Again, there are some who depart from their resolutions not by reason
of any Imperfection of Self-Control; take, for instance, Neoptolemus in
the Philoctetes of Sophocles. Here certainly pleasure was the motive of
his departure from his resolution, but then it was one of a noble sort:
for to be truthful was noble in his eyes and he had been persuaded by
Ulysses to lie.
So it is not every one who acts from the motive of pleasure who is
utterly destitute of Self-Control or base or of Imperfect Self-Control,
only he who acts from the impulse of a base pleasure.
Chapter IX.
Moreover as there is a character who takes less pleasure than he ought
in bodily enjoyments, and he also fails to abide by the conclusion of
his Reason,[20] the man of Self-Control is the mean between him and the
man of Imperfect Self-Control: that is to say, the latter fails to
abide by them because of somewhat too much, the former because of
somewhat too little; while the man of Self-Control abides by them, and
never changes by reason of anything else than such conclusions.
Now of course since Self-Control is good both the contrary States must
be bad, as indeed they plainly are: but because the one of them is seen
in few persons, and but rarely in them, Self-Control comes to be viewed
as if opposed only to the Imperfection of it, just as Perfected
Self-Mastery is thought to be opposed only to utter want of
Self-Control.
Again, as many terms are used in the way of similitude, so people have
come to talk of the Self-Control of the man of Perfected Self-Mastery
in the way of similitude: for the man of Self-Control and the man of
Perfected Self-Mastery have this in common, that they do nothing
against Right Reason on the impulse of bodily pleasures, but then the
former has bad desires, the latter not; and the latter is so
constituted as not even to feel pleasure contrary to his Reason, the
former feels but does not yield to it.
Like again are the man of Imperfect Self-Control and he who is utterly
destitute of it, though in reality distinct: both follow bodily
pleasures, but the latter under a notion that it is the proper line for
him to take, his former without any such notion.
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.