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 Book VII. supplies, in the words of Eudemus, a valuable complement to Aristotle’s moral system. It discusses the intermediate states between virtue and vice, and especially analyses the state called “incontinence,” or “weakness,” as exhibited in the process of yielding to temptation. By aid of the forms of the syllogism it is shown how, while having good principles in our mind, we may fail under temptation to act upon them. On the other hand, the idea is introduced of an ideally vicious man, who has no conscience or remorse, but all his mind is in harmony with the dictates of vice; a conception with which we may compare the character drawn by Shelley in his portrait of Count Cenci. The whole of this book is marked by a phraseology different from and later than that of the genuine parts of the ‘Ethics.’ It deals much in physiological considerations, and it winds up with a modified paraphrase of Aristotle’s treatise on Pleasure, given in Book X.

Books VIII. and IX. treat of Friendship, which “is either a virtue, or is closely connected with virtue;” and no part of the whole treatise is more pleasing or admirable. The idea of friendship has probably always found a place among civilised nations, but it obtained peculiar prominence among the Greeks, partly owing to the subordinate position assigned to women, and the consequent rarity of sympathetic marriages. Among the Dorians, from early times, there had subsisted a custom by which each warrior had attached to him, as his squire, a boy whom he was expected to inspire with becoming thoughts. The one member in this pair was called