Or again, it is conceivable on this supposition that folly joined with
Imperfect Self-Control may turn out, in a given case, goodness: for by
reason of his imperfection of self-control a man acts in a way which
contradicts his notions; now his notion is that what is really good is
bad and ought not to be done; and so he will eventually do what is good
and not what is bad.
Again, on the same supposition, the man who acting on conviction
pursues and chooses things because they are pleasant must be thought a
better man than he who does so not by reason of a quasi-rational
conviction but of Imperfect Self-Control: because he is more open to
cure by reason of the possibility of his receiving a contrary
conviction. But to the man of Imperfect Self-Control would apply the
proverb, “when water chokes, what should a man drink then?” for had he
never been convinced at all in respect of what he does,[3] then by a
conviction in a contrary direction he might have stopped in his course;
but now though he has had convictions he notwithstanding acts against
them.
Again, if any and every thing is the object-matter of Imperfect and
Perfect Self-Control, who is the man of Imperfect Self-Control simply?
because no one unites all cases of it, and we commonly say that some
men are so simply, not adding any particular thing in which they are
so.
Well, the difficulties raised are pretty near such as I have described
them, and of these theories we must remove some and leave others as
established; because the solving of a difficulty is a positive act of
establishing something as true.
Chapter III.
Now we must examine first whether men of Imperfect Self-Control act
with a knowledge of what is right or not: next, if with such knowledge,
in what sense; and next what are we to assume is the object-matter of
the man of Imperfect Self-Control, and of the man of Self-Control; I
mean, whether pleasure and pain of all kinds or certain definite ones;
and as to Self-Control and Endurance, whether these are designations of
the same character or different. And in like manner we must go into all
questions which are connected with the present.