Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/383

 ARISTOTLE'S THEORY OP INCONTINENCE. 367 man does is not in itself wrong, it is only unfitting at the time. The argument All sweet things are pleasant to take, This thing here is sweet, ergo, This is pleasant to take, is valid in itself and conflicts with no moral truth whatso- ever. It is only when, owing to other ' accidental ' con- siderations, it becomes our duty for the moment to do something else, that not the major premiss, but the appli- cation of it, becomes ' opposed to right reason '." Such, as it seems to me, is Aristotle's natural straight- forward analysis of the phenomenon in question. The incontinent man, like every one else, has varied social rela- tions, each of which may be formulated into a ' rule ' a ' universal '. These moral rules are all true and, in general, do not conflict with each other, but any two of them may, Kara o-u/z/Se^/co?, do so at a given moment. For example (to take the first illustration which occurs to me as I write) I, as a ' married Don,' have social duties to both College and wife. We may formulate these as " I ought to dine in Hall regularly twice in the week" " I ought not to leave my wife alone unnecessarily". Do these universals conflict? Assuredly not, as a rule, but if, on one of my College nights, it (in Aristotelian phrase) ' happens to the wife ' to be ill, they ' accidentally ' do come into opposition. Such ' opposi- tions ' are of commonest occurrence and it is needless to multiply illustrations. Why does the incontinent man ' act according to' the wrong universal? Because, said many thinkers at that time, under the influence of desire he per- forms an intellectual trick he forgets to apply a ' minor ' to the right universal, he applies a minor to the wrong one, or forgets the right one altogether, 1 etc., etc., etc. No ! says Aristotle, he does none of these things because, poor fellow, they are already done for him. The ' minor ' is already there, it is thrust upon him, it ' moves ' him, he cannot escape except by resisting it, and there is no ' moving ' power in him to enable him to do this. In modern times the power- lessness of ' good advice ' against temptation is proverbial. Aristotle explains this simply the one ' speaks,' the other 1 Our leading modern commentators seem to me to fall into similar mistakes. They talk of " applying a minor premiss to the right moral principle " and so forth. Much subtle discussion, as to the exact method of such intellectual sophistry, thus arises, which would be saved if we remembered steadily that, to Aristotle, the crux of the matter is, ' What moves the limbs ? '