Actions of Lust are wrong actions done with pleasure,
Wrong actions done with pleasure are more justly objects of wrath,[[*]]
Such as are more justly objects of wrath are more unjust,
Actions of Lust are more unjust
[*] [Greek: hubpis] is introduced as the single instance from which this premiss is proved inductively. See the account of it in the Chapter of the Rhetoric referred to in the preceding note.
[16] [Greek: ton dae lechthenton]. Considerable difference of opinion exists as to the proper meaning of these words. The emendation which substitutes [Greek: akrataes] for [Greek: akolastos] removes all difficulty, as the clause would then naturally refer to [Greek: ton mae proairoumenon] but Zell adheres to the reading in the text of Bekker, because the authority of MSS and old editions is all on this side.
I understand [Greek: mallon] as meant to modify the word [Greek: malakias], which properly denotes that phase of [Greek: akrasia] (not [Greek: akolasia]) which is caused by pain.
The [Greek: akolastos] deliberately pursues pleasure and declines pain if there is to be a distinct name for the latter phase, it comes under [Greek: malakia] more nearly than any other term, though perhaps not quite properly.
Or the words may be understood as referring to the class of wrong acts caused by avoidance of pain, whether deliberate or otherwise, and then of course the names of [Greek: malakia] and [Greek: akolasia] may be fitly given respectively.
[17] “If we went into a hospital where all were sick or dying, we should think those least ill who were insensible to pain; a physician who knew the whole, would behold them with despair. And there is a mortification of the soul as well as of the body, in which the first symptoms of returning hope are pain and anguish” Sewell, Sermons to Young Men (Sermon xii.)
[18] Before the time of trial comes the man deliberately makes his Moral Choice to act rightly, but, at the moment of acting, the powerful strain of desire makes him contravene this choice his Will does not act in accordance with the affirmation or negation of his Reason. His actions are therefore of the mixed kind. See Book III. chap. i, and note on page 128.
[19] Let a man be punctual on principle to any one engagement in the day, and he must, as a matter of course, keep all his others in their due places relatively to this one; and so will often wear an appearance of being needlessly punctilious in trifles.
[20] Because he is destitute of these minor springs of action, which are intended to supply the defects of the higher principle.
See Bishop Butler’s first Sermon on Compassion, and the conclusion of note on p. 129.
BOOK VIII
[1] “Owe no man anything, but to love one another for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the Law.” Romans XIII. 8.
[2] [Greek: kerameis]. The Proverb in full is a line from Hesiod, [Greek: kahi keramehus keramei koteei kai tektoni tekton].