CHAPTER NINE

30 Is, then, a self-restrained person someone who abides by any argument

whatever and any choice whatever, or does he abide by only the correct
choice? And is a person lacking self-restraint someone who fails to abide
by any choice whatever and any argument whatever, or does he fail to
abide by the argument that is not false and by the choice that is correct,
as in the perplexing question encountered before ?
44
Or is it only incidentally that the argument and choice involved are of this or that sort,
but it is the true argument and the correct choice in themselves that
42 The verb translated as "to hold the correct opinion" ( orthodoxein) contain
s the elements of the English word orthodoxy.
43 Ekstatikos: see n. 40 above.
44 Consider n46ar6-2r. BOOK 7, CHAPTER 9 [ 153
the self-restrained abides by and the other does not abide by? For if some- 35
one chooses or pursues this given thing on account of that given thing, he 1151
b
pursues and chooses this latter in itself, the former only incidentally. And
by "in itself" we mean "unqualifiedly." As a result, in one sense the selfrestrained person abides by any opinion whatever, while the person lacking self-restraint departs from it; but in an unqualified sense, it is the true
opinion that the one abides by and the other departs from.
There are also some who are inclined to abide by their opinion, whom
people call obstinate; such people are hard to persuade and, once persuaded, not easily changed. They have a certain similarity to the selfrestrained person, just as the prodigal has to the liberal and the reckless
to the confident, but they are different in many respects. For the one, the
self-restrained person, does not change on account of passion and desire,
but it may sometimes happen that he will be readily persuadable [by rea- 10
son]; whereas the obstinate are not persuadable, when they take hold of
given desires, and in fact many of them are led by pleasures. Obstinate
types are the opinionated, the ignorant, and the boorish, the opinionated
being such on account of the pleasure and pain at stake: they delight in
the victory they gain, if their persuasion undergoes no change, and they 15
are pained if their own opinions become null and void, like decrees. As a
result, they resemble more the person lacking self-restraint than they do
the self-restrained.
There are also some who do not abide by their opinions, but not on
account of a lack of self-restraint-for example, Neoptolemus in Sophocles's Philoctetes. It was, however, on account of pleasure that he did not
abide by his opinion-albeit a noble pleasure: telling the truth was noble 20
in his eyes, but he was persuaded by Odysseus to lie. For not everyone
who does something on account of pleasure is licentious or base or lacking self-restraint; rather, he who does something on account of a shameful pleasure is such.
But since there is also a sort of person who enjoys the bodily pleasures
less than one ought and who does not abide by reason, the self-restrained
person is in the middle between this person and the one lacking self- 25
restraint: the person lacking self-restraint does not abide by reason because he enjoys something more than he ought, this person because he enjoys something less than he ought, while the self-restrained person abides
by reason and does not change on either account. If in fact self-restraint
is something serious, both of these contrary characteristics ought to be
base, just as they in fact appear to be. But because the characteristic that 30
1541 BOOK 7, CHAPTER 10
leads one to enjoy pleasure less than one ought appears in few people and
on few occasions, then just as moderation is held to be the sole contrary
oflicentiousness, so too self-restraint is held to be the sole contrary of the

lack of self-restraint.
Since many things are spoken ofby way of a certain similarity they may
share, it has followed that we speak of the self-restraint of the moderate
3 5 person by way of a certain similarity they share: the self-restrained perso
n
is such as to do nothing, on account of the bodily pleasures, that is con1152a trary to reason, and so too is the moderate person. But the one person ha
s,
and the other does not have, base desires; and the one is such as not to feel
pleasure contrary to reason, the other such as to feel the pleasure but not
to be led by it. Those lacking self-restraint and the licentious are similar
as well, though they are in fact different: both pursue the bodily pleasures,
but the one does so while supposing he ought to, the other while supposing he ought not to.
CHAPTER TEN
The same person does not admit of being at the same time both prudent
and lacking self-restraint; for it was shown that, as regards his character,
a prudent person is at the same time serious as well.
45
Further, a person is
prudent not only by dint of what he knows, but also because he is skilled
in action. But the person lacking self-restraint is not skilled in action. (Yet
10 nothing prevents the clever person from lacking self-restraint. Hence
there are times when some people are even held to be prudent and lacking self-restraint, because cleverness differs from prudence in the manner
stated in the first arguments; and although they are close to each other,
in reference to their respective definitions, they do differ when it comes
to the choice each makes.) And so the person lacking self-restraint does
not resemble someone who knows and contemplates something, but re15 sembles rather someone who is asleep or drunk. Although he acts voluntarily-for in a certain manner he knows both what he is doing and
for the sake of what he does it-he is not wicked: his choice is decent,
such that he is only half-wicked. He is also not unjust, for he is not a plotter: one sort of person lacking self-restraint is not apt to abide by the results of his deliberation, whereas another, melancholic sort is not even apt BOO
K 7, CHAPTER 11 [ 155
to deliberate at all. So the person lacking self-restraint is like a city that
votes for all that it ought to vote for and has serious laws, yet it makes use
20
of none of them, just as Anaxandrides joked:
The city wished to, the one that cares for none of its laws. 46
But the wicked person [is like a city that] makes use of the laws, though
the laws it uses are wicked.
Lack of self-restraint and self-restraint are concerned with what goes 25
beyond
47
the characteristic typical of the many; for the self-restrained
person abides by his deliberations more, the person lacking self-restraint
less, than is within the capacity of most people. And among those who
lack self-restraint, that of the melancholic type is more readily curable
than is the lack of self-restraint of those who deliberate but do not abide
by their deliberations; and those lacking self-restraint as a result of habituation are more curable than those who are such by nature. For a habit is 30
easier to change than nature: it is for this reason that habit too is difficult
[to change]-because it seems like nature-just as Evenus
48
says as well:
I assert that it is a practice oflong duration, friend, and so
In the end this is nature for human beings.
What is self-restraint, then, and what lack of self-restraint, what stead-

fastness and what softness, and how these characteristics relate to one an- 3 5
other has been stated.