained person, the
steadfast opposite the soft. For being steadfast consists in holding out
against something, whereas self-restraint consists in overpowering it; and 35
33
Or, "the many" (hoi polloi), here and in the next clause. BOOK 7, CHAPTER
7
holding out is different from overpowering, just as not being defeated is
different from winning. Hence self-restraint is also more choiceworthy
1150b than steadfastness. But the person who falls short in relation to what th

e
majority
34
strain against and are capable of-he is soft and delicate. For
such delicacy is in fact a sort of softness: for example, he who lets his cloak
drag, so that he not suffer the pain of lifting it up, and who, though he
imitates someone sickly, does not suppose that he himself is wretched,
similar though he is to the wretched.
The case is similar also as regards self-restraint and lack of self-restraint.
For if someone is defeated by strong and excessive pleasures or pains, that
is not to be wondered at. Rather, he is apt to receive sympathy if he at least
strains against them, just as Theodectes's Philoctetes did when struck by
10 the viper, or Cercyon in the Alope of Carcinus, and just like those who,
though they attempt to restrain their laughter, burst out laughing all at
once, such as happened to Xenophantes.
35
But it is to be wondered at if
somebody is defeated by and unable to strain against those pleasures and
pains that the majority are able to hold out against, when this is not due
15 to the nature of one's stock
36
or to illness -like the softness of the Scythian kings due to their stock, and as the female is distinguished from the
male. And someone fond of amusement is held to be licentious but is actually soft; for play is relaxation, if in fact it is recreation [or rest], and
the person fond of amusement is among those who are excessive when it
comes to this.
One part of the lack of self-restraint is impetuosity, another weakness;
20 some people deliberate but then do not abide by their deliberations on
account of the relevant passion, while others, because they do not deliberate, are led by the passion. For just as those who anticipate being tickled are unaffected by being tickled, so too some who perceive and see in
advance what is coming, and so rouse themselves and their calculation in
34 Or, "the many," as in the preceding note.
35 Theodectes (ca. 375-334), author and orator, was born in Lycia but probably
lived
mostly at Athens, where he is said to have studied with Plato and Aristotle, amo
ng others. His Philoctetes does not survive. Carcinus, son of the tragedian Carcinus,
is said to
have authored I 6 o plays; Aristotle mentions him also in the Poetics ( 14 54
b2 3) and Rhetoric (x4oobxo, 1417bio). According to the scholiast, quoted by Burnet, when Cerc
yon
learned of his daughter's marriage, he asked her whom she had married, saying th
at "if
you should tell me this, I would not be altogether pained" -yet he found the pai
n of
living too great once he heard her answer and so chose to die. The Xenophantes h
ere
mentioned may have been a musician in the court of Alexander (see Seneca, de Ira
2.2).
36 Genos: class, kind, race. BOOK 7, CHAPTER 8
advance, are not defeated by the relevant passion, whether it is pleasant or 25
painful. And it is especially the keen and the melancholic
37
whose lack of
self-restraint is of the impetuous sort; for neither the former, on account

of their swiftness, nor the latter, on account of the intensity of their passion, stick with reason, they being apt to follow imagination instead.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The licentious person, as was said, is not characterized by regret, for he 30
abides by his choice. But every person lacking self-restraint is apt to feel
regret. Hence the perplexity at issue is not in fact as we encountered it;
38
rather, the licentious person is incurable, the person lacking self-restraint
curable. For corruption seems to be like such diseases as dropsy and consumption; whereas lack of self-restraint is like epileptic seizures, the former defective
39
condition being continuous, the latter not continuous.
And in general, the genus to which lack of self-restraint belongs is dif- 35
ferent from that to which vice belongs; for vice escapes the notice of one
who has it, whereas lack of self-restraint does not escape the notice of
those lacking self-restraint. Among people lacking self-restraint, those apt 11
51a
to be impulsive
40
are better than those who are in possession of an argument [logos] but do not abide by it. For these latter are defeated by a lesser
passion than that which overwhelms the impulsive and are not without a
prior deliberation, as are the impulsive. The person lacking self-restraint
in this latter sense is similar to those who get drunk quickly and on little
wine, that is, on less wine than do most people.
It is manifest, then, that lack of self-restraint is not vice (but perhaps it
is in a certain way): lack of self-restraint is contrary to one's choice, vice
in accord with one's choice. Nevertheless, they are similar, at least when
it comes to actions, just as in Demodocus's saying about the Milesians"Milesians are not stupid, but they do the things stupid people do "
41
-and
37 Or, "excitable"; those with an excess of black bile and so given to agitati
on or unease.
38 Consider n46a3r-b2.
The word (poneria) is elsewhere translated as "wickedness:'
39
40 Ekstatikoi: the same word was translated as "one who departs" (from one's cal
culation) at II4sbrr-12; here the word seems roughly equivalent to the "keen and the
melancholic."
41 Originally from the small island of Leros, lying just opposite Miletus, Dem
odocus
is today best known for the comic lines here quoted. 152] BOOK 7, CHAPTER 9
10 those lacking self-restraint are not unjust, though they will commit injustices. The person lacking self-restraint is such as to pursue the bodily
pleasures that are excessive and contrary to correct reason, without his
having been persuaded to do so, whereas the licentious person has been
so persuaded, on account of his being the sort of person to pursue them.
Given this, it is the person lacking self-restraint who can easily be per15 suaded otherwise, the licentious not. For virtue preserves and corruption
destroys the principle; and in actions, that for the sake of which one acts
is the principle, just as the given hypotheses are in mathematics. So in neither case is reason [or argument] such as to teach the principles, but virtue-either natural or habitual-is apt to teach one to hold the correct
20 opinion
42
about the principle in question. Such a person, then, is moder-

ate; his contrary, licentious.

There is also a sort of person who is apt, on account of his passion, to
depart
43
from correct reason, a person whom passion overpowers, such
that he does not act in accord with correct reason. Yet the passion in question does not overpower him so that he becomes the sort of person to
be persuaded that he ought to pursue pleasures of this kind without restraint. This is the person lacking self-restraint, who is better than the li25 centious and is not unqualifiedly base: what is best in him, the principle,
is preserved. Another sort is his contrary, [that is, the self-restrained person,] who is apt to abide by and not depart from correct reason, at least
not on account of passion. So it is manifest from these considerations that
the one characteristic is serious, the other base.