For instance, let the universal be, “All that is sweet should be
tasted,” the particular, “This is sweet;” it follows necessarily that
he who is able and is not hindered should not only draw, but put in
practice, the conclusion “This is to be tasted.” When then there is in
the mind one universal proposition forbidding to taste, and the other
“All that is sweet is pleasant” with its minor “This is sweet” (which
is the one that really works), and desire happens to be in the man, the
first universal bids him avoid this but the desire leads him on to
taste; for it has the power of moving the various organs: and so it
results that he fails in Self-Control, in a certain sense under the
influence of Reason and Opinion not contrary in itself to Reason but
only accidentally so; because it is the desire that is contrary to
Right Reason, but not the Opinion:[7] and so for this reason brutes are
not accounted of Imperfect Self-Control, because they have no power of
conceiving universals but only of receiving and retaining particular
impressions.
As to the manner in which the ignorance is removed and the man of
Imperfect Self-Control recovers his Knowledge, the account is the same
as with respect to him who is drunk or asleep, and is not peculiar to
this affection, so physiologists[8] are the right people to apply to.
But whereas the minor premiss of every practical syllogism is an
opinion on matter cognisable by Sense and determines the actions; he
who is under the influence of passion either has not this, or so has it
that his having does not amount to _knowing_ but merely saying, as a
man when drunk might repeat Empedocles’ verses; and because the minor
term[9] is neither universal, nor is thought to have the power of
producing Knowledge in like manner as the universal term: and so the
result which Socrates was seeking comes out, that is to say, the
affection does not take place in the presence of that which is thought
to be specially and properly Knowledge, nor is this dragged about by
reason of the affection, but in the presence of that Knowledge which is
conveyed by Sense.
Let this account then be accepted of the question respecting the
failure in Self-Control, whether it is with Knowledge, and the manner
in which such failure is possible or not, though a man possesses
Knowledge.
Chapter IV.
The next question to be discussed is whether there is a character to be
designated by the term “of Imperfect Self-Control” simply, or whether
all who are so are to be accounted such, in respect of some particular
thing; and, if there is such a character, what is his object-matter.
Now that pleasures and pains are the object-matter of men of
Self-Control and of Endurance, and also of men of Imperfect
Self-Control and Softness, is plain.