Book 2
24
And the question of means will depend rather on a prior question, that is, the question of object, for instance wealth or pleasure or something else of that kind which happens to be our object. For one who deliberates deliberates if he has considered, from the standpoint of the End, either what tends to enable him to bring the End to himself or how he can himself go to the End.i.e. he works back in thought from his intended End to some means to its attainment that is already within his power.
25
And by nature the End is always a good and a thing about which men deliberate step by step(for example a doctor may deliberate whether he shall give a drug, and a general where he shall pitch his camp) when their End is the good that is the absolute best;
26
but in contravention of nature and by perversion not the good but the apparent good is the End. The reason is that there are some things that cannot be employed for something other than their natural objects, for instance sight—it is not possible to see a thing that is not visible, or to hear a thing that is not audible; but a science does enable us to do a thing that is not the object of the science. For health and disease are not the objects of the same science in the same way: health is its object in accordance with nature, and disease in contravention of nature.
27
And similarly, by nature good is the object of wish, but evil is also its object in contravention of nature; by nature one wishes good, against nature and by perversion one even wishes evil.
