Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/455

400 he, and not nature, is the source and originator of his actions; and that, by a further consequence, he is accountable for the good or the evil which he does, and is a proper subject of praise and reward when he has done well, of reprobation and punishment when he has done ill. Aristotle admits that after men's dispositions are formed, after they have acquired a settled habit, either of virtue or of vice, that then they have little or no control over their conduct; that it is difficult, if not impossible, for the thoroughly depraved to reform. At the same time he holds that their character, at one period, was in their own hands; that the formation of their disposition was originally in their own power; that in acquiring the habit, whether of virtue or of vice, they were at first entirely free; that, by the early practice of virtuous actions, they might have attained, and would have attained, to that habit of mind which it is now too late for them to acquire; and therefore their plea of irresponsibility, grounded on their alleged want of control over their own conduct, can no more be listened to than can the argument of him who, after having thrown a stone, and been challenged for the damage he has done, should plead that he had no control over the stone after it had left his hand. The answer is, That may be very true, but why did it ever leave your hand? As long as it remained, in it, you had over it a perfect control. Compare Jeremy Taylor, 'On the Nature and Causes of Good and Evil,' c. 1:—"The will is the mistress of all our actions. . ..