Page:The ethics of Aristotle.djvu/300

 supremacy over the rest, and these two lead in point of fact the same course of action. (Sermon )  . Any ignorance of particular facts affects the rightness not of the ; but of the, but ignorance of i.e. incapacity to discern, Principles, shows the Moral Constitution to have been depraved, i.e. shows Conscience to be perverted, or the sight of Self-love to be impaired.  .  primarily denotes the relation of cause and effect all circumstances which in any way contribute to a cert result are that result. From the power which we have or acquire of deducing future results from present causes we are enabled to act towards, with a view to produce, these results: thus comes to mean not causation merely, but designed causation: and so  is used for Motive, or final cause. It is the primary meaning which is here intended, it would be a contradiction in terms to speak of a man's being ignorant of his own Motive of action. When the man "drew a bow at a venture and smote the King of Israel between the joints of the harness" (1 Kings xxii. 34) he did it the King of Israel, in the primary sense of ; that is to say, the King's death was in fact the result, but could not have been the motive, of the shot, because the King was disguised and the shot was at a venture.  . Bishop Butler would agree to this: he says of settled deliberate anger, "It seems in us plainly connected with a sense of virtue and vice, of moral good and evil." See the whole Sermon on Resentment.  . Aristotle has, I venture to think, rather quibbled here, by using and its verb, equivocally: as there is no following his argument without condescending to the same device, I have used our word lust in its ancient signification. Ps. xxiv. 12, "What man is he that lusteth to live?"  . The meaning is, that the onus probandi is thrown upon the person who maintains the distinction; Aristotle has a primâ facie case. The whole passage is one of difficulty. Cardwell's text gives the passage from as a separate argument. Bekker's seems to intend as a separate argument: but if so, the argument would be a mere petitio principii. I have adopted Cardwell's reading in part, but retain the comma at, and have translated the last four words as applying to the whole discussion, whereas Cardwell's reading seems to restrict them to the last argument.  . i.e. on objects of Moral Choice; opinion of this kind is not the same as Moral Choice, because actions alone form habits and constitute character: opinions are in general signs of 