Book 5
9
Hence acts due to sudden anger are rightly held not to be done of malice aforethought, for it is the man who gave the provocation that began it, not he who does the deed in a fit of passion.
10
And moreover the issue is not one of fact, but of justification (since it is apparent injustice that arouses anger); the fact of the injury is not disputed (as it is in cases of contract, where one or the other of the parties must be a knave, unless they dispute the facts out of forgetfulness). They agree as to the facts but dispute on which side justice lies so that one thinks he has been unjustly treated and the other does not. On the other hand, one who has planned an injury is not acting in ignorance;In the mss. this clause stands before the preceding one.
11
but if a man does an injury of set purpose, he is guilty of injustice, and injustice of the sort that renders the doer an unjust man, if it be an act that violates proportion or equality. Similarly one who acts justly on purpose is a just man; but he acts justly only if he acts voluntarily.
12
Of involuntary actions some are pardonable and some are not. Errors not merely committed in ignorance but caused by ignorance are pardonable; those committed in ignorance, but caused not by that ignorance but by unnatural or inhuman passion, are unpardonable.
