Book 7
7
BestialityNo two commentators read the same sense into this section, which is little more than a series of jottings ( Burnet). The version given largely follows Peters. The insertions in brackets indicate what may possibly have been in the writer’s mind. is less 〈evil〉 than vice, though more horrible: for 〈in a bestial man as in an animal〉 the highest part 〈i.e. the intellect〉 is not corrupted, as it is in a man 〈who is wicked in a human way〉, but entirely lacking. So that it is like comparing an inanimate with an animate thing, and asking which is the more evil; for the badness of a thing which has no originating principle—and intelligence is such a principle—is always less capable of mischief.The relevance of this parenthesis is obscure; its meaning, in the light of other passages in Aristotle, may be that injustice is worse in the sense that it is evil per se (whereas the unjust man is evil per accidens) , but the unjust man is worse in the sense that he is productive of evil. (It is therefore like comparing Injustice with an unjust man: one is worse in one way and the other in another). For a bad man can do ten thousand times more harm than an animal 〈or a bestial man〉.
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(iii) But in relation to the pleasures and pains of touch and taste, and the corresponding desires and acts of avoidance, which have alreadyBk. 3.10. been defined as the sphere in which Profligacy and Temperance are displayed, it is possible on the one hand to have such a disposition as to succumb even to those temptations to which most men are superior, or on the other hand to conquer even those to which most men succumb. These two dispositions, when manifested in relation to pleasure, constitute Unrestraint and Restraint respectively; when in relation to pain, Softness and Endurance. The disposition of the great majority of men lies between the two, though they incline rather to the worse extremes.
