Book 7
2
Among the unrestrained themselves, the impulsiveἐκστατικός is here used as equivalent to προπετής, impetuous, in 7.8; whereas below, 8.5, as in 1.6 and 2.7, it denotes the quality with which it is here contrasted. sort are better than those who know the right principle but do not keep to it; for these succumb to smaller temptations, and they do not yield without deliberation, as do the impulsive; the unrestrainedi.e., the feeble sort who stop to think and yet succumb; the impulsive man is not the typical unrestrained man. man is like people who get drunk quickly, and with a small amount of wine, or with less than most men.
3
That Unrestraint is not strictly a vice (though it is perhaps vice in a sense), is clear; for Unrestraint acts against deliberate choice, Vice in accordance with it. But nevertheless in the actions that result from it it resembles Vice: just as Demodocus wrote of the people of Miletus— Milesians are no fools, ’tis true But yet they act as fools would do. Similarly the unrestrained are not unjust, but they do unjust things.
