Ethics

And it is not possible for the same man to be at once a man of Practical Wisdom and of Imperfect Self-Control:  because the character of Practical Wisdom includes, as we showed before, goodness of moral character.  And again, it is not knowledge merely, but aptitude for action, which constitutes Practical Wisdom:  and of this aptitude the man of Imperfect Self-Control is destitute.  But there is no reason why the Clever man should not be of Imperfect Self-Control:  and the reason why some men are occasionally thought to be men of Practical Wisdom, and yet of Imperfect Self-Control, is this, that Cleverness differs from Practical Wisdom in the way I stated in a former book, and is very near it so far as the intellectual element is concerned but differs in respect of the moral choice.

Nor is the man of Imperfect Self-Control like the man who both has and calls into exercise his knowledge, but like the man who, having it, is overpowered by sleep or wine.  Again, he acts voluntarily (because he knows, in a certain sense, what he does and the result of it), but he is not a confirmed bad man, for his moral choice is good, so he is at all events only half bad.  Nor is he unjust, because he does not act with deliberate intent:  for of the two chief forms of the character, the one is not apt to abide by his deliberate resolutions, and the other, the man of constitutional strength of passion, is not apt to deliberate at all.

So in fact the man of Imperfect Self-Control is like a community which makes all proper enactments, and has admirable laws, only does not act on them, verifying the scoff of Anaxandrides,

“That State did will it, which cares nought for laws;” whereas the bad man is like one which acts upon its laws, but then unfortunately they are bad ones.  Imperfection of Self-Control and Self-Control, after all, are above the average state of men; because he of the latter character is more true to his Reason, and the former less so, than is in the power of most men.

Again, of the two forms of Imperfect Self-Control that is more easily cured which they have who are constitutionally of strong passions, than that of those who form resolutions and break them; and they that are so through habituation than they that are so naturally; since of course custom is easier to change than nature, because the very resemblance of custom to nature is what constitutes the difficulty of changing it; as Evenus says,

  “Practice, I say, my friend, doth long endure,
  And at the last is even very nature.”

We have now said then what Self-Control is, what Imperfection of Self-Control, what Endurance, and what Softness, and how these states are mutually related.