Page:The ethics of Aristotle.djvu/306



. Where the stock of good is limited, if any individual takes more than his share some one else must have less than his share: where it is infinite, or where there is no good at all, this cannot happen.  . The reference is to chap. vii. where it was said that the law views the parties in a case of particular injustice as originally equal, but now unequal, the wrong doer the gainer and the sufferer the loser by the wrong, but in the case above supposed there is but one party.  . So in the Politics, i. 2. . Compare also Bishop Butler’s account of human nature as a system—of the different authority of certain principles, and specially the supremacy of Conscience.  . I understand the illustration to be taken from the process of lowering a weight into its place; a block of marble, or stone, for instance, in a building.  . Called for convenience sake Necessary and Contingent matter.  . One man learns Mathematics more easily than another, in common language, he has a turn for Mathematics, i.e. something in his mental conformation answers to that science. The Phrenologist shows the bump denoting this aptitude.  . And therefore the question resolves itself into this, “What is the work of the Speculative, and what of the Practical, faculty of Reason.” See the description of,. 5.  .  is here used in its strict and proper meaning. <section end="P. 131, l. 33" /> . <section begin="P. 131, l. 34" />That is to say, the Will waits upon deliberation in which Reason is the judge: when the decision is pronounced, the Will must act accordingly. The question at issue always is, Is this Good? because the Will is only moved by an impression of Good: the Decision then will be always Aye or No, and the mental hand is put forth to grasp in the former case, and retracted in the later. So far is what must take place in every Moral Action, right or wrong, the Machinery of the mind being supposed uninjured: but to constitute a good Moral Choice. i.e. a good Action, the  Reason must have said Aye when it ought. The cases of faulty action will be, either when the Machinery is perfect but wrongly directed, as in the case of a deliberate crime; or when the direction given by the Reason is right but the Will does not move in accordance with that direction; in

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