Again, we do not deliberate respecting such arts or sciences as are
exact and independent: as, for instance, about written characters,
because we have no doubt how they should be formed; but we do
deliberate on all buch things as are usually done through our own
instrumentality, but not invariably in the same way; as, for instance,
about matters connected with the healing art, or with money-making;
and, again, more about piloting ships than gymnastic exercises, because
the former has been less exactly determined, and so forth; and more
about arts than sciences, because we more frequently doubt respecting
the former.
So then Deliberation takes place in such matters as are under general
laws, but still uncertain how in any given case they will issue, _i.e._
in which there is some indefiniteness; and for great matters we
associate coadjutors in counsel, distrusting our ability to settle them
alone.
Further, we deliberate not about Ends, but Means to Ends. No physician,
for instance, deliberates whether he will cure, nor orator whether he
will persuade, nor statesman whether he will produce a good
constitution, nor in fact any man in any other function about his
particular End; but having set before them a certain End they look how
and through what means it may be accomplished: if there is a choice of
means, they examine further which are easiest and most creditable; or,
if there is but one means of accomplishing the object, then how it may
be through this, this again through what, till they come to the first
cause; and this will be the last found; for a man engaged in a process
of deliberation seems to seek and analyse, as a man, to solve a
problem, analyses the figure given him. And plainly not every search is
Deliberation, those in mathematics to wit, but every Deliberation is a
search, and the last step in the analysis is the first in the
constructive process. And if in the course of their search men come
upon an impossibility, they give it up; if money, for instance, be
necessary, but cannot be got: but if the thing appears possible they
then attempt to do it.
And by possible I mean what may be done through our own instrumentality
(of course what may be done through our friends is through our own
instrumentality in a certain sense, because the origination in such
cases rests with us). And the object of search is sometimes the
necessary instruments, sometimes the method of using them; and
similarly in the rest sometimes through what, and sometimes how or
through what.[9]
So it seems, as has been said, that Man is the originator of his
actions; and Deliberation has for its object whatever may be done
through one’s own instrumentality, and the actions are with a view to
other things; and so it is, not the End, but the Means to Ends on which
Deliberation is employed.