Book 7
6
And similarly there cannot be Unrestraint either, since that is not merely to be avoided, but actually blameworthy; though people do use the term in these matters with a qualification— unrestraint in whatever it may be—because the affection does resemble Unrestraint proper; just as they speak of someone as a bad doctor or bad actor whom they would not call simply bad. As therefore we do not call bad doctors and actors bad men, because neither kind of incapacity is actually a vice, but only resembles Vice by analogy, so in the former case it is clear that only self-restraint and lack of restraint in regard to the same things as are the objects of Temperance and Profligacy are to be deemed Self-restraint and Unrestraint proper, and that these terms are applied to anger only by analogy; and so we add a qualification, unrestrained in anger, just as we say unrestrained in the pursuit of honor or gain.
1
Besides those things however which are naturally pleasant, of which some are pleasant generally and others pleasant to particular races of animals and of men, there are other things, not naturally pleasant, which become pleasant either as a result of arrested development or from habit, or in some cases owing to natural depravity. Now corresponding to each of these kinds of unnatural pleasures we may observe a related disposition of character.
2
I mean bestial characters, like the creature in woman’s formSo Peters. Perhaps there is a reference to the Lamia of folk-lore. that is said to rip up pregnant females and devour their offspring, or certain savage tribes on the coasts of the Black Sea, who are alleged to delight in raw meat or in human flesh, and others among whom each in turn provides a child for the common banquetThe version follows Williams, and seems to require the emendation given in the critical note. The mss. give who lend their children to each other for feasting.; or the reported depravity of Phalaris.See below, 5.7, note.
